Chapter Two: IR as an Academic Subject PDF

CHAPTER TWO IR AS AN ACADEMIC SUBJECT  IMPORTANCE OF IR THEORIES International relations theories can help us understand the way the international systems work, as well as how nations engage with each other and view the world. Varying from liberal, equality-centric strategies to str...

CHAPTER TWO IR AS AN ACADEMIC SUBJECT  IMPORTANCE OF IR THEORIES International relations theories can help us understand the way the international systems work, as well as how nations engage with each other and view the world. Varying from liberal, equality-centric strategies to straightforward realist concepts, international relations theories are often used by diplomats and international relations experts to dictate the direction that a government may take regarding an international political issue or concern. By studying the key international theories, we can better discern the motivations and goals driving policy decisions worldwide.  Theories of IR allow us to understand and try to make sense of the world around us through various lenses, each of which represents a different theoretical perspective. WHAT ARE IR THEORIES Theories are like maps. As international relations has grown in complexity, the family of theories that IR offers has grown in number, which presents a challenge for newcomers to IR theory.  IR AS A FIELD OF STUDY IR became an academic subject around the time of World War1. There are 2 main IR theories , namely Realism and Liberalism. The traditional core of IR: states and the relations of states helps explain why war and peace is a central problem of traditional IR theory) Contemporary IR is concerned with many more subjects: economic interdependence, human rights, transnational corporations, international organizations, the environment, gender inequalities, economic development, terrorism etc.. Thus, it can also be termed International studies or World Politics. IR THEORIES Realism Liberalism Neo Realism Neo Realism Constructivism Marxism The English Feminism Cognitive school (liberal Functionalism theories realism) LIBERALISM Developed after WW1, in period of competitive unstable empires, class conflict, women suffrage and experiments in international organizations. There are many kinds liberalism that you will learn later. They reject the realist notion that war is the natural on condition of world politics. For the the state is not a unitary actor but made as made up of individuals and their collective interests. UTOPIAN LIBERALISM: THE EARLY STUDY OF IR From the liberal appoint of view: in WW1, alliances were intended to keep peace but propelled all European powers into war. US was drawn into WW1 in 1917; its military intervention guaranteed the victory of the democratic Allies ( US, Britain and France) against the autocratic central powers (Germany, Austria and Turkey). TO: UTOPIAN LIBERALISM US president Woodrow Wilson’s (political science professor) mission: bring liberal democratic values to Europe and rest of the world prevent other great wars. Wilson’s 14 points in 1918 and Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. Two main points: promotion of democracy and self determination; creation of an international organization (League of Nations) to promote peaceful cooperation among states. Failure off the League of Nations and eruption of WW2 challenged the Utopian Liberalism of Wilson REALISM AND THE TWENTY YEARS CRISIS Failure of League of Nations in 1930s and WW2 Academic IR started using classical realist language of Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes Vocabulary of Power Critique of Liberal Idealism by Carr (1939) in his “ The Twenty Years Crisis 1919- 1939) book, where he assumed : there are profound conflict of interest both between countries and between people. IR is about the struggle between such conflicting powers and desires. ❖IR is far more about conflict than about cooperation. ( utopian versus realist)  REALISM For realists, main actors are world most powerful states- sovereign actors. MNCs and International Organizations must work within the framework of niter state relations set by the most powerful states. Human nature is viewed by them as selfish. Thus, IR is a struggle for power among states trying to maximize their national interest. World order is a result of the “ balance of power”. IR is all about bargaining and alliances. Military force is the mot important tool for implementing Foreign Policy. The world is a self-help system, in which states rely on their own military resources. REALIST STATEMENT BY MORGENTHAU Morgenthau, a German scholar who fled to the US in 1930 to escape from the Nazi regime. For him, human nature was the base of IR. Humans were self interested and power seeking, which could result in aggression ( Hitler and Mussolini) REALISM FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE Bible: Humans have been endowed with original sin and a temptation from evil ever since Adam and Eve were thrown out of paradise. First murder in history: Cain killed his brother Abel out of envy. Human nature is bad; the starting point of realist analysis.  From a Realist view, the appropriate response: the creation of countervailing power and the utilization of that power to provide for national defense and BALANCE OF deter potential aggressors. POWER It is essential to maintain an effective balance of power as the only way to preserve peace and prevent war. The Classical Realist analysis appeared to capture the essentials of European politics in 1930s and world politics in 1940s far better than liberal optimism. With the cold war and the East west confrontation after 1945, Realism was also a better way of analysis SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM A new approach in IR, developed in US in the late 1980s. It arouse out of a set of events in IR such as the disintegration of USSR. For them, human agency has a much greater potential role in IR than implied by realists or liberals: Human make and remake the social world. Alexander Wendt: “ Anarchy is what states make of it”.  Utopian liberalism Realist Response 1920 1930s-1940s-1950s Focus: Focus FIRST MAJOR DEBATE IN IR International law, international Power politics, security, organizations interdependence, aggression, conflict, war cooperation, peace  THE VOICE OF BEHAVIOURALISM IN IR First generation of IR scholars: historians, academic lawyers, former diplomats, journals. They brought a humanistic and historical approach to the study of IR. Deployment and use of power in human relations, military power ---normative considerations. After WW2, the academic discipline of IR expanded rapidly. These new IR scholars had very different academic backgrounds and different ideas on IR and how it should be studied. These new ideas came to be summarized under the term behavioralism. Behavioralist aim to collect empirical data about IR, preferably large amounts of data, which can be used for measurement classifications, generalization, and validation of hypotheses ( scientifically explained patterns of behavior). It’s not a new theory; it’s a new method/ approach of studying IR. Behavioralism opened up the discipline to various theories and methods imported from the social and pure sciences.  TRADITIONAL SECOND DEBATE APPROACHES BEHAVIORALIST RESPONSE IN IR FOCUS: FOCUS: TRADITIONAL APPROACHES VS. Understanding: norms Explaining: hypotheses BEHAVIORALISM and values judgement collection of data scientific historical knowledge knowledge Theorist inside subject Theorists outside subject  NEOLIBERALISM: INSTITUTIONS AND INTERDEPENDENCE Realism has won the major debate in IR and remained the dominant theoretical approach in IR. After 1945, the center of gravity in IR was the Cold War. During 1950s. 60s and 70s, a good deal of IR concerned trade and investment, travel and communication, etc.. ( specially between democracies of the West). Those relations provided the basis for a new attempt by liberals that would avoid the utopian excess of earlier liberalism---- Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism share old liberal ideas about the possibility of progress and change but they abandon idealism. They also strive to formulate scientific theories and methods. The debate between realist and liberalist continue, colored by post- 1945 international setting and the behavioralist methodological persuasion. 1950s: a process of regional integration” intensive form of cooperation” in Western Europe, caught attention of neoliberals. Functional activities across boarders widened cooperation. Sociological liberalism Interdependence NEOLIBERALISM liberalism STRANDS Institutional liberalism/ liberal institutionalism Republican Liberalism  Sociological liberalism: an IR theory,critical of realist theory which it sees as too state- centric. Sociological liberals see international relations in terms of relationships between people, groups and NEOLIBERALISM: organizations in different countries. SOCIOLOGICAL LIBERALISM Karl Deutsch 1950s : Interconnecting activities help create common values and identities among people from different states and pave the way for peaceful, cooperative relations by making war increasingly costly and thus more unlikely.  Interdependence Liberalism: radically different from realist picture of IR. It argues that interdependence between countries reduces the chances of engaging in conflict. (ex: EU) NEOLIBERALISM: With high degree of interdependence, states will often set up institutions to deal with common problems. INTERDEPENDENCE LIBERALISM 1970s Robert Kohane and Joseph Nye: Relationships between Western states are characterized by interdependence: there are many forms of connections between societies in addition to the political relations of governments, including transnational links between business corporations. There is also absence of hierarchy among issues: military security does not dominate the agenda and military force is no longer an instrument of FP ( Keohane and Nye: 1977: 25)  Institutional liberalism or liberal institutionalism: a modern theory of IR which claims that institutions foster cooperation across boundaries by providing information and reducing costs. It argues that emphasis should be placed on global governance and Int. Organizations. NEOLIBERALISM: INSTITUTIONAL Institutions can be formal ( WB, EU, WTO) or less formal sets of agreements ( aviation, communication, environment agreements, LIBERALISM etc..) Main contributors include Robert Keohane and Oran Young  Republican Liberalism: IR theory that claims that liberal democracies enhance peace because they do not go to war against each other. NEOLIBERALISM: REPUBLICAN It has been influenced by the rapid spread of democratization in the world after the end of the Cold war. LIBERALISM Michael Doyle 1983 argues that democratic peace is based on 3 pillars: peaceful conflict resolution between democratic states, common vales among democratic states, and economic cooperation among democratic states. These 4 different strands of Neoliberalism were a challenge to the realist analysis of IR. In the 1970s, the neoliberalism was about to dominate the theoretical approaches. But Kenneth Waltz (1979) reformulated realism based on the existing East- West confrontation that still dominated IR in the 1970s and 19980s. NEOREALISM: BIPOLARITY AND CONFRONTATION Neorealism or structural realism: an IR theory that says power is the most important factor in IR. It was first outlined by Kenneth Waltz in his 1979 book Theory of International Politics. Waltz attempts to formulate law- like statements about IR that achieve scientific validity ( inspired by behavioralism). Waltz focus in on the structure of the international system and the consequences of that structure for IR. The concept of structure is defined as follows: 1. The international system is anarchy; there is no worldwide government 2. The international system is composed of like units: every state, small or large has to perform a similar set of government functions ( national defense, tax collection, economic regulation), 3. States are very different in their power/ relative capabilities. Waltz: Anarchy is likely to endure because states want to preserve their autonomy NEOREALISM After demise of Soviet Post WW2, a bipolar Union, USA the Nowadays: the system system dominated by predominant is moving towards a 2 superpowers: USA superpower and multipolar system. and USSR. several great powers. NEOREALISM Waltz’s explanations about the international system: 1. Great powers will always tend to balance each other 2. Smaller and weaker states will tend to align themselves with great powers in order to preserve their maximum autonomy. Waltz departs sharply from classical realist argument based on human nature viewed as plain bad lading to conflict and confrontation. For him, states are power seeking and security conscious not because of human nature, but because the structure of the system compels them to be that way. NEOREALISM Neorealist do not deny all possibilities of cooperation among states. But they do maintain that cooperating states will always strive to maximize their relative power and preserve their autonomy. 1980s neorealism succeeded in putting neoliberalism on the defensive. 1980s confrontation between USA and USSR reached a new level. Reagan refereed to the Soviet Union as the “ evil empire”- and an arms race between the superpowers intensified in a hostile international climate. USA was also feeling competitive pressure from Japan and Europe. Armed conflicts weren’t on the agenda, but there were trade wars and other disputes between western democracies ( confirming the neorealist hypothesis about competition and relative power) NEOREALIST VERSUS NEOLIBERALS During 1980s neorealist and neoliberals stared to share a common analytical starting point: states are the main actors in an international anarchy and they constantly look after their own best interests ( Baldwin 1993). Neoliberals still argued that institutions, interdependence and democracy led to more cooperation than predicted by neorealists. Neoliberals and neorealist both supported the scientific project launched by the behavioralists ( republican liberals were a partial exception). The debate between neoliberal and neoreaslist is however continuing.  During the 1950s and 1960s American scholarships dominated the IR discipline. INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY: THE 1970s and 1980s IR agenda was preoccupied with neoliberalism neorealism debate. ENGLISH SCHOOL The English school: In UK, a school of IR existed since the cold war period which was different in 2 major ways It rejected the behavioralist challenge and emphasized the traditional approach based on human understanding, judgment, norms and history. It rejected any firm distinction between strict realism and strict liberalism of IR.  The leading International Society theorists of the 20th century are Martin Wight and Hedley Bull. INTERNATIONAL “An international society occurs when a group of states, conscious SOCIETY of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions.” Bull 1995:13,39 The element of society has always ben present and remains present in the modern international system. INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY Int. Society theorists recognize the importance of power in IR. They focus on the state system but reject the narrow realist view that world politics is a Hobbesian state of nature in which there are no norms at all. They view world politics as a combination of Machtstaat (power state) and Rechtsstaat ( constitutional state): power and law are both important features of IR. They recognize international anarchy as there is no world government, BUT, international anarchy is a social not an antisocial condition= world politics is an “anarchical society”. They emphasize the presence of both realist and liberal elements. There are conflicts and cooperation; states and individuals  Int. Society theorist recognize the importance of the individual (some argue its more important than the state). They regard IGOs and NGOs as marginal rather than central in IR. They emphasize the relations of states and play down the importance of transnational relations. INTERNATIONAL They find realists right in pointing the importance of power and national SOCIETY AS AN interests, but not always living in a state of war. There are also common rules and norms, but they cannot guarantee international harmony and APPROACH cooperation. Power and balance of power are very important in the anarchical system, but so are humans and norms and values. Int. Society theorists try to understand and interpret IR. They take a broader historical, legal and philosophical approach.  UN demonstrates how power and law are simultaneously present in the international society. UNSC is set up according to the reality of unequal powers among states. The 5 permanent members with veto power (US, China, UK, INTERNATIONAL Russia, Britain and France) are the great powers. This recognizes unequal power- realist power and inequality element in int. society. SOCIETY: UN The UNGA is set up according to the principle of equality: all member states are equal. (One state+ One vote & majority prevails). UN recognizes individuals through the international law of human rights, since the Universal Decertation on Human Rights in 1948.