2-2. Theories of World Politics

Level of Analysis

• “We cannot study everything under the sun”

• Level of analysis: the different aspects and agents of international affairs that may be stressed in explaining global phenomena

• it depends on whether the analyst chooses to focus on “the global system,” “individual states” or “people”

The Major Sources of States’ Foreign Policy Decisions:

Influences at Three Levels

• the individual level of analysis: the personal characteristics of humans

e.g., the impact of individuals’ perception on their political attitudes, and behavior

• the state level of analysis: the authoritative decision-making units that govern states’ foreign policy processes and the internal attributes of those states

e.g., their type of government, level of economic and military power

• the global level of analysis: the interactions of states and non-state actors on the global stage

e.g., the global power politics (the Cold War/ the US and China)

• many IR scholars agree that world politics can best be understood by focusing on one (or more) of three levels

• multi-level analysis seems capable of coping with the complexity of the world affairs

• However, what should be examined within each level of analysis, and how actors, structures, and variables relate to one another across levels of analysis are still the unsolved questions to IR scholars.

The Quest for Theory: Five Major Perspectives

Advocates of Realism

• Thucydides (471-400 B.C) (Peloponneisan War)• Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) (The Prince)• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) (Leviathan)

• E.H. Carr (The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939) • George F. Kennan (“X” Foreign Affairs, 1947) • Hans Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations, 1948)• Reinhold Niebuhr (Moral Man and Immoral Society,

1947)

Realism’s Tenets

• Anarchy characterizes the international system

• the absence of authoritative governing institutions

• the state is the most important actor

• Each state pursues its national interest

• People (States) have an instinctive lust for power

• People (States) are selfish and ethically flawed and compete for self-advantage

• Eradicating the instinct and the selfishness is not possible

• conflicts of interests among states are inevitable

• International politics is essentially conflictual: “a struggle for power”, “a war of all against all”

• Avoid Moralism: Standards of right and wrong apply to individuals, not states

• realism accepts war as normal and rejects morality

• The end justifies the means (Kegley, p. 504)

• States should be prepared for war in order to preserve peace

• Anarchical international system requires states to acquire military power to deter attack by potential enemy

• Self-help: the principle that in anarchy states must rely on themselves

• Security Dilemma: each part’s efforts to increase its own security by arming leads to a decline in security on both sides

• balance of power: peace and stability are most likely to be maintained when military power is distributed so that no single power or bloc can dominate (the U.S. vs. the Soviet Union)

• Seek flexible alliances to maintain a balance of power

• Balance of Power Models

- military power can be distributed in different ways – polarity (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar)

(1) unipolarity, 1945-1949

(2) bipolarity, 1949-1991

(3) multipolarity, 1991-2001

(4) unipolarity, today-?

• Military power is more important than economics.

• Resist international efforts to control state protection and institute global governance.

Debate: Is the UN a World Government?

(1) realist: the UN should not act as a world government

- only the U.S. can lead the UN effectively

(2) liberalist: is there an alternative? while less than perfect, the UN is the only global mechanism for effective collaboration

Debate: Human Nature

• nature versus nurture debate: the controversy over whether human beings’ aggression is determined by human nature (genetics) or it is nurtured by the environmental conditions that humans experience

(1) realist view• human is essentially selfish and aggressive• people murder and kill because of their innate

genetic drives to act out aggressively• psychologist Sigmund Freud: aggression is an

instinctive part of human nature that stems from human’s genetic programming and psychological makeup

(2) liberalist view

• realism overlooks the fact that human beings have traits such as sympathy, self-control, a desire for fairness, the moral sense

- genetics fail to explain why individual may be belligerent only at certain times

- fail to explain why people cooperate and act morally

Debate: Bush’s Preemptive Strike against Iraq

• the Bush doctrine pledged preemptive strike against Iraq to prevent it from obtaining weapons of mass destruction

• Do the ends justify the terrible means?

• What will the world be like if preemptive strikes become a universal norm?

(1) Realist: - the doctrine of military necessity: violation of the rules of

warfare may be excused during periods of extreme emergency - we cannot negotiate with aggressors - aggressors must be resisted - the right intentions and ends justify the terrible means - the root of evil stems from the desire for power. There is no

escape from the evil of power - Political ethics is the ethics of doing evil - only what we can do is to choose among several possible

actions the one that is “least evil”

(2) Liberalists: - questioned the logic and the morality - such strategy, which overlook the right of innocent

noncombatants to protection from genocide, is crimes against humanity

- attack violates the U.N. ban on assassination to foreign leaders and the UN Charter’s prohibition against waging war except in defense

- waging war because of what enemy might intend to attack the US, to prevent its later aggression, is wrong

- “Who can possible argue that there is anything moral about killing other people’s children?” – British Minister Alice Mahon

Criticism of Realism

• could not explain increased cooperation after World War II

• did not account for significant new developments in Western Europe in 1950s and 60s.

• many of its propositions not easily testable: criticized by behavioral scientists

• disregards ethical principals

• focuses on military might at economic and social expense of states

Neorealism or Structural realism

• Kenneth Waltz, “Theory of International Politics” (1979)

• accepts much of realism: Power remains a key variable; States the primary actors; anarchy the most important property (however, based on the American liberal tradition)

• emphasizes the influence of the global power structure on states’ behavior

• explanations at global level of analysis are sufficient to account for world politics

• “international structure (market) emerges from the interaction of states (enterprises/companies) and then constrains them from taking certain actions”

Advocates of Liberalism

• Immanuel Kant

• Thomas Jefferson

• James Madison

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• John Stuart Mill

• Adam Smith

• Woodrow Wilson

Liberalism

• holds that reason and ethics can overcome international anarchy to create a more orderly and cooperative world

• human nature is essentially good and altruistic• unity of humankind more important than

national loyalties• human beings should be treated as ends rather

than means (the end cannot justify the means)• importance of the individual and promotion of

human rights and civil liberties

• using ideas and education to promote world peace

• promotion of democracy and free international trade

• war and international anarchy are not inevitable

• emphasizes encouraging global cooperation through international institutions, law, and disarmament

• Military and security affairs do not monopolize the agenda

• Analyze the condition under which international cooperation is facilitated

- liberalism (international relations): state and nonstate actors; institutionalizing peace; cooperation; multiple agendas; human rights; democracy; free trade

- liberalism (journalists): a position along an ideological spectrum. favor social welfare, health care, civil rights- liberalism (political theory): a belief in individual equality, individual liberty, participatory democracy, and limited government

- liberalism (economics): refers to a belief in capitalism and profits, private property, free market, free trade

(1) Neofunctionalism

• Ernest Haas observed the result of the creation of the ECSC and European integration in his study “The Unity of Europe” in 1958

• European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952: the administration of a single joint authority

• Treaty of Rome in 1958

• top-down model: integration starts from the level of governmental bureaucracies and government-to-governments ties

• its peace plans call for transnational cooperation in technical (economic and social) or less-difficult areas as a first step

• habits of cooperation learned in technical area will spill over into others

• if the process continues, the bonds among states will multiply

(2) Security Community • Karl Deutsch, “Political Community and North

Atlantic Area” in 1957 - examined the ten cases of integration and

disintegration in the North Atlantic Area - proposed the concept of Security Community• security community - “a group of people that has become integrated

to the point of real assurance that the member of that community will not fight each other physically, but will settle in some other ways”

(3) Democratic Peace

• Michael W. Doyle. “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs”

• Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech to Congress in 1918

• democracy critical to promoting peace

• democratic states don’t fight each other

• spread of democracy will decrease war

Neoliberalism

• accepts the basic tenets of classical liberalism

• developed by critics of realism/neorealism

• focuses on how international organizations and other nonstate actors promote cooperation and peace

• examines the conditions under which the convergent interests among states may result in cooperation

• multiple agendas: agendas have been larger and more diverse; military, AIDS, economic underdevelopment, the globalization of trade and finance, environmental issues (global warming)

(1) Transnational Interdependence

• Keohane and Nye (1977) Power and Interdependence

• challenges realism’s oversimplified view of the world politics

• emphasizes the growing importance of nonstate actors (multinational corporations, international organization)

• complex interdependence: growing ties and interdependences among international actors increases both vulnerability and sensitivity which erode states’ sovereign control and independence

• Multiple channels connect societies

• Military forces are irrelevant

• globalization:

- integration and growing interdependence of states through increasing contact and trade

- creates a global culture

- decreases the ability of states to control people and events

(2) Regimes Theory

• “an ordered anarchy”: cooperation, not conflict, is often the observable outcome of relations among states

• Stephen Krasner (ed.). “International Regime.” (1983)

• Regimes: a set of principles, norms, rules, and procedures around which actor’s expectation converge in a given area

• Regimes: informal and formal international institutions

• Regimes are institutionalized or regularized patterns of cooperation in a given issue area

- Global Trade and Finance Regime after WWII

- Japan-the US Whale Regime

- WTO, IMF, EU

Constructivism

• Pay attention to the powerful roles of ideas and norms (ideational factors) in world politics

• Emphasize the importance of shared ideas and understandings among states in world politics

• to realism and liberalism, the identities and interests of actors are exogenous and given, constructivism treats them as being endogenous and socially constructed

• States’ actions are determined not by anarchy but by the ways states socially ‘construct”

- Germany and Japan today differ significantly from their pre-World War II predecessors

- Antimilitarism has become integral to their sense of self as nations and is embedded in domestic norms and institutions

The Quest for Theory: Realism

• Key Units: Independent States / States are Unitary and Rational Actors

• Core Concern: Security and War / National Interests / Power

• Motives of Actors: Lust for Power, National Interest

• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Pessimistic• Major Approach: Balance of Power

The Quest for Theory: Neorealism

• Key Units: The International System’s Structure• Core Concern: Struggle for position and power under

anarchy• Motives of Actors: Power, prestige, and advantage

over other states• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Pessimistic• Major Approach: military preparedness and deterrence

The Quest for Theory: Liberalism

• Key Units: Institutions transcending states (Nonstates) / Other forms of political organizations are possible

• Core Concern: Institutionalizing peace• Motives of Actors: Cooperation; mutual aid• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Optimistic/Progress• Major Approach: International law; international

organization; Integration; democratization

The Quest for Theory: Neoliberalism

• Key Units: Individuals; states and nonstate transnational actors

• Core Concern: Fostering interstate cooperation on the globe’s shared economic, social, and ecological problems

• Motives of Actors: Global interests; justice; peace and prosperity; liberty; morality

• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Optimistic/Expectation of cooperation and creation of a global community

• Major Approach: Complex inter-dependence and regimes

The Quest for Theory: Constructivism

• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Neither optimist nor pessimistic, depending on the most popular or socially accepted visions about the potential for humanity to engineer changes that either improve or harm future global conditions

• Central Concepts: Ideas, identities, values, norms, images—all as socially constructed by various groups

• Major Approach: Advocacy of normative innovation through construction of new images