Doty, RL. 1997. “Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory.” European Journal of International Relations 3:365.
As the name “aporia” suggests, there is much that is undecidable, unknowable and undefinable in the description of the agent-structure problem by Doty.
The article begins by addressing the complexity of the agent-structure problem, first brought to the forefront by Wendt (1987). His solution took the form of structuration theory, a mixture of agent-driven theory and structure-driven theory.
“In this article I examine some significant problems found in this very important conversation, and suggest that they result in serious gaps and silences. However, I also propose that important openings can be found that point to a more critical, if unsettling, way of conceptualizing agents and structures and the relation between them. Specifically I suggest that claims to have resolved the dualism between agents and structures are unwarranted. The ‘solutions’ that have been proposed to this problem either end up reverting to a structural determinism or alternatively to an understanding of agency which presumes pregiven, autonomous individuals. Both of these positions come full circle back to the very dilemma that gives rise to the agent-structure problem in the first place. Despite the failure to resolve the agent-structure problem, however, the conversations that have taken place contain some important insights and openings that raise just the kind of questions that can lead to a more critical understanding of International Relations. These openings have not, however, been pursued by the framers of the agent-structure problematique. Because of this, serious gaps, silences and foreclosures of possibilities remain” (366).
“I make the following arguments. (1) Scientific realism, the philosophy of science which either explicitly or implicitly underpins the various ‘solutions’ to the agent-structure problem, remains wedded to an essentialist notion of structure which is at odds with attempts to give equal ontological and explanatory priority to the practices of agents. (2) Structuration theory contains contradictions that are most manifest in its resort to ‘bracketing’… (3) Far from transcending the subject-object dualism, the proposed solutions to the agent-structure problem merely replicate it” (366).
“One popular story is that of agents whose practices produce, reproduce and sometimes transform the structures that make up society. The other story is that of the structures themselves which enable, constrain and make possible the practices of agents…Dressler…frames the issue as involving two uncontentious truths—(1) human agency is the only moving force behind actions, events and outcomes; and (2) agency can only be realized in concrete historical circumstances. Wendt…suggests that the agent-structure problem has its origins in two truisms about social life—(1) human beings and their organizations are purposeful actors whose actions help reproduce or transform the society in which they live; and (2) society is made up of social relationships, which structure the interactions between these purposeful actors” (367).
“The difficulty…is the oppositional logic within which the agent-structure problem has been articulated, i.e. the agent-structure problem has been formulated within a system of thought that defines structures and agents as two distinct, fully constituted and opposed entities each with essential properties, while the central feature of structures, as defined in the agent-structure problematique, makes problematic this very distinction” (371-2).
Doty claims that the issue of agency has been underwhelmingly emphasized and tries to shed light on it.
The current treatment of the agent-structure problem does not allow for the undecidability of the aporia, that Doty puts forth. This post-structural approach, this rejection of decidability is not an embrace of nihilism or non-action, but rather is a problematization of the ability of scholars to truly identify whether causality takes place in the realm of structure or agency. In fact, the current treatment of the dichotomy, in its inadequacy to identify and highlight the interaction of structure/agent, actually makes quite clearly the case that the agent-structure issue has not, and cannot, be brought to clarity.
Doty then presents undecidability and paradoxes as a method for achieving three things:
“I do, however, claim that it is possible to take the undecidability of issues seriously and to press these paradoxes further than they have been pressed by IR theorists. The purpose of doing this are threefold—(1) to reconceptualize the nature and significance of practice; (2) to suggest an alternative way of understanding the agent-structure relationship; and (3) to point out how current ‘solutions’ foreclose important possibilities in terms of critical International Relations theory” (375).
Doty uses concepts like play and practice in determining the causal implications of either structure or agency.
Doty does not argue that the efforts of Wendt and others in re-associating the agent-structure problem with a contsructeivist method and ontology is wholely base. She makes the case that they could go much further. “Certainly, approaches which reject a priori assumptions about the givenness of either agents or structures enable the posing of a much wider range of questions than do those which give explanatory priority to either one of these. However, the current framing of the agent-structure problem precludes important critical moves and creates boundaries beyond which IR theory cannot go. At stake is the extent to which the inquiries enabled by particular framings of the issue are complicit with existing discourses, and the extent to which they make problematic these discourses, their underlying presuppositions and the power inherent in them” (383).
There is a discussion of practice informing identity, which is over determined, and the concept of subject-position, being discursively formed and uncentered (always already uncenterable?) as being important as well.
“If structures, meanings and identities are overdetermined and inherently undecidable, and the construction of all of these things results from practices which marginalize and exclude the excesses that would call into question the center of itself…, then we can reasonably suggest that power is fundamental to discursive constructions. There are no constructions in the absence of power” (386).
“Hollis and Smith…suggest that there are still two stories to tell, that of agency and that of structure. Wendt…also suggests that there are two stories to tell regarding the relationship between structure and process—one based exclusively on microeconomic analogies, and one based on sociological and social psychological analogies. In this article, I have attempted to show that there are also other stories to tell regarding agency, structure and the relationship between them and practices” (387).
Showing posts with label Positivism/Post-Positivisim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Positivism/Post-Positivisim. Show all posts
Monday, August 4, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Campbell: Writing Security
Campbell, D., 1998. Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, University of Minnesota Press.
Ch 1: Provocations of Our Time
“The demise of the cold war has been much heralded. But the causzes, meaning, and implications of this political rupture (assuming its veracity) are much debated” (15).
“To proclaim the end of the cold war assumes that we know what the cold war was” (15).
“The interpretive approach…sees theory as practice: the theory of international relations is one instance of the pervasive cultural practices that serve to discipline ambiguity” (17).
He defines the “late modern period” as one of “the globalization of contingency, the, “increasing tendencies toward ambiguity, indeterminacy, and uncertainty on our horizon” (17). These are not just from the outside in, but they also come from within (or most importantly come from within?). “This globalization of contingency…renders problematic the discursive practices that have made those spatializations of power possible…The irruption of contingency opens up the possibility of observing that foundational discourses…work to constitute the identities in whose name they operate” (18).
The key to understanding “what was at stake” in the cold war is through the analysis of discourse. Other attempts to flesh out the subject-object continuum are less than helpful. “…if we accept that there is nothing possible outside of discourse…the way is open to reconsider what was at stake in the cold war” (22).
Examines some of the important national security documents that have been declassified and speeches given by leaders. There is a constant reiteration of the themes of the state, the moral justification for action, and the desire to fill an international void with order. There is a constant reminder of the dangers of global communism and their intention for global expansion. However, this threat is not the full reason that the US undertook certain aggressive policies; the desire to become a great power, an international leader, was a crucial aspect of foreign policy. The author argues that the “cold war” is much more than what it is traditionally thought to be, and the same mentality continues to prevail.
Ch 2: Rethinking Foreign Policy
The chapter begins by exploring questions of identity and difference. Firstly, it explores questions posed to immigrants to the US that are concerned with, “…the elimination of that which is alien, foreign, and perceived as a threat to a secure state” (36). “Does the inside of a state exist in marked contrast to the outside? What is at stake in the attempt to screen the strange, the unfamiliar, and the threatening associated with the outside from the familiar and safe, which are linked to the inside?” (36).
The etymology of foreign is explored. “How is it that we…came to understand foreign policy as the external deployment of instrumental reason on behalf of an unproblematic internal identity situated in an anarchic realm of necessity?” (37). “Thus, if one were operating in terms of the ‘levels-of-analysis’ metaphor found in traditional international relations literature, the argument here would need to be regarded at a level beyond that associated with either the state or the international system. The argument here is concerned with the representation of history that allows us to talk in terms of ‘the state’ and ‘the international system,’ and the impact that problematization has had on our understanding of foreign policy” (37). “[I]t is about how the conventional understanding of foreign policy was made possible via a discursive economy that gave value to representational practices associated with a particular problematization” (37-8).
He then explores the traditional IR definition and approach to thinking about the state and the international system. The traditional rupture between the early authority of the church that was said to transition to the state after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is used as a foundation for conceptualizing foreign policy today. Campbell claims that a (re)writing of history would provide space for possibly a new interpretation of foreign policy can emerge.
On Westphalia: “For international relations, this rendering of the We4stphalian moment constitutes the conditions of possibility for the discipline. IT establishes the point of origin necessary to suggest that, in contrast to the religious and political structures of the preceding millennia, the history of modern Europe since the Peace of Westphalia has been a history of sovereign states acting in a multistate system” (41).
Extensive discussion of Christianity as it relates to the traditional narrative of IR.
“To talk of the endangered nature of the modern world and the enemies and threats that about in it is thus not to offer a simple ethnographic description of our condition; it is to invoke a discourse of danger through which the incipient ambiguity of our world can be grounded in accordance with the insistence of identity. Danger might therefore be thought of as the new god for the modern world of states, not because it is peculiar to our time, but because it replaces the logic of Christendom’s evangelism of fear” (50). Foreign policy disciplines the state. The state acts out of fear of violent death.
Ch 1: Provocations of Our Time
“The demise of the cold war has been much heralded. But the causzes, meaning, and implications of this political rupture (assuming its veracity) are much debated” (15).
“To proclaim the end of the cold war assumes that we know what the cold war was” (15).
“The interpretive approach…sees theory as practice: the theory of international relations is one instance of the pervasive cultural practices that serve to discipline ambiguity” (17).
He defines the “late modern period” as one of “the globalization of contingency, the, “increasing tendencies toward ambiguity, indeterminacy, and uncertainty on our horizon” (17). These are not just from the outside in, but they also come from within (or most importantly come from within?). “This globalization of contingency…renders problematic the discursive practices that have made those spatializations of power possible…The irruption of contingency opens up the possibility of observing that foundational discourses…work to constitute the identities in whose name they operate” (18).
The key to understanding “what was at stake” in the cold war is through the analysis of discourse. Other attempts to flesh out the subject-object continuum are less than helpful. “…if we accept that there is nothing possible outside of discourse…the way is open to reconsider what was at stake in the cold war” (22).
Examines some of the important national security documents that have been declassified and speeches given by leaders. There is a constant reiteration of the themes of the state, the moral justification for action, and the desire to fill an international void with order. There is a constant reminder of the dangers of global communism and their intention for global expansion. However, this threat is not the full reason that the US undertook certain aggressive policies; the desire to become a great power, an international leader, was a crucial aspect of foreign policy. The author argues that the “cold war” is much more than what it is traditionally thought to be, and the same mentality continues to prevail.
Ch 2: Rethinking Foreign Policy
The chapter begins by exploring questions of identity and difference. Firstly, it explores questions posed to immigrants to the US that are concerned with, “…the elimination of that which is alien, foreign, and perceived as a threat to a secure state” (36). “Does the inside of a state exist in marked contrast to the outside? What is at stake in the attempt to screen the strange, the unfamiliar, and the threatening associated with the outside from the familiar and safe, which are linked to the inside?” (36).
The etymology of foreign is explored. “How is it that we…came to understand foreign policy as the external deployment of instrumental reason on behalf of an unproblematic internal identity situated in an anarchic realm of necessity?” (37). “Thus, if one were operating in terms of the ‘levels-of-analysis’ metaphor found in traditional international relations literature, the argument here would need to be regarded at a level beyond that associated with either the state or the international system. The argument here is concerned with the representation of history that allows us to talk in terms of ‘the state’ and ‘the international system,’ and the impact that problematization has had on our understanding of foreign policy” (37). “[I]t is about how the conventional understanding of foreign policy was made possible via a discursive economy that gave value to representational practices associated with a particular problematization” (37-8).
He then explores the traditional IR definition and approach to thinking about the state and the international system. The traditional rupture between the early authority of the church that was said to transition to the state after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is used as a foundation for conceptualizing foreign policy today. Campbell claims that a (re)writing of history would provide space for possibly a new interpretation of foreign policy can emerge.
On Westphalia: “For international relations, this rendering of the We4stphalian moment constitutes the conditions of possibility for the discipline. IT establishes the point of origin necessary to suggest that, in contrast to the religious and political structures of the preceding millennia, the history of modern Europe since the Peace of Westphalia has been a history of sovereign states acting in a multistate system” (41).
Extensive discussion of Christianity as it relates to the traditional narrative of IR.
“To talk of the endangered nature of the modern world and the enemies and threats that about in it is thus not to offer a simple ethnographic description of our condition; it is to invoke a discourse of danger through which the incipient ambiguity of our world can be grounded in accordance with the insistence of identity. Danger might therefore be thought of as the new god for the modern world of states, not because it is peculiar to our time, but because it replaces the logic of Christendom’s evangelism of fear” (50). Foreign policy disciplines the state. The state acts out of fear of violent death.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wight: Agents, Structures and International Relations
Wight, Colin. (2006). Agents, structures and international relations : politics as ontology. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
The agent-structure problem is the medium whereby Wight attempts to “unpack” his argument. He chooses this for three reasons: firstly, this problem is essentially ontological; secondly, every theoretical approach posits a solution to the agent-structure problem whether explicitly or tacitly; and thirdly, is the intersection of politics and ontology whereby the assumption is that the agent-structure problem is a part of social ontology. From later in the book, “If ever the agent-structure problem were solved, in the sense of requiring no further discussion, then social theoretic activity would come to an end, and along with it political, economic, cultural and ethical dispute. In this sense, the agent-structure problem is political” (63).
Wight also rejects the possibility that a general theory of IR is even achievable. “The attempt to construct a parsimonious theory of IR is not only flawed and doomed to failure, but also politically and ethically dangerous” (8).
In the second chapter, Wight situates his own political position vis-à-vis that of positivism. He claims that the current IR theoretical mess requires one to orient themselves with this hegemonic approach. “According to the positivist model of science, there is a general set of rules, procedures and axioms, which when taken together constitutes the ‘scientific method’” (19).
Wight rejects this positivism and instead embraces a scientific realism: “But it is not just the ‘covering law model’ which scientific realism rejects; it is the very attempt to demarcate a ‘scientific method’. For scientific realists there can be no single ‘scientific method’. Understood as the attempt to provide depth explanations of phenomena, it must be the case that differing phenomena will require differing modes of investigation and perhaps different models of explanation. Contra positivism, then, for scientific realists, the content of science is not the method” (19). “For scientific realists the productions of science are always open to revision and reformulation. The dialectic of science is never ending and no scientific discovery, or claim, is ever beyond critique” (24).
There is an account of the Kantian epistemological turn that arose from the catalyst that was David Hume. The scientific realists must always question epistemological claims and must revert back to ontology, though ontology will always require epistemology for further exploration.
He ontologically establishes three points about society: “First, societies are irreducible to people; social forms are a necessary condition for any intentional social act. Second, their pre-existence establishes their autonomy as possible objects of study. Third, their causal power establishes their reality” (46).
Wight then deploys the Bourdieu concept of habitus. He defines this as, “a mediating link between individuals’ subjective worlds and the socio-cultural world into which they are born and which they share with others. The power of the habitus derives from the thoughtlessness of habit and habituation, rather than consciously learned rules” (49). Society and the individual interact thought the medium of the habitus.
The remainder of the second chapter is a relatively rushed sketch of different theories and Wight’s classification of their position vis-à-vis the agent-structure problem and the issues surrounding either ontology, epistemology or methodology. He looks at Webber, Wallerstein, Waltz, Wendt, Cox, Carr and many others.
The third chapter’s aim is to, “identify what lies at the heart of the agent-structure problem and disentangle this from the other issues that surfaced during the debate surrounding this issue within IR, but which are not an integral part of it” (90). This debate is problematic because there are so many different theoretical approaches that have been taken and that must be disentangled. There is the standard levels of analysis approach, the micro-macro approach and the two structures approach. All of these are problematic on certain levels for Wight if they do not involve an understanding of full interaction between agents and structure where structure operates at all levels. The third chapter also has relevant, interesting and important things to say about emergence and deserves a more thorough read.
This abstract will stop at this point and should be taken up later with chapter 4-the end.
UPDATE:
Conclusion:
The agent-structure debate has provided the following to IR: it has brought forward the impossibility of focusing only on the international while ignoring the domestic; it has also rejected structural monism; it has also problematized methodological individualism; finally, it brought forward the difficulty of operationalizing this approach.
“The ability to predict outcomes in open systems is beyond all science” (52).“There are simply no epistemological or methodological divides to accept, defend or bridge. …the argument advanced in this book promises nothing less than a comprehensive reassessment and restructuring of the theoretical cleavages that divide the discipline” (1). The theoretical divisions that are currently a very real trend in IR are not, Wight claims, epistemological or methodological, but they are rather ontological. Wight attempts to right this mess by focusing on the ontological arguments that have been overlooked by many in the discipline.
The agent-structure problem is the medium whereby Wight attempts to “unpack” his argument. He chooses this for three reasons: firstly, this problem is essentially ontological; secondly, every theoretical approach posits a solution to the agent-structure problem whether explicitly or tacitly; and thirdly, is the intersection of politics and ontology whereby the assumption is that the agent-structure problem is a part of social ontology. From later in the book, “If ever the agent-structure problem were solved, in the sense of requiring no further discussion, then social theoretic activity would come to an end, and along with it political, economic, cultural and ethical dispute. In this sense, the agent-structure problem is political” (63).
Wight also rejects the possibility that a general theory of IR is even achievable. “The attempt to construct a parsimonious theory of IR is not only flawed and doomed to failure, but also politically and ethically dangerous” (8).
In the second chapter, Wight situates his own political position vis-à-vis that of positivism. He claims that the current IR theoretical mess requires one to orient themselves with this hegemonic approach. “According to the positivist model of science, there is a general set of rules, procedures and axioms, which when taken together constitutes the ‘scientific method’” (19).
“…positivism can be characterized in the following manner. (1) Phenomenalism: the doctrine that holds that we cannot get beyond the way things appear to us and thereby obtain reliable knowledge of reality—in other words, appearances, not realities are the only objects of knowledge. (2) Nominalism: the doctrine that there is no objective meaning to the words we use—words and concepts do not pick out any actual objects or universal aspects of reality, they are simply conventional symbols or names that we happen to use for our own convenience. (3) Cognitivism: the doctrine that holds that no cognitive value can be ascribed to value judgments and normative statements. (4) Naturalism: the belief that there is an essential unity of scientific method such that the social sciences can be studies in the same manner as natural science” (21).Positivists then use covering laws, instrumental treatments of theoretical terms, a Humean account of cause and an embrace of operationalism.
Wight rejects this positivism and instead embraces a scientific realism: “But it is not just the ‘covering law model’ which scientific realism rejects; it is the very attempt to demarcate a ‘scientific method’. For scientific realists there can be no single ‘scientific method’. Understood as the attempt to provide depth explanations of phenomena, it must be the case that differing phenomena will require differing modes of investigation and perhaps different models of explanation. Contra positivism, then, for scientific realists, the content of science is not the method” (19). “For scientific realists the productions of science are always open to revision and reformulation. The dialectic of science is never ending and no scientific discovery, or claim, is ever beyond critique” (24).
There is an account of the Kantian epistemological turn that arose from the catalyst that was David Hume. The scientific realists must always question epistemological claims and must revert back to ontology, though ontology will always require epistemology for further exploration.
“The empirical realist error is the conflation of three domains, or levels of realty, into one—that of the empirical. In contrast to this, scientific realists argue that in order to make sense of the scientific enterprise we need to distinguish between the domains of the empirical (experiences and impressions), the actual (events and states-of-affairs—i.e. the actual objects of potential direct experience) and the real or non-actual (the deep structures, mechanisms and tendencies)” (34-5).There is a continued critique of positivism in its many forms. The hope of Wight is the imposition of a science without positivist “residues”. For him, scientific realism is one way that this can become a reality.
He ontologically establishes three points about society: “First, societies are irreducible to people; social forms are a necessary condition for any intentional social act. Second, their pre-existence establishes their autonomy as possible objects of study. Third, their causal power establishes their reality” (46).
Wight then deploys the Bourdieu concept of habitus. He defines this as, “a mediating link between individuals’ subjective worlds and the socio-cultural world into which they are born and which they share with others. The power of the habitus derives from the thoughtlessness of habit and habituation, rather than consciously learned rules” (49). Society and the individual interact thought the medium of the habitus.
The remainder of the second chapter is a relatively rushed sketch of different theories and Wight’s classification of their position vis-à-vis the agent-structure problem and the issues surrounding either ontology, epistemology or methodology. He looks at Webber, Wallerstein, Waltz, Wendt, Cox, Carr and many others.
The third chapter’s aim is to, “identify what lies at the heart of the agent-structure problem and disentangle this from the other issues that surfaced during the debate surrounding this issue within IR, but which are not an integral part of it” (90). This debate is problematic because there are so many different theoretical approaches that have been taken and that must be disentangled. There is the standard levels of analysis approach, the micro-macro approach and the two structures approach. All of these are problematic on certain levels for Wight if they do not involve an understanding of full interaction between agents and structure where structure operates at all levels. The third chapter also has relevant, interesting and important things to say about emergence and deserves a more thorough read.
This abstract will stop at this point and should be taken up later with chapter 4-the end.
UPDATE:
Conclusion:
The agent-structure debate has provided the following to IR: it has brought forward the impossibility of focusing only on the international while ignoring the domestic; it has also rejected structural monism; it has also problematized methodological individualism; finally, it brought forward the difficulty of operationalizing this approach.
Little: The Balance of Power in International Relations
Little, Richard. (2007). The balance of power in international relations : metaphors, myths, and models. New York: Cambridge University Press.
This book attempts to unpack the metaphor of “balance of power”. It is a constructivist account of how balance of power can be situated within theoretical debates between positivists and post-positivists. It also takes apart four different Realist theories of IR and situates the concept of balance of power within those theories, highlighting how these theories can also be seen as being constructive in their approach.
Balance of power in IR is initially associated with anti-hegemonic alliances. When one power becomes too strong, other nations will rally together to create a different pole in the international system. This pole is designed to balance the power of the hegemon. Waltz famously said that states will either balance or bandwagon.
“The aim of this book is to illuminate the central, complex and yet contentious role that the balance of power plays in the theory and practice of international relations” (11). “Although there are significant areas of disagreement among…realists, it is generally accepted that the great powers monitor the material power possessed by all the other states in the international system and endeavour [sic] to manipulate the resulting distribution of power in their own favor as a means of enhancing their chances of survival” (11). By contrast…English school theorists…also link the balance of power to the existence of an international society and their approach requires them to take account of ideational l as well as material factors” (11-2). “For critics, the balance of power looks increasingly anachronistic and unhelpful as a tool for understanding international relations” (12).
He claims to make two main “moves”. These are a movement from agency to structure, as the metaphor eventually becomes so institutionalized that it becomes accepted as being a salient effect of international structure. The second move is to associate the balance of power with myth and metaphor and then to relate this to some of the most important attempts to understand IR since WWII.
Little then discusses the complex, confusing and ambiguous meaning that metaphors can come to have. The balance of power, for example, can be understood to mean a variety of things, and is defined in 9 different ways (27). The metaphor was originally used to explain Italian city states interacting.
He examines the metaphor from the perspective of scales on which power is balanced. “What impact does the scales metaphor have on this conception of power? In essence, it moves us away from an agency-based conception of power and towards a structural conception of power. It tells us less about the power possessed by the participants as agents and more about how the power possessed by the members of the system defines the structure of the social setting” (47).
Summing up chapter two’s argument, Little states, “…I argue that metaphors are not only a surprisingly complex phenomenon but also that any assessment of the balance of power is profoundly affected by whether we regard the concept as a substitution or an interaction metaphor” (50).
In the third chapter, Little makes a distinction between positivist and post-positivist approaches to understanding the relationship between metaphor, model and myth. “From a positivist perspective, myth is used in a colloquial sense and is associated with a fundamental error of some kind, whereas postpositivism associates myths with ideological narratives that draw on deep-seated beliefs about the nature of reality” (51).
The remainder of this third chapter further fleshes out the distinction between myth, metaphor and models from the positivist and post-positivist perspectives. There is a relation of the metaphor in the rhetoric of Churchill and George W. Bush. There is an extension of the balance of power metaphor to include bodies and arches. There is also a very informative flow-chart that tracks different iterations of balance of power metaphors and how these relate to the four authors that Little examines.
The next four chapters are explorations of the concept of balance of power within the structure of Mearsheimer, Waltz, Bull and Mortenthau. They are not detailed here, but should be reviewed. This is a limited review focusing on the first three chapters.
UPDATE:
Ch. 4: Morgenthau: Politics among Nations
The balance of power is a central feature of Morgenthau’s book. Wight highlights two processes that Morgenthau conflates: “One associates the balance of power with the unintended outcome of great powers engaged in a mechanistic drive for hegemony. The other dynamic is associated with a complex set of social, ideational and material factors that ameliorate the effects of the first dynamic and assists the great powers in maintaining an equilibrium that promotes their collective security and common interests” (92).
A first general criticism of Morgenthau’s approach is that it is ahistorical. A second criticism is that it is generally ambiguous. Thirdly, it is generally thought to be incoherent. For example, Donnelly (2000) critiques Morgenthau’s conception of balance of power as being two mutually exclusive things.
For Morgenthau, power politics are eternal, as this is deeply rooted in human nature. However, he also argues that the balance of power is made possible by a certain kind of international structure that some might call modern and rooted in European history. There is a dualism at play here which is difficult to reconcile, though I would be tempted to explain it through the same distinction as that between structural realists and neo-classical realists.
Morgenthau highlights the golden age of the balance of power at the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. “He justifies this assessment on two grounds; first, that this was the time when most of the literature on the balance of power was published, and second, that this was the era when princes most explicitly drew on the balance of power to guide their foreign policy” (101).
“…as I have tried to show in this chapter, from his perspective, the nature of international politics has undergone at least tw2o major transformations over the last three hundred years” (124). The first was the French Revolution, which challenged the aristocracy. The second was after WWI, with international super-powers. In this sense, Morgenthau begins to look somewhat like a constructivist. While international structure pushes countries towards something resembling hegemony, countries can fight back and bring about a sort of stability to the system. Morgenthau spoke against nationalistic universalism and thought of the historical transition as moving towards a world order. As we move there, we must attempt to achieve an associational balance of power (as opposed to an adversarial balance of power) through the tool of diplomacy.
Ch. 5: Bull: Anarchical Society
The concept of the balance of power figures strongly in Bull’s The Anarchical Society.
He begins by using Vattel’s definition (Swiss diplomat): “’a state of affairs such that no one power is in a position where it is preponderant and can lay down the law to the others’” (135). “For Vattel, therefore, the balance of power is contrasted with hegemony and it applies to a political arena where there is no overarching authority” (135).
Bull refers to balance of power as an institution, as defined as the following: “’a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’” (135).
Balancing then necessarily implies, “....’self-restraint as well as the restraint of others’” (135). In this sense, structure impels countries to work to resist the hegemonic rise of other countries, as well as resist hegemonic attempts of their own.
There are six complications to this: 1.) polarity is important; 2.) there are multiple types of power; 3.) the way that power is distributed geographically is important; 4.) the way that power is perceived is important; 5.) nuclear weapons change things; and 6.) the type of balance of power is important, for example, whether or not it is fortuitous or contrived.
“An international system exists…whenever ‘states are in regular contact with one another and where in addition there is interaction between them, sufficient to make the behavior of each a necessary element in the calculation of the other’” (139).
“By contrast, an international society exists when states, on the one hand, are ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values’ and, on the other, ‘conceive of themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions’” (139).
Bull’s view of the institutional relationships involved in international society are represented in Figure 5.4: In the middle there is balance of power. As nodes that move away from this central point, there is international law, diplomacy, war and great power management (149).
Ch. 6: Kenneth N. Waltz’s Theory of International Politics:
“Waltz…insists that if there is any ‘distinctively political theory of international politics, balance of power is it’” (167).
Little argues that, while Waltz is typically seen as being a proponent of adversarial balances of power, the story can also be read as promoting an associational balance of power.
“So…Walt…has drawn a distinction between balance of power theory and balance of threat theory and he argues that the latter incorporates the idea of power but subsumes it, in conjunction with geography, offensive capabilities and intentions, within the more general concept of threat. He then goes on to argue that where as the balance of power theory predicts that states will ally against the strongest state, the balance of threat theory predicts that states will ally against the most threatening state” (169-70).
Reverse Balancing: “…identifies collaborative policies that are designed to promote stability by reducing the level of arms or implementing measures that are designed to inhibit the use of weapons” (172).
Waltz tries to establish an international political realm that is distinct from the realm of domestic politics, or unit level analyses. There are two forms of political order, one with an organizing principle of hierarchy and another with an organizing principle of anarchy.
The issue of power is central to Waltz’s theory. Firstly, he conceptualizes power in material terms, and disputes whether or not these material ends need to actually control outcomes of others. Secondly, he assumes that there is only ever a small amount of states that can affect the system. Thirdly, he assumes power is relative.
“From Waltz’s perspective, it is not that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, in Wendt’s memorable phrase, but rather ‘anarchy is what polarity makes of it’ (192).
“…the two great powers are much more able to manage international affairs constructively than are the great powers in a mltipolar world” (206).
“He accepts, however, that a theory that is based on the structure of the international system can only help to explain ‘some big, important, and enduring patterns’… In essence, he makes three major claims in the book. The first is that anarchy is an extremely resilient political structure and that the balance of power provides the best theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. The second claim is that the nature of international politics is very different in bipolar and multipolar systems and this is because the balance of power operates on a very different basis in these two kinds of systems. The third claim, closely related to the second, is that the international system can be more constructively managed in a bipolar system than in a multipolar system. This is because the miltipola4r balance of power inhibits the constructive management of international affairs. Structural explanations, therefore, can account for continuity within systems and differences between systems” (209-10).
Ch. 7: John J. Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics:
Little explains that this book was written in response to those who believed that the end of the cold war represented some sort of “end of history” (213).
Little earlier argues that reading Waltz as a defensive realist is a misreading, something that Mearsheimer relies on in his situating of his IR theory. In line with the focus on metaphors, myths, etc., Little analogizes the international system to a tread mill. In Waltz’s theory, states run and run on the treadmill and there will always be competition and conflict, unless only two states remain. Only then is there the possibility of working together to solve problems. Mearsheimer, on the other hand, presents a treadmill where the great powers try to run faster than the other states until other states succumb to fatigue and only one state remains.
“The aim of this chapter is to highlight the role that the balance of power plays in Mearsheimer’s theory of international politics and to show how his theory transforms the conventional or certainly the Waltzian image of the international system and reveals that it is, inherently, a regionally based system” (215).
Assumes that great powers shape the international system. States are overwhelmingly concerned with their own survival because the international system is a self-help system. The, “…logic of anarchy compels every great power to adopt an aggressive stance in the international system” (224). States strive to be hegemons, though it’s virtually impossible (espseically in the age of nuclear weapons) to become the hegemon (based on Mearcheimer’s definition).
Mearsheimer then moves away from some more foundational, Waltzian structural realist assumptions and brings geography into the equation by talking about the “stopping power of water”.
This book attempts to unpack the metaphor of “balance of power”. It is a constructivist account of how balance of power can be situated within theoretical debates between positivists and post-positivists. It also takes apart four different Realist theories of IR and situates the concept of balance of power within those theories, highlighting how these theories can also be seen as being constructive in their approach.
Balance of power in IR is initially associated with anti-hegemonic alliances. When one power becomes too strong, other nations will rally together to create a different pole in the international system. This pole is designed to balance the power of the hegemon. Waltz famously said that states will either balance or bandwagon.
“The aim of this book is to illuminate the central, complex and yet contentious role that the balance of power plays in the theory and practice of international relations” (11). “Although there are significant areas of disagreement among…realists, it is generally accepted that the great powers monitor the material power possessed by all the other states in the international system and endeavour [sic] to manipulate the resulting distribution of power in their own favor as a means of enhancing their chances of survival” (11). By contrast…English school theorists…also link the balance of power to the existence of an international society and their approach requires them to take account of ideational l as well as material factors” (11-2). “For critics, the balance of power looks increasingly anachronistic and unhelpful as a tool for understanding international relations” (12).
He claims to make two main “moves”. These are a movement from agency to structure, as the metaphor eventually becomes so institutionalized that it becomes accepted as being a salient effect of international structure. The second move is to associate the balance of power with myth and metaphor and then to relate this to some of the most important attempts to understand IR since WWII.
Little then discusses the complex, confusing and ambiguous meaning that metaphors can come to have. The balance of power, for example, can be understood to mean a variety of things, and is defined in 9 different ways (27). The metaphor was originally used to explain Italian city states interacting.
He examines the metaphor from the perspective of scales on which power is balanced. “What impact does the scales metaphor have on this conception of power? In essence, it moves us away from an agency-based conception of power and towards a structural conception of power. It tells us less about the power possessed by the participants as agents and more about how the power possessed by the members of the system defines the structure of the social setting” (47).
Summing up chapter two’s argument, Little states, “…I argue that metaphors are not only a surprisingly complex phenomenon but also that any assessment of the balance of power is profoundly affected by whether we regard the concept as a substitution or an interaction metaphor” (50).
In the third chapter, Little makes a distinction between positivist and post-positivist approaches to understanding the relationship between metaphor, model and myth. “From a positivist perspective, myth is used in a colloquial sense and is associated with a fundamental error of some kind, whereas postpositivism associates myths with ideological narratives that draw on deep-seated beliefs about the nature of reality” (51).
The remainder of this third chapter further fleshes out the distinction between myth, metaphor and models from the positivist and post-positivist perspectives. There is a relation of the metaphor in the rhetoric of Churchill and George W. Bush. There is an extension of the balance of power metaphor to include bodies and arches. There is also a very informative flow-chart that tracks different iterations of balance of power metaphors and how these relate to the four authors that Little examines.
The next four chapters are explorations of the concept of balance of power within the structure of Mearsheimer, Waltz, Bull and Mortenthau. They are not detailed here, but should be reviewed. This is a limited review focusing on the first three chapters.
UPDATE:
Ch. 4: Morgenthau: Politics among Nations
The balance of power is a central feature of Morgenthau’s book. Wight highlights two processes that Morgenthau conflates: “One associates the balance of power with the unintended outcome of great powers engaged in a mechanistic drive for hegemony. The other dynamic is associated with a complex set of social, ideational and material factors that ameliorate the effects of the first dynamic and assists the great powers in maintaining an equilibrium that promotes their collective security and common interests” (92).
A first general criticism of Morgenthau’s approach is that it is ahistorical. A second criticism is that it is generally ambiguous. Thirdly, it is generally thought to be incoherent. For example, Donnelly (2000) critiques Morgenthau’s conception of balance of power as being two mutually exclusive things.
For Morgenthau, power politics are eternal, as this is deeply rooted in human nature. However, he also argues that the balance of power is made possible by a certain kind of international structure that some might call modern and rooted in European history. There is a dualism at play here which is difficult to reconcile, though I would be tempted to explain it through the same distinction as that between structural realists and neo-classical realists.
Morgenthau highlights the golden age of the balance of power at the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. “He justifies this assessment on two grounds; first, that this was the time when most of the literature on the balance of power was published, and second, that this was the era when princes most explicitly drew on the balance of power to guide their foreign policy” (101).
“…as I have tried to show in this chapter, from his perspective, the nature of international politics has undergone at least tw2o major transformations over the last three hundred years” (124). The first was the French Revolution, which challenged the aristocracy. The second was after WWI, with international super-powers. In this sense, Morgenthau begins to look somewhat like a constructivist. While international structure pushes countries towards something resembling hegemony, countries can fight back and bring about a sort of stability to the system. Morgenthau spoke against nationalistic universalism and thought of the historical transition as moving towards a world order. As we move there, we must attempt to achieve an associational balance of power (as opposed to an adversarial balance of power) through the tool of diplomacy.
Ch. 5: Bull: Anarchical Society
The concept of the balance of power figures strongly in Bull’s The Anarchical Society.
He begins by using Vattel’s definition (Swiss diplomat): “’a state of affairs such that no one power is in a position where it is preponderant and can lay down the law to the others’” (135). “For Vattel, therefore, the balance of power is contrasted with hegemony and it applies to a political arena where there is no overarching authority” (135).
Bull refers to balance of power as an institution, as defined as the following: “’a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’” (135).
Balancing then necessarily implies, “....’self-restraint as well as the restraint of others’” (135). In this sense, structure impels countries to work to resist the hegemonic rise of other countries, as well as resist hegemonic attempts of their own.
There are six complications to this: 1.) polarity is important; 2.) there are multiple types of power; 3.) the way that power is distributed geographically is important; 4.) the way that power is perceived is important; 5.) nuclear weapons change things; and 6.) the type of balance of power is important, for example, whether or not it is fortuitous or contrived.
“An international system exists…whenever ‘states are in regular contact with one another and where in addition there is interaction between them, sufficient to make the behavior of each a necessary element in the calculation of the other’” (139).
“By contrast, an international society exists when states, on the one hand, are ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values’ and, on the other, ‘conceive of themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions’” (139).
Bull’s view of the institutional relationships involved in international society are represented in Figure 5.4: In the middle there is balance of power. As nodes that move away from this central point, there is international law, diplomacy, war and great power management (149).
Ch. 6: Kenneth N. Waltz’s Theory of International Politics:
“Waltz…insists that if there is any ‘distinctively political theory of international politics, balance of power is it’” (167).
Little argues that, while Waltz is typically seen as being a proponent of adversarial balances of power, the story can also be read as promoting an associational balance of power.
“So…Walt…has drawn a distinction between balance of power theory and balance of threat theory and he argues that the latter incorporates the idea of power but subsumes it, in conjunction with geography, offensive capabilities and intentions, within the more general concept of threat. He then goes on to argue that where as the balance of power theory predicts that states will ally against the strongest state, the balance of threat theory predicts that states will ally against the most threatening state” (169-70).
Reverse Balancing: “…identifies collaborative policies that are designed to promote stability by reducing the level of arms or implementing measures that are designed to inhibit the use of weapons” (172).
Waltz tries to establish an international political realm that is distinct from the realm of domestic politics, or unit level analyses. There are two forms of political order, one with an organizing principle of hierarchy and another with an organizing principle of anarchy.
The issue of power is central to Waltz’s theory. Firstly, he conceptualizes power in material terms, and disputes whether or not these material ends need to actually control outcomes of others. Secondly, he assumes that there is only ever a small amount of states that can affect the system. Thirdly, he assumes power is relative.
“From Waltz’s perspective, it is not that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, in Wendt’s memorable phrase, but rather ‘anarchy is what polarity makes of it’ (192).
“…the two great powers are much more able to manage international affairs constructively than are the great powers in a mltipolar world” (206).
“He accepts, however, that a theory that is based on the structure of the international system can only help to explain ‘some big, important, and enduring patterns’… In essence, he makes three major claims in the book. The first is that anarchy is an extremely resilient political structure and that the balance of power provides the best theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. The second claim is that the nature of international politics is very different in bipolar and multipolar systems and this is because the balance of power operates on a very different basis in these two kinds of systems. The third claim, closely related to the second, is that the international system can be more constructively managed in a bipolar system than in a multipolar system. This is because the miltipola4r balance of power inhibits the constructive management of international affairs. Structural explanations, therefore, can account for continuity within systems and differences between systems” (209-10).
Ch. 7: John J. Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics:
Little explains that this book was written in response to those who believed that the end of the cold war represented some sort of “end of history” (213).
Little earlier argues that reading Waltz as a defensive realist is a misreading, something that Mearsheimer relies on in his situating of his IR theory. In line with the focus on metaphors, myths, etc., Little analogizes the international system to a tread mill. In Waltz’s theory, states run and run on the treadmill and there will always be competition and conflict, unless only two states remain. Only then is there the possibility of working together to solve problems. Mearsheimer, on the other hand, presents a treadmill where the great powers try to run faster than the other states until other states succumb to fatigue and only one state remains.
“The aim of this chapter is to highlight the role that the balance of power plays in Mearsheimer’s theory of international politics and to show how his theory transforms the conventional or certainly the Waltzian image of the international system and reveals that it is, inherently, a regionally based system” (215).
Assumes that great powers shape the international system. States are overwhelmingly concerned with their own survival because the international system is a self-help system. The, “…logic of anarchy compels every great power to adopt an aggressive stance in the international system” (224). States strive to be hegemons, though it’s virtually impossible (espseically in the age of nuclear weapons) to become the hegemon (based on Mearcheimer’s definition).
Mearsheimer then moves away from some more foundational, Waltzian structural realist assumptions and brings geography into the equation by talking about the “stopping power of water”.
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