International politics – IR theories

An Analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Allison provides an analysis of the Cuban missile crisis that contrasts bureaucratic politics bargaining with two other models of policymaking.

1. Neoliberalism

States are concerned with their own security and with absolute gains rather than relative gains. Neoliberals see anarchy as a vacuum that is gradually being filled with human-created processes and institutions. They have begun to counteract the inability to control outcomes and ensure survival.

However, cooperation is not easy just because of the growing interdependence. States might decide not to cooperate – even in case of common interests – just because they lack information about the others (Prisoner's Dilemma): both the actors fear that any relatively greater gains will be employed for competitive purposes. Since they cannot trust the future intentions of their cooperative partners, actors will avoid potential agreements if they involve different pay-off levels. However, states can be motivated to cooperate in

1. Cooperation among institutions

Cooperation among institutions might be secured through:

• Bargaining
• Defection: compliance and enforcement

2. Poststructuralism

Even the most objective theory carries an interpretation in it. However not everybody can make things up and have their personal opinions as legitimate knowledge. Only the dominant practices make the world and have concrete effects upon our lives. These points of view often have a specific characteristic: it is male, white, Western, affluent and comfortable. This highlights the relationship between knowledge and power. Poststructuralism is a critical attitude that calls attention to the importance of representation, the relationship of power and knowledge and the politics of identity in an understanding of global affairs. Poststructuralism is not another school with its own actors and issues to highlight, it promotes a new set of questions and concerns. As a critical attitude rather.

than theory, poststructuralism sees theory as practice. This is because they question about the theory of theory – in order to understand how particular ways of knowing, what counts as knowing, who can know, have been established over time. This critical approach developed in the 1980s through the work of R. Ashley, Der Derian, Shapiro and J. Walker. They used realist and neorealist theories to demonstrate how they shaped perspectives about international politics.

-governmentality influenced by Foucault: neoliberal mentality into which everything is incorporated, instruments like the IMF to continue instill this neoliberal government.

Critical theory came out starting with Marx, when capitalism grew. Economic crisis between the two world wars and again after 2007: periods of huge social inequality. It focuses on the structure, unequal economic structure also in the global economic system at large. It focuses on social emancipation and ensures the representation of excluded groups.

discussion; it prevents the question of human freedom from disappearing from the study of international politics. Robert Cox theory is never neutral towards reality. All theories sustain the interests of certain groups implying that they are someway always “for someone and for something”.

Neomarxism: It highlights emancipation like Marxism, but unlike Marxism it criticizes the material side of capitalism and highlights its cultural side; they question the existing status quo, the process of identity formation and social change. Habermas developed a communicative action theory that stated that communication requires mutual understanding from two or more parties. By using reason and social action as a basis for critiquing morality, democracy and law. We cannot treat states as subjective and identical, rather relations and identities are always changing. We need to challenge the social order to produce a change; in addition, our knowledge comes from the world we live in and it is formed.

In terms of our historical and cultural context; therefore we have to self-reflect our knowledge: why do we think the way we do?

4. Feminism

It argues that the realist theory exhibits a masculine bias and advocates the inclusion of woman and alternative values into public life. It entered in the discipline of IR in the late 80s and early 90s asking how its theories might be reformulated and how its understanding of global politics might be improved if attention were paid to women's experiences. They revise concepts like sovereignty, the state, and security. Less than 15% of the world's heads of state are women.

Rather than anarchy, they see a system constituted by socially constructed gender hierarchies that contribute to gender subordination.

In order to reveal these gender hierarchies, feminists often begin their examinations of international relations at the microlevel - attempting to understand how the lives of individuals (especially marginalized ones) affect and are

affected by global politics. Feminists research can be divided into two complementary but distinct generations:

• First generation, largely focused on theory formulation;
• Second generation, which approaches empirical situations with 'gendered lenses'.

Many of them build on, but go beyond, some of the IR perspectives (constructivism, critical theory, poststructuralism...)

Liberal feminism use gender as an explanatory variable in foreign policy analysis, i.e. how global politics would change with more women in positions of power.

Critical feminism states that since the world (according to Cox) is made of material conditions, ideas (product of human agents) and institutions there is always the possibility of change. We have to understand the world in order to try to change it. Gender is constituted by the ideas that men and women have about their relationships to one another. The Malaysian state is based upon gender, race, class-based power that has won support by co-opting certain

Citizens while repressing others (to gain support of middle-class families and decrease ethnic tensions).

Constructivist feminism claim that the way gender ideas are portrayed shape and is shaped by global politics. For example, since most home-based workers are women, the debate about regulating this type of employment is an important one from a feminist perspective. Low wage and poor working conditions have often been justified on the grounds that home-based work is not 'real work' since it takes place in the private reproduction. Gender politics pervade world politics, creating a set of linguistically based rules about how states interact with each other and with their own citizens.

Feminist structuralism focus on meaning as it is codified in language. They claim that our understanding of reality is mediated through our use of language. They're particularly concerned with the relationship between knowledge and power; those who construct meaning and create knowledge thereby

Gain a great deal of power. Feminists point out that men have generally been seen as the knowers, while women have been marginalized both as knowers and as the subjects of knowledge. It is particularly concerned with the way dichotomized linguistic constructions, such as strong/weak, rational/emotional, and public/private serve to empower the masculine over the feminine. In international relations, constructions, such as civilized/uncivilized, order/anarchy, and developed/underdeveloped, have been important in how we divide the world linguistically. Poststructuralists believe that these distinctions have real-world consequences. Feminists posit seek to deconstruct these hierarchies through the analysis of texts and their often meaning and construct a less hierarchical vision of reality. Postcolonial feminism. Their particular concern is colonial relations of domination and subordination established under imperialism. Like poststructuralists they claim that in IR constructions of 'self'

and ‘other’ foster racial and culture stereotypes that denote the other– in their case ex-colonial subjects– as inferior. Postcolonial feminism makes similar claims about the way western feminists have constructed knowledge about non-western women. They argue that the universality claimed by western women is largely based on the experiences of relatively privileged Western women. Women are not a homogenous category: they differ by culture, social class, race, and geographical location.

Security for postcolonial feminists: reduction of all forms of violence, including physical, structural, and ecological. Security includes domestic violence, rape, poverty, gender subordination, and ecological destruction, as well as war. Who is guaranteed security? Individuals’ security is related to national and international politics, and international politics affects the security of individuals even at the local level. Marginalized vulnerable women suffer most for national insecurity.