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Jan26TheoryandRealism.pptxThe Nature of Theory and Realism
Part 1: The Nature of Theory
Rationale
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We live in a confusing, complex, chaotic world
We need theory to make sense of it
By developing a theory of world politics, you can understand it, and ideally engage with it, more effectively
Now:
Next:
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*****Notes for Live Lecture*****
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*****Preparation Notes*****
Objectives
Briefly explore some of the major concerns and flashpoint conflicts of world politics today
Appreciate the nature and importance of theory for understanding international relations
Understand the components of theoretical frameworks
Concepts, abstractions, propositions, empirical testing, laws of world politics
Learn the difference between critical and uncritical theory
© 2020 UMass Boston. All rights reserved.
Now:
Next:
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*****Notes for Live Lecture*****
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*****Preparation Notes*****
The Complex World
Globalization and economic interdependencies
Economic inequalities and financial crises
Migration
New military tensions between great powers
Global public health concerns and the pandemic
Climate Change
We need theories to explain these disparate elements of the global order
What are theories (short version)?
A theory is a language or set of ideas for understanding the world
It explains why regular patterns of events occur, for example:
Why has the US been locked in ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East?
Why has global capitalism suffered from chronic crises over the past decade?
Why is the US relentless in its quest for global ‘leadership’ and why does this constantly produce backlash?
What are theories (short version)?
Theory tries to discover an essential logic or fundamental explanation for why world politics unfolds or operates as they do
If the theory matches real world developments, it can claim to represent objective laws of world politics, like the laws of physics
What are theories (short version)?
One of the ways that theory creates intellectual order of the confusing, complex world is by identifying causal factors and relationships
For example:
A causes B
X + Y results in Z
In conditions of C, D causes E
Different theories posit different causal relations
What are theories (short version)?
As an alternative, think about theories as filters on your phone camera
You take a picture, and in it are various objects and subjects
Maybe you see friends (subjects) on a bridge in a forest (objects)
In your brain, you think: “What are the key features of or dynamics within the photo and which filter illustrates them best?”
What are theories (short version)?
When you play with filters, different elements of the picture are emphasized – they standout as the most important aspects of the photo
Like theories, different filters highlight different realties
So, theory is like photo filters
It identifies key factors and develops causal relationships between different aspects of the world
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What are theories (long version)?
Intellectual systems of concepts and propositions that seek to explain the fundamental factors and causal reationships of the world, and to guide empirical or political practice.
If theories are a language for understanding reality, then concepts are the ‘words’ and propositions are the ‘sentences’, which form explanations or hypotheses.
What are theories (long version)?
Concepts are formed by abstractions, the mental process of making generalized simplifications about real world factors, actors, objects and relationships
For example, there are many units of political governance in the world, and we ‘abstract’ these as, or name them, states
Or, people perform infinite types of labor, but we can label them workers or members of the working class
Or, all of you are unique individuals, but in this classroom we can abstract or simplify your role as students
What are theories (long version)?
By making many abstractions, and demonstrating the fundamental links or relations of causality between them, a theory can be built around hypotheses or propositions on how the world truly works.
For example:
The United States is locked in ‘forever wars’ because it makes profits for the giant arms-making corporations in the US
The last decade of recurring economic crises is the result of deregulation in the financial sector
The ‘New Cold War’ between the US and China is an expression of a changing balance of power in the world, with the US in decline and China rising
What are theories (long version)?
If the theory explains real world developments, it approximates science or truth and can inform effective political action.
This is done by empirical testing; comparing propositions to real-world evidence
If these match, the propositions are verified as objective laws, like the laws of physics
What are theories (long version)
A scientific theory of international relations accurately captures the objective laws of world politics
What are theories (long version)?
Finally, there is no escaping theory
You can’t just look at ‘facts’
If you want to make sense of ‘facts’, you need a theory, and you can’t attempt any explanation without a theory
Moreover, every explanation of the so-called facts is laced with theory – there is no ‘theory-less’ explanation of anything
So, it is imperative that you learn the core theories of international relations if you want to engage with the ‘facts’ of the complex world
Major Theories of World Politics
Realism
Liberalism
Marxism
Each has distinct concepts and propositions – and a unique ontology – for understanding the world – they see the world in entirely different ways.
Major Theories of World Politics
We can call the Realist and Liberal theories the “mainstream,” “conventional,” or “hegemonic” paradigms of International Relations
Most dominant in US media, politics, and academia.
They largely accept and work with the current relationships, institutions and dynamics of the current world order.
As a consequence, they normalize, and seek to make permanent, the current system of world politics – nothing needs to fundamentally change.
Major Theories of World Politics
We can call Marxism “critical” in the sense that it:
Historicizes and denaturalizes the current world system
Asks how it came about
Asks whose interests are served by it
Asks what contradictions or dynamics of crisis might open possibilities for systemic transformation?
In asking these questions, Marxism tries to show how the “mainstream” theories are not necessarily scientific truths, but political justifications for perpetuating features of the current world order
Part 2
Realist Theories of World Politics
Realism
Realism is a major theory of international politics in the US and globally
It offers an integrated set of concepts and propositions for describing what it believes are objective and systematic laws of world politics
It also offers prescriptive guidelines for rational policymaking in a complex world
Realism 101
In general, realism focuses on the competitive nature of world politics, the self-interest of states, and the inevitability of conflict in situations of major power shifts in world order
It rests on a conservative view of human nature, social life, and the state
How did this body of theory evolve?
Lineages of Realism
Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War theorized the conflicts between Athens and Sparta in Ancient Greece as the inevitable result of a shifting balance of power
“What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”
This conflict was also rooted in human nature, as “fear, the desire for glory, and the pursuit of self-interest,” rule our genes, according to Thucydides.
Lineages of Realism
Italian diplomat, Nicollo Machiavelli (1469-1527), wrote in, The Prince:
“a prudent ruler cannot keep his word, nor should he, where such fidelity would damage him, and when the reasons that made him promise are no longer relevant.”
Machiavellianism is a politics guided by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, for achieving its ends—its end being the aggrandizement of one’s country and leadership.
Lineages of Realism
The English Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), in his book, Leviathan, also contributed to the development of realist thinking.
Stemming from his theory about the State of Nature as ‘nasty, brutish and short,’ he posits that, without a world government, the international system is subject to “a war as is of every man against every man.”
Lineages of Realism
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, as Western European states were colonizing most of Africa and Asia, many European intellectuals began developing strategic analyses of geopolitics:
The struggle to control space and territory in the world system is the key to national power and the prime mover of human history
British Geographer, H.A. Mackinder, for example, formalized a particular theory of geopolitics in a 1904 essay:
In his grand historical narrative, it is control of the heart of Eurasia – “the pivot area” – which is key to exercising global power.
Lineages of Realism
Later, in 1919, Mackinder wrote, in Democratic Ideals and Reality, that:
“Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.”
Lineages of Realism
Common themes in these old texts include:
Shifting balances of power between states engender war and conflict
A violent and competitive human nature is the taproot of the problem
Self-interest drives, and justifies, all politics and state behavior
Geopolitical struggles for power and control of territory and resources are inherent features of world politics
These are systemic or objective laws and dynamics, and cannot be overcome or transcended by subjective will and political effort
Lineages of Realism
This project of theorizing the struggle for space as critical to national survival and power was also a project of the European Right.
Indeed, proto-fascists such as the German Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) and conservatives such as the Swede Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922) first promoted ideas about the struggle for space by homogenous cultural or national blocs.
Indeed, an underlying component of these theories is that national groupings form organic, homogenous, and racialized blocs, which struggle for hegemony as in a ‘state of nature.’
Lineages of Realism
In Weimar Germany, these ideas were operationalized under the label ‘geopolitics’ by proponents of the so-called ‘conservative revolution,’ a group of nationalist, anti-liberal and anti-communist thinkers.
This group of intellectuals included two men, the geographer Karl Haushofer (1869–1946) and the legal and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), who were preoccupied by questions of Raum (‘space’).
While Haushofer promoted the fantasy of a new German Lebensraum (‘living space’), Schmitt turned in the late 1930s to geopolitics, fleshing out the notion of a German Großraum (‘greater space’ or, loosely, ‘sphere of influence’).
Lineages of Realism
At the heart of this school of German geopolitics stood an insistence that:
Humanity is organized into separate and hierarchical, biological and cultural communities – and nations are formed in ‘blood and soil.’
War is the natural condition of the interstate system, as unified nations struggle for land and space to grow and develop
Germany had to break out of its jammed centric position in Europe, build a continental bloc (a Russo-German alliance against the perceived preponderance of Anglo-American sea power), and construct a German version of the Monroe Doctrine in Europe.
Lineages of Realism
In fact, this thinking was later reflected in Nazi war strategy:
Haushofer was notable for his connections to the Nazi leadership, even though he had lost his influence by the early 1940s.
Similarly, Carl Schmitt was not only successful as a legal scholar under the Nazis, but even dreamed of defending the regime at the Nuremberg trials.
Classical Realism
However, it is only in the post World War 2 period that Classical Realism is formalized as a social science of world politics
It sheds the racist and ultra-nationalist lineages of early twentieth century ‘geopolitics’, but develops other themes of Thucydides, Hobbes, and European grand strategy thinking
Classical Realism takes off in the United States in the 1940s, primarily in the work of European immigrant intellectuals
Based on their experiences in Europe during WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2, including the rise of fascism, they developed a very bleak theory of world politics.
Key Ideas
Classical Realism demanded a realistic study of world politics – how it operates in reality, not how it should work ideally
Thus, it rejected political efforts to create a world through the implementation of preconceived, or abstract, moral principles
Rather, it sought to explain world politics through observations of existing realities
E.H. Carr
In his 1939 book, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, British historian E.H. Carr lambasted “utopians” who had trusted transnational ties or institutions to overcome states’ innate attraction to power, competition, and armed conflict.
Carr acknowledged normative and ideological appeal of liberal thinking
However, he ultimately argued that in the existing milieu of jostling nation-states, the realist paradigm was a superior guide and predictor of political behavior.
Indeed, later that year Hitler invaded Poland, launching World War II.
Hans Morgenthau
One of the major 20th Century thinkers of International Relations
Born and educated in law in Germany
He flees Nazi Germany and moves to the US in 1937
After WW2 he was a consultant to the US State Department, and worked with George Kennan
He also advised the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, before being dismissed for his criticisms of the Vietnam War
Hans Morgenthau: Politics Among Nations
Six Realist Principles:
States are the primary agents of world politics;
States operate according to laws found in human nature;
States seek power as a fundamental interest;
State policies are empty of moral calculations;
States are unitary institutions and reflect the national interest;
States leaders are rational actors vis-à-vis the nation-state system.
Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations
“International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim.”
The struggle for power is rooted in human nature – the “tendency to dominate” others.
As such, “there is no escape from the evil of power, regardless of what one does.”
Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations
“We assume that statesmen think and act in terms of interest defined as power.”
“A realist theory of international politics will [thus] avoid the…popular fallacy of equating the foreign policies of a statesmen with his philosophical or political sympathies, and of deducing the former from the latter.”
Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations
Because the struggle for power is eternal and infinite, states must prepare for “organized violence in the form of war.”
In this context, the balance of power between states is key
It determines relations between states and, ultimately, real world outcomes
It can be economic, but is primarily military in nature
Engaging the balance of power (i.e., the power of the state relative to that of any rivals) is of paramount importance to state personnel – and rational leaderships address it with single-minded determination
Summary: Classical Realism
A conservative view of human nature, social life and the state
States are the key units of analysis, the key agents of world politics
States seek power – and the balance of power between them determines the relationships and outcomes of world politics
War and militarism are inherent aspects of the competitive state system
These are the objective laws of world politics, according to classical realist theory – they are inescapable.
Limits of Classical Realism
Accused by Harvard Prof. Stanley Hoffman of being “too close to the fire” of US foreign policy (i.e., of being a political, not a scientific, mode of thinking – it was about creating a theory of power projection which served US empire-making after World War 2.
Others say it looks at the logic of Great Powers, but not at the logic of weaker states.
Limits of Classical Realism
It contained another weakness – the notion of power and politics as irreducible evils
These are highly normative or subjective assumptions, and thus might not be objective or ‘realistic’
In fact, classical realism undermined its so-called objective starting point by proceeding from a subjective view of human nature
Neo-Realism
Emerges in 1970s
The historical context is the Crisis of US Hegemony
US trade deficits
US military defeat in Southeast Asia
Wider challenges posed by anti-colonial movements globally
Upsurge in radical social movements inside the US (anti-war, Black Power and Civil Rights, women’s movement, counter-culture), which call into question the assumptions and logic of US foreign policy
Neo-Realism
Primary analytical goal was to purge the subjective foundations of classical realism, and to make it more objective or scientific
Primary political goal was to stamp out the radical critique of US foreign policy by the New Left:
Key examples of the left-wing critique of US imperialism:
William Appleman Williams, Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Harry Magdoff, Age of Imperialism
Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran, Monopoly Capital
Some say that reasserting US national power or hegemony was another political impetus behind neo-realism
Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics (1979)
Distinguishes between systemic and reductionist theories
Reductionist theories start with the internal character of states to adduce their external behaviors
But they thereby ignore the conditioning structure of the state system, which forces states to act in certain ways, regardless of their internal make up
Hence, a systemic theory is needed
Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics
“Systems theories, whether political or economic, are theories that explain how the organization of a realm acts as a constraining and disposing force on the interacting units within it.”
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Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics
What concepts are abstracted from the world of international politics?
Anarchy
A system of independent, competing states, with no overarching sovereign power
Self-help
“Self-help is necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order”
Balance of Power
“If there is any distinctively political theory of international politics, balance-of-power theory is it.”
Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics
What concepts are abstracted from the world of international politics?
Balancing
When a great power seeks hegemony or tries to revise the balance of power in its favor, other states form balancing alliances to contain the instigator
Bandwagoning
When a great power seeks or obtains hegemony, peer rivals or states of lesser power may accept that hegemony, align their foreign policy strategies and military organizations with those of the dominant state, and seek to benefit under the security umbrella of the hegemon
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Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics
What is the prime goal of state strategy – Power or Security?
“If states wished to maximize power, they would join the stronger side, and we would see not balances forming but a world hegemony forged. This does not happen because balancing, not bandwagoning, is the behavior induced by the system. The first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their positions in the system.”
This is a theory of defensive realism
John Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism
In his Tragedy of Great Power Politics, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer contests Waltz’s theory of defensive realism
Instead…
Great Powers strive for hegemony
Hence, revisionism is built into the logic of great power politics, except for a hegemonic state which wants status quo
John Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism
Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism rests on five propositions:
Anarchy is the organizing principle of the state system
Great Powers possess military power to hurt and destroy other states
There is no certainty about other states’ intentions
Survival is the primary goal of Great Powers
Great Powers are rational actors and have a clear picture of their environments and how to act strategically
John Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism
As a result:
“it pays to be selfish in a self-help world”
Alliances are only “temporary marriages of convenience”
The best security for survival is dominance or hegemony
Thus a Zero Sum Logic is induced: one state gains, another losses
John Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism
As a result:
States are thereby disposed to think offensively towards other states
But the Security Dilemma – the dynamic by which investments in the armaments of one state impel its rivals to better their own armaments, creating an arms race or security competition – becomes the prime mover of world politics and the balance of power
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Why does Great Power Warfare Occur?
“The central idea embodied in the hegemonic theory is that there is incompatibility between crucial elements of the existing international system and the changing distribution of power among the states within the system. The elements of the system – the hierarchy of prestige, the division of territory, and the international economy – became less and less compatible with the shifting distribution of power among the major states in the system. The resolution of the disequilibrium between the superstructure of the system and the underlying distribution of power is found in the outbreak and intensification of what becomes a hegemonic war.”
Professor Robert Gilpin
Why does Great Power Warfare Occur?
Or, as Professor Raymond Aron put it:
A hegemonic war “is characterized less by its immediate causes or its explicit purposes than by its extent and the stakes involved. It affect[s] all the political units inside one system of relations between sovereign states. Let us call it, for want of a better term, a war of hegemony, hegemony being, if not the conscious motive, at any rate the inevitable consequence of the victory of at least one of the states or groups.”
Mearsheimer on Multilateral Institutions
After the Cold War, Western liberals argued that great power politics were finished, and that global institutions could serve as forums for effective diplomacy and conflict resolution.
Global governance would replace balance of power politics
President Clinton, 1992:
“in a world where freedom, not tyranny, is on the march, the cynical calculus of pure power politics simply does not compute.”
Mearsheimer on Multilateral Institutions
Mearsheimer disagrees in a 1994 essay called, “The False Promise of International Institutions.”
Global institutions are created by states, with their own national interests and balance-of-power considerations
As such, global institutions do not supplant or mute the basic structure of international politics – there is still a world of sovereign states, anarchy, the balance of power, self-help, the security dilemma, and the search for zero-sum gains
This reality works against cooperation, for two reasons:
it is unclear how gains can be distributed between allies
fears of cheating and dependence are omnipresent
Mearsheimer on Multilateral Institutions
“Realists maintain that institutions are basically a reflection of the distribution of power in the world. They are based on the self-interested calculations of the great powers, and they have no independent effect on state behavior. Realists therefore believe that institutions are not an important cause of peace. They matter only on the margins.”
Thus, “institutions have minimal influence on state behavior, and thus hold little promise for promoting stability in the post-Cold War world.”
Neo-Realism: Foreign Economic Relations
If national security and power are the primary goals of neo-realism, then reducing external dependence on foreign powers is a key goal of foreign economic policy
Because self-sufficiency and autarky are unrealistic, a second best condition is asymmetrical interdependence, balanced in favor of the home state
Neo-Realism: Foreign Economic Relations
A realist foreign economic strategy would include…
Minimizing exposure to global economic turbulence
Protecting and supporting strategic industries (arms, high-tech manufacturing, agriculture, industrial materials) through tariffs and subsidies
Restricting foreign buyers of critical assets, and limit export of advanced technology
Maintaining a national industrial base for arms production
Discouraging emigration of high-skilled labor (‘brain drain’)
Neo-Realism Summary
States are the key actors of global politics
Anarchy defines the structure of the state system – and institutions do not supplant the structure of anarchy
States must rely upon themselves – self-help!
Cooperation is limited, and competition reigns – zero sum gainst!
World politics and history, including hegemonic wars, are the outcome of the balance of power and security dilemma
Offensive realism: States seek hegemony
Defensive realism: States seek security
Neo-Realism Summary
Final take away points:
The conditions of war and peace in the world are determined by the logic of anarchy and the shifting balance of power in the state system
States pursue interests, understood in terms of power (military, economic, political)
For realists, the term security refers to the security of the state understood as a territorial unit in which military power is monopolized by the sovereign polity.
