Theoretical Framework of Liberalism
International relation is considered as the important field that helps in knowing the interaction of non-governmental organization and nation states in areas such as economics, politics and security (Deudney and Ikenberry, 2018). This helps in study the relations of states with international organizations and with each other and other subnational groups. This field has emerged in 20th century beginning mainly in United States and in the west and these grew in influence and power. Whereas, in Soviet Union and communist China, Marxist ideology was imposed. But in the West this field flourished on the basis of number of factors; more effective means of conducting relations between societies, government and economies, popularization of political affairs and systematic inquiry that resulted in human betterment (Archick, 2021). Later on, after world war II as an answer to idealism. But this debate between idealism and realism faded. This report in order to understand the international relations concept focus on the European Union relationship with the United States using the theoretical framework of liberalism. With that, the relationship is discussed considering the social, economic and security areas.
According to Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann (2020) the term liberalism is considered as the feature of modern democracy and mainly highlights by the occurrence of the term liberal democracy as a way to show countries with fair and free elections, protected civil liberties and rule of law. But from the perspective of industrial relations theory, the liberalism includes varieties of arguments and concepts. The main idea behind the concept of liberalism is that it is based on the moral argument that ensures the right of an individual such as right to liberty, person to life and property is the main priority for the government (Ikenberry et al. 2018). In this manner, under liberalism individual wellbeing is the fundamental building block of a just political system and the main focus is on developing a political system that provide liberty and freedom to people (Deudney and Ikenberry, 2018). The three factors that are important in liberalism in international relations are; spread of free trade and capitalism, international agreements and laws accompanied by international organizations and at last international norms. Liberal norms include human rights, international cooperation and rule of law and democracy.
The European Union is known as the strongest advocate of the liberal global order. The EU invested in the idea of rule based international order, which forms part of its core identity (Ikenberry et al. 2018). This is visible as the EU adhere to the principles of the liberal global order as it support open market and liberal trade regimes, multilateral norms and institutions, emphasis on human rights, approaches to security and democratic values and norms (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann, 2020). This can be better understood with understanding the relation between international relations between the United States and the European Union using liberalism framework.
Jahn (2018) stated that the diversity and richness of American society owes much too successive waves of relation from every European country from the past 500 years. The European Union and the United States share common values and maintain close economic, cultural, political and social ties. Both these parties work on a framework for transatlantic relations. In order to build better relationships the US and the European Union started conducting presidential summits (Jahn, 2018). With that the European common foreign and security policy was developed through that the EU became the more solid international partner in many areas. In 1995, the EU and US summit took place in Madrid and both parties decided to take the joint action in four fields included; responding to global challenges, promoting stability and peace, development and democracy across the world, contributing to the closer economic relations and expansions of the world trade (Lind and Wohlforth, 2019). The US and the European community have concluded agreements so that liberal norms can be implemented and technical barriers can be removed. The partnership of the US and the EU accounts for 10 percent of the world’s population and contribute 60 percent of world GDP and 40 percent of world trade (Lind and Wohlforth, 2019). The USA and the EU are working together to contribute to the advancement of representative government and accountable, the respect of human rights and the rule of law as moral necessity and strategic priorities (Mearsheimer, 2019).
The European Union’s Relationship with the United States
In the economic context, the USA and the EU partnership and the liberal norms benefits both the parties as they are the trading partners that form the largest bilateral trade relationship at the global level (Pänke, 2019). Their partnership contributes nearly 40 percent in the global trade. Every day nearly EUR 1.7 billion of trade take place. The huge amount of trade between these two economies shows the higher interdependence. As both of these economies mutual I investment add up to EUR 1.5 trillion and generate employment for countries about 14 million workers (Archick, 2021). Further, the USA and the EU accounts for nearly one fifth of each other trade. In 2004, the volume of trade of services and goods were EUR 627 billion (Smith and Youngs, 2018). The exports of services and goods to the US from the EU in 2005 were EUR 250 billion and imports accounted for EUR 162.7 billion. Because of liberalism, the FDI were the main source of investments for both the US and the EU and this added total of over EUR 1.5 trillion (Smith and Youngs, 2018). Further, the liberal laws and agreements between the US and the EU economies focused on areas such as capital markets, regulatory cooperation, trade and transport security, innovation, intellectual property rights, energy efficiency, public procurement and competition. Both the US and EU remained in the favour of trade liberalization. However, there were issues that these partners faced at global level because these economies were competitors at the global level (Smith and Youngs, 2018). They include trade issues such as the GMO disputes, the hormones and the subsidization of large civil aircraft industries (Archick, 2021). In order to get benefits of policies and ensure positive economic impacts on these economies the issues were settled by the WTO mechanism (Archick, 2021).
The security aspects mainly seen from the realism framework as liberal theory gas downplayed security and security field dismissed and ignored liberalism. But the relationship between security and liberalism is turbulent. This liberalism framework can be better applied in the agreements of the EU and the US. Global demand for gas and oil is increasing very rapidly and had put pressure on supply that led to high prices and volatility (Duncombe and Dunne, 2018). For the EU, oil dependency was a greater concern and by 2030 it is estimated that the EU can import 70% of its energy and in that 30% of energy consumption will be from the US (Smith and Youngs, 2018). For energy security of both of these parties the effective collaboration with consumers and producers and efforts to increase energy efficiency worldwide played a major role. So the USA and the EU both collaborated on energy security to set higher goals for energy efficiency and addressing the unreliability and scarcity of suppliers of energies (Duncombe and Dunne, 2018). Whereas, in the field of transportation safety both of these countries developed a negotiated bilateral agreement. This agreement included the discussion about the marine equipment, civil aviation and safety aspects of transportation between these two countries.
Economic Context
The liberal framework also promoted welfare of people and considered their rights and freedom. The agreement included discussion regarding the consumer protection, training and higher education (Tocci, 2020).With that, values of both of economies and rights of people were included. Both of these economies believed that the spread of representative and accountable government, the respect for human rights and the rule of law as per the universal declaration of human rights are moral necessity and the strategic priority. Values govern goals and behaviour of people and actions and priorities. The EU holds the democracy government and due to that the EU supports pluralistic societies with the rights of thoughts and religions and the rights of free speech (Archick, 2021). The EU also supports the democratic processes and the rule of law and promotes human rights as per the world and its member states (Tocci, 2020). This includes ethnic group’s rights and minority rights. It supports free market economies where growth and development taken care by the government and private sectors.
The EU and the US both share fundamental values due to that their partnership is stronger and helps these economies to gain mutual and collective benefits. The EU cooperation with the US mainly in international relation strategy because societies are based on common values that are rule of law, democracy and respects of human rights (White, 2018). The benefits are experienced by both the economies and all these remain the pillar of their policy. The EU maintained relationship with other countries and agreements on the basis of freedom, justice and security in which the free movement of persons is confirmed and it is considered that necessary steps are taken in relation to the external border controls, immigration, asylum and to prevent crime (White, 2018). Considering the liberal framework, the EU was sure that the development of areas of security, freedom and justice within the European Union can only be successful when it aligns these by partnership with other countries such as the US. Hence, partnership with the US for the EU became an important and major part of this strategy.
According to Devetak and True (2021) the liberal order led to the world reach to levels of socio economic development so in order to protect the liberal order the main thing was to partner with those who get benefits from the liberal order. The US is the leading partner of the EU and both of these economies collaborated in all their bilateral and multilateral agreement. Both of these economies mix their strengths to champion a new narrative for inclusive democracy, globalization, freedom and credible rules based global order. The US and EU developed the economic, political and security agreements that helped both of these economies at the global level (Duncombe and Dunne, 2018). Even their agreements based on liberal orders and help economies collectively to address issues like human rights, counter terrorism, climate change, proliferation of weapons, development assistance and energy security. Hence, the liberal framework in the case of the US and EU partnership helped both of economies to remove barriers in trade and create an expanded market for services and goods (Devetak and True, 2021). Thus, the EU can balance the threats to the liberal order by connecting and trading with the like minded partners. The key area of concerns where both of these partners share the similar concern included the economic stability, economic growth, economic development, preservation of fair and free and open maritime systems and the security aspects (Maull, 2019). Both of these partners encourage freedom and democracy that are the important traits of the liberalism framework.
Security Aspects
Some of areas where the EU and the US can focus on and work together are; extradition and mutual legal assistance, transport security, judicial cooperation, cutting terrorist financing, global standards, information sharing, secure travel documents and visa reciprocity. The US and the EU have developed agreements on mutual legal assistance and extradition and for that joint US -EU investigative teams can be created. Moreover, the US and the EU can focus on improving the transport security by focusing on transfer of PNR and CBP and by expanding the customs cooperation (Duncombe and Dunne, 2018). With that the US and the EU have no right to travel visa free so this right can be given in the agreements. The most important aspect of the partnership of the US and the EU includes establishing global security standards such as the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code and the World Customs Organizations and the international civil aviation organization. The overall international relations of the EU and the US based on the liberal order as their values such as democracy, justice for law and rights of people all aligned that help both of these economies to gain maximum benefits from the trade and agreements (White, 2018). Hence, it can be said that the United States and the European Union account for 80% of the overall economic development of their economies and their actions were aligned and collaborated in a manner that led to benefits to both the parties (White, 2018).
Conclusion
From the above discussion of the European Union relationship with the United States through liberalism it can be concluded that both parties developed a collaborative relationship and able to gain benefits. Considering the economic relationship, the trade between these countries accounts for nearly one fifth of each other trade and because of liberalism, the FDI were the main source of investments for both the US and the EU and this added total of over EUR 1.5 trillion. Considering the social relationship, it can be said that both of these economies believed that the spread of representative and accountable government, the respect for human rights and the rule of law as per the universal declaration of human rights are moral necessity and the strategic priority. Values govern goals and behaviour of people and actions and priorities. Considering the security relationship, it can be said that the USA and the EU both collaborated on energy security to set higher goals for energy efficiency and addressing the unreliability and scarcity of suppliers of energies. Hence, using the liberalism framework it can be said that both of these parties benefitted from the agreements and work as per the liberal order that included liberal democracy, fair and free elections, right to speech, protected civil liberties and rule of law.
References
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