ð Try to understand the born of a thory of international relations comparing it to the born of economics theory.
ð A theory is an intellectual construction by which we select facts and interpret them. The challenge is to bring theory to bear on facts in ways that permit explanation and prediction.
ð Joseph Schumpeter described the best economic literature of that earlier time as having “all the freshness and fruitfulness of direct observation”. But, he added, it also “shows all the helplessness of mere observation by itself”.
ð The seventeenth-century economist Sir William Petty, suggested to eliminate useless and misleading “facts” as an important endeavor, but not a sufficient one.
ð Theory becomes possible only if various objects and processes, movements and events, acts and interactions, are viewed as forming a domain that can be studied in its own right.
o This was the Physiocrats first achievement.
o Quesnay table of production and consumering cycles was illustrative of the first economic thought to think economy as a self-sustaining whole made up of interacting parts and repeated activities.
ð What Physiocrats did for economics is exactly what Raymond Aron and Morghentau believed to be impossible for students of international politics to accomplish.
ð Aron said international politics suffers from the following difficulties:
o Inumerable factors affect the international system and no distinction can be made between those that are internal and those that are external to it.
o States, the principal international actors, cannot be endowed with a single aim.
o No distinction can be drawn between dependent and independent variables.
o No accounting identities – such as investment equals savings – can be devised.
o No mechanism exists for the restoration of a disrupted equilibrium.
o There is no possibility of prediction and manipulation with identified means leading to specified goals.
ð Aron did not relate obvious differences between economics and politics to the requirements of theory construction. He merely identified differences, in the confident belief that because of them no international-political theory is possible.
ð Morghentau painted a picture of international politics which presented its ‘rational essence’ in a way which forged concepts that might help him to “force away through the undergrowth of facts”.
§ Importance of concepts like: National Interest and Interest Defined as Power.
ð Without a concept of the whole, he could only deal with the parts. As is rather commonly done, he confused the problem of explaining foreign policy with the problem of developing a theory of international politics.
ð A theory indicates that some factors are more important than others and specifies relations among them. In reality, everything ios related to everything else, and one domain cannot be separated from others.
ð To isolate a realm is a precondition to developing a theory that will explain what goes on within it
o The theoretical ambition of Morghentau and Aron was forestalled by their belief that the international political domain cannot be marked off from others for the purpose of constructing a theory.
ð 3 mains points of Aron’s argument:
1. The single world complexity
a. Waltz criticizes saying that, complexity, however, does not work against theory. In fact, he points that deal with this was the economists success.
i. Given the concept of a market they have been able to develop further concepts and draw connections among them.
o Because realists did not solve the first problem, they couldn’t satisfactorily deal with the next two.
2. Economics, politics and social variables makes states to have not but many goals
a. Waltz points that the economic answer for the multiplicity of goals was the creation of “economic man”.
3. The absence of “accounting identities” or the lack of measures and medium of exchange in which goals can be valued and instruments comparatively priced.
a. Waltz points that Adam Smith fundamental works to economy depends on any number, as there are none.
b. Laws do not depend on counting.
c. In politics not everything can be counted or measured, but some things can be. That may be helpful in the application of theories but has nothing to do with their construction.
ð Aron identifies science with the ability to predict and control.
o Walts argues that evolution theories don’t predict anything and astronomy don’t control anything, but, still, they are to be considered theories for their ability to specify causes and to state the theories and laws by which the predictions are made. This being, according to Waltz, the really scope of science.
§ Science provide conditions to predictability and control, but not predictability and control itself.
ð Waltz argues that, by depicting an international political system as a whole, with structural and unit levels at once distinct and connected, neorealism establishes the autonomy of international politics and thus makes theory about it possible.
ð 2 aspects defining the international structure:
1. The ordering principle of the system, in case, the anarchy.
2. The distribution of capability among unities.
a) In an anarchic realm, structures are defined in terms of their major unities. International structures vary with significant changes in the number of great powers.
* CRITIQUE: Buzan improves the critiques of Keohane and Ruggie, among others, when he says that the definition of structure in neorealism shapes it in a way that agent and agencies forces will not fit and, for this reason, will be considered not to be important even if they happen to be in the reality.
ANSWER: Waltz replies that any theory can contains so many variables and forces (dynamic density, demographic trends, information richness, international institutions)… however, he says that, if the theory is good, it will help one to understand and explain them, to estimate their significance and to gauge their effects.
ð A theory can be written only by leaving out most matters that are of practical interest. To believe that listing the omissions of a theory constitutes a valid criticism is to misconstrue the theoretical enterprise.
* Critics points out that logically many factors other than power, such as governmental form or national ideology, can be cast in distributional terms.
ð The distribution of power is of special explanatory importance in self-help political systems because the units of the system are not formally differentiated with distinct functions specified as are the parts of hierarchic orders.
ð The perception and use of power is similarly perceived among the members because they are functionally similar. Any other aspects than power would forbid structural analysis because they would impact different depending on the differences of states in this specific sense.
ð Barry Buzan raises the question of adequacy, which means, expanding or reducing the shape of neorealist theory. Waltz replies that any theory concerned about more variables, and still useful, would be better than the simple one, however, he points that for this it would require a whole new theory, with whole new domain and basic ideas and concepts. It’s not a simple matter of adding or subtracting aspects.
ð Simple adding elements of practical importance would lead neorealism to step back to a realist approach.
ð 4 main differences between realism and neorealism:
1. Neorealism, differently from realism, avoids excess of elements of practical importance.
ð As explained above
2. Neorealism produces a shift in causal relations.
ð The stablished paradigm of any field indicates what facts to scrutinize and how they are interconnected.
ð Realism is primarily inductive, while Neorealism is more heavily deductive.
ð Realists cannot explain the disjunction between supposed causes and observed effects. Neorealists can.
3. Neorealism offers a different interpretation of power.
ð Power as means, not as end.
ð For Morghentau as for Hobbes, even if one has plenty of power and is secure in its possession, more power is nevertheless wanted.
ð Neorealists, rather than viewing power as an end in itself, see power as a possibility useful means, with states running risks if they have either too little or too much of it.
ð Neorealists says that in crucial situations, the ultimate concern of states is not for power but for security.
ð Power in neorealist theory is simply the combined capability of a state. Its distribution across states, and changes in that distribution, help to define structures and changes in them as explained above.
o Waltz replies to the critics that neorealists can’t size power by saying that it’s not a theoretical difficulty but a practical one, highlighted when moving from theory to practical application.
4. Neorealism treats the unit level differently
ð For neorealists states are made functionally similar by the constraints of structure, with the principal difference among them defined according to capabilities.
ð The way neorealists neglect the agents affecting structures is considered a problem by critics, however, Waltz points that it is not for the fact that there is no determination, but simply effect of one over the other.
o In other words, this reverse way is uo to politics, which cannot be better understood by a theory which highlight the systemic constraints to political action.
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