A state- centric approach is best able to explain the dynamics in and of the international system. Discuss.

A state- centric approach is best able to explain the dynamics in and of the international system. Discuss. Paper: Political Science Final Name: CPR no.: Name of programme: International Business & Politics Date of submission: 22 nd December 2016 Tutorial class: Lecturer: Number of pages: 10 Number of characters: 22712 Reference system: Harvard 1

Has the world advanced into a mechanism that neglects cooperation where the overall good is set-aside for individual states own sake? If so, what does this imply when operating in the international sphere in a seemingly interdependent world? Is there space for national self-interests or does it defeat its own purpose by not allying with other states? This academic piece will attempt to address these issues. It will do so by considering the school of thought - neorealism, which is developed mainly by Kenneth Waltz (Heywood 2013: 409). Realism has been the leading view on international politics since World War II as a consequence of its evident accuracy in nations favouring their own interests (Heywood 2013: 408). Waltz principles of realism build on the idea of these dynamics in politics concerning the international system, which is all about power politics - the overarching objective of power over other nations (Garner 2016: 350). Drawing on these ideas, this paper will argue that the approach of neorealism is best at explaining the dynamics in and of the international system. This will be done by identifying strengths of neorealism and flaws of classical realism and liberalism, since it is a comparative essay. In the refuting paragraphs, constructivism will be discussed. These approaches have been chosen because they are the most dominant ones (Garner 2016: 116). This paper will be applying relevant theories and discuss urging real-life cases of today s international world to support that neorealist thinking is the best explanation. There are many existing theories on how to explain the dynamics in and of the international system, but this paper will be discussing from the viewpoint of the statecentric approach of neorealism. Before a thorough analysis can be done, the key concepts needs to be defined in order to reach a consensus on the terms we are presented with. As for the state-centric approach it will be considered as the neorealism approach, and in International Relations states are perceived as the chief actors, hence why this paper will not refer to them as nation-states (Hobson 2003: 24). Neorealism will be considered as opposed to classical realism, as neorealism holds more relevant assumptions related to today s more modern international arena (Waltz 1979: 38). As for the word dynamics it will be interpreted as the actions leading to the very existence of an international system. Precisely constructivism has been chosen to feature in the refuting paragraphs to bring in a great range of approaches, as the question asks for which is best, which means that the more approaches considered, 2

the more accurate is the decision of neorealism being the best approach. The argument for outlining key concepts is to utilize them, as there is now no ambiguity on how the words should be interpreted when now going into deeper analysis. Firstly, four theoretical paragraphs will be presented and after that four paragraphs showing empirical evidence of the theory. Since the given question asks for choosing one approach to best explain the international system, it is necessary make a comparative analysis, otherwise it would be fruitless since it would be a mere description of one approach without evaluation. Neorealism is the outgrowth of classical realism, which has its roots in Machiavelli and Hobbes assumptions that mankind is innately greedy and inherently egoistic, where they believe history will repeat itself because the main actors in politics will remain the same, hence a perpetual international political system will circulate (Frankel 2013: 248). However, neorealism differs from classical realism. Waltz criticises the assumptions made by realists because, firstly, it is impossible to empirically prove that human nature is unjust and greedy, and secondly, by Morgenthau s realist approach the nature that started WWII was the very same nature that ended it, which is fundamentally contradictory (Waltz, 1959: 28, 166). Thirdly, realism is accused of reductionism because how can same patterns of the international system reoccur while the actors are constantly changing (Waltz 1979: 65, 74). On the other hand, neorealism attempts to correct the presented flaws. Neorealism is often called structural realism, which obviously means it deals with structure. Waltz conception of the international system is believed to be of a unit level, which implies anarchy. He also introduces the idea of distribution of capabilities, signifying that features such as power vary greatly, but in accordance to the relative size of the state (Fox 2013: 60). Thus, already in the origins of neorealism it is seemingly a more prominent approach when explaining the international system. Since the flaws of realism have been underlined, it then leaves neorealism to be in the better position. Neorealism reserves state s interests, which are derived from the domestic sphere, to be self-centred and do not believe in natural harmony of interests of states. Classical realism is mainly focused on power/security issues, where as neorealism considers a much broader range. According to neorealism, the structure of the international 3

system has shaped the national interests and the way states behave in the realm of the international scene (Schieder 2014: 38). As mentioned earlier, a state s interest should be considered in respect to the relativeness of a state s capabilities. Because of this, states have different interests they pursue and therefore in a conceptual framework of neorealism, the national interests should be understood through relativeness. This explains why not all states pursue same goals and differences in political agendas are present, which is true in a today s international system. In contrast, liberalism is presented as a form of utopia and is linked to liberal internationalism, which is a theory of politics where human rights are prioritized over national sovereignty, which will be rejected by empirical cases later on (Burchill 2005: 121; Heywood 2013: 117). Neorealism in the sense of national interests is therefore less polarized in its explanation of dynamics and thus more true to reality, which goes in line with the main argument of neorealism to be the most precise approach. Waltzian neorealism has raised the question of when a state possesses enough power. Classical realism explains that states seek autonomy because they exist in a self-help system and that no state wants mutual dependency since the world is deemed dangerous and war can erupt instantly (Heywood 2013: 412). Neorealism is a theory interested in relative gains, as opposed to another country receiving absolute gains and thereby use that power over the other subsequently (Hobson 2003: 18). The question of how much power is enough is closely linked to the security paradox (Heywood 2013: 441). In order for survival, the state will inevitably internally armour itself in the best way possible. However, this can be seen as aggressive by other states, which will cause other states to also armour themselves even more, which then would defeat its own purpose. This was further developed by Waltz defensive realism. Indeed, the objective for states is to survive, but Waltz would argue that states at least seek survival and at most hegemony, because states, again, consider their relativeness (Tang 2010: 32). The implications of this is that states do pursue different political and economic goals, where classical realism again fails to address more than just the military aspect of the international system. It is important to remember that just because one theory is more accurate does not mean the lesser should be rejected completely, but inevitably, this shows that neorealism again 4

provides a better explanation of the international system, which supports the chief argument. Neorealism believes that power resides in the states and that they act as they do because of anarchy in the international system. They do acknowledge supranational organizations such as the United Nations (UN), but claim they have limited influence. In neorealism, states are therefore absolutely the most important actors and have sovereignty. However, an important distinction needs to be made. Neorealism believes that it is not the structure itself that is anarchic; the anarchy is the ordering principle to Waltz. The difference is that a principle explains how structures emerge and that they are not structures themselves (Frankel 2013: 74). Neorealism explains the international system in terms of outcomes; the approach explains outcomes by the assumption that autonomous state actors balance each other, which is also know as balance of power. Waltz explains that a universal empire is not present exactly because balance of power emerges, which prevents a world government (Garner 2016: 357). Ultimately, Waltz neorealism advocates that although states have high domestic agential power, they lack international agential power to decide the world s uniform political agenda. In contrast, liberalism is of the belief that it is in the interest of states to cooperate for a greater overall good. Liberalist thinking has roots back to ideas of Immanuel Kant (Brown 1996: 158). Kant s Democratic Peace Theory postulates that democracies are less likely to go to war, but in the following sections it will prevail that neorealism s national self-interests is superior to liberalism in that liberalism reaches for the overall good. This paragraph served to juxtaposition neorealism and liberalism as a means to cement the basis of how neorealism is best at explaining the international system when compared to liberalism. Much, and highly relevant, empirical evidence can be presented when arguing in favour of neorealism, which shows that neorealist thinking is present in today s international system. Examples of egoism of the states stretches to many countries such as the U.K. undergoing Brexit, the U.S. having elected Trump, and in Denmark where the Danish People s Party experiences a huge rise in new-coming voters. Brexit highlights that states nowadays tend to be more narrow-minded in terms of cooperation, as the U.K. now limits itself by cutting off diplomatic and economical 5

ties. Furthermore, Brexit pinpoints the neorealist belief of states pursuing different interests since the U.K. is an immense state they believe they can leave the EU, as to where it is highly possible that a state such as Denmark would not even consider leaving the EU because the gravity of that would have a spiral of negative effects. Turning to the American election. Trump s popularity stems, among other factors, from his public proclaims where he endorses nationalistic politics, which focuses mainly on military and also economical initiatives for the benefit of only the U.S. Again, this emphasizes that classical realism is not extensive enough to describe the international system, as it only considers high politics compared to neorealism dealing with a wider range of circumstances (Heywood 2013: 408). These examples show that indeed neorealism is best at explaining the international system, because neorealism builds on the idea that national self-interests are derived domestically from individuals and groups, which in these cases refers to the individual voter. Neorealism does acknowledge that cooperation can happen between states, but on the premise that the matter is urgent enough to intervene. Climate change is a hot topic in the international sphere and inflicts degradation of, for example, factors of production for various countries, hence why states have come together to resolve global warming. In 1992 the first international conference on climate, Rio s Earth Summit, took place. This resulted in the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) intervention, which called for emissions to be cut to safe levels. Furthermore, in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was the first initiative to have legally binding objectives and in 2009 the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen took place with the purpose of formulating a replacement of the Kyoto Protocol. Seemingly, there has been a liberalistic thinking to solve such an issue, however that is only when approaching the issue and not considering the reality of the outcomes from these conventions. Although international cooperation was, seemingly, the case, there are huge flaws in the assumption that these conferences actually brought about credible solutions. The FCCC was accepted by 181 governments, but was a mere framework and had no legally binding objectives. Adding on, even though the Kyoto protocol had legally binding means, it failed to have the U.S. (that time the biggest emitter) to ratify the treaty and it did not even include China or India, two major polluters. Moreover, COP15 failed to formulate new binding obligations and to even reach a 6

global target of emission cuts (Heywood 2013: 440). Hereby, the very same nature for global cooperation is the same reason for the failing of reaching consensus on actions, because every nation will not deem the relative gains beneficial enough to fully commit to the overall good, which agrees with neorealist thinking. This also highlights the neorealist idea of the extent to which states can solely dominate the international system. The international anarchy, pointed out by neorealists, encourages international conflict, because the primary concern for states is to maintain their position. This discourages cooperation while also limiting the effectiveness of international organizations. By this view, international politics is a zero-sum game, meaning states can only progress in the rankings by the loss of another state s power (Heywood 2013: 412). This is exemplified in the European Union s (EU) handling of the urging refugee crisis. Today, refugees are stripped of human rights and dying in their struggle to reach Europe, which can be explained by a neorealist approach to this issue. The massive influx of refugees to Greece is supposedly to be supported by the EU, but out of the 1916 EU civil servants promising to help, only fewer than 200 have actually succeeded in doing so, and funding to support these refugees remains inadequate (The Guardian 2016). Alike the popularity of Trump s acclaimed nationalistic politics, the Schengen area increased its border patrols in order to lower the number of refugees. These actions reveal strong anti-cooperative sentiments, which is detrimental to the overall good, but at the same time highlights that neorealism is, in fact, the best approach to explain the dynamics of the international system. The EU Commission proposed to individually assign a quota of refugees and fine up to 250,000 euros for each refugee that is not accepted into the country (The Telegraph 2016). Seemingly, this would be a fair distribution, but the proposal faced strong opposition, which is a prime example of how relative gains is the main priority of states. Evidently, Euroscepticism is rising not only within the U.K, but also internationally. The last supporting paragraph uses empirical evidence to present neorealism as the best explaining approach by exploring veto rights and how the UN has failed Syria and combating Daesh (ISIL). In the Security Council, the five consistent members can 7

cast veto no matter how many states are in favour of a proposal (Heywood 2013: 438). This indicates that the structure of the UN allows for a neorealist approach. Veto rights in relation to the Syrian civil war, caused by Bashar al-assad trying to oppress a popular uprising, lead the UN Secretary-General to state that the UN has failed Syria by proclaiming that big power divisions should look beyond national interest (The Guardian 2015), which demonstrates that on an international level, states pursue own interests. In relation to combating ISIL, neorealism dominates when considering the motives of intervening in war. The official reasoning behind US s forming of an international coalition that bombs ISIL in Iraq, is of a humanitarian intervention, which infers it is for the Iraqi people s protection of human rights (Heywood 2013: 423). At the same time, China reported ending its long-lasting neutrality, and later intervened in the combat, however China refused to be a part of the U.S. led coalition (Garver 2016: 564). Through a liberal lens, it provides understanding for attempts to resolve the condemnation of ISIL, however minimal results at a global level were evident. The underlying motives for the U.S. and China to intervene in Iraq, through a neorealist approach, may then best be understood in that each state purses the best possible outcome with Iraq, being a supplier of the crucial commodity oil to both states, to maximize relative gains. The next three paragraphs will put forward valid explanations of how to explain the dynamics of the international system through the lens of constructivism, but these standpoints will be refuted by the neorealist approach. Constructivism is the approach of analysis where there is no political reality existing independently outside each individual s understanding of a given matter (Garner 2016: 367). As a post-positivist approach, constructivism emphasises that power does emerge from the actions of rational agents or states, but in ideas that people come to believe in collectively. Proposed by Alexander Wendt, constructivism, in contrasts to neorealism, asserts that state behaviour is determined by how the states independently interpret the international anarchic system (Weber 2005: 20). As argued by Heywood, constructivism can therefore be seen as less of a substantive theory, and is more an analytical tool to explain the international system. The successor to constructivism is then the neorealist belief that helps understand the motives of state actions through a materialistic viewpoint, which the above-mentioned empirical evidences also support. 8

Thus, the points presented speak in favour of the argument of neorealism explaining the international system best, as neorealism is evidently better at explaining the dynamics, in relation to the provided definition in the beginning, in the international realm, whereas constructivism merely provides a reductionist philosophical motive of ideas only and not action (Heywood 2013: 17, 411). Through constructivism, states have individual views on the anarchic structure and it believes that states can embrace the international system and cooperation. Thus, through constructivism, some states see the anarchic system as a foundation for freedom through cooperation. Constructivists hereby argue that states, through individual views, might prioritise global cooperation. An empirical case that shows even though two states have, more or less, similar political ideologies and structures, can still widely differ in the way they act in the international arena, which is exemplified by Denmark and Norway s individual relationship with the EU. Denmark and Norway are two states that are similar since they both follow the same political Nordic model and advocate liberal thoughts in both their domestic and foreign policies (Hilson 2008: 23). So, if the constructivist argument were to hold, then these countries would act more or less the same within the national political space, since they are driven by the same ideas. It is, however, quite clear that this is not the case as Norway is not a part of the EU. Contrastingly, the neorealist explanation does a much better job at explaining this discrepancy. The difference in actions results from the relativeness of capabilities that states possess (Fox 2013: 60). If Denmark were to have more influence, an increase in relative size is necessary, while Norway has the capabilities, for example money, to sustain itself without EU-cooperation. This example shows that, even though constructivism is seen as a prominent school of thought, neorealism explains the international system best through distribution of capabilities. By the case presented, it shows that the true nature of states interacting in the international system is that states operate in relative gains. However, not to discredit that states do, in fact, have different opinions on the international system, but neorealism is superior in explaining the actual dynamics (outcomes), and not just that states differ in their process of reaching these outcomes. 9

The social constructivist Wendt, argues that neorealism is limited in its thinking of just assuming that anarchy is ruling the world (Keohane 1986: 24). However, Waltz definition of anarchy, that there is no international government which also has been established earlier, supports that violence through an international anarchic system is, in fact, the reality of today (Hobson 2008: 88). Furthermore, John Mearsheimer argues that neorealists see a knowable world as opposed to constructivists who faces a world of endless interpretations and no final structures (Mearsheimer 1995: 41). Mearsheimer further argues that constructivism offers a theory on people and states being infinitely changeable, meaning that systems are very likely to change, but this can be refuted by the concept of path dependence on states policies. That is when a given policy is formed in the light of preceding policies because of, for example, high costs of switching strategy (Caramani 2011: 554). Mearsheimer s arguments supports that states commonly are risk averse, thereby not likely to change, and that constructivism is flawed when considering continuity, hence why this paper argues that neorealism is the best explanation. Lastly, it is worth noting the word neorealism itself contains real, which implies that it does not attempt to explain how the world ought to be, but how it really is (Heywood 2013: 408). In conclusion, this paper has investigated four different approaches to explain the dynamics of the international system, where it finds neorealism to explain it the best. The four approaches respectively are 1) neorealism, 2) classical realism, 3) liberalism and 4) constructivism. Whereas the reason for showing a rather extensive understanding of different approaches is because by taking a fair amount of approaches into consideration, then ultimately the conclusion of neorealism being the best would make it a more qualified finding. The paper started out by showing how neorealism is best, when compared to classical realism and liberalism, through theoretical strengths such as the distribution of capabilities and political/economical national self-interests to guide the dynamics of the international system. This paper also used highly relevant empirical cases, sometimes too recent to find scholarly texts on the matter, such as the civil war in Syria, to show that it is not only through theory that this paper s main argument holds. It was also found that when compared to constructivism, neorealism is best to explain why, for example, similar countries like Denmark and Norway pursue different interests. Of course, it is impossible to draw a 10

definitive conclusion of neorealism being the best approach in a relatively short paper, but in the examples looked at in this essay, it is evident that it is the case. 11

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