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CHAPTER 6 International Political Economy: Marxism, Mercantilism, Liberalism 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Introduction: What Is IPE? Mercantilism Economic Liberalism Marxism 171 174 177 180 6.5 Conclusion KEY POINTS QUESTIONS GUIDE TO FURTHER READING 188 189 189 190 Summary This chapter is about the rela...

CHAPTER 6 International Political Economy: Marxism, Mercantilism, Liberalism 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Introduction: What Is IPE? Mercantilism Economic Liberalism Marxism 171 174 177 180 6.5 Conclusion KEY POINTS QUESTIONS GUIDE TO FURTHER READING 188 189 189 190 Summary This chapter is about the relationship between politics and economics, between states and markets in world affairs. Ultimately, International Political Economy (IPE) is about wealth, poverty, and power, about who gets what in the international economic and political system. The most important classical theories in this area are mercantilism, economic liberalism, and neo-Marxism. These are ‘theories’ in the very broad sense of a set of assumptions and values from which the field of IPE can be approached. We present each of these theories in some detail; in Chapter 10 we return to the most important issues of contemporary IPE, and how the classical theories inform today’s study of these issues. 180 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES the households, and the companies that participate in market exchange. The economy is a sphere of cooperation for mutual benefit among states as well as among individuals. The international economy should thus be based on free trade. Classical liberal economists view the role of the state as that of leaving the market alone, including international markets as well as national markets: laissez-faire. However, some twentiethand twenty-first-century economic liberals favour increased state involvement in the marketplace. 6.4 Marxism The political economy of the nineteenth-century German philosopher and economist Karl Marx represents in many ways a fundamental critique of economic liberalism. We saw above that economic liberals view the economy as a positive-sum game with benefits for all. Marx rejected that view. Instead, he saw the economy as a site of human exploitation and class inequality. Marx thus takes the zero-sum argument of mercantilism but applies it to relations of classes instead of relations of states. Marxists agree with mercantilists that politics and economics are closely intertwined; both reject the liberal view of an economic sphere operating under its own laws. But where mercantilists see economics as a tool of politics, Marxists put economics first and politics second. For Marxists, the capitalist economy is based on two antagonistic social classes: one class, the bourgeoisie, owns the means of production; the other class, the proletariat, owns only its labour power which it must sell to the bourgeoisie. But labour puts in more work than it gets back in pay; there is a surplus value appropriated by the bourgeoisie. That is capitalist profit and it is derived from labour exploitation. Even if a capitalist economy controlled by the bourgeoisie is exploitative of labour, Marx did not see the growth of capitalism as a negative or retrogressive event. On the contrary, capitalism means progress for Marx in two ways: first, capitalism destroys previous relations of production, such as feudalism, which were even more exploitative, with peasants subsisting under slave-like conditions. Capitalism is a step forward in the sense that workers are free to sell their labour power and seek out the best possible pay. Second, and most important for Marx, capitalism paves the way for a socialist revolution where the means of production will be placed under social control for the benefit of the proletariat who are the vast majority. The Marxist view is materialist: it is based on the claim that the core activity in any society concerns the way in which human beings produce their means of existence. Economic production is the basis for all other human activities, including politics. The economic basis consists, on the one hand, of the forces of production; i.e., the technical level of economic activity (e.g., industrial machinery versus artisan handicraft). On the other hand, it consists of the relations of production; i.e., the system of social ownership which determines actual control over the productive forces (e.g., private ownership versus collective ownership). Taken together, the forces of production and relations of production form a specific mode of production, for example, capitalism, which is based on industrial machinery and private ownership (see Box 6.5). The bourgeoisie, which dominates the capitalist economy through control of the means of production, will also INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: MARXISM, MERCANTILISM, LIBERALISM BOX 6.5 Key Quotes: A Marxist view Modern industry has converted the little workshop of patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. Marx and Engels (1955 [1848]: 17) tend to dominate in the political sphere because, according to Marxists, economics is the basis of politics. This brings us to the Marxist framework for the study of IPE. Marx had little to say about international affairs, including issues of international political economy. But his writings include a few scattered remarks about the importance of access to raw materials abroad and the possibility that advanced countries can export for profit. A theory of IPE has been built on the basis of these remarks and the Marxist theory of domestic politics (Panitch and Gindin 2013; Cohen 2019: 38; Watson 2020). First, states are not autonomous; they are driven by ruling-class interests, and capitalist states are primarily driven by the interests of their respective bourgeoisies. This means that struggles between states, including wars, should be seen in the economic context of competition between capitalist classes of different states. For Marxists, class conflict is more fundamental than conflict between states. Second, as an economic system, capitalism is expansive: there is a never-ending search for new markets and more profit. Because classes cut across state borders, class conflict is not confined to states; instead, it expands around the world in the wake of capitalism. Such expansion first took the form of imperialism and colonization, but it continued after the colonies had been granted independence. It now takes the form of economic globalization led by giant transnational corporations. The history of IPE can thus be seen by Marxists as the history of capitalist expansion across the globe. The early twentieth century saw the emergence of a number of analyses of imperialism, with focus on the global expansion and dominance of capitalism. They took the basic analysis by Marx and brought it to bear on the mechanisms and consequences of international capitalist development. In that sense, they are early studies of globalization; Rudolf Hilferding, Rosa Luxembourg, Nikolaj Bukharin, and Vladimir Lenin are among the most important contributors (Kemp 1967; Milios and Sotiropoulos 2009). Lenin, the Communist leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, argued that the process of capitalist expansion must always be unequal or uneven, between countries, industries, and firms. For example, Britain was ahead of Germany for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Consequently, Britain had secured for itself a vast 181 182 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES BOX 6.6 Key Quotes: Lenin and the law of uneven development There can be no other conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence . . . than a calculation of the strength of the participants in the division, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for under capitalism the development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries cannot be even. Lenin (1999 [1917]: 116) colonial empire whereas Germany had very little. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Germany was catching up economically and Britain was declining. Therefore, Lenin noted, Germany wanted a redivision of international spheres of influence, according to the new relative strength of the countries. That demand led to war between Germany and Britain. Such disparities and conflicts will always develop under capitalist conditions, argued Lenin. That is the ‘law of uneven development’ (see Box 6.6). The notion of uneven development points to the need for an historical analysis of capitalist expansion. Events must always be analysed in their specific historical context. For example, there was high economic interdependence between countries around the time of the First World War; there is also high economic interdependence between many countries today. But we need to look at the precise nature of that interdependence in its historical context in order to be able to understand the processes taking place and their significance for international relations; interdependence around the First World War was often arm’s-length import/export relations between independent companies. Today, it is frequently integrated circuits of production between subsidiaries of the same transnational company; a Ford car, for example, contains parts produced in many different countries. Such global networks of production make for a different and closer type of economic integration than traditional imports and exports between separate companies. The difference between Marxist and realist analysis should be brought to attention. Both views agree on the perennial competition and conflict between states. But realists explain this by pointing to the existence of independent states in a condition of anarchy. Therefore, the struggle between states has been taking place for several millennia, ever since the emergence of states (i.e., independent political units) on the world stage. Marxists reject that view as abstract and unhistorical. It is abstract because there is no concrete specification of the social forces that actually sustain conflict between states. These social forces, so the Marxists maintain, are the ruling classes of capitalists (and their allies); they ultimately control and determine what ‘their’ states do. When states are rivals and sometimes come into conflict, it is because they pursue the economic and political interests for international dominance and control sought after by the ruling classes (see Box 6.7). The realist view is also unhistorical, according to Marxists. This is because realists see history as always repeating itself; it is ‘the same things over and over again’ (Layne 1994); states competing in anarchy. Marxists argue that conflict between states varies INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: MARXISM, MERCANTILISM, LIBERALISM BOX 6.7 Key Arguments: A neo-Marxist view It is widely believed that the United States and other developed capitalist countries contribute more capital to the underdeveloped countries than they receive from them. Nonetheless, all available statistics . . . show precisely the opposite . . . For the seven largest Latin American countries . . . the United States Department of Commerce’s conservatively calculated figures for the years 1950 to 1961 indicate $2,962 million of investment flows on private accounts out of the United States and remittances of profits and interest of $6,875 million; adding American public loans and their Latin American servicing between the same years still leaves a conservatively calculated net capital outflow of $2,081 million to the United States. Frank (1971: 237–8) substantially across history. Conflict between capitalist states—and ultimately between capitalist ruling classes—is, of course, connected to the capitalist historical era. Consequently, competition and conflict of earlier historical phases require a different explanation, tying it in with the contest between the social forces of those periods of feudalism and antiquity. This is the Marxist principle of historical specification. Realists argue that the Marxist view of the state is reductionist; that is, it reduces the state to a simple tool in the hands of the ruling classes, with no will of its own. States are strong actors in their own right. They embody powerful institutions, they control the means of violence (army, police), and they have substantial economic resources. It is simply wrong to view the state as a mere instrument or handmaiden for others. More recent Marxist analysis has conceded this point. The state has some autonomy from the ruling classes, but it is a relative autonomy; the basic function of the capitalist state remains the safeguarding of the capitalist system. Yet, within this general framework, the state should not be reduced to a simple tool of others (Carnoy 1984: Ch. 4; Maher and Aquanno 2018). Robert Cox is a prominent neo-Marxist analyst of world politics and political economy (Cox 1996; Budd 2013; Brincat 2016). Cox begins with the concept of historical structures, defined as ‘a particular configuration of forces’ (Cox 1996: 97). These historical structures are made up of three categories of forces that interact: material capabilities, ideas, and institutions. Note how Cox moves away from the traditional Marxist emphasis on materialism through the inclusion of ideas and institutions. In the next step, historical structures are identified at three different levels; they are labelled ‘social forces’, ‘forms of state’, and ‘world orders’, as outlined in Figure 6.2. The term ‘social forces’ is shorthand for the process of capitalist production. An analysis of this aspect will inform us about the present state of development of the capitalist economy on a global scale. ‘Forms of state’ point to the ways in which states change in the interplay with the social forces of capitalist development. The term ‘world orders’ refers to the current organization of international relations, including relations between major states and groups of states, the status of international law, and international institutions. 183 184 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES FIGURE 6.2 Cox’s analytical framework Social forces Forms of state World orders In sum, Cox theorizes a complex interplay between politics and economics, specified as the interaction between social forces, forms of state, and world orders. The task for the analyst is to find out how these relationships play out in the current phase of human history. It is not possible to present Cox’s analysis of these matters fully here, but the gist of his argument is as follows (Cox 1992; Sinclair 2016). As regards the social forces of capitalism, they are currently involved in an intense process of economic globalization, meaning an internationalizing of production as well as migration movements from South to North. Globalization has been driven by market forces, but Cox foresees that new social movements critical of globalization will grow increasingly strong and this will open a new phase of struggle between social forces concerning the control and regu lation of economic globalization. As regards forms of state, there is variation between states because they link into the global political economy in different ways. States compete for advantage, but they do it on the premise that integration in the global economy is unavoidable. The dominant forces in capitalist states ‘concur in giving priority to competitiveness in the global economy and in precluding interventions by whatever authority that are not consistent with this aim’ (Cox 2002: 34). Non-territorial power is becoming more important for states; they compete for markets and economic opportunities across the globe. Transnational corporations and civil society organizations operating across borders (i.e., NGOs) are of increasing importance. Finally, as regards world order, the long-term tendency will be for replacement of the global US dominance. Several scenarios are possible; one is an international order of ‘conflicting power centres’ (Cox 1996: 114) structured around leading states or groups of states, such as the EU in Europe and China and Japan in East Asia (see Chapter 10). Another possibility is a ‘post-hegemonic order’ (Cox 1992: 142) where states agree on rules and norms of peaceful cooperation for mutual benefit and a common framework for the resolution of possible conflicts. Robert Cox’s framework is one example of a neoMarxist IPE analysis; in Chapter 10 we shall return to some of the issues he takes up. Another major neo-Marxist analysis comes from Immanuel Wallerstein (1974; 1979; 1983; 2004; 2013). His starting point is the concept of world system analysis. World systems need not physically include the whole world; they are unified areas characterized by particular economic and political structures. The concept thus ties economics and politics together: a world system is characterized by a certain economic and a certain political structure with the one depending on the other. In human history, there have been two basic varieties of world systems: ‘world empires’ and ‘world economies’. In world empires, such as the Roman Empire, political and economic control is INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: MARXISM, MERCANTILISM, LIBERALISM concentrated in a unified centre. World economies, in contrast, are tied together economically in a single division of labour; but politically, authority is decentralized, residing in multiple polities, in a system of states. Wallerstein’s key focus is the analysis of the modern world economy, characterized by capitalism. The capitalist world economy was established in ‘the long sixteenth century’ (1450– 1640). This happened in a somewhat accidental way at first. According to Wallerstein, China was in fact best positioned for a breakthrough to modern capitalism, but for a number of reasons, north-west Europe was able to diversify its agriculture and to connect it with industrial advance in textiles and shipping (Mahoney 2000: 519–21). That put Europe in the driving seat of the global capitalist system. This system was based on an international division of labour that covered Europe first, but soon extended to the Western hemisphere and later also to other parts of the world because the European capitalist areas required territorial expansion. Within this division of labour, a process of specialization took place. Wallerstein drew inspiration from Lenin’s distinction between a developed core and an undeveloped periphery, exploited via capitalist imperialism (see Figure 6.3). The core areas, for instance, Western European states and North America, contain the advanced and complex economic activities (mass-market industries and sophisticated agriculture). Furthermore, these activities are controlled by an indigenous bourgeoisie. Peripheral areas, for instance, in Africa south of the Sahara, are at the bottom of the hierarchy; they produce staple goods such as grain, wood, sugar, and so on. They often employ slavery or coerced labour; what little industrial activity exists is mostly under the external control of capitalists from core countries. Semi-peripheral areas, for instance, some Latin American countries, are economically mixed; they are a middle layer between the upper stratum of core countries and the lower stratum of peripheral countries. Wallerstein presents a functionalist explanation where the needs of capitalism constantly reproduce the world system. A basic mechanism of this explanation—and hence of the capitalist world economy—is unequal exchange. Economic surplus is transferred from the periphery to the core. Surplus is appropriated from low-wage, low-profit producers in the periphery to high-wage, high-profit producers in the core. This transfer is further accentuated by the emergence of strong state machineries in the core and FIGURE 6.3 Wallerstein’s World System Analysis Core Semi-periphery Periphery 185 186 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES weak state machineries in the periphery. Strong states can enforce unequal exchange on weak ones. Thus capitalism ‘involves not only appropriation of surplus value by an owner from a laborer, but an appropriation of surplus of the whole world-economy by core areas. And this was as true in the stage of agricultural capitalism as it is in the stage of industrial capitalism’ (Wallerstein 1979: 18). Wallerstein—and other neoMarxists, such as Andre Gunder Frank—here break with classical Marxism. Marx and even Lenin had argued that capitalism develops the periphery by breaking down prior modes of production such as feudalism. The claim of world system theory is that capitalism retards development. In Gunder Frank’s famous term, in the periphery, capitalism creates not ‘development’ and not even ‘undevelopment’ but ‘underdevelopment’ (Gilpin 1987: 68). As Cohen (2019: 40) summarizes this position: ‘Neocolonialism was expected to block, not promote, the development of the poor’ (see Box 6.7). The argument is that the capitalist exploitation of workers within societies is transferred to the international system where developed countries in the core exploit countries in the periphery via the international equivalent of capitalist relations, namely free trade. In this process of unequal exchange, tensions are created in the system. The semiperiphery has an important function in this regard. It provides an element of political stability, because the core countries are not facing unified opposition; the semi-periphery acts as a buffer or shock absorber by splitting the have-nots into two camps. At the same time, the world economy is not entirely static; any single area of the system may change place from periphery to semi-periphery, from semi-periphery to core, and vice versa. Furthermore, the types of commodities involved in core and peripheral economic activities respectively are subject to dynamic change. Technological advance means that the concrete content of what is ‘advanced economic activity’ always changes. At one point it was textiles; in a later phase it was industrial machinery; today, it is information- and biotechnology together with financial and other services. But Wallerstein emphasizes that the capitalist system as such does not change: it remains a hierarchy of core, semi-periphery, and periphery, characterized by unequal exchange (Chase-Dunn and Hall 2018). Wallerstein sees the end of the Cold War and the destruction of the Soviet Bloc as a consequence of the development of the capitalist world economy. However, the long-term prospect is the demise of the capitalist system, because the contradictions of that system are now unleashed on a world scale. Success, not failure, is the real threat to global capitalism; when the possibilities for expansion are used up, the never-ending quest for more profit will lead to new crises in the world capitalist economy which sooner or later spell its transformation. There are some similarities between Wallerstein’s world systems analysis of capitalism and Waltz’s neorealist analysis of the international system (see Chapter 3). Both focus on the system rather than on single units or countries; what happens to countries very much depends on their position in the system. Both see the system as a hierarchy with strong states in the top and weak states in the bottom. But there are also important differences between the two theories: Waltz’s focus is on relative political– military power in a condition of anarchy; Wallerstein’s focus is first and foremost economic power and capability which is then connected with political power. Wallerstein analyses the historical development of capitalism from the sixteenth century onwards, INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: MARXISM, MERCANTILISM, LIBERALISM putting economics first and politics second. Waltz analyses the international balance of power in the twentieth century, putting power politics first and economics second. This is also revealed by the theoretical traditions that Waltz and Wallerstein build on. Waltz’s theory is indebted to the nineteenth-century German notion of the primacy of foreign policy (Das Primat der Aussenpolitik), whereas the Marxist position emphasizes the primacy of the national economy (Hintze 1975 [1906]; Waltz 1959 [1954]: 7, 124; see Kaspersen and Strandsbjerg 2017). We encourage you to speculate about the advantages and drawbacks of each theory. Justin Rosenberg (2016) has attempted to update Marxist thinking in relation to IPE and to use it to analyse current events. He draws on Leon Trotsky’s theory of uneven and combined development. Trotsky developed the theory in an attempt to explain the Russian Revolution of 1917, an event that almost no one had foreseen. Marx had expected that capitalism would eventually embrace all countries in the world. The less developed areas could look to the industrially advanced countries and see ‘an image of their own future’ (Marx 1970: 8–9). Trotsky rejected that claim; capitalism would surely spread, but it would happen in a way that reflected the particular national and international conditions prevailing in each country at a given time (Trotsky 1976: 583). According to Trotsky it is necessary to understand this ‘uneven and combined’ development in order to make sense of the Russian Revolution. Rosenberg argues that the theory of uneven and combined development applies to all phases of capitalist expansion. In a recent article with Chris Boyle, he uses it to explain two much discussed 2016 events: the vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom, and the election of Donald Trump in the US (Rosenberg and Boyle 2019). The first part of the explanation is uneven development: in the advanced Western countries, a long period of economic boom gave way to a crisis by the 1970s. This paved the way for neoliberal deregulation and intensified globalization: large sectors of production and services moved to low-wage countries. It happened at a time when the Maoist closed model of accumulation was in crisis. Under Mao, China had focused on economic development in isolation from the rest of the world. The Deng Xiaoping reforms of the late 1970s and onwards embraced a market economy and opened China to the world market. An enormous pool of cheap labour was now accessible for the advanced countries. This enabled new growth but also massive job loss and extremely high levels of inequality in the advanced countries. This was the background which turned the British 2016 referendum and the US 2016 presidential election into ‘vehicles of an inchoate but widespread anti-establishment backlash’ (Rosenberg and Boyle 2019: 52). Large sections of voters whose jobs and wages were under pressure from cheap imports voted against globalization and open borders. Rosenberg and Boyle argue that uneven and combined development played a crucial role in producing these outcomes. It is clear that Wallerstein’s, Cox’s and Rosenberg’s contributions add a number of nuances to Marxist analysis. What is the main thrust of the Marxist approach as compared with liberalism and mercantilism? This basic Marxist view can be summarized as follows: the economy is a site of exploitation and inequality between social classes. Politics is to a large extent determined by the socioeconomic context. The dominant economic class is also dominant politically. That means that in capitalist economies the 187 188 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES TABLE 6.3 Marxism summarized Relationship between economics and politics: Economics decisive Main actors/units of analysis: Classes The nature of economic relations: Conflictual, zero-sum Economic goals: Class interests bourgeoisie will be the ruling class. Global capitalist development is uneven and bound to produce crises and contradictions, between both states and social classes (see Table 6.3). Marxist IPE thus concerns the history of global capitalist expansion, the struggles between classes and states to which it has given rise around the world, and how a revolutionary transformation of that world might come about. 6.5 Conclusion Politics and economics are entangled in complex ways, and this has consequences for who gets what—the pursuit of power and of wealth—in the international system. In this chapter, we have seen that the field of IPE revolves around this observation. We have not given full coverage of all theories and subjects of IPE in context of one chapter; that would require a separate book (see, for example, Cohen 2008; 2019; Hulsemeyer 2010; O’Brien and Williams 2013; Underhill 2015; Ravenhill 2020). But we have introduced you to the three classical IPE perspectives: Marxism, mercantilism, and liberalism. Table 6.4 summarizes these three schools of thought. In Chapter 10, we shall introduce some of the major questions which IPE scholars are wrestling with in order to convey an impression of the kind of issues that are currently being discussed in IPE. In that connection, we also discuss how IPE theories have fared with respect to integrating international and domestic factors into their explanatory frameworks. TABLE 6.4 Three theories of IPE MERCANTILISM ECONOMIC LIBERALISM MARXISM Relationship between economics and politics: Politics decisive Economics autonomous Economics decisive Main actors/units of analysis: States Individuals Classes The nature of economic relations: Conflictual, zero-sum game Cooperative, positivesum game Conflictual, zero-sum game Economic goals: State power Maximum individual and social well-being Class interests INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: MARXISM, MERCANTILISM, LIBERALISM * ? Key points • The relationship between politics and economics, between states and markets, is the subject matter of International Political Economy (IPE). There are three main theories of IPE: mercantilism, economic liberalism, and Marxism. • Mercantilism posits the economy as subordinate to politics. Economic activity is seen in the larger context of increasing state power: the national interest rules over the marketplace. Wealth and power are complementary, not competing, goals; but excessive economic dependence on other states should be avoided. When economic and security interests clash, security interests have priority. • Economic liberals argue that the market economy is an autonomous sphere of society, operating according to its own economic laws. Economic exchange is a positive-sum game and the market will tend to maximize benefits for individuals, households, and companies. The economy is a sphere of cooperation for mutual benefit, among states as well as among individuals. • In the Marxist approach, the economy is a site of exploitation and inequality between social classes, especially the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Politics is to a large extent determined by the socioeconomic context. The dominant economic class is also dominant politically. IPE concerns the history of global capitalist expansion and the struggles between classes and states to which it has given rise. Capitalist development is uneven, retards development in the periphery, and is bound to produce new crises and contradictions, between both states and social classes. Robert Cox, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Justin Rosenberg represent different attempts to further develop Marxist IPE. Questions • What is IPE and why is it important? • Give the core arguments made by the three main theories of IPE: mercantilism, economic liberalism, and Marxism. Which theory, if any, is the best one? Why? • Politics is in control of economics, say mercantilists. Economics is the basis for everything else, including politics, say Marxists. How should we settle this dispute? • Economic liberals argue that economic exchange is a positive-sum game. In the Marxist approach the economy is a site of exploitation and inequality. Who is correct? • Do security interests always have priority over economic matters, as mercantilists claim? • Marx claimed that capitalism promotes development in the periphery; neo-Marxists claim that it blocks development. Which claims stand up to empirical scrutiny in the twenty-first century? • Compare Waltz and Wallerstein. Who has the better theory? • In terms of practical politics, do states today follow liberal recommendations, or can we find examples of mercantilist or even Marxist policies? • Outline the argument by Rosenberg and Boyle; do you agree with it? 189 190 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES Guide to further reading Anderson, K. B. (2016). Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-western Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Balaam, D. N. and Dillman, B. (2018). Introduction to International Political Economy, 7th edn. London: Routledge. Budd, A. (2013). Class, States and International Relations: A Critical Appraisal of Robert Cox and Neo-Gramscian Theory. London: Routledge. Cohen, B. J. (2019). Advanced Introduction to International Political Economy, 2nd edn. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cox, R. W. and Schechter, M. G. (2002). The Political Economy of a Plural World: Critical Reflections on Power, Morals, and Civilization. London: Routledge. Gilpin, R. (2001). Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hobson, J. M. (2013). ‘Part 1–Revealing the Eurocentric Foundations of IPE: A Critical Historiography of the Discipline from the Classical to the Modern Era’, Review of International Political Economy, 20/5: 1024–54. Polanyi, K. (1957). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. New York: Farrar Rinehart. Ravenhill, J. (ed.) (2020). Global Political Economy, 6th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shaw, T. M., Mahrenbach, L. C, Modi, R., and Yi-chong, X. (eds) (2019). The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary International Political Economy. London: Palgrave. Strange, S. (1970). ‘International Economics and International Relations: A Case of Mutual Neglect’, International Affairs, 46/2: 304–15. Wallerstein, I. (2004). World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Access the online resources to take your learning and understanding further, including review questions, case studies, web links, flashcards, and a database of videos. www.oup.com/he/sorensen-moller8e CHAPTER 8 Post-positivist Approaches: Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism, Feminism 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Introduction Post-structuralism in IR Postcolonialism in IR Feminism in IR Critique of Post-positivist Approaches 221 224 230 235 240 8.6 8.7 The Post-positivist Research Programme Integrating International and Domestic Factors KEY POINTS QUESTIONS GUIDE TO FURTHER READING 242 243 244 245 245 Summary This chapter introduces post-positivist approaches in IR. Three different strands are discussed. Post-structuralism is focused on language and discourse; it adopts a critical attitude towards established approaches in that it highlights the ways in which these theories represent and discuss the world. It is particularly critical of neorealism because of its one-sided focus on (Northern) states. Postcolonialism adopts a post-structural attitude in order to understand the situation in areas that were conquered by Europe, in particular in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Feminism underlines that women are a disadvantaged group in the world, in both material terms and in terms of a value system which favours men over women. A gender-sensitive perspective on IR investigates the inferior position of women in the international political and economic system and analyses how our current ways of thinking about IR tend to disguise as well as reproduce a gender hierarchy. POST-POSITIVIST APPROACHES: POST-STRUCTURALISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, FEMINISM 8.1 Introduction Max Weber once said that science (including social science) consists of ‘a thoughtful ordering of empirical reality’ (Weber, quoted in Jackson 2016: 193). It sounds simple, but it most certainly is not. That is because there is no agreement about the actual content of the ‘empirical reality’ that we study; nor is there any agreement about what it means to make a ‘thoughtful’ inquiry. As Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (2016: 17) has pointed out, philosophers of science do not agree upon a clear set of criteria for science that can be imported by IR scholars. It follows that there is little alternative to methodological pluralism, at least if the philosophy of science is to be our umpire. This book has therefore presented a number of theories and approaches, based on very different ontological and epistemological foundations. This chapter covers the most far-reaching alternatives to the theories that have traditionally dominated IR. Post-positivist approaches is an umbrella term for a variety of contemporary issues in the study of IR. What unites them is dissatisfaction with the established theoretical traditions in the discipline, in particular with neorealism, which is seen as the dominant conventional theory. In their critique of established traditions, post-positivist scholars raise both methodological issues and substantial issues. They argue against positivist methodology with its focus on observable facts and measurable data and its ambition to scientifically explain the world of international relations. Post-positivists emphasize that IR theorists (like all other theorists of human affairs) are an integrated part of the world they study. In that sense, theorists are insiders, not outsiders. They make certain assumptions and create certain images of reality. Because other theorists make other assumptions and create other images, knowledge is not and cannot be neutral. We always need to critically discuss the assumptions and claims made by any theory, because there is no single, final truth out there. There are competing claims about how the world hangs together and what makes it tick. Some scholars call this attitude postmodern; postmodernism has been defined as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’ (Lyotard 1984: xxiv). We shall stay with the label of ‘post-positivism’ because we find it to be a more precise term which better captures the three strands of theory we cover in this chapter. Post-positivists are first and foremost critical of the approaches to IR that are based on positivist methodology. What is the positivist persuasion in IR? Fundamentally, it is a scholarly conviction that there can be a cumulative science of IR of increasing sophistication, precision, parsimony, and predictive and explanatory power. Positivists believe in the unity of science: that social science is not fundamentally different from natural science; that the same analytical methods—including quantitative methods—can be applied in both areas. The aim is to collect data that can lead to scientific explanation. That requires scientific methodology and a scientific attitude on the part of the researcher. It then becomes possible to provide empirical explanations of political behaviour: to determine ‘why people behave politically the way they do, and why, as a result, political 221 222 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES processes and systems function as they do’ (Eulau 1963: 25). Positivism views the social and political world, including international politics, as having regularities and patterns that can be explained if the correct methodology is properly applied. It argues that observation and experience are keys to constructing and judging scientific theories. It holds that there can be an objective knowledge of the world—or at least ‘a great deal of intersubjective agreement’ (Nicholson 1996: 131). It emphasizes the centrality of empirical propositions; i.e., the reasons for accepting hypotheses are evident from careful observation of reality. ‘We observe events and on the basis of these observations hope to predict the consequences of actions carried out now or in the future’ (Nicholson 1996: 132). Jackson (2016) terms IR scholars who subscribe to these standards ‘neopositivists’. Scholars grouped in this category accept that there exists a world that is independent of the observer. Moreover, they believe that the important aspects of this world can be directly observed by social scientists because reality is made up of material facts rather than of ideas (see Figure 7.1 in Chapter 7). Hypotheses of interest to IR scholars can thus be tested by observing whether particular causes and particular outcomes go together. For instance, the broad body of work that has tested the ‘democratic peace theory’ investigates whether, all else being equal, democracies tend not to go to war with each other (see e.g., Russett (2003 [2000]); Hegre, Bernhard, and Teorell 2020; see also Chapter 4). In this guise, neopositivism dominates mainstream IR, especially in America. Most neoliberal and neorealist analyses are premised on neopositivism. According to Jackson, this dominance reproduces itself, which is illustrated by the fact that neopositivists do not have to make the case for their ontological assumptions when presenting their analyses (2016: 60). Post-structuralists are not at all happy about this way of approaching IR and social science in general. In particular, they reject its empiricism, the view that science is based merely on observation of facts. Pure, ‘objective’ observation is not possible; it requires previous ideas about what to observe and how to go about it, as emphasized by Steve Smith in Box 8.1. This critique rejects three basic postulates of positivism: an objective external reality; the subject/object distinction; and value-free social science. It follows that there are no world politics or global economics that operate in accordance with immutable social laws. The social world is a construction of time and place: the international system is a specific construction of the most powerful states. Everything that is social, including international relations, is changeable and thus historical. Since world politics is constructed rather than discovered, there is no fundamental distinction between subject (the analyst) and object (the focus of analysis). The larger consequence of this critique is that knowledge is not and cannot be neutral, either morally, politically, or ideologically. There are a thousand ways of looking at the real world; which distinctions and concepts are more important, and which are less important? Dominant theories underpin and inform practice; that makes them hugely powerful. ‘Defining common sense is therefore the ultimate act of political power’ (Smith 1996: 13). POST-POSITIVIST APPROACHES: POST-STRUCTURALISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, FEMINISM BOX 8.1 Key Arguments: Objective observation not possible There can be no ‘objective’ observation, nor any ‘brute experience’. Observation and perception are always affected by prior theoretical and conceptual commitments. Empiricism, in other words, underestimates the amount of theory involved in perception and observation. To describe what we experience we have to use concepts, and these are not dictated by what we observe; they are either a priori in the mind, or they are the result of a prior theoretical language . . . Our senses cannot give us access to ‘the truth’ since there is no way of describing experience independently of its interpretation. There are, therefore, no brute facts, no facts without interpretation, and interpretation always involves theory. Smith (1996: 20) In sum, post-positivists are critical of any claim of an established truth valid for all. The task is rather to examine the world from a large variety of political, social, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gendered perspectives. That opens up a ‘free space’ for competing reflections and to arrive at that space is the best we can do as scholars of IR. Post-positivist approaches move in a number of different directions and take up a variety of substantial issues. We cannot present them all here, but three of the most important ones are discussed: post-structuralism, postcolonialism, and feminism. Poststructuralism is focused on language and discourse; it adopts a critical attitude towards established approaches in that it highlights the ways in which these theories represent and discuss the world. It is particularly critical of neorealism because of its one-sided focus on (Northern) states. Neorealism presents a world where a variety of actors (e.g., women, the poor, groups in the South, protest movements) and processes (e.g., exploitation, subordination, environmental degradation) are not identified and analysed. Neorealism, therefore, constructs a biased picture of the world that needs to be exposed and criticized in order to give voice to groups that have traditionally lacked one in international relations. Postcolonialism adopts a post-structural attitude in order to understand the situation in areas that were conquered or dominated by Europe, in particular in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. When Western scholars talk about ‘traditional’ and ‘underdeveloped’, ‘Third World’ countries, they are really constructing certain images of these areas that reflect how the powerful dominate and organize the ways in which states in the South are perceived and discussed. Any real liberation of the South needs to critically expose such images; only in that way can the road be paved for really democratic and egalitarian relationships. More particularly, it is necessary to allow the non-West to become not only an object of serious study but a co-producer of knowledge. Feminism underlines that women are a disadvantaged group in the world, in both material terms and in terms of a value system which favours men over women. A 223 224 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES gender-sensitive perspective on IR investigates the inferior position of women in the international political and economic system and analyses how our current ways of thinking about IR tend to disguise as well as to reproduce a gender hierarchy. We are introducing feminist IR-scholarship in this chapter because most feminists share the post-structural critique of positivism. But we should note that there are also liberal, Marxist, constructivist, and critical theory varieties of feminism. The post-positivist criticism of traditional theories is, of course, not the first time that methodological issues have been debated in IR. The second debate, between traditionalists and behaviouralists, also raised the issues of theorists inside and outside the subject and of the best ways of approaching the study of international relations (see Chapter 2). Social constructivism (see Chapter 7) focuses on shared knowledge and understanding rather than on material structures and capabilities. But the post-positivist approaches go a step further in their critique of the established traditions in the discipline. You should be aware that this chapter grapples with a number of complex ontological and epistemological issues, and that the debate about them contains a large number of different views that seldom agree on everything, even if the authors belong to the same (positivist or post-positivist) camp. Several of these nuances will not be discussed here; we simplify in order to paint the larger picture. For a detailed introduction to the philosophical debates connected with positivist and post-positivist approaches, see Lebow (2011), Smith (2016), Suganami (2013), and Jackson (2016). For a good overview of the critique of positivism, see Smith (1996: 11–44). 8.2 Post-structuralism in IR It can be quite difficult to identify a core set of assumptions shared by post-structuralists. But one minimum common understanding is that ‘they explore how the world comes to be represented as it is’ (Zehfuss 2013: 151). All knowledge reflects the interests of the observer. Knowledge is always biased because it is produced from the social perspective of the analyst. Knowledge thus discloses an inclination—conscious or unconscious—towards certain interests, values, groups, parties, classes, nations, and so on. All IR theories are in this sense biased too; Robert Cox (1981) expressed that view in a frequently quoted remark: ‘Theory is always for someone and for some purpose.’ Cox draws a distinction between positivist or ‘problem-solving’ knowledge and critical or ‘emancipatory’ knowledge. Problem-solving knowledge, such as, for example, neorealist theory, is conservative in that it seeks to know that which exists at present: it takes the international system of sovereign states for granted and disregards the way this reality has been constructed by powerful actors in order to pursue their own interests. It is therefore biased towards an international status quo which is based on inequality of power and excludes many people. It cannot lead to knowledge of human progress and emancipation. By contrast, the critical theory advocated by Cox is not confined to an examination of states and the state system but focuses more widely on power and domination in the world. Critical theorists seek knowledge for a larger purpose: to liberate humanity from the oppressive structures of world politics and world economics which are controlled by hegemonic powers, particularly the capitalist United States. They seek to unmask the global domination POST-POSITIVIST APPROACHES: POST-STRUCTURALISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, FEMINISM of the rich North over the poor South, or the way privileged interests are wreaking havoc with the climate in the name of mass consumption (see Chapter 11). Critical theorists are in this regard pursuing a neo-Marxist analysis. Cox’s approach to IPE is presented in Chapter 10; here, we move to that part of post-structuralism that is focused on language and text. This body of theory is indebted to the so-called ‘linguistic turn’, including the notion of ‘discourse’ and ‘speech acts’ (Fierke 2010: 184). Discourse concerns the way we assign meaning to reality via language. It sounds innocent, but it is in fact an exercise of power because it makes a huge difference how we label things and people: is a violent event labelled a criminal act—or even an act of terrorism—or is it rather discussed as a legitimate act of warfare or part of a struggle for freedom? Those who can decide this, decide how we perceive the world. A speech act is an utterance that stands instead of or might even be said to constitute an action. Good examples of speech acts include promising other people something or warning them about something. For example, in international relations, politicians perform a speech act when they label an issue (such as global warming or migration) as a security problem. By doing so, the speaker claims ‘a right to handle the issue through extraordinary means to break the normal political rules of the game’ (Buzan et al. 1998: 24). The starting point is therefore that language is much more than a means of communication; it is ‘a process intrinsic to human social activity . . . to engage in a speech act is to give meaning to the activities which make up social reality. Language thus no longer describes some essential hidden reality; it is inseparable from the necessarily social construction of that reality’ (George and Campbell 1990: 273). Here, post-structuralists are inspired by the ideas of a series of recent French philosophers, including Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva, Barthes, Bourdieu, and Baudrillard. In their view, texts are instruments of power, and ‘truth’ is defined by power over text and speech. Therefore, theory is less a ‘tool for analysis’ than it is an ‘object of analysis’; when we critically analyse the established theories of IR, we can learn how they ‘privilege certain understandings of global politics and marginalize and exclude others’ (George and Campbell 1990: 285). Post-structuralists see empirical theory as a myth. Every theory, including neorealism and neoliberalism, decides for itself what counts as ‘facts’. In other words, there is no objective reality; everything involving human beings is subjective. The dominant theories of IR can be seen as stories that have been told so often that they appear as ‘reality per se’ (Bleiker 2001: 38). But they are not; they are stories from a certain point of view which must be exposed as such and contrasted with other stories from other points of view (Valbjørn 2008a). Poststructuralists do not have the ambition of constructing a new theory of IR which would then seek to replace competing theories. They want to critically engage with all theories, to trace how and why they are constructed the way they are, what they shed light on and what they keep in the dark, and they want to interrogate the relationship between knowledge and power that is involved in this construction. Knowledge and power are intimately related: knowledge is not at all ‘immune from the workings of power’ (Smith 1997: 181; see Box 8.2). A seminal contribution was Ashley’s 1984 article on ‘The Poverty of Neorealism’ (Ashley 1984; 1986). Neorealism claims that only a few elements of information about sovereign states in an anarchical international system can tell us most of the big and important things we need to know about international relations. And the theory even claims to validly explain international politics ‘through all the centuries we can 225 226 MAJOR IR THEORIES AND APPROACHES BOX 8.2 Key Concepts: Knowledge and power All power requires knowledge and all knowledge relies on and reinforces existing power relations. Thus there is no such thing as ‘truth’, existing outside of power. To paraphrase Foucault, how can history have a truth if truth has a history? Truth is not something external to social settings, but is instead part of them . . . Post-positivist international theorists have used this insight to examine the ‘truths’ of international relations to see how the concepts and knowledge-claims that dominate the discipline in fact are highly contingent on specific power relations. Smith (1997: 181) contemplate’ (Waltz 1993: 75). Post-structuralist critique of neorealism targets the ahistorical bias of the theory (Ashley 1986: 189; Walker 1993: 123). Because the theory is ahistorical, it leads to a form of reification in which historically produced social structures are presented as unchangeable constraints given by nature (see also Chapter 11). Emphasis is on ‘continuity and repetition’ (Walker 1995: 309). Individual actors are ‘reduced in the last analysis to mere objects who must participate in reproducing the whole or fall by the wayside of history’ (Ashley 1986: 291). It follows that neorealism has great difficulty in confronting change in international relations. Any thought about alternative futures remains frozen between the stark alternatives of either domestic sovereign statehood and international anarchy or the (unlikely) abolition of sovereign statehood and the creation of world government (see Box 8.3). Rob Walker (1993; 2010; Ashley and Walker 1990) posits ‘sovereignty’ as another conceptual prison of modernity which forces us to think in binary terms of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Within the state, we are part of a community of citizens with rights and aspirations to the good life of peace and progress. Outsiders are excluded; our obligations to the members of ‘humanity’ rest on a much more insecure basis. But the relevance of the inside/outside dichotomy is increasingly challenged by processes of globalization, of intensified relations across borders. Yet both the discipline of IR and the practice of international relations continue to be constituted by the principle of state sovereignty. BOX 8.3 Key Quotes: Ashley on neorealism [N]eorealism is itself an ‘orrery of errors’, a self-enclosed, self-affirming joining of statist, utilitarian, positivist, and structuralist commitments . . . What emerges is a positivist theoretical perspective that treats the given order as the natural order, limits rather than expands political discourse, negates or trivializes the significance of variety across time and place, subordinates all practice to an interest in control, bows to the ideal of a social power beyond responsibility, and thereby deprives political interaction of those practical capacities which make social learning and creative change possible. Ashley (1986: 258) POST-POSITIVIST APPROACHES: POST-STRUCTURALISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, FEMINISM So, for Ashley and Walker, current neorealist theory and its understanding of dominant concepts such as sovereignty are not really helpful if we are looking for a nuanced and many-faceted understanding of international relations that views the subject from a wide array of different social, political, and philosophical standpoints. That is because these theories and concepts close us off from alternative viewpoints; they do so by claiming that their way of looking at the world is universally true and valid. But that is not the case. David Campbell, for example, argues that foreign policy is not a given activity concerning relations between states. It is an ongoing process of producing boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘one of the boundary-producing practices central to the production and reproduction of the identity in whose name it operates’ (Campbell 1992: 75). ‘For the state’ says Campbell, ‘identity can be understood as the outcome of exclusionary practices in which resistant elements to a secure identity on the “inside” are linked through a discourse of “danger” with threats identified and located on the “outside”’ (1992: 75). That is to say, ‘foreign policy’ is a continuing power game on many different levels of society where the exact definition of the danger stemming from anarchy can take many different forms, be it international terrorism, illegal immigrants, or anything else. Our focus should then be on the discursive practice that establishes such boundaries because they also have consequences for identities (who ‘we’ are) and the domestic social order ‘we’ entertain (Campbell 1998). It is thus these very processes that create antagonistic states by—using a binary logic—making societies holistic entities that differ from outsiders. It follows that security threats are not objectively given phenomena; they are discursively constructed through speech acts. This is the analytical focus of the ‘Copenhagen School’ founded by Ole Wæver and Barry Buzan (Buzan et al. 1998; Wæver 2015). ‘Securitization’ is the speech act through which state actors transform issues into matters of ‘security’, understood as a radical form of politization that enables the use of extraordinary measures in the name of ‘security’. For example, following the September 2001 attack on New York and Washington (‘9/11’), political actors have managed to ‘securitize’ the threat of terrorism, which has justified political measures that have arguably often been disproportional to the magnitude of the threat (see Chapter 11). Post-structuralists go on to argue that current neorealist theory is not at all representa