Realism in International Politics - Essay Example

I. Introduction This essay wrestles with three interconnected difficulties in international political theory. Primarily, the study of international politics as a sub-discipline of political science has been controlled by the realist framework, the modern successor of the ideas of Thucydides, Hobbes and the infamous Machiavelli. For several decades, a concern in the discipline has been how to face the evident exclusions of the realist paradigm, including the functions of transnational as well as local-level players and of thoughts in international politics. Moreover, several have maintained that realism was possibly well appropriate to the climate of the conflict between the East and the West, but is not relevant to the contemporary period that has followed it. Realism stipulates that nation-states are interested largely with the objectives of defense and survival. Their conduct, hence, is controlled and stirred by the dominant distribution of power within the realm of international relations. The post-Cold War era, as some observe, demands various conceptual instruments to understand the functioning of international politics. Specifically, these detractors of realism argue that the contemporary period can be described by such a multitude of transnational economic relationships, migratory and cultural interaction, and computer- and information-mediated communication that the traditionalist realist vision of nation-states as major and self-governing players in world politics is old-fashioned (Patomaki 2002). Furthermore, not merely has the pivotal incident of the Cold War era prompted detractors of realism to appeal for a new theory to suit a new environment, but some have emphasized that realism evidently falls short to give detail on the transformation of the bipolar Cold War setting to a new form. The failure of realism to elaborate on the transition itself demands a shift to a new-fangled theory or even theories. This essay will examine the importance of developments in the theorization of post-Cold War international politics. It is unsurprising that the decline of the Soviet bloc, perhaps the one of the greatest catastrophes of the twentieth century and incident which marked a division between the two World Wars, would create a number of critical theoretical concerns for international politics. Consequently, this will reveal hypothetically that concerns in post-Cold War international politics can be used to evaluate one of the traditional theories of international politics, realism. II. Structural Realism in the post-Cold War International Politics Several scholars of international relations strongly believe that realism is archaic. They claim that, even though the notions of realism of lawlessness, self-help, and balancing of power distribution may have been fitting to a long-gone era, they have been replaced by transformed circumstances and obscured by new and better ideas. The contemporary period appeals for a new form of thinking. Ever-changing contexts and conditions demand amended theories or completely special ones. In fact, if the circumstances and provisions that a theory pondered have changed, the theory becomes obsolete (Crawford 2000). But what kinds of transformations would change the international political system much deeply that traditional ways of thinking would become irrelevant? Adjustments of the international political system would do it; adjustments in the system would not do the trick. Internal system adjustments occur all the time, a number of it fundamental, others of it are not. Significant changes in transportation, communication and warfare for instance, decisively influence how nation-states and other actors interact. Such transformations take place at the unit level. In recent history, or possible in all of the historical narratives, the invention of nuclear weaponry was the most astounding of such transformations. But in the nuclear age, international politics continues to be a self-help realm (Crawford 2000). Nuclear weapons ultimately alter the manner a number of nation-states provide for their own and perhaps for the defense of others; yet nuclear weapons have not changed the anarchic nature of the construction of the international political system. Alterations in the configuration of the system are different from alterations at the unit level. Therefore, transformations in polarity as well influence how states provide for their own defense. Substantial changes occur when the numerical presence of superpowers reduces to at least one. With more than one, nation-states depend for their defense both on their own domestic capabilities and on coalitions they build with others. Rivalry in multi-polar systems is more convoluted than rivalry in bipolar systems since ambiguities about the relative potentials of states proliferate as numbers increase, and since approximations of the cohesiveness and power of alliances are difficult to establish (Steans & Pettiford 2001). Both transformations of weaponry and transformations of polarity were grand changes with implications that expand through the system, but they did not change it. If the systems were changed, as it is forced by globalization, international relations would not anymore be international politics and history would not anymore function as a steering wheel to the future. Realism is believed to be the most recognized theory in international politics and was in its golden age at the time of the Cold War. It addresses the need to know the best strategy for the state to guarantee its survival. This entails having adequate power to cultivate defense for the state. Hans Morgenthau, a contemporary realist, describes this as “man’s control over the minds and actions of other men” (Baylis and Smith 2001: 150). Therefore, the question is, what influence does globalization have on the orthodox claims of realism? It is irrefutable that globalization is a mechanism of capitalism. It has set off, as a framework in the advent of the decline of the Soviet Union and consequently of socialism, as a feasible alternate type of an economic organization. At present the West is a key influence in former communist states. Leftist detractors of globalization describe the term somehow differently, demonstrating it as a global thrust toward an internationalized economic system prevailed upon by multinational corporations (MNCs) such as Microsoft and General Electric (Baylis and Smith 2001). Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which are not held responsible to a democratic strategy or national administrations, challenge the realist concept of the state being the key actor. To emphasize this we can obviously observe how influential and powerful MNCs are by distinguishing that most of them are requested to join the G8 summit, which caters to an expansive array of global political, economic and social concerns. Leftist detractors as well claim that with the advancement of globalization the affluent, the powerful North, exploits the impoverished, the marginalized South. To support this they specify the statistics employed from 1999 UNDP Development Report which discovered that over the recent decade, the population of individuals who have a daily income of $1 remained stagnant at 1.2 billion whereas the population of individuals who have a daily income of $2 grew from 2.55 million to 2.8 billion individuals. Advocates of globalization supported this saying that there is growing proof that global income inequalities and poverty are declining and that globalization has played a significant role in this turnaround (Baylis and Smith 2001: 151). The expansion of globalization on this trend would have been unimaginable if the Soviet bloc did not decline which opened up new markets and cultural exchanges. This issue on globalization remains to be one of the pressing questions about realism. In spite of the virtues of realism, its dismal failure in justifying global change and development such as globalization restricts its relevance. One should examine the economic systems on the local level of analysis to clarify transformation in the international political system. The triumph of Western capitalism and the collapse of dominant economies of the Soviet bloc elucidate the forceful transformation that realism fails to do. With countless opportunities that realist theory motivates to substantiate by what occurred at and at the aftermath of the Cold War, one may think why realism is nowadays regarded as irrelevant. A primary suggestion extracted from realism is that international politics manifests the distribution of national potentials, a suggestion daily recognized. Another primary suggestion is that the balancing of power by a number of states in opposition to others persists. Realist theory envisions that balances interrupted will some day be renewed (Yaffe 1994). A shortcoming of the theory, a shortcoming common to theories in the social sciences, is that it is unable to ascertain when. William Wohlforth (1999) claims that though reinstatement will occur, it will be a long wait. Of inevitability, realism is better at confirming what will take place than in confirming when it will happen. Theory is incapable of confirming when tomorrow will come for the reason that international political theory cope with the demands of structure on states and never on how states will address these demands. The latter is an undertaking for theories on how national regimes respond to demands given to them and exploit the opportunities that may be available. One does, nevertheless, witness balancing inclinations already transpiring. Upon the downfall of the Soviet Union, the structure of international politics became unipolar. In the perspective of realism, unipolarity seems as the least resilient of international structures. This can be explained by two key reasons. One is that super powers assume too many responsibilities beyond their territorial limits, hence gradually debilitating themselves. After investigating 336 polities, Ted Robert Gurr, came up with the same assumption that Robert Wesson (1987) had arrived at earlier: Imperial decay is… primarily a result of the misuse of power which follows inevitably from its concentration (p. 1504). The second reason for the fleeting presence of unipolarity is that even though a super power performs with discipline, moderation and patience, weaker states will be anxious about its prospective conduct. The founding fathers of the American society cautioned against the threats of power with the nonexistence of checks and balances (Kapstein and Mastanduno 1999). Is the threat of unbalanced power lesser in international than in national politics? During the Cold War, the actions of the United States and the Soviet Union, and the manner they interacted, were prevailing forces in international politics. The two nations, nonetheless, restricted each other. At present the United States is solitary in the world; as nature loathes nothingness, so international politics loathes unbalanced power (Kapstein and Mastanduno 1999). Confronted with unbalanced power, a number of nations attempt to boost their own forces or they collaborate with other to balance the global distribution of power. The responses of other nations to the thrust for supremacy of Charles V, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolph Hitler demonstrate the point. III. Conclusions Whenever peace is agreed upon, people go out of their safe havens and declare that realism is obsolete. That is as well claiming that there has been a transformation in international politics. The world, nevertheless, has not actually been changed; the structure and system of international politics has fundamentally been reconstructed by the departure of the Soviet Union, and temporarily we will be contained within unipolarity. Furthermore, international politics was not reconstructed by the factors and influences that some assume are establishing a new world order. Those who institute the Soviet Union on the direction of restructuring were former Soviet leaders attempting to boost the Soviet economy so as to safeguard its global position. The upheaval in Soviet businesses and the termination of the Cold War were not inspired by democracy, mutual dependence, or global institutions. Instead the Cold War concluded precisely as realism directed one to anticipate. The Cold War is indeed firmly entrenched in the construction of postwar international politics and will endure as long as that configuration lasts. Consequently it did, and when the global bipolar structure vanished the Cold War finally ended. Liberal traditionalists were correct to begin their examinations with realism. Unless a transformation takes place, it will continue to be the fundamental theory of international politics. In order to ascertain the validity of realism in post-Cold War international politics, one must explore the succession of increasing and decreasing confidence in realism in international politics beginning from 1945 provided the coexisting global conditions. Even though there have been some stages of interests in displacing realism with new theories, such as those putting emphasis on the mutually independent or bureaucratic politics, the termination of the Cold War has gave rise to a more resilient movement in political science scholarship. A far-reaching movement to integrate domestic factors in literature on international politics has been identified. Particularly, the exploration of bureaucratic subcultures will be the most worthwhile of those identified domestic variables which are determined as alternatives to realism (Yaffe 1994). A framework examining the dominant concepts and ideas in bureaucratic subcultures could be operationalize through using a classification of U.S. legislators and decision-makers in the post-Cold War climate as a case in point. Furthermore, the validity of realism in contemporary international politics should be ascertained through examining the strong points and limitations of realism, in its dogmatic mode of analysis, comparative to idealism. The complicated fusion of realism and idealism that a number of scholars promote informs their proposal that the United States protect the border of the society of democratic capitalist countries as its primary objective in foreign policy. If historical actual politick appealed for U.S. alertness in safeguarding nations on the perimeter territory of the landmass of Eurasia such as the Soviet Union, some scholars plead for American alertness to safeguard novice democratic capitalist nations such as the Czech Republic and Poland. An assault on these functions as an early admonition of a longer period of threat to the whole society of liberal nations. This suggestion is made more controversial by the identical appeal of the national security adviser of former President Clinton, Anthony Lake, for an enlargement of policy of the society of commercial democracies to replace the principle of suppression (Patomaki 2002). For the most part, the international politics sub-discipline is defined by realism, since its fundamental principle that states are the key players in global politics is entrenched in the very name of the discipline: international politics. The realist suggestion that international politics are dissimilar from local politics, for the reason that central authority is lacking as the mediator of peace and order, has accurately oriented the research program in the discipline. And at the aftermath of the Cold War, there remains a lack of central power, to mention Hobbes, which will thwart conflict or guarantee collaboration between nation-states (Crawford 2000). One has merely to examine the failures of the United Nations or the European Community to bring together this reality. Still, this essay suggests that as a rich heritage of international political theory, realism has to be balanced by other theoretical frameworks. These balancing frameworks should pay more heed to local and economic systems to elaborate on systemic adjustment. They should explain for individuals and their perceptions, in privileged circles inside and outside of regimes, and they should cater to the substance of values influencing a policy for the Western hemisphere after the Cold War. In conclusions, this essay represents a continuum of thought in two approaches. Primarily, the discussion develops from an essay mainly dedicated to an assessment of realism to those that provide substitute assumptions to realism. The common perspective they venture is that realism must be perceived as an incomplete theory, rather than as an all-inclusive framework. It has to be balanced with other incomplete theories, particularly ones attributing for the task of concepts and ideas. References Baylis, J. & Smith, S. (2001), The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crawford, R. (2000), Idealism and Realism in International Relations: Beyond the Discipline, London: Routledge. Kapstein, E. B. & Mastanduno, M. (1999), Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War, New York: Columbia University Press. Patomaki, H. (2002), After International Relations: Critical Realism and the Reconstruction of World Politics, London: Routledge. Steans, J. & Pettiford, L. (2001), International Relations: Perspectives and Themes, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd. Wesson, R. G. (1987), The Imperial Order, Berkeley: University of California Press. Wohlforth, W. C. (1999), The Stability of a Unipolar World, International Security , 5-41. Yaffe, M. D. (1994), Realism in Retreat? The New World Order and the Return of the Individual to International Relation Studies, Perspectives on Political Science , 79. Read More