Normative Character of U. S. Foreign Policy: Natural Liberalism and Its Impact on the American Worldview

Norms and International Relations Theory

Abstract

Since it first appeared, Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America (1955) has had a major impact on the interpretation of American political thought and America's understanding of itself. His aim was to study the logical consequences of naturalized liberalism in the United States and show that ‘ideological consensus’ rather than ‘absence of ideology’ is what defines the uniqueness of America. This essay attempts to apply the concept of ‘natural liberalism’ in understanding the ‘normative character’ of U. S. foreign policy.
Hartz has argued that since the United States lacks a feudal past, liberalism is perceived as a natural phenomenon. However, precisely because liberalism is seen in this light, it could sometimes become fixed and dogmatic. The belief that the ultimate moral question of the regime is settled comes from this dogmatic reception of liberalism. Hartz argues that as a result of ethics being taken for granted, all problems emerge as ‘problems of technique.’ He further argues that when the U. S. is simply solving problems on the basis of a submerged and absolute liberal faith, it can depart from liberalism with a kind of ‘inventive freedom’ which others cannot duplicate. This tendency, when applied to international relations, tends to bring about an attitude of mechanically applying its own cultural pattern to the rest of the world. The result is double-edged; the U. S. can become a norm builder as well as a norm destroyer.
Hartz argues that interactions with the rest of the world will mitigate the dogmatic nature of naturalized liberalism and will force the United States to realize the relative nature of American exceptionalism. However, contrary to Hartz's expectations, the resulting tendency of the United States' contact with the outside world has been to further reinforce American exceptionalism and strengthen the sense of missionary liberalism.
This essay will explore the foreign policy implications of natural liberalism and how these reinforce American exceptionalism. It will show that the United States will act as a norm builder when it can comfortably project its self-image to international relations. This was the tendency immediately after World War II when the United States successfully created the normbased post-war world order. However, the recent tendency has been to act unilaterally, in some cases even neglecting the international norms that the United States itself has played a major role in establishing. This attitude, sometimes referred to as ‘deinstitutionalization of the Wilsonian project, ’ has widened the gap between the United States and the rest of the world. Two domestic trends, namely the increasing religiosity and the conservative turn in U. S. politics has accelerated the widening of the gap. The U. S.' image of itself as a norm builder and the fact that the world no longer sees it so will continue to pose difficult questions for the U. S. and the world.