International politics – IR theories

Power

Power is the production, in and through social relations, of effects (beliefs, interests, actions) that shape the capacity of actors to control their fate. It’s about intentions. Effects can be produced by direct or indirect social relations; four types of power include compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive:

Types of power

• Compulsory power: Direct control by one actor over another through interactions – the ability of A to get B to do what otherwise would not do.
• Institutional power: Indirect control over others through diffuse relations of interaction – informal and formal institutions that mediate between A and B.
• Structural power: Constitution of subjects’ capacities in direct structural relation to one another. Structures define what actors are, and may be rules, procedures, and norms that constrain the action of already-constituted actors with social capacities and interests (e.g., master-slave and capital-labor relations).
• Productive power: Production of subjectivity in systems of meaning and signification (discourse, knowledge) through diffuse social relations.

However, social relations allow more forms of power altogether, including integrated forms of power and "power over" (social interaction) and "power to" (social relations of constitution, which means in relation to the structures in virtue of which actors exist).

Theories of power

Realist conception of power is the ability of states to use material resources to get others to do what they otherwise would not. So, it’s all about hard power.

Liberal: Presence of democracy, economic interdependence, liberal values, domestic interests.

Constructivist: Normative structure and processes of learning and persuasion.

Institutionalist: Institutions produce cooperation, reduce asymmetries, and establish parameters that benefit some at the expense of others.

Classical realism – Morgenthau

Morgenthau says that international politics is a struggle for power because of human nature, unilateral advantage. Two main aims are power and security. He also introduces the element of rationality: a process of calculating the costs and benefits of all alternative policies to determine their relative utility (i.e., the ability to maximize power);

National interest, don’t reject the possibility of moral judgement in international politics even though they’re critical of moralism. They assign supreme value to Thucydides, Machiavelli, and successful political action based on prudence. Hobbes.

Each state is responsible for its own survival and is free to define its own interests and to pursue power.

Anarchy is the primary determinant of international political outcomes;

Security is a central issue, as states try to increase their power and engage in power-balancing for the purpose of deterring potential aggressors.

Hans Morgenthau: Selfishness and power-lust is at the center of human existence – prudence guides political action;

By contrast to Machiavelli, M. does not remove ethics from politics: since human beings are political animals, they’re moral animals;

Negative and criticized point: We need to study also the historical and cultural context.

Machiavellianism is a doctrine which denies the prevalence of morality in politics. These concepts of immorality (not at the point to be considered “evil”) have been used as a justification to the superiority of Germanic culture, for example, and their policies of conquest and extermination.

Hobbesian anarchic state of Nature is the idea that men are one against the other and in a state of war. Since in the state of nature there is no government and everyone enjoys equal status, every individual has a right to everything (no constraints). This means that states have a disposition to fight.

Structural realism/neorealism

Defensive realists like Waltz: The system will punish them if they attempt to gain too much power – by contrast, it is essential to reach security.

Offensive realists like Mearsheimer: States have to pursue hegemony because it is the best way to ensure its own survival. Power is a means to reach the ultimate end of survival, whereas for classical realists power was an end in itself.

States don’t pursue power for their nature but because of the international system that forces them, and any state can be powerful enough to protect itself in case it is attacked. Therefore, every country is a potential enemy of every other – intentionally or not a threat to their security and existence. In the absence of a world state they’re caught forever in this precarious condition of freedom and risk.

Criticized point: States behave in the same way over centuries because of the constraints on their behavior that are imposed by the structure of the international system. Something which deals with changes is needed, and this is neoliberalism with its systemic theories. It says that economic interests make states change their behaviors over time. Anarchy, which is the ordering principle of international relations remains unchanged.

Waltz says that the anarchic international system limits cooperation in two ways: insecurity and unequal gains. In a state of anarchy, each state is uncertain about the intentions of others and is afraid that the possible gains resulting from cooperation might place them in situations of increased dependence. In a self-help system, considerations of security subordinate economic gain to political interest.

“Anarchy”: The point of departure is not the state but the system itself; neorealists care about the system but not about the interaction within the system, between states. On the contrary, classical realism considers the single units.

Anarchy means that states look for horizontal hierarchy, distribution = equal actors.

• It comes from the Hobbesian concept of the state of nature: all individuals are equal, they pursue some goals, but they are unaware of the goals the others have, therefore there is social mistrust, fear, anxiety, and predisposition to war.
• This concept has been revised by realists who accept the idea of states acting under anarchy, craving for power; as a consequence, there is a condition of disorder. “Desire to dominate.”
• Neorealists refer to two parallel concepts of anarchy: self-help system (every state must procure for its own survival) and a horizontal order of nominal equal units. But do states perform identical range of tasks?
• Constructivists claim that identities and interests of states are not given prior to interaction, hence anarchy does not generate a system of self-help. Anarchy comes from the process of social interaction, not from the structure. It is what states make of it. For realists and neoliberals, states are still self-regarding, more concerned with absolute gains rather than relative gains, treating security as the individual responsibility of each (self-help systems), while constructivists opt for a cooperative security system in which the security of each is perceived as the responsibility of all. In order to go from structure to action, we have to add a fourth: the intersubjectively constituted structure of identities and interests in the system.

Power – Material: military capabilities, wealth, size of the nation… Latent power is the enabler of military power; it makes the conditions to ensure material resources (raw materials, technology, population). Capital is the immaterial way of gaining power. Competition leads to more competition, but there’s room for cooperation only if it empowers you. Cooperation alliances.

The causes of war

Why are democracies more peaceful? Kant says that the natural state is the state of war; but Fukuyama sees no reason to associate anarchy with war. Democratic states use pacific means to achieve their gains, as they have power to do so, whereas weaker states either fail or have to resort to war. Kissinger put it: "I don’t see why we should stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." In the end, democracies rarely fight democracies. They do fight undemocratic states with the aim of making them democratic. Peace is the noblest cause of war. Is the democratic peace thesis right?

Peace is maintained by a delicate balance of internal and external restraints. Example: The Soviet Union fell apart because once the external pressure lessened, the internal economic interests were too weak to hold the country together.

If this theory is right, then structural realism is wrong since peace would depend on a balance of forces and the causes of war would lie both in states and in the state system. Realists depreciate the importance of institutions as they do change their role whenever social circumstances change – functions vary as structures change. In fact, the role of NATO became different after the cold war.

Institutionalists claim that once created and set in motion, institutions may begin to act with a measure of autonomy. Realists’ perspective: The survival and expansion of NATO tells us much about American power and influence and little about institutions as multilateral entities. The ability of the US to extend the life of a moribund institution nicely illustrates how international institutions are created and maintained by stronger states to serve their perceived or misperceived interests. Realists reveal what liberal institutionalists theory obscures: namely, that international institutions serve primarily national rather than international interests.

Institutions like NATO did change because of the American folly to pursue its own interests, i.e., power, therefore structure doesn’t determine the actions of states. As for Mearsheimer, liberal institutionalism is not an alternative to realism but it starts and ends with realist conclusions. The balance among states is unpredictable because of the pressure of structure on states and we don’t know how they will respond. This means that in a period of bipolarity there is a balance which keeps the environment peaceful but in a period of unipolarity there will be states which try to increase their own strength and bring the international distribution of power into balance. We don’t know the way in which they will carry on this process.

Constructivism - Wendt

They try to create a bridge between neorealism and neoliberal rationalists: taking the present state system and anarchy seriously and on the other hand focusing on the formation of identities and interests. Wendt – countering neorealist ideas – argues that the self-help system is not directly derived from the principle of anarchy, but it is socially constructed. Anarchy is what states make of it. Power and interests are constituted by ideas and norms. He claims that neorealism cannot account for change in world politics, but his norm-based constructivism can.

People act toward objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meaning that the objects have for them. Anarchy and the distribution of powers fail to make us understand who is a friend and who is a foe, in order to adopt a different approach; people have different identities in relation to their institutional roles (citizens, brother, teacher, etc.).

It was born out of the 1980s context: the end of the cold war. The other IR theories were unable to explain the end of the cold war since they were too static and didn’t take into account social change. They presented four different kinds of critiques to rationalism. Contrary to poststructuralism, these critiques don’t involve a rejection of the scientific method.

• Social being: Social norms not only constrain but they also constitute the identity of human beings;
• Mutual constitution: Individuals do understand the relation between agency and structure through the cultural, social, political, and material circumstances in which they are embedded. The space for choice is mutually constituted between actors.
• Social facts (constitution of the material world): Interests are tied to the identity of the subjects, so individuals are not all egoists concerned with material interests as realists would affirm; the mass production of nuclear weapons, for example, did not exist in nature.