Alexander Wendt
The debate today between realists and liberals is about the extent state action is influenced by structure (anarchy and distribution of power) versus process (interaction and learning) and institutions. Does the absence of centralized political authority force states to play competitive power politics or can international regimes overcome this logic and under what conditions? Is anarchy a given and immutable and what is amenable to change? Both sides share a commitment to rationalism and rational choice theory directs us to ask some questions and not others, as it treats identities and interests of agents as outwardly given and how the focus of agents determines outcomes. Rationalism is fundamentally behavioral conception of process and institutions: they change behavior, but not identities or institutions. States are also the dominant actors in the system and define security through self-interest. Neorealists see states just reacting to given pressures in a system. Liberals argue that process can generate some cooperative behavior, but only if institutions can change powers and interests.
There is an alteration in the way liberals are looking at international relations. There is an important role for transformations of identity and interest in the liberal research program that is a stronger conception of the process in world politics. Transformation of identity and interest are transformations of structure. Regimes cannot change identities and interests if the latter ar taken as givens. Liberals lack a way of understanding why change occurs.
Wednt seeks to develop a constructivist argument drawn from structurationist and symbolic interactionist sociology on behalf of the liberal claim that international institutions can transform state identities and state interests. Identities and interests are the dependent variable here. The self-help world we are in is due to process rather than structure. Self-help and power politics are institutions rather than essential features of anarchy.
Anarchy and Power Politics:
Egotism and power politics rooted in human nature for classical realists; structural realits emphasize anarchy. Anarchy, for Kenneth Waltz, is a condition of possibility for or permissive cause of war: wars happen because nothing exists to prevent them. It is the human nature or domestic politics of the state, that provide the initial impetus or efficient cause for war which forces other states to respond in turn. Waltz later changed his mind and concluded the logic of anarchy constituted self-help and power politics as necessary features of world politics.
Practices in the former system imply anarchy does not by itself lead one to war. Self-interested constructs of self-help and anarchy by showing that self-interested conceptions of security are not a constructive property of anarchy and may be produced casually by processess of ineraction between states in which anarchy plays only a permissive role.
Anarchy, Self-Help, and Intersubjective Knowledge:
A balance of threats rather than a balance of power determine's a state's action as the former are socially constructed. Without assumptions about the structure of identites and interests in this system, Waltz cannot predict the content or dynamics of anarchy. Is self-help a logical contingent feature of anarchy? People act towards objects, including other actors, on the basis of meanings that the objects have for them. Enemies provoke different respones than friends. Distributions of power affect states' calculation, but how it doe so depends on intersubjective understandings and exceptions, the distribution of knowledge. Actors need identities: relaitvely stable, role specific understandings and expectations about self - by participating in such collective meanings and these are inherantly relational. What a state holds about itself and one another constitute the structure of the world.
Actors define interests in the process of defining situations. An actor holding a view of himself will see certain situations as requring certain actions, even if they fail to act on them. An institution is a relatively stable set of structures and interests. They have motivational force only in virtue of actor's socialization to and participation in collective knowledge. As collective knowledge, they are experienced as having an existence over and above individuals who happen to embody them in any given moment. Institutionalization is a process of internalizing new identities and interests, not something occuring outside of them and only affecting behavior.
Self-help is one such institution. Proceses of identity formation under anarchy are concerned first and foremost with preservation or security of the self. Security is treated as the indiviudal responsibility of each state. This is in contrast to the cooperative security system where states identify positively with one another so that the security of one is percieved as the responsibility of all. National interests become international ones. Depending on how well developed the collective self is, prosocial and altruistic practice might emerge. States think of advancing power politics in terms of shared norms rather than relative power.
A history of interaction is necessary to establish the relationships between states. Self-help is an institution, not a constructive feature of anarchy. The raw material out of which member of the state sytem are constituted is created by domestic society before states enter the system. A desire to survive is also prevelant.
Anarchy and the Social Construction of Power Politics:
Self-help emerges causally from processses in which anarchy plays only a permissive role. The meanings in terms of which action is organized arise out of interaction. If only states that look after their interest survive, then identites and interests are constant and priviliging one particular meaning of anarchic structure over process. In this cae, rationalists would be right to contend a weak behavioral conception of the difference that institutions make and realists would be right to argue that any international institutions which are created will be inherantly unstable as tbey will only be restrained by the transaction costs of behavorial change. Anarchy may decisively restrict interaction and therefore restrict viable forms of systemic theory.
The self is a reflection of an actor's socialization. If two actors seeking self-preservation with material capabilities face each other with no biological or domestic imperatives for power, glory, or conquest, and there is no history of interaction, what will they do? The possibility of error does not force us to act on the assumption that the other is threatening: actions depend on the probabilities assigned and these are a function of what the other does. The process of socialization creates a series of intersubjective meanings. Every action adds to the pool of meanings: interaction rewards actors for holding certain ideas over time about each other and discourages others. If repeated long enough, these will create relatively stable concepts of self and other regarding the issue at stake in the interaction. Only through interaction do we create and instantiate the relatively enduring social structrues in terms of which we define our identities and interests. Self-help security systems evolve from cycles of interactions in which each party acts in ways that the other is not to be trusted. Competitive efforts of interaction are prone to security dilemmas where the efforts of actors to enhance their security unilaterally threatens the security of all others, perpetuating distrust and alienation. Security dillemmas though, are not given by nature.
Predator States and Anarchy As Permissive Cause:
Why does our system have self-regarding states in lieu of a collective identity. Predator states in conjunction with anarchy as a permissive caue generate a self-help system. For whatever reason some states are aggressive and therefore other states have to meet fire with fire. In an anarchy of many state, it is not necessarily the case that a collective identity to resist aggressors could not exist. The principle of all for one and one for all may draw people in if a collective identity is there. Timing is key. A genetically predispositioned predatory state does not make the others predatory, but more mindful of their security and engaged in competition with it until it is destroyed or transformed. If it results from victimization, then it is more a learned identity then perhaps conciliation, appeasement, etc might make it more socialable.
What is the role of how much and what kind of role does human nature and domestic politics play in international politics? The greater and more destructive this role, the more significant predation will be.
Institutional Transformations of Power Politics:
Once constituted, any social system confronts each of its members as an objective social fact that reinforces certain behaviors and discourages others. Self-help rewards competition and punishes altruism. Change depend on whether the exigencies of such competition leave room for deviation. People are also wary of altering the status quo: it has costs. A realist might concede that systems of self-help are socially constructed and still argue that corresponding identities and interets have become institutionalized, they are impossible to reform.
Sovereignty, Recognition, and Security:
Sovereignty is an evolution of Hobbes' state of nature by conceding that another kingdom has a right to exercise excluive political authority within its territorial limits. This disempowers nonstate actors while stabilizing interaction among states. States have to act on these norms or else they would disappear: the state is an ongoing accomplishment of practice, not a once-and-for-all creation of norms that somehow exist apart from practice.
For them to be produced in the first place: the density and regulation of interactions needed to be sufficiently high and actors had to dissatisfied with prexisting forms of identity and interaction. States treating each other as sovereign would overtime they will institutionalize that mode. States define their security in terms of preserving property rights over territory; they will be more respectful toward the territorial rights of others; states know they can rely on the international system more than their own military power for security.
Cooperation Among Egoists and Transformations of Identity:
Hobbes has no cooperation. Lockean world has mutally recognized property and peaceful competition in security, enabling more opportunities for cooperation. Frequent interaction between states leads to game theory model where a tit for tat conception of the future lets players build cooperative institutions. In game theory the structure of the game does not change based on interests or identites, it revolves around the relationship between expectations and behavior. The rules are external to the actors and resist change due to the transaction costs of creating new ones.
Constructivist analysis of cooperation would concentrate on how the expectations produced by a behavior affect identity and interest. Creating an institution is one of internalizing new understandings of self and other, not about just constraining the behavior of others. This will lead to a positive interdependence of outomces into a positive interdependence of utilities based aroud the norms in question. These norms will stay because they are tied to commitments actors make to their identities and interests.
Critical Strategic Theory and Collective Security:
The transformation of identity and interest through an evolution of cooperation faces two important constraints: it is slow and cooperation occurs as an unintended consequence of policies pursued for other reasons; states must also react positively to each other. The vulnerabilities inherant in cooperation make any conception of relativitic conceptions of security dangerous for group solidarity.
Wendt thinks a transformation can occur if the following occurs:
A breakdown of identity commitments is needed, like Soviet abandonment of inevitability of capitalist conflict. Breakdown of the concensus allows a second stage of critical analysis to occur where old conceptions of self can be critically examined. Changing the self and other, however, requires changing other's perceptions by acting differently, presumably getting the other guy to follow suit.
Showing posts with label International Relations Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Relations Theory. Show all posts
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Politics Among Nations: Political Power
Hans Morgenthau
POLITICAL POWER AS A MEANS TO A NATION'S END:
International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aim, power is the immediate aim. Regardless of goal, they will need power if they want to make a difference using international politics. It does not follow that every action a nation performs with respect to another is undertaken with a consideration of power. Not all nations at all times are to the same extent involved in international politics.
THE NATURE OF POLITICAL POWER: FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Power is one's control over the minds and actions of others. Political power refers to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large. Political power is a psychological relation between those who exercise it and those over whom it is exercised. The extent political power alters behavior is dependent on three sources: the expectation of benefits, the fear of disadvantages, and the respect or love for men or institutions. It can be exerted through orders, threats, the authority or charisma of those in office, or any combination. Distinctions must be made between power and influence; power and force; usable and unusable power, and legitimate and illegitimate power.
One who advises a president on U.S. foreign policy can influence the president's decision-making, but has no power over him while a president can impose his will on the latter through the authority of his office, the promise of benefits and the threat of disadvantages.
When violence becomes an actuality, it signifies the abdication of political power in favor of military power. In international politics, armed power as a threat or a potentiality is the most important matieral factor making for the power of a nation: it substitutes psychological relationships with physical ones where the stronger always prevails.
Only a nation acting irrationally would use its nuclear power.
Legitimate power as distinguished against illegitimate power. Power exercised with moral or legal authorities must be distinguished against naked power. Legitimate power likely more effective than illegitimate power. There has been a tendency to reduce political power to the actual application of force or at least to equate it with successful threats of force with persuasion. Whatever the material objects of foreign policy, such as the acquisition of sources of raw materials, control of sea lanes, or territorial changes, they will always entail the control of the actions of others through influence over their minds. War about altering the opponent's mind to yield to the will of the victor.
There is a distinction between economic undertakings done for their own sake and a state deliberately seeking to control the economic choices of another nation. In the latter case, policy is to be measured against how it serves the larger power objectives of the controlling state.
THE DEPRECIATION OF POLITICAL POWER:
The struggle for power is universal and nothing liberals or Marxists can say will change that. Drive for power more than an institution hoisted upon man: it is an elemental bio-physical drive through which society is created: drives to live, propogate, and dominate. Domestic and international politics are both struggles for power modified only by the different conditions under which the struggle takes place.
TWO ROOTS OF THE DEPRECIATION OF POLITICAL POWER:
The philosophy of international relations which dominated the nineteenth century and holds considerable sway today and the particular political and intellectual circumstances which have determined the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world have depreciated the role power plays in international politcs. The rise of the middle class meant the end of an autocratic and aristocratic system of government and the naked use of force entailed by both in foreign policy: indirect economic ties now compelled nations to arbitrate, or so was thought. The United States, given it unqiue anti-colonial tradition, its isolation from the power centers of the world, and the humanitarian pacifism and anti-imperialism of its politcal creed signaled, to Americans anyway, a break from the ways of the past.
THE SCIENCE OF PEACE: CONTEMPORARY UTOPIANISM:
Scientific utopianism offers an alternative to the perennial wisodom of the rationalist approach. It starts with the aumption that the world is thoroughly accesible to science and reason that it contains in itself all the elements necessary for harmonious cooperation of all mankind. Law must apply the precepts of free trade and harmonious interests to thoe areas where they do not apply spontaneously. Since all men are rational, sooner or later they must meet on the assumption that all can be solved through a forumla acceptable to all. The benefits of commerce and peace being so obvious, conflict is merely the product of ignorance and error. Political history becomes a succession of scientific problems capable of scientific solutions, but most unreasonably handled by an ignorant and impassioned humanity. Conflicts are not political problems to be solved temporarily, but technical ones for which reason will find one correct solution.
What they want is simple, rational, mechanical, what they have to deal with is complicated, irrational, and incalcuable. So they rely on abolishing war as the object of ending conflict. But war are caused by all kinds of things that have their roots in the human heart. It is also rooted in the human heart the desire to try to reform a complex world, meaning this stuff will stay around.
E
POLITICAL POWER AS A MEANS TO A NATION'S END:
International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aim, power is the immediate aim. Regardless of goal, they will need power if they want to make a difference using international politics. It does not follow that every action a nation performs with respect to another is undertaken with a consideration of power. Not all nations at all times are to the same extent involved in international politics.
THE NATURE OF POLITICAL POWER: FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Power is one's control over the minds and actions of others. Political power refers to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large. Political power is a psychological relation between those who exercise it and those over whom it is exercised. The extent political power alters behavior is dependent on three sources: the expectation of benefits, the fear of disadvantages, and the respect or love for men or institutions. It can be exerted through orders, threats, the authority or charisma of those in office, or any combination. Distinctions must be made between power and influence; power and force; usable and unusable power, and legitimate and illegitimate power.
One who advises a president on U.S. foreign policy can influence the president's decision-making, but has no power over him while a president can impose his will on the latter through the authority of his office, the promise of benefits and the threat of disadvantages.
When violence becomes an actuality, it signifies the abdication of political power in favor of military power. In international politics, armed power as a threat or a potentiality is the most important matieral factor making for the power of a nation: it substitutes psychological relationships with physical ones where the stronger always prevails.
Only a nation acting irrationally would use its nuclear power.
Legitimate power as distinguished against illegitimate power. Power exercised with moral or legal authorities must be distinguished against naked power. Legitimate power likely more effective than illegitimate power. There has been a tendency to reduce political power to the actual application of force or at least to equate it with successful threats of force with persuasion. Whatever the material objects of foreign policy, such as the acquisition of sources of raw materials, control of sea lanes, or territorial changes, they will always entail the control of the actions of others through influence over their minds. War about altering the opponent's mind to yield to the will of the victor.
There is a distinction between economic undertakings done for their own sake and a state deliberately seeking to control the economic choices of another nation. In the latter case, policy is to be measured against how it serves the larger power objectives of the controlling state.
THE DEPRECIATION OF POLITICAL POWER:
The struggle for power is universal and nothing liberals or Marxists can say will change that. Drive for power more than an institution hoisted upon man: it is an elemental bio-physical drive through which society is created: drives to live, propogate, and dominate. Domestic and international politics are both struggles for power modified only by the different conditions under which the struggle takes place.
TWO ROOTS OF THE DEPRECIATION OF POLITICAL POWER:
The philosophy of international relations which dominated the nineteenth century and holds considerable sway today and the particular political and intellectual circumstances which have determined the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world have depreciated the role power plays in international politcs. The rise of the middle class meant the end of an autocratic and aristocratic system of government and the naked use of force entailed by both in foreign policy: indirect economic ties now compelled nations to arbitrate, or so was thought. The United States, given it unqiue anti-colonial tradition, its isolation from the power centers of the world, and the humanitarian pacifism and anti-imperialism of its politcal creed signaled, to Americans anyway, a break from the ways of the past.
THE SCIENCE OF PEACE: CONTEMPORARY UTOPIANISM:
Scientific utopianism offers an alternative to the perennial wisodom of the rationalist approach. It starts with the aumption that the world is thoroughly accesible to science and reason that it contains in itself all the elements necessary for harmonious cooperation of all mankind. Law must apply the precepts of free trade and harmonious interests to thoe areas where they do not apply spontaneously. Since all men are rational, sooner or later they must meet on the assumption that all can be solved through a forumla acceptable to all. The benefits of commerce and peace being so obvious, conflict is merely the product of ignorance and error. Political history becomes a succession of scientific problems capable of scientific solutions, but most unreasonably handled by an ignorant and impassioned humanity. Conflicts are not political problems to be solved temporarily, but technical ones for which reason will find one correct solution.
What they want is simple, rational, mechanical, what they have to deal with is complicated, irrational, and incalcuable. So they rely on abolishing war as the object of ending conflict. But war are caused by all kinds of things that have their roots in the human heart. It is also rooted in the human heart the desire to try to reform a complex world, meaning this stuff will stay around.
E
Politics Among Nations: The Science of International Politics
Hans Morgenthau
UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL POLITICS:
Morgenthau wants to detect and understand the forces that determine political relations among nations and to comprehend the ways in which those forces act upon each other and upon international political relations and institutions.
International politics, for Morgenthau, must be defined distinctly from recent history and current events, international law, and political reform. With the shifting emphases and changing perspectives, an observer can only gain an objective standard of evaluation of the present through the correlation of recent events with a more distant past and the perennial qualities of human nature underlying both.
LIMITATIONS TO UNDERSTANDING:
The most formidable difficulty facing a theoretical inquiry into the nature and ways of international politics is the ambiguity of the material with which the observer has to deal. The events he must understand are unique occurrences. They happened one way and will never occur again. They are also similar manifestations of social forces that are products of human nature in action: under similar conditions they will manifest themselves in a similar manner.
Dealing with different political situations, we should ask ourselves: how does a situation differ from a preceding one and how is it similar? If one wants to understand international politics, gras the meaning of contemporary events, and foresee the future, he must be able to perform the dual intellectual trask implicit in distinguishing between the similarities and differences in two political situations. Thr complexities of international affairs make simple solutions and trustworthy prophecies impossible: knowledge of the forces that determine politics among nations and of the ways which their politcal relations would unfold, reveals the ambiguity of the facts of international politics. In every political situation contradictory tendencies are at play. All we can do make educated guesses on why one tendency might prevail over another.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE:
The United States is impacted by international politics in a way it had never been before. Promotion of the American national interest remains the primary aim of foreign policy, the avoidance of a nuclear holocaust, aka the preservation of peace, is the prime concern of all nations. In a world whose moving force is the aspiration of sovreign nations for power, peace can be maintained only by two devices: the self-regulatory mechanism of social forces manifested in the struggle for power on the international scene: aka, the balance of power. The other is the normative limitations on that struggle as shown in international institutions.
UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL POLITICS:
Morgenthau wants to detect and understand the forces that determine political relations among nations and to comprehend the ways in which those forces act upon each other and upon international political relations and institutions.
International politics, for Morgenthau, must be defined distinctly from recent history and current events, international law, and political reform. With the shifting emphases and changing perspectives, an observer can only gain an objective standard of evaluation of the present through the correlation of recent events with a more distant past and the perennial qualities of human nature underlying both.
LIMITATIONS TO UNDERSTANDING:
The most formidable difficulty facing a theoretical inquiry into the nature and ways of international politics is the ambiguity of the material with which the observer has to deal. The events he must understand are unique occurrences. They happened one way and will never occur again. They are also similar manifestations of social forces that are products of human nature in action: under similar conditions they will manifest themselves in a similar manner.
Dealing with different political situations, we should ask ourselves: how does a situation differ from a preceding one and how is it similar? If one wants to understand international politics, gras the meaning of contemporary events, and foresee the future, he must be able to perform the dual intellectual trask implicit in distinguishing between the similarities and differences in two political situations. Thr complexities of international affairs make simple solutions and trustworthy prophecies impossible: knowledge of the forces that determine politics among nations and of the ways which their politcal relations would unfold, reveals the ambiguity of the facts of international politics. In every political situation contradictory tendencies are at play. All we can do make educated guesses on why one tendency might prevail over another.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE:
The United States is impacted by international politics in a way it had never been before. Promotion of the American national interest remains the primary aim of foreign policy, the avoidance of a nuclear holocaust, aka the preservation of peace, is the prime concern of all nations. In a world whose moving force is the aspiration of sovreign nations for power, peace can be maintained only by two devices: the self-regulatory mechanism of social forces manifested in the struggle for power on the international scene: aka, the balance of power. The other is the normative limitations on that struggle as shown in international institutions.
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