733A41 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORYPer Jansson

Fall 2014

Course aims

On completion of the course, the student should  • be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of

important theoretical and methodological developments within the discipline of International Relations, with special focus on the impact of the end of the Cold War,

• display ability to critically analyze international practices according to the various theoretical perspectives introduced,

• adhere to academic criteria such as writing style, reference and citation styles, and objectivity,

• critically analyse problems and to present coherent analyses.

Examination• This course is examined through active participation and

fulfillment of assignments in seminars, and by completion of a course paper.

• Seminars are obligatory. • You are expected to be well prepared and to have

completed assigned preparations for seminars.• If you cannot attend a seminar you will be given a further

written assignment to be handed in on a fixed date.

Examination – course paperThe paper assignment consists in

 • choosing a phenomenon in international relations (an event, a process, an institution,

etc.), contemporary or in history and analyzing it from at least three alternative theoretical perspectives which have been suggested by the course.

 • The paper should comprise no less than 2.000 and no more than 3.000 words.

Indicate the number of words on the last page of your paper!

 • In preparing your paper you should take particular care to discuss the problem at

hand: Why is this phenomenon puzzling; what is there to know about this? It is also important that your paper indicates different or alternative understandings, made possible by modern theories of international relations.

 • Relevant parts of the course literature must be utilized and referred to.

 • All sources must be properly indicated (notes and references in the text, bibliography

at the end of the paper).

INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THEORY

Theory

The aim of theory is to make sense of what happens in the world. Inevitably, theories tell us what to look at and, by inference, what can be safely ignored.

Yale H. Ferguson & Richard W. Mansbach(Polities: Authorities, Identities, and Change (Columbia: University of South

Carolina Press, 1996), 3.

International Relations

”What makes the world hang together?”

John G. Ruggie (Edward Teller)

Theory• Tools for explanation• Tools for understanding• Traditions of thought• Hypothesis-testing• Conceptual analysis• Critical analysis• Normative analysis• Meta-theory …

Meta-theoretical concerns• Ontology (what is there to know?)• Epistemology (how can we know what we know?)• The agent-structure problem (what should be our focus

(both)• The levels-of-analysis problem (how many?)

The multitude of perspectives• International political theory• International liberalism• Political realism• The international society tradition• International political economy• The post-positivist tradition

THE REALIST AND LIBERAL TRADITIONS I

The three (?) debates

1. Idealism vs Realism – pre and post-WW I

2. Science vs Traditionalism – 1960s

3. The Interparadigm debate – 1970s and 1980s

4. Fourth debate – late-1980s and 1990s. Present?

”The characteristic vice of the utopian is naivety; of the realist, sterility.”

E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939

“The strong do what they havethe power to do and the weakaccept what they have to accept.”

Thucydides, the Melian Dialogueduring the war between Sparta and Athens,431 – 407 f.Kr.

”Machiavelli is the first important political realist.”

1. History is a sequence of cause and effect, whose course can be analyzed and understood by intellectual efforts, but not (as the utopian believe) directed by ”imagination”.

2. Theory does not (as utopians assume) create practice, but practice theory.

3. Politics are not (as utopians pretend) a function of ethics, but ethics of politics.

”During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as if of every man against every man … and the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Anarchy is evenly distributed throughout the international system.

International anarchy

Anarchy is unevenly distributed in the international system; there are ”islands” of order and cooperation.

International anarchy

The ”normative texture” of international relations, consisting of more or less coalesced bodies of converginginterests, coordinated action, shared values etc.

International institutions

Hans J. Morgenthau

Hans Morgenthau's Principles of Political Realism

1. Politics governed by objective laws based on human nature

2. National interest defined in terms of power

3. No fixed or unchanging meaning of Interest

4. Inapplicability of abstract moral principles

5. Difference between moral aspiration of a nation and universal moral laws

6. Autonomy of the “political”

THE REALIST AND LIBERAL TRADITIONS II

Key assumptions of Structural Realism

• Most important actors in world politics are territorially organized entities (city-states and modern states).

• State behavior is rational (goal-directed, preferences being transitive: if X is preferred to Y, and Y is preferred to Z, then X is preferred to Z).

• States seek security and calculate their interests in terms of their power relative to others in the international system.

• The international system is characterized by anarchy, that is, the absence of any effective authority over states that can ensure their compliance to agreements and norms.

Offensive vs. Defensive Realism

Offensive realists argue that states should always be looking for opportunities to gain more power, with the ultimate prize being hegemony

Defensive realists argue that unrelenting expansion is imprudent – conquest is often costly and troublesome

Defensive realists argue that states should seek an ‘appropriate amount of power’.

Major Realist Theories (John Mearsheimer, The

Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 2001, p. 22)

Human Nature Realism

Defensive Realism

Offensive Realism

What causes states to compete for power?

Lust for power inherent in states

Structure of system

Structure of system

How much power do states want?

All they can get. States maximize relative power, with hegemony as their ultimate goal.

Not much more than what they have. States concentrate on maintaining the balance of power.

All they can get. States maximize relative power, with hegemony as their ultimate goal.

Neo-classical realism

"In the neoclassical realist world leaders can be constrained by both international and domestic politics. International anarchy, moreover, is neither Hobbesian nor benign but rather murky and difficult to read. ... "

(Gideon Rose, Review Article in World Politics, vol. 51 (1998), pp. 144-72)

Liberalism• Power of reason: man is a rational being, with powers to

self-improvement.

• Public opinion: international affairs would be peaceful if (the rational) opinions of the public can have impact.

• Harmony of interests: the basic condition of human life is not a Hobbesian war of everybody against everybody, but common interests of survival and improvment.

Neoliberalism and realism

Neoliberalism adopted key assumptions from structural realism:

• that states are the dominant actors

• that domestic politics do not explain variations in state behavior

Liberal institutionalism• Accepting the broad structures of neo-realism, but

employing rational choice and game theory to anticipate the behavior of states, liberal institutionalists demonstrate that cooperation between states can be enhanced even without the presence of a hegemonic player which can enforce compliance with agreements.

• For them, anarchy is mitigated by regimes and institutional cooperation which brings higher levels of regularity and predictability to international relations.

(Burchill et al., p. 67)

Complex Interdependence (Keohane & Nye)• Multiple channels of communication• Absence of hierarchy of issues• Military force less relevant

International regimes …• ”a set of mutual expectations, rules and regulations,

plans, oganizational energies and financial commitments, which have been accepted by a group of states” (John Gerard Ruggie)

• ”sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations. Principles are beliefs of fact, causation, and rectitude. Norms are standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligations. Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for action. Decision-making procedures are prevailing practices for making and implementing collective choice” (Stephen D. Krasner)

International regimesConvergence of excpectations

High Low

Formality

High

Low

Full-blownregimes

Dead-letterregimes

Tacit regimes

THE ENGLISH SCHOOL

International Society

• The distinguishing power of the school rests on the significance it attaches to the idea that states, through their actions, have generated a society with its own unique institutions and rules

Hedley Bull and the Anarchical Society

International system – International society”A system of states (international system) is formed when two or more states have sufficient contact between them, and have sufficient impact on one another’s decisions, to cause them to behave – at least in some measure – as parts of a whole.” (Bull, 1977, p. 9-10)

“A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions.” (Bull, 1977, p. 13)

International Society

World SocietyInternational System

Types of International Society

Pluralism• Minimal conception of international

society (thin)• Consisting of (qualitatively

different) states• States follow rules because of a

shared interest in maintaining order• Order producing institutions include

the balance of power, diplomacy, and great power cooperation

Solidarism• Maximal conception of

international society (thick)• Basically consisting of individual

human beings• An institutional arrangement for

producing order and justice• Solidarism requires that states

commit to enforcing the rules and they act as guardians of human rights