ð Mains aspects of realist theory, internal divergences and critiques from outsiders:
1. THE STATE AS ACTOR
ð Kenneth Waltz suggests that “states set the scene in which they, along with nonstate actors, stage their dramas or carry on their humdrum affairs”
ð Realists argue that the violence-permissive anarchical context of the international system, together with its associated implication that states recognize that they are self help agents, that profoundly constrains and shapes both the goals states choose to pursue (their substantive rationality) and the means they elect to pursue in order to achieve those goals (their instrumental rationality).
ð 3 aspects of realists state rationality standpoint:
1. States are goal oriented
2. State have consistent and transitive goals
3. States are assumed by realists to devise strategies to achieve their goals
a. This means that states have the capacity for unity of action, to act in a coherent manner with regard to other countries
ð Krasner and Ikenberry support this thesis claiming that “a weak US interacts with a strong American Society and still is able to attain the autonomy and coherence of action needed to meet to an important degree the unitary-actor assumption”
o CRITIQUES:
ð Does not take into account the impact of domestic factors on the foreign behavior of states
o Waltz counterpose the way he adapted his theory to value nuclear weapons to explain the Cold War competition.
o
2. STATES INTEREST: SECURITY OR POWER?
ð Waltz notes that “in anarchy, security is the highest end”
ð It should be noted that many realists assert that states seek not just to minimize gaps in power that favor others but also to maximize gaps to their own advantage.
ð Ofensive realists suggests that states seek maximum power because they want security
ð Schweller suggests that in an anarchical environment in which some states are dissatisfied, at least some of the latter will seek to be offensively positional – they will seek to maximize gaps in power to their advantage and will take big risks to achieve those gaps in relative power.
ð Its not only in case of revisionist states that there will be power maximizing bahaviou. Mearsheimer suggests that “the greater the military advantage one has over other states, the more secure it is”
ð 2 consequences of denying the defensive aspect:
1. Schweller says that states are expected to bandwagon rather then balance when the former yield greater power than the latter and, for that, hegemony is to be observed from times to times.
2. Arthur Stein calls it a mercantilist understanding of such interests and, as a consequence, cooperation is essentially impossible to achieve.
ð Offensive John Hertz raises the idea of “Security Dillema”
ð Defensive realism is a most moderns realist trend, while offensive is more linked to early developments of the theory.
ð However defensive realist, even Waltz has 2 points of offensive in his works:
I) “Success is defined as preserving and strengthening the state”. Here it appears that states are both security and power maximizers, and that there is no difference between the two goals.
II) “The possibility that force may be used by some states to weaken or destroy others does, however, make it difficult for them to break out of the competitive system”
ð The same thing happens to Gilpin:
I) “There have been many cases throughout history in which states have forgone apparent opportunities to increase their power because they judged the costs to be too high”
II) “Groups and states seek to control and organize economic relations and activities in ways that will increase their own relative shares of this surplus”
ð Conscious of this fact, Waltz says that the best is not to use realism in such particular cases, keeping it as a tool for general realities
3. RELATIVE POWER
ð Morghentau points out that “the concept of power is always a relative one”
ð Tying this realist argument to the realist view that anarchy causes states to be concerned about their security and survival, realist theory argues that anarchy causes states to be defensive positionalists
REALIST EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS
ð Balancing and Bandwagoing
o Empirical tendency of rather balancing agains a threat or bandwagoing to accommodate within it
o The different views on the prevalence of one over another may indicates that it is not only a systemic based fact, but also includes some aspects of the circumstances involving states.
o Balancing = Waltz and Walt states that if the security and independence of some states are threatened by the growth in power of one state or group of states, the threatened states will respond to that challenge by seeking to take actions that mitigate or offset the growth in power of the rising side
o Aron calls this “Policy of Equilibrium” and emphasizes that balancing is systematically induced for the first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their positions in the system.
o Bandwagoing = Schroeder sees bandwagoing as “historically more common than balancing, specially by small powers”
ð Polarity and stability
o Waltz thesis that multipolar systems tend to be more prone than bipolar systems to instability and possible severe military conflicts
o Chain-ganging (allies are dragged into war by reckless partners) or Buck-passing (each ally hopes that its partners will stand up against a rising challenger, and thus none do so until it is too late)
o John Mearshimer argues that the bipolar structure of the international system from 1945 until 1989 was the main cause of the security and stability that obtained in Western Europe during that period and that a likely multipolar Europe will possibly mean a return to instability and conflict on the continent.
o Aaron Friedberg and Richard Betts, though not writing from a realist perspective, states that raise of multipolarity in East Asia will bring instability.
§ Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder criticizes adding that Waltz neglected one third factor: the perceptions of national decisionamekers about the likely efficacy of offensive military strategies.
§ Ted Hopf criticizes suggesting in a study of European international politics from 1495 to 1559 that there was no significant change in the level of stability of the system in spite of a shift from multipolarity (1495-1521) to bipolarity (1521-1559)
§ Joane Gows, while not addressing specifically Waltz arguments about system structure and stability, shows that the international trading order is likely to be more liberal and more stable if it is embedded in alliances that are formed under conditions of bipolarity than of multipolarity.
§ John Mearshimer argues that the bipolar structure of the international system from 1945 until 1989 was the main cause of the security and stability that obtained in Western Europe during that period and that a likely multipolar Europe will possibly mean a return to instability and conflict on the continent.
o Raises the notion of Hegemonic Stability
§ McKeown and Stein question Gilpin and Krasner’s view over the British key role on promoting free trade during the XIX, aguing that, in fact, it was raising increasingly protectionism.
§ Krasner argues that hegemonic stability thesis, although helpful in accounting for changes in the Post-WW II petroleum regime, does less with regard to money and specially free trade.
§ Bruce Russet and Susan Strange deny the Gilpin/Krasner view of a deterioration in the economic order to the degree they suggested after US power decline after the 70’s
§ In defence of the hegemonic stability, Ikenberry quotes the US power to socialize after war Western Europe, and Lake argues that what is called US predatory protectionism at the end of the 19th century actually benefited free-riders which used this to advance their own national economic interests.
ð Constraints for cooperation
3. Problem of cheating
4. Agents prefer to perform as many functions as possible
· Although the domestic imperative is specialize one finds that the international imperative is take care of yourself
5. Relative gains
OTHER MAIN CRITIQUES
1. Realist theory does not recognize and cannot account for international change, as Friedrich Kratochwil shows resorting to the end of the Cold War
ð Keohane highlights this when he criticizes the domestic determinants which, accordingly, compromise Gilpin and Tucydides essays on the decline of hegemons.
ð John Ruggie criticizes Waltz for he neglects what Durkheim calls “dynamic density” of societies.
ð Alexander Wendt suggests that the very ideas of ‘states’ and ‘anarchy’ are socially constructed, for so, being open to change
o Christensen and Snyder do not argue that focus on decision maker perceptions about the efficacy of offensive strategies can by itself account for international conflict, but rather that a focus on perceptions helps to account for the particular way in which multipolarity breeds such conflict
o Posen notes that institutional dynamics play an important role in allowing systemic constraints and opportunities to make themselves felt and thus to yield doctrinal innovations.
o The interest displayed by the European countries in the EU creates a problem for realist theory.
o Specially if one notes that the cooperation took place when Germany was the economic hegemon in Europe, what was expected to drive other countries to balance against it, and not bandwagoing with it.
§ One can say it was a balance against Japan (which I particularly doubt about)
§ More reasonable is the argument that the institution was built as a “voice oportunity”, which means, a way to benefit from cooperation and, at the same time, impose constraints and rules to the hegemon.
· In this view, Germany would have accepted that for the economic benefits and for the possibility of using this to reentry into European and world affairs
· Also, one can say that German took the risks for foreseeing the possibilities of establishing its domain through a tactful, diplomatic, but unambiguous way.
o COUNTERCLAIMS:
ð Gilplin says that the fundamental nature of world politics has not changed over the millennia, and quotes that classic Thucydides is, for that, still usefull.
ð For Waltz the texture of international politics remains highly constant, patterns recur, and events repeat themselves andlessly.
o “The structure of a system acts as a constraining and diposing force, and because it does so systems theories explain and predict continuity within a system. A systems theory shows why changes at the unit level produce less change of outcomes than one would expectat the absence of systemic constraints”
ð Notwithstanding their claim that continuity in the basic elements of international politics is high and consequential, realists might claim that their theory actually does explain quite a bit of the change thet we observe in the international system
BRIEF OF REALISM CORE
ð In sum, realist theory assumes that states are the key actors in world affairs; that they are rational, autonomous, and unitary actors; and that their goals and strategies are shaped by their anarchical context. On the basis of these assumptions, realists argue that states are fundamentally concerned about their security and in consequence are defensively positional in character; that as such they are anxious about their relative capabilities; and as a result they are attentive to their capacity for autonomous choice and independent action.
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