Wendt: Social Theory of International Politics

Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

This text is lengthy, dense and complex. This abstract will highlight the structure of the book, key arguments and will ignore pieces that are not of personal interest. Hopefully I note when I am skipping over something, but that’s not guaranteed either.

Firstly, this text is a decisive move on Wendt’s part to crystallize a broader movement within IR theory. His constructivist argument is clear, complex and dense. He attempts to bring together different ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies. Typically, positivists and post-positivists would have little to talk about; Wendt lets these two groups know that they may have more in common then they have believed in the past.

This bridging of divides also may be part of the problem with his analysis. In part, he oversteps and simplifies the divergent opinions of those who embrace distinct ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies. For example, he claims that post-positivists are tacit realists because they look at the world around them and theorize about it. This may not be highly persuasive to someone who is attempting to highlight the aspects of positivism that they find ethically problematic.

However, while he may overstep in areas, he does an incredible job of presenting a theoretical framework that can be applied to real, IR problems.

Four sociologies of international politics:

“…students of international politics have increasingly accepted two basic tenants of ‘constructivism’: 1.) that the structures of human association are determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces, and 2.) that the identities and interests of purposive actors are constructed by these shared ideas rather than given by nature” (1).

Went separates theoretical questions into first-order questions and second-order questions. First-order questions are those that are domain specific. “It involves choosing a social system (family, Congress, international system), identifying the relevant actors and how they are structured, and developing propositions about what is going on” (6). “Second-order questions are questions of social theory” (5).

The four sociologies that Went describes are really two pairs: materialist/idealist and agent/structure. He believes that these two pairs can help us structure how theories have typically organized themselves. Wendt highlights a materialist discourse that focuses on human nature, natural resources, geography, forces of production and forces of destruction (23). On the other hand, “idealisats believe the most fundamental fact about society is the nature a structure of social consciousness (what I later call the distribution of ideas of knowledge)” (24). Also, he claims that, “Idealist social theory embodies a very minimal claim: that the deep structure of society is constituted by ideas rather than material forces” (25).

The second pair, or debate, is between agent and structure, which Wendt describes as being between individualism and holism. “Individualsim tends to be associated with causal effects on behavior, but I shall argue that the individualist view is compatible in principle with more possibilities than its critics…typically acknowledge…” (27). Holist theories, on the other hand, tend to view structure as having a much more important impact on the nature of IR.

Wendt then places these two debates onto a 2x2 chart, where, starting at point 0,0, and moving up the y axis, we first have the individualists and then the holists. Moving positively from 0,0 on the x axis, we have materialism and then ideationalism. These four boxes can then be used to categorize different IR theories. On page 32 there is a very helpful chart that plots dominant discourses in IR into different boxes.

Methodology, Wendt claims, can become ontology, if the theorist is not careful. He explains that realists and constructivists have very different methodologies which leads to his next point. He then goes on to claim that ontology is something that is crucial to the IR debate, and that there are key distinctions between the ontology of realists and constructivists. The reality of this debate ends up being an empirical question, which will not be answered here. Secondly, he claims to support an idealist ontology, a view that is in line with most post-positivists. However, this does not mean he believes in a post-positivist epistemology. “I am a positivist” (39). This could hardly be more clear.

“…I think that post-positivists put too much emphasis on epistemology, and that positivist should be more open-minded about questions and methodology” (40).

Scientific realisim and social kinds:

“How is it possible to adopt an idealist and holist ontology while maintaining a commitment to science, or positivism broadly understood? This chapter constructs the ‘via media’ that grounds my modernist constructivism” (47). How indeed.

This is accomplished by positing that, while the world is unobservable, it is still knowable. This supports his positivism. Theories also provide knowledge about things that are unknowable. He also posits an “Ultimate Argument for Realism” that claims that we are slowly approaching the deep, real structure of the world out there. Also, science has allowed us to control the world around us in ways that were not possible earlier. Also, this is where post-positivists are actually positivist, because they look at empirical facts about the world as opposed to positing…purple. “In the end, we are all realists in practice, it would seem that epistemological anxiety makes little difference to our study of the world” (67).

Also, Wendt believes and makes the case in this chapter that social life is social life ‘all the way down’ (90), though he will make this case more forcefully in subsequent chapters.

An important quote from this chapter, and one that helps to highlight his intention in building bridges, or, in his terms, creating “via media”: “But the point is that everyone gets to do what they do: from a realist stance epistemology cannot legislate scientific practice” (91).

“Ideas all the way down?”:

“…the goal of this chapter is to show that much of the apparent explanatory power of ostensibly ‘materialist’ explanations is actually constituted by suppressed constructivist assumptions about the content and distribution of ideas” (95-6). “…I argue that brute material forces have some effects on the constitution of power and interests, and as such my thesis is not ideas all the way down…my defense of this ‘rump’ materialism is rooted in scientific realism’s naturalistic approach to society…” (96). “In my view it cannot be ideas all the way down because scientific realism shows that ideas are based on and are regulated by an independently existing physical reality” (110). “…proposing a rule o thumb for idealists: when confronted by ostensibly ‘material’ explanations, always inquire into the discursive conditions which make them work” (135).

He argues here that interests are mainly a construction of decisions that are made by agents that are forged by mostly ideational drivers. However, while the ideational driver is very important, it does not, as some post-positivists claim, go “all the way down”. This means that there are root material forces that construct situations in certain ways. There are 5 material forces that he highlights in this chapter.

Structure, agency and culture:

Wendt claims that any social system will contain the three characters in this chapter’s title. A social system is analyzable on these three axes. He looks at much in this chapter, including culture, micro and macro structure as well as the causal or constitutive effects of culture. He wants to give both agency and structure, or, if you’ll remember from the earlier chapter, both holism and individualism, equal weight in the understanding of culture. “…structure exists, has effects, and evolves only because of agents and their practices” (185). I did not read this chapter in great detail.

The state and the problems of corporate agency:

“In this chapter I argue that states are real actors to which we can legitimately attribute anthropomorphic qualities like desires, beliefs and intentionality” (197). “The essential state has five properties: 1.) an institutional-legal order, 2.) an organization claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of organized violence, 3.) an organization with sovereignty, 4.) a society and, 5.) territory” (202). Wendt goes through these five characteristics fleshing each out.

This chapter also attempted to highlight the interests of these bodies as well as the continued problems of anthropomorphizing states.

Three cultures of anarchy:

Wendt has previously written about the international system of anarchy in the journal article “Anarchy is what states make of it”. Anarchy can have multiple logics in Wendt’s construction, and this it, “is an empty vessel and has no intrinsic logic; anarchies only acquire logics as a function of the structure of what we put inside them” (249).

He looks at the Hobbsian, Kantian and Lokean version of the world and thus you have your three anarchies. I will not go into them, though they are quite interesting.

He ends this chapter with this odd statement: “But with respect to its endogenous dynamic, the argument suggests that the history of international politics will be unidirectional: if there are any structural changes, they will be historically progressive. Thus, even if there is no guarantee that the future of the international system will be better than its past, at least there is reason to think it will not be worse” (312). I <3>

Process and structural change:

“Agents and structures are themselves processes, in other words, on-going ‘accomplishments of practice.’ Ultimately this is the basis for the claim that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’” (313). “This chapter is organized into three main parts. Drawing on interactionist social theory, in the first section I develop a general, evolutionary model of identity formation, showing how identities are produced and reproduced in the social process. In the next section I argue that structural change in international politics involves collective identity formation. Putting these two sections together, I then advance a simple causal theory of collective identity formation under anarchy, containing four ‘master’ variables that can be realized in multiple ways in real world international systems: interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint” (317).

Carr: What is History?

Carr, E. H. (1961). What is history? London, New York, Macmillan; St. Martin's Press.

Carr writes about epistemology, about what we know and how we know what we know. He begins his book by exploring the relationship between the historian, fact and knowledge. “A fact is like a sack—it won’t stand up till you’ve put something in it” (9).

A historical fact is one that has been given a life of its own by society, academia and a combination of contingent and determinant forces that bring it to the forefront of all other facts. On pages 10-1, Carr takes great care to examine a fact that may or may not be turned into a historical fact. The fact was the murder of a gingerbread baker by a mob, and this fact stood simply as that, a fact of history, but not yet a historic fact, until Dr. Kitson Clark came around and cited it. This, in Carr’s estimation, does not mean that it is destined to be a historical fact, but rather that it now has more potential to be a historical fact than it had previous to this citation. Historic fact, however, does not make history, but it is rather made by the subjective judgment of individuals.

Carr then looks at the relationship between the individual and society and claims that it is impossible to know which came first, which was a driver of the creation of the other. He goes on to talk about how the individual and society constantly play off one another, and concludes by mentioning Hegel’s Hero.

The view which I would hope to discourage is the view which places great men outside history and sees them as imposing themselves on history in virtue of their greatness…” (67). Carr then goes on to lovingly quote Hegel’s definition of his Hero’s interaction with his society. In Hegel’s formulation, the Hero “can put into words the will of his age… he can actualize his age (68).

In other words, Carr’s view of history fits nicely with Hegel’s Hero: the “Great Men” of history do not materialize out of thin air, free from determinant conditions and then impose their will on everyone around them. Instead, the Hero interacting with and taking cues from society produces history.

He then moves on to examining history, science and morality. History, in Carr’s estimation, is clearly distinct from other forms of science, specifically the “hard” sciences. One reason for this qualitatively distinct character is the nature of the object to the subject, or the scientist to the subject. While Carr casts doubt on the pure objectivity of even the “hard” sciences, he is much more clear that history is clearly very subjective.

He then goes on to examine values in writing about history, and how the historian must stand at a distance from their subject and not condone or disapprove of personal decisions. The historian’s job is to write about what happened, not tell people why it was wrong or right.

“The serious historian is the one who recognizes the historically conditioned character of all values, not the one who claims for his own values an objectivity beyond history. The beliefs which we hold and the standards of judgment which we set up are part of history, and are as much subject to historical investigation as any other aspect of human behaviour. Few sciences today-least of all, the social sciences-would lay claim to total independence. But history has no fundamental dependence on something outside itself which would differentiate it from any other science” (109).

Carr then moves on to look at causation in history. He looks at, what he calls, two “red-herrings” in history: Determinism in History, and Chance in History.

Carr’s definition of determinism (121) focuses on understanding the causes of effects, and being able to point to an effect and clearly identify the cause as the only way that this fact could have come about. He takes time to parry with those who would focus on Marx and Hegel’s potentially deterministic aspect of their approach to understanding history. He paints these critics as being overly simplistic, and arguing that, because contingency does seem to exist, determinant action can not. He seems to conclude this argument by claiming that, “the fact is that all human actions are both free and determined,” and thus, understanding the causes requires a nuanced approach (124).

He then goes on to look at the causes of the death of an individual. This person, Robinson, went out for cigarettes and was hit by a car. Carr wonders what the real cause of the death was.

Rational causes are causes that can be understood and applied for a purpose, or, read, for a value judgment. If we thought that we could learn something by the fact that Robinson was a smoker and he died going out to buy cigarettes, that would be a rational cause. Since it falls to the realm of chance, we say that it is accidental. Carr is not saying that rational causes are not bound up with value judgments, but simply that our value judgments make some causes rational, and some accidental.

Carr then moves on to look at history as progress. “History is progress through the transmission of acquired skills from one generation to another” (151). Progress does not have a finite beginning or end. Thirdly, progress does not progress linearly.

Then, there is the problemetization of objectivity: in the writing of history, it is akin to claiming that you have more successfully written a history that mirrors the accepted values of the society in which you live. Carr then moves onto the claim that brings the book together: one must understand the past, present and future to understand history. “History acquires meaning and objectivity only when it establishes a coherent relation between past and future” (173).

Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals

Kant, I. and H. S. Reiss (1991). Kant : political writings. Cambridge [England] ; New York, Cambridge University Press.

Kant begins by exploring what constitutes a “Right”. It firstly applies to the relation between one person and another. Secondly, it concerns the will of both people in this relationship. Thirdly, the end that each will intends to achieve is explored. “Every action which by itself or by its maxim enables the freedom of each individual’s will to co-exist with the freedom of everyone else in accordance with a universal law is right” (133). The Universal Law of Right: “let your external actions be such that the free application of your will can co-exist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law” (133).

This Right involves and legitimizes the use of coercion. Anyone who attempts to subvert this freedom can be coerced into conforming with the freedom. The governing authority is there to make sure that people conform to the freedom in question.

The State then fulfills an important role as the guarantor of the freedom that everyone has come to enjoy, and this involves the use of force and coercion to make sure that everyone remains free. “Experience teaches us the maxim that human beings act in a violent and malevolent manner, and that they tend to fight among themselves until an external coercive legislation supervenes” (137). This is because men will act independently, without a duty to anyone but themselves.

Citizens have three basic rights in this construction of the state and the individual: firstly, they have the freedom to obey only the laws of their own state and no other; secondly, they have civil equality in recognizing no one as being superior to themselves; and thirdly, they have civil independence to owe their freedom to no one other than everyone in the commonwealth. People who have a stake in the system should be given the right to vote and influence this commonwealth. Those who are not capable of such an important intervention should not be given this right (apprentices, servants, minors, women, etc.)

“This dependence upon the will of others and consequent inequality does not, however, in any way conflict with the freedom and equality of all men as human beings who together constitute a people. On the contrary, it is only by accepting these conditions that such a people can become a state and enter into a civil constitution…For from the fact that as passive members of the state, they can demand to be treated by all others in accordance with laws of natural freedom and equality, it does not follow that they also have a right to influence or organize the state itself as active members, or to cooperate in introducing particular laws. Instead, it only means that the positive laws to which the voters agree, of whatever sort they may be, must not be at variance with the natural laws of freedom and with the corresponding equality of all members of the people whereby they are allowed to work their way up from their passive condition to an active one” (140).

People in the State of Nature have an unbridled freedom, a freedom to do and act in any way that they see fit. However, Kant believes that this freedom is not accompanied with duty, and thus that people in nature only act in their self interest. He has a similar view to State of Nature issues as does Hobbes. Kant believes that people, “give up their external freedom in order to receive it back at once as members of a commonwealth” (140). The State of Nature freedom is basically swapped for a freedom in a commonwealth, which is an, “entire and unfinished freedom” (140).

The ruler is the sovereign, and that person is the director of the government. However, while they make the ultimate decision, they are still bound by the law. This leader can not themselves pass judgement, they are not a tyrant, but they can appoint judges to do this for them.

“There can be no rightful resistance on the part of the people to the legislative head of state” (144). “The reason why it is the duty of the people to tolerate even what is apparently the most intolerable misuse of supreme power is that it is impossible ever to conceive of their resistance to the supreme legislation as being anything other than unlawful and liable to nullify the entire legal constitution. For before such resistance could be authorized, there would have to be a public law which permitted the people to offer resistance.” (144-5) The people may, however, refuse to participate in the political process and thus negatively resist.

Then, Kant moves on to talk about an International Right and eventually a Cosmopolitan Right. This will not be looked at in this summary, though it will be noted that it does represent an interesting example of how history moves from a pre-Hegelian perspective: There are ruptures in order (in almost a post-structural sense), and this brings about new orders, or, in Kant’s terms, Rights.

Kant: The Contest of Faculties

Kant, I. and H. S. Reiss (1991). Kant : political writings. Cambridge [England] ; New York, Cambridge University Press.

Kant begins by making a distinction between the higher faculties, i.e. Theology, Law and Medicine with the lower faculties, i.e. Philosophy.

He then goes on to make one of his most important interventions: bridging the rationalist and the empiricist divide that had haunted philosophical debates for years (think Hume/Descarte). He does this by asking if the human race is continually improving and beginning to think about where he should go about finding such information. He claims that it is not possible to have simple, a priori history, for that would require a profit (177)

Kant then goes on to posit that there are three possibilities for the development of society: that we are regressing, progressing or standing still. He concludes that we are not regressing, that we are not progressing, and that if we are standing still, it would be a farce.

He claims that the problem of progress can not be fully explained through experience, but that we do have to start from the empirical position. Kant begins to search for an event that would show the emancipation of the human, the individual. “We are here concerned only with the attitude of the onlookers as it reveals itself in public while the drama of great political changes is taking place: for they openly express universal yet disinterested sympathy for one set of protagonists against their adversaries, even at the risk that their partiality could be of great disadvantage to themselves. Their reactions (because of its universality) proves that mankind as a whole shares a certain character in common, and it also proves (because of its disinterestedness) that man has a moral character, or at least the makings of one” (182).

This morality is comprised of two distinct elements: the, “right of every people to give itself a civil constitution of the kind that it sees fit, without interference from other powers,” and, “once it is accepted that the only intrinsically rightful and morally good constitution which a people can have is by its very nature disposed to avoid wars of aggression…there is the aim, which is also a duty, of submitting to those conditio0ns by which war, the source of all evils and moral corruption, can be prevented” (182).

A legal framework that is derived from a constitution is what shall protect humans, and this will produce, “an increasing number of actions governed by duty” (187). How can this be achieved? By working from the top down: education is the key to making people more dutiful, and the authority of the state can provide this.

Hegel: Reason in History

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. (1953). Reason in history, a general introduction to the philosophy of history. New York,: Liberal Arts Press.

Reason in History is a compilation of notes taken by some of Hegels students. It is an attempt to understand Hegel’s approach and method through his teaching, filtered by students, as opposed to through his other works, like Phenomenology of Spirit. That being said, it is occasionally a difficult read, as the notes from different students are roughly spliced together.

Firstly, the Robert Hartman introduction is very thorough, dense and may want to be approached after you read Hegel’s text. Hartman explains the dialectic process of Hegel, how the thesis leads to the antithesis, how that then leads to a synthesis, or something new, and then how that synthesis negates something in itself and thus becomes the new thesis.

The key for Hegel’s thought is that sense certainly leads to consciousness, and then that this consciousness leads to an acknowledgement of the other, and thus a negation of the self. This then leads to the interpretation and acknowledgement of the is and the ought, which causes the tension which eventually leads to a synthesis. This is all much more thoroughly fleshed out in Phenomenology of Spirit.

Hegel begins by identifying three types of writing history, and eventually makes a case for him using the Philosophical History as the method for his writings. The first two types of writing history are the Original History and the Reflective History.

Original History was practiced by historians who, “transferred what was externally present into the realm of mental representation and thus translated the external appearances into inner conception—much as does the poet, who transforms perceptual material into mental images” (3). These historians, “transform the events, actions and situations present to them into a work of representative thought” (4).

Reflective History is broken down into four parts: 1.) Universal History: present the totality of a country’s history; 2.) Pragmatic History: make this historic narrative practically important; 3.) Critical History: evaluation of historic narratives and examination of their trustworthiness; and 4.) Fragmentary History: refer to the whole of a people’s history.

This brings us to the Philosophical History method: the thoughtful contemplation of history (10).

He then moves on to describe the structure of the dialectical process of history and he sets history in motion. Firstly, the thesis is the Idea, the a priori estimations that are made sans empirical evidence. This is the thesis, the ought, the noumenal. The Idea, operating through Thought, produces Reason, or, in Hegel’s words, “Reason is Thought determining itself in absolute freedom” (15). Then there is the State, or Nature, resting squarely on an empirical foundation, on a posteriori adjudications. These two stand in contrast to one another, and they bring about the synthesis of Spirit, which is the, “substance of history” (20).

“World history in general is the development of Spirit in Time, just as nature is the development of the Idea in Space” (87). Understanding this is vital to understanding Hegel more generally. The Idea develops in Space, which is actually what we would think about as space/time. It is a specific development at a specific time and space. However, this gets translated and begins to move through history when the Spirit develops in Time. However, according to Hartman (xxii), this Time is Time of Consciousness, or a universal Time that operates above and beyond our specific Space/Time.

Thus the Spirit emerges from the synthesis of Idea interacting with Nature, what is interacting with what ought. Then Spirit, like the Phoenix, arises from its own ashes refreshed and renewed and becomes the Thesis. Spirit also contains within it all of its previous iterations, and thus learns from the past and progresses into the future towards greater absolute freedom.

Freud: Civilization and its Discontents

Freud, Sigmund, & Strachey, James. (2005). Civilization and its discontents. New York: Norton.

As Louis Menand points out in the introduction to this well known work, Freud did not believe in the perfectibility of man (14). Freud takes a step slightly outside of his realm of psychology and attempts to explain how civilization must always be a mitigating factor on human instincts generally, and human aggression more specifically. This conclusion about human nature in relation to society allows Freud to speak very negatively about communism.

Freud begins his exploration by talking about an “oceanic” feeling that is common to all people, and that many tend to relate to a belief in God. This feeling is related to the feeling of being in love, a point where the boundary between the ego and the object seems to fade away. He then moves on to discuss the separation of the ego and the object, or the outside, which happens in infancy. “In this way [the separation of ego and object] one makes the first step towards the introduction of the reality principle which is to dominate future development” (10).

Freud then goes on to discuss the pleasure principle. “The programme of becoming happy, which the pleasure principle imposes on us, cannot be fulfilled; yet we must not—indeed we cannot—give up our efforts to bring it nearer to fulfillment by some means or other” (63). He also explains how religion acts as a constraint on human instinct and aggression, a helpful transition for explaining how the state does the same.

Civilization is then defined by Freud: “…describes the whole sum of the achievements and the regulations which distinguish our lives from those of our animal ancestors and which serve two purposes—namely to protect men against nature and to adjust their mutual relations” (73). Humans became civilized through processes that embraced order, cleanliness and beauty. The individual must become subsumed to society, the individual is condemned as “brute force” and the community is exalted as “right” (81).

Freud also picks apart the Biblical claim that one should “love your neighbor as yourself” by positing that, “…the element of truth behind all this…is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him” (103-4).

Communism is critiqued because it attempts to destroy the regime of private property, and thus bring about a society where humans can interact free from avarice. However, Freud claims that, “…I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion” (106). And that, “Aggressiveness was not created by property” (106). There is still the tension that arises from sex, as well as other psychological tensions that do not arise from relations based on private property. Freud quips that, “One only wonders, with concern, what the Soviets will do after they have wiped out their bourgeois” (108).

The meaning of the evolution of civilization is thus: “It must present the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction, as it works itself out in the human species” (119). Civilization exists to curtail the instincts of man, and it does this, “by weakening and disarming [him] and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city” (121).

Freud ends by positing this question: “The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction” (154).

The text is generally sexist, and grand statements are consistently proponed. Additionally, the critique of Communism looks like a straw-man argument and doesn’t deal with any of the substantive critiques of industrial society presented by Marx (among others).