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2-2. Theories of World Politics
Level of Analysis
• “We cannot study everything under the sun”
• Level of analysis: the different aspects and agents of
international affairs that may be stressed in explaining
global phenomena
• it depends on whether the analyst chooses to focus on
“the global system,” “individual states” or “people”
The Major Sources
of States’ Foreign
Policy Decisions:
Influences at Three
Levels
• the individual level of analysis: the personal
characteristics of humans
e.g., the impact of individuals’ perception on their
political attitudes, and behavior
• the state level of analysis: the authoritative decisionmaking units that govern states’ foreign policy
processes and the internal attributes of those states
e.g., their type of government, level of economic and
military power
• the global level of analysis: the interactions of states
and non-state actors on the global stage
e.g., the global power politics (the Cold War/ the US and
China)
• many IR scholars agree that world politics can best be
understood by focusing on one (or more) of three
levels
• multi-level analysis seems capable of coping with the
complexity of the world affairs
• However, what should be examined within each level
of analysis, and how actors, structures, and variables
relate to one another across levels of analysis are still
the unsolved questions to IR scholars.
The Quest for Theory:
Five Major Perspectives
Advocates of Realism
• Thucydides (471-400 B.C) (Peloponneisan War)
• Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) (The Prince)
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) (Leviathan)
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E.H. Carr (The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939)
George F. Kennan (“X” Foreign Affairs, 1947)
Hans Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations, 1948)
Reinhold Niebuhr (Moral Man and Immoral Society,
1947)
Realism’s Tenets
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Anarchy characterizes the international system
the absence of authoritative governing institutions
the state is the most important actor
Each state pursues its national interest
People (States) have an instinctive lust for power
People (States) are selfish and ethically flawed and
compete for self-advantage
• Eradicating the instinct and the selfishness is not
possible
• conflicts of interests among states are inevitable
• International politics is essentially conflictual: “a
struggle for power”, “a war of all against all”
• Avoid Moralism: Standards of right and wrong apply
to individuals, not states
• realism accepts war as normal and rejects morality
• The end justifies the means (Kegley, p. 504)
• States should be prepared for war in order to preserve
peace
• Anarchical international system requires states to
acquire military power to deter attack by potential
enemy
• Self-help: the principle that in anarchy states must rely
on themselves
• Security Dilemma: each part’s efforts to increase its
own security by arming leads to a decline in security
on both sides
• balance of power: peace and stability are most likely
to be maintained when military power is distributed so
that no single power or bloc can dominate (the U.S.
vs. the Soviet Union)
• Seek flexible alliances to maintain a balance of power
• Balance of Power Models
- military power can be distributed in different ways –
polarity (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar)
(1) unipolarity, 1945-1949
(2) bipolarity, 1949-1991
(3) multipolarity, 1991-2001
(4) unipolarity, today-?
• Military power is more important than economics.
• Resist international efforts to control state protection
and institute global governance.
Debate: Is the UN a World Government?
(1) realist: the UN should not act as a world government
- only the U.S. can lead the UN effectively
(2) liberalist: is there an alternative? while less than
perfect, the UN is the only global mechanism for
effective collaboration
Debate: Human Nature
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nature versus nurture debate: the controversy over
whether human beings’ aggression is determined by
human nature (genetics) or it is nurtured by the
environmental conditions that humans experience
(1) realist view
• human is essentially selfish and aggressive
• people murder and kill because of their innate
genetic drives to act out aggressively
• psychologist Sigmund Freud: aggression is an
instinctive part of human nature that stems from
human’s genetic programming and psychological
makeup
(2) liberalist view
• realism overlooks the fact that human beings have
traits such as sympathy, self-control, a desire for
fairness, the moral sense
- genetics fail to explain why individual may be
belligerent only at certain times
- fail to explain why people cooperate and act morally
Debate: Bush’s Preemptive Strike against Iraq
• the Bush doctrine pledged preemptive strike against
Iraq to prevent it from obtaining weapons of mass
destruction
• Do the ends justify the terrible means?
• What will the world be like if preemptive strikes
become a universal norm?
(1) Realist:
- the doctrine of military necessity: violation of the rules
of warfare may be excused during periods of extreme
emergency
- we cannot negotiate with aggressors
- aggressors must be resisted
- the right intentions and ends justify the terrible means
- the root of evil stems from the desire for power. There
is no escape from the evil of power
- Political ethics is the ethics of doing evil
- only what we can do is to choose among several
possible actions the one that is “least evil”
(2) Liberalists:
- questioned the logic and the morality
- such strategy, which overlook the right of innocent
noncombatants to protection from genocide, is crimes
against humanity
- attack violates the U.N. ban on assassination to foreign
leaders and the UN Charter’s prohibition against
waging war except in defense
- waging war because of what enemy might intend to
attack the US, to prevent its later aggression, is wrong
- “Who can possible argue that there is anything moral
about killing other people’s children?” – British
Minister Alice Mahon
Criticism of Realism
• could not explain increased cooperation after World
War II
• did not account for significant new developments in
Western Europe in 1950s and 60s.
• many of its propositions not easily testable: criticized
by behavioral scientists
• disregards ethical principals
• focuses on military might at economic and social
expense of states
Neorealism or Structural realism
• Kenneth Waltz, “Theory of International Politics”
(1979)
• accepts much of realism: Power remains a key
variable; States the primary actors; anarchy the most
important property (however, based on the American
liberal tradition)
• emphasizes the influence of the global power
structure on states’ behavior
• explanations at global level of analysis are
sufficient to account for world politics
• “international structure (market) emerges from
the interaction of states
(enterprises/companies) and then constrains
them from taking certain actions”
Advocates of Liberalism
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Immanuel Kant
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Stuart Mill
Adam Smith
Woodrow Wilson
Liberalism
• holds that reason and ethics can overcome
international anarchy to create a more orderly
and cooperative world
• human nature is essentially good and altruistic
• unity of humankind more important than
national loyalties
• human beings should be treated as ends rather
than means (the end cannot justify the means)
• importance of the individual and promotion of
human rights and civil liberties
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using ideas and education to promote world peace
promotion of democracy and free international trade
war and international anarchy are not inevitable
emphasizes encouraging global cooperation through
international institutions, law, and disarmament
• Military and security affairs do not monopolize the
agenda
• Analyze the condition under which international
cooperation is facilitated
- liberalism (international relations): state and nonstate
actors; institutionalizing peace; cooperation; multiple
agendas; human rights; democracy; free trade
- liberalism (journalists): a position along an ideological
spectrum. favor social welfare, health care, civil rights
- liberalism (political theory): a belief in individual
equality, individual liberty, participatory democracy,
and limited government
- liberalism (economics): refers to a belief in capitalism
and profits, private property, free market, free trade
(1) Neofunctionalism
• Ernest Haas observed the result of the creation
of the ECSC and European integration in his
study “The Unity of Europe” in 1958
• European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)
in 1952: the administration of a single joint
authority
• Treaty of Rome in 1958
• top-down model: integration starts from the level of
governmental bureaucracies and government-togovernments ties
• its peace plans call for transnational cooperation in
technical (economic and social) or less-difficult areas
as a first step
• habits of cooperation learned in technical area will
spill over into others
• if the process continues, the bonds among states will
multiply
(2) Security Community
• Karl Deutsch, “Political Community and North
Atlantic Area” in 1957
- examined the ten cases of integration and
disintegration in the North Atlantic Area
- proposed the concept of Security Community
• security community
- “a group of people that has become integrated
to the point of real assurance that the member
of that community will not fight each other
physically, but will settle in some other ways”
(3) Democratic Peace
• Michael W. Doyle. “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and
Foreign Affairs”
• Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech to
Congress in 1918
• democracy critical to promoting peace
• democratic states don’t fight each other
• spread of democracy will decrease war
Neoliberalism
• accepts the basic tenets of classical liberalism
• developed by critics of realism/neorealism
• focuses on how international organizations and other
nonstate actors promote cooperation and peace
• examines the conditions under which the convergent
interests among states may result in cooperation
• multiple agendas: agendas have been larger and more
diverse; military, AIDS, economic underdevelopment,
the globalization of trade and finance, environmental
issues (global warming)
(1) Transnational Interdependence
• Keohane and Nye (1977) Power and Interdependence
• challenges realism’s oversimplified view of the world
politics
• emphasizes the growing importance of nonstate actors
(multinational corporations, international
organization)
• complex interdependence: growing ties and
interdependences among international actors increases
both vulnerability and sensitivity which erode states’
sovereign control and independence
• Multiple channels connect societies
• Military forces are irrelevant
• globalization:
- integration and growing interdependence of states
through increasing contact and trade
- creates a global culture
- decreases the ability of states to control people and
events
(2) Regimes Theory
• “an ordered anarchy”: cooperation, not conflict, is
often the observable outcome of relations among
states
• Stephen Krasner (ed.). “International Regime.” (1983)
• Regimes: a set of principles, norms, rules, and
procedures around which actor’s expectation converge
in a given area
• Regimes: informal and formal international
institutions
• Regimes are institutionalized or regularized patterns
of cooperation in a given issue area
- Global Trade and Finance Regime after WWII
- Japan-the US Whale Regime
- WTO, IMF, EU
Constructivism
• Pay attention to the powerful roles of ideas and norms
(ideational factors) in world politics
• Emphasize the importance of shared ideas and
understandings among states in world politics
• to realism and liberalism, the identities and interests of
actors are exogenous and given, constructivism treats
them as being endogenous and socially constructed
• States’ actions are determined not by anarchy but by
the ways states socially ‘construct”
- Germany and Japan today differ significantly from
their pre-World War II predecessors
- Antimilitarism has become integral to their sense of
self as nations and is embedded in domestic norms
and institutions
The Quest for Theory: Realism
• Key Units: Independent States / States are
Unitary and Rational Actors
• Core Concern: Security and War / National
Interests / Power
• Motives of Actors: Lust for Power, National
Interest
• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Pessimistic
• Major Approach: Balance of Power
The Quest for Theory: Neorealism
• Key Units: The International System’s Structure
• Core Concern: Struggle for position and power under
anarchy
• Motives of Actors: Power, prestige, and advantage
over other states
• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Pessimistic
• Major Approach: military preparedness and deterrence
The Quest for Theory: Liberalism
• Key Units: Institutions transcending states (Nonstates)
/ Other forms of political organizations are possible
• Core Concern: Institutionalizing peace
• Motives of Actors: Cooperation; mutual aid
• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Optimistic/Progress
• Major Approach: International law; international
organization; Integration; democratization
The Quest for Theory: Neoliberalism
• Key Units: Individuals; states and nonstate
transnational actors
• Core Concern: Fostering interstate cooperation on the
globe’s shared economic, social, and ecological
problems
• Motives of Actors: Global interests; justice; peace and
prosperity; liberty; morality
• Outlook on Global Perspectives:
Optimistic/Expectation of cooperation and creation of
a global community
• Major Approach: Complex inter-dependence and
regimes
The Quest for Theory: Constructivism
• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Neither optimist nor
pessimistic, depending on the most popular or socially
accepted visions about the potential for humanity to
engineer changes that either improve or harm future
global conditions
• Central Concepts: Ideas, identities, values, norms,
images—all as socially constructed by various groups
• Major Approach: Advocacy of normative innovation
through construction of new images