Andrew Heywood And John Baylis

Andrew Heywood, Carl Schmitt, and John Baylis et al. all offer a different take on the concepts of liberalism and realism. These are two important theories that define the modern political system. With global politics as a main staple of the current political system and governments connecting on more and more levels, an important question comes into focus: does a liberalism or realism system exist? To examine this idea and how it relates to our current political situation, one must first look at the concepts presented by Heywood, Schmitt, and Baylis. To begin, Heywood discusses how realism and liberalism have opposing views and in the modern political system with globalization occurring at a very high rate, there are challenges to each

Schmitt uses the term “the political” to represent the political system he sees. He describes the political as having a realism viewpoint, where “the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy” (26). In realism, today’s friend could be tomorrow’s enemy and thus the states actively work for self-preservation. He emphasizes that the possibility of war or conflict should always be thought of due to past actions of armed combat. He picks apart the liberal concept of peace and pacifism that saying even these stances call for conflict between those that disagree. Yet, Schmitt makes an interesting point that goes against realism and counters his own argument stating that every institution is a political one (37). In realism, the state is seen as the only institution able to control the available power; whereas in liberalism business, churches, and even social movements can have an effect in addition to the state. So with this statement, Schmitt goes against his own argument for

On the other hand, Schmitt calls for realism over liberalism, but fails to see how the world is pushing towards the liberalism idea with globalization. Baylis and Heywood make more persuasive arguments as they focus in on how each system exists and works today whereas Schmitt immediately acts against liberalism. Much of Schmitt’s argument is charged by emotion and lacks definition, even admitting to this saying “One seldom finds a clear definition of the political” (20). He focuses on the idea of pitting the enemy against the friend in politics, but his argument is weak that all opposing states must be seen as both enemies and friends. It lacks definition and a modern example, and he even works against his own argument. Hence, Baylis and Heywood make the more effective arguments. Beyond that, liberalism is the more persuasive approach over realism, which strengths Baylis and Heywood’s points about liberalism. Liberalism focuses on peace, which is an idealistic concept to aim for, but what the current political system consistently tries