We all love ourselves Why national self-interest remains the main driver of global politics Author: Anonymous CPR: XXXXXX-XXXX Study programme: B.Sc. International Business and Politics Course: Political Science, final exam Hand-in date: 17 th of December 2014 STU-count: 22,594 (9.93 standard page) Copenhagen Business School, 2014
Introduction This essay seeks to discuss whether or not national self-interest remains the most important driver in global politics (question 1). I will be arguing that national self-interest does indeed remain the most important driver of global politics, but that a number of other drivers such as equality are also winning ground. Methodology In discussing this I will be turning to theories of International Relations 1. IR theory sets itself apart from traditional political science in that it draws a clear distinction between the domestic and international realms of politics, reflecting differences in how events and terms are interpreted within the state and in relation to other states. The main difference in this is that political science views the state as a macro-level actor, whereas the IR theory views it as a micro-level actor (Heywood, 2013: 25). IR theory encompasses two main discussions dealing with international political economy and security respectively. While the two discussions are interconnected the majority of this essay will be dedicated to discussing the drivers of global politics in relation to security. Nonetheless a separate passage towards the end of the essay will be dedicated to elaborating on international political economy. I will continue this essay by elaborating on the difference between the domestic and international politics, before I move on to presenting the three dominant schools within IR; the realist approach, the liberal approach, and the critical approach. The latter will mostly be looking at a feministic IR approach. Following this I will turn towards contemporary events, in order to create a foundation from which we can discuss the drivers between specific global politics. Before concluding I will look at the implications of the drivers of global politics on the system of multi-governance. The state and international politics This paper adopts the organizational view of the state, just like Heywood does, as well as the specific definition of a state (Heywood, 2013: 57f). However, even so there is still a lot left to be discussed regarding the power and view of the state, which will have implications on the later discussions. Worth mentioning are the two views of the pluralist state and the capitalist state. The former has its roots in Hobbes and Locke s theory of the social contract. Basically the state has arisen out of a voluntary agreement, i.e. social contract, between individuals within a specific geographic area, in a realization that only a sovereign power could safeguard them from the insecurity, disorder and brutality of the state of nature 1 Hereinafter abbreviated IR Page 1 of 9
that Hobbes described in his writings (ibid: 61). The traditional liberalists would attest that the state should be as small as possible, however, later liberalist such as Robert Dahl and J. K. Galbraith have come to accept that modern industrialist states are much complex and in effect also larger (ibid: 62). The other view on the state is the capitalist view which stems from Marxism. It argues that the state cannot be understood separately from the economic structure of society. In his 1848 communist manifest Marx is often quoted of having said: The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. (Marx, 1848) From this it is easy to deduct that the state is only there to ensure status quo with the owners of production maintaining the ruling power. In later writings on the French revolution Marx himself did propose a more nuanced view, in that the state is there to mediate between the classes, but the end goal still remains ruling by the bourgeoisie (Heywood, 2013: 63). While Marx traces the creation of the state back to the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the Marxist view on the state does also contain some sort of task of maintaining order and ensuring security. The same is apparent for the pluralist state. This bears testimony to Charles Tilly s view that War made the state, and the state made war (Tilly, 1975). With this I want to return to and highlight my previous point about the two main discussions of IR; those of international political economy and those of security issues. Deducing the pluralist state according to Hobbes social contract and liberal view the state should create security, which in turn will allow the individuals to do business with minimal regulation. The capitalist state is the other way around: the production owners already possesses the ability to trade, but need protection from the proletariat and external forces that can interfere. These are, bluntly put, the objectives of the state in international politics. Approaches to international politics Having presented the task of the state I now move onto presenting the three major approaches to international politics; the realist approach, the liberal approach, and finally the critical approach in which I will pay extra attention to feminist theory. Page 2 of 9
The realist approach The realist approach offers a hard-headed approach to IR. According to this international politics is, first and foremost, about power and self-interest. This is why it is often portrayed as power politics (Heywood, 2012: 408). The concept of political power is elaborated on in Heywood s book (2013: 9f). The approach builds on top of Machiavelli s and Hobbes assumption that men and women are inherently selfish, greedy and power-seeking. Since states are led by the same men and women it can be expected that the state as well will be egocentric in its approach to international politics. Different states will each pursue its own incompatible national interests, which will ultimately lead to conflicts and war. From the 1970 s and onwards a new school led by Kenneth Waltz developed within the realist approach. The neorealists seek to explain the conflicts and wars with the fact that, in absence of a world government, the international system is characterized by anarchy. This leads the states to build up military capabilities to defend themselves with. From this the neorealists concludes that the solution to lasting peace is the balancing of power (ibid: 409). The liberal approach In contrast to the realist approach the liberal approach leaves us with a more optimistic view on international politics. The liberal approach, just like the realistic, builds on ideas from Hobbes. However, while the realist approach takes note of the selfish nature of the human, the liberal approach dedicates its attention to Hobbes idea of a voluntary social contract (ibid: 410). Mirroring the single sovereign as the key to national security and freedom the liberalist proposes a global sovereign, which in turn will be able to secure safety and freedom of each of the states. In effect this mounts support for international organisations like the United Nations. The liberal approach also draws parallels to Adam Smith s invisible hand of economics. Liberals in IR will expect the state s pursuit of national interests to reach some sort of equilibrium, where the cost of pursuing further gains exceeds the gain. This is what will allow the international organisations to function (ibid). A further important point to notice is that it is also within the liberal approach, that we find the justification for violating national sovereignty. The liberal approach subscribes to universalism, which today is manifested through human rights, in that we are all equal. This creates justification for humanitarian interventions, in the case that human rights are being violated (Heywood, 2013: 117). One point of critique that I want to advance is the emphasis that the liberal approach places on rationality. While this might be the case in Locke s economic analysis and Hobbes social contract on a national level, it becomes a problem when it is directly transferred to a global level. Especially within the national-state (ibid: 124) individuals can with good reason be expected to be homogenous. However, when you look at a global Page 3 of 9
level there is suddenly a large number of different rational mindsets, that is individuals reaching different rational conclusions based on the same events due to difference in culture, history and values, an example being extremist Muslims (ibid: 416). The critical approach The critical approach is a broad umbrella that covers those approaches that all seek to uncover hidden structures in IR or shed light on marginalised groups. Traditionally Marxism has been the only dominant approach within the umbrella, but following the end of the Cold War other approaches such as feminism has also won ground. The feminist approach has two major points of critique of the current approaches. The first is that they are all based, especially the realist approach, on masculinist assumptions such as rivalry, competition and inevitable conflict. Secondly, feminists have carried forwarded the security paradox embedded into conventional ideas of national security; the fact that increasing military power in order to increase security will only lead the counter-part to do the same (Heywood, 2013: 411). The feminist approach calls for feminist consciousness 2 (Enloe, 2004) meaning that traditional IR and discourse tends to focus exclusively on males such as the term combatant because it implies one type of person, typically men carrying guns, and pays no attention women and girls deployed as porters, cooks or forces wives (ibid). The perhaps best example of the feminist approach is the UN Security Council resolution 1325 that was adopted in 2000. Recently, the Swedish Foreign Minister also announced that the country would pursue a feminist foreign policy (Rothschild, 2014). Summarizing approaches to IP The three abovementioned approaches to international politics portrays a somewhat balanced view when it comes to self-interest versus other drivers. The realist approach is clearly based on the national self-interest, while the liberal approach suggests a somewhat more balanced approach, through it can still be said to be place a large emphasis on self-interest qua the equilibrium-reference (Heywood, 2013: 410). It is hard to say exactly where the latter approach, the critical, stands on the issue of the main driver, but it is evident that it does indeed downplay the importance of national self-interest. Contemporary events Next I will be looking at the cases of Syria and Daesh 3 in order to analyse the most likely drivers behind the global actions that has been or are being taken. This will be done using the abovementioned approached. 2 Or more recently gendered consciousness 3 The Arab name of ISIS Page 4 of 9
Intervention in Syria Bashar al-assad unsuccessfully attempted to crack down a popular uprising by use of military force, which left Syria in a state of civil war. In August 2012 US President Obama warned that use of chemical weapons would prompt the US to intervene. In April 2013 the first reports of alleged use of chemical weapons surface and are later confirmed. The US, however, hesitates to intervene in the conflict due to fear of a prolonged involvement. Before the US manages to take a stand, Russia has already negotiated an agreement that in which Assad will allow the international community to remove the chemical weapons (BBC News, 2014). The Russian government portrayed the agreement as a humanitarian intervention that had saved thousands of lives. Meanwhile the US inability to react had weakened its international self-impression as a superpower (Heywood, 2013: 422). The liberal approach to IR would view this as a school example of how the international society through the use of a global governance structure, the United Nations, manages to uphold human rights through a humanitarian intervention. The same goes for the US hesitation that further confirms the point of equilibrium at which the states will not pursue national interest, if the costs exceed the gains. However, looking at the so-called humanitarian intervention 4 in the light of the realist approach creates a different picture. Russia s ability highlight the US failed attempt at intervening can be seen as power as agenda setting (ibid: 9). Russia, very conveniently, gets an opportunity to direct attention away from its use of veto in the Security Council. Maybe even more importantly it increases the legitimacy of the Russian government in global politics. By pretending to be acting on humanitarian needs, the Russian government creates the sort of charismatic authority that it is so desperately in need of due to the before-mentioned use of veto against other humanitarian interventions (ibid: 82). Keeping in mind Russia s previous voting habits in the Security Council I find the realist explanation to be the most plausible. This in turn also means that self-interest was indeed the main driver in this case of global politics. Combating Daesh Daesh is a terror organisation established in 2004; however, it has only recently risen to prominence due to its online beheadings of Westerners and military advancements on the grounds of Syria and Iraq. The US has been bombing Daesh strong holds since August and also established an international coalition of countries, which supports its bombings primarily in Iraq (CNN Library, 2014). Recently, China has reportedly abandoned its principle of neutrality and offered the Iraqi Minister of Defence assistance in the form of air support (RT, 2014). 4 Please note that Syria did accept the intervention i.e. there was no breach of national sovereignty Page 5 of 9
Looking at the example of Daesh there are very few things that the liberal approach can help us understand. The Security Council has been successful in adopting resolutions condemning the organisation, as well as there are already a number of other resolutions in place that are supposed to limit the financial capabilities of the organisation. However, no measures that have truly had an impact have been initiated at a global level. Instead the US has assembled a coalition consisting of Western and Middle Eastern countries that mostly combat Daesh from air in Iraq, although a few other countries than the US has also carried out strikes inside Syria. Officially this is as to support the Iraqi government as well as to protect civilians from the human rights violations that Daesh is carrying out, something that the liberal approach would still view as some sort of solidarity. However, the reports that China won t be joining the American led coalition, and the mere fact that they are abandoning a long standing principle of neutrality, bears testimony to the fact that there are a number of national interests at stake in the war against Daesh, maybe most importantly the stability of the region, which supplies both the US and China with oil, which they need for their respective industries. The realist approach would help us understand then why China and the US did not join forces, in that they are both pursuing the best possible relationship with Syria, Iraq and the neighbouring countries in order to have a larger economic gain. One last interesting point to make in about combating Daesh is that the feministic approach actually has a central role. Daesh has become known for its extreme view on women, who they force into marriage and use as sex slaves. Further, female Kurdish fighters have also taken the centre stage, since being killed by a female will now allow the male Daesh fighters to go to haven. Both, and more, cases have received widespread attention and become a hot topic of debate in how to combat Daesh (Abdelaziz, 2014). Summarizing contemporary events As I have shown the liberalist approach attempts to explain contemporary events with other drivers than solely national self-interest, which is also something that the states attempt to make use of. However, most of the explanations can be easily waived off by a closer look at the relations and discussions that lie behind the final decision. Ultimately this means that the realist approach and its explanations with an emphasis on national self-interest prevail as the most plausible approach. Drivers of multi-level governance Before going into some of the specifics of international political economy I would just like to delve a bit at the question of multi-level governance, and why states in some regards choose hand over part of their sovereignty for membership of supranational organisations. Page 6 of 9
The United Nations is perhaps the best-known organisation in the system of global governance, and without a doubt the most important one, when it comes to international security. The original grounds on which the UN was established were sympathetic and little selfish, striving to create world peace following two destructive World Wars and the breakdown of the League of Nations (Heywood, 2013: 437ff). However, even the national drivers for prioritising work in the UN have changed over time. First of all the UN General Assembly has become the place that de facto decides on the sovereignty of a state and thus its very existence by granting it membership (Heywood, 2013: 59). With the end of the Cold War and the UN s shift in focus towards human security (ibid: 418) and development the developing nations have also gained stronger incentives to involve themselves in the priorities and distribution of UN funds (ibid: 439f). The developed nations tend to focus their efforts on other working areas of the UN such as the UN HCR, in order to smoother the costly refugee flows; UNEP, in order to combat climate change that poses challenges to how we live today, and of course the Security Council in order to protect themselves from external threats that can trickle down or simply to position themselves in a more positive light (ibid: 438f). All the above only comes at the cost of a membership contribution based in GDP as well as the Security Council s possibility to interfere with national sovereignty, which to many countries is very unlikely. Other supranational organisations within the global security realm include NATO. An organisation in which the states pool their shared military capabilities, historically, in order to protect themselves against Russia and its larger military capabilities. The cost of joining NATO is that the countries commit to protect each other, which effectively might force states to involve themselves in conflicts they might otherwise have left on their own (ibid: 422). On the other hand the state saves an enormous amount of money on investment in military capabilities. NATO as such is a perfect example of how states will only give up sovereignty and cooperate when they calculate that it has absolute gains compared to working separately (ibid: 433). Once again Hobbes theory of the social contract can in part help us understand this. Sovereign states will only enter voluntarily into a suprasovereign, if they feel that this will create increased security and order allowing them to better attend some of their other obligations. International political economy The European Union 5 exemplifies how interconnected security and international political economy is. The predecessor to the EU, the European Coal and Steel Community, was established in order to unite Europe and to create world peace through economic revitalization. It is the very same foundation that the EU is based on today, which earned it the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 (Heywood, 2013: 382; 392ff). 5 Hereinafter referred to as the EU Page 7 of 9
Internally the success of the EU is very much due to its economic and monetary integration, which has increased the pooled GDP of the region and made the member states interdependent in a way that forces them to cooperate on both economic and security issues (ibid). Externally the EU has increased the international influence of a lot of the member states in international negotiations within such organisations as the World Trade Organisation, the Group 20 and various UN agencies. This proves that the pooled sovereignty of the may be greater than the combined of national sovereignties (ibid: 75). In other words, not only do the member states gain an economic pay-off, they also gain increased international influence. Thus, the main driver behind the construction remains national self-interests. However, the most global economic system is the Bretton Woods System and its three main institutions the IMF, World Bank and WTO (ibid: 435). Again, the Bretton Woods System was an economic win-win solution to everyone involved to begin with: the US became the international monetary leader and the rest of the states were ensured a less volatile economic environment as well as access to development funds. As the problems of the monetarism started to prevail, the US abandoned the system and effectively dismantled it. The reason why the US left was solely due to nationalist self-interests of increased monetary sovereignty, in order to handle domestic issues (ibid). Conclusion I set out to show that national self-interest indeed remains the primary driver of global politics. I started out elaborating on the role of the state in IR and continued presenting the three dominating approaches to IR. While the realist approach is very frank about how it views the drivers of international politics (self-interest) the liberal approach is a bit more ambiguous. However, its roots in Hobbes theory of the social contract ultimately show that the main driver within the liberal approach remains national self-interest. The critical approach very much rejects this, and very much emphasises equality and peace as a driver. Following the theoretical discussion I presented the two cases of the Syrian intervention and combating Daesh. Even though the different states involved in both cases attempted to make it look like that they were not acting in national self-interest, the history and the underlying motives however pointed to the fact that a lot of political power and legitimacy was at stake, which ultimately leads back to national self-interest in the global system of IR. Finally I looked at both the multi-level governance system and the drivers within international political economy. Again, it was apparent that the main driver remains national self-interest and improved platforms to seek influence from. Specifically for international political economy is the objective of national economic prosperity. Page 8 of 9
The above leads me to conclude that my thesis was correct and that national self-interest remains the primary driver. Other drivers have prevailed and the Swedish example of feminist foreign policy (although potentially short-lived) will be interesting to follow, but ultimately the state leaders are responsible to their electorate, which leads them to act in accordance with what the electorate is expected to view as favourable. Bibliography Abdelaziz, S. (2014, October 13). ISIS states its justification for the enslavement of women. CNN. Retrieved from www.edition.cnn.com/2014/10/12/world/meast/isis-justification-slavery China offers military help to Iraq to defeat ISIS (2014, December 15). Russia Today. Retrieved from www.rt.com/news/214243-china-iraq-military-isis Enloe, C. (2004). International Affairs, 80(1), pp. 95-97 Heywood, A. (2013). Politics (4 th ed.). London, UK: Palgrave ISIS Fast facts (2014, November 17). CNN Library. Retrieved from www.edition.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts Marx, K. (1848). The Communist Manifesto. Resolution 1325 (2000, October 31). UN Security Council. Retrieved from www.daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n00/720/18/pdf/n0072018.pdf?openelement Routhschild, N. (2014, December 4). Swedish Women vs. Vladimir Putin. Foreign Policy. Retrieved from www.foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/05/can-vladimir-putin-be-intimidated-by-feminism-sweden Syria Profile (2014, September 16). BBC News. Retrieved from www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east- 14703995 Tilly, C. (1975). The Formation of Nation-States in Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Page 9 of 9