Alternatives to Realism and Idealism Lsn 4

8/4/2019 Alternatives to Realism and Idealism Lsn 4

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/alternatives-to-realism-and-idealism-lsn-4 1/35

Alternatives to Realism and

Idealism

Lsn 4



Agenda

• Globalist

• Marxist

• Identity



Globalist Paradigm

• Pioneered in 1971 by Robert Keohane andJoseph Nye in Transnational Relations and World Politics

• Argue that dealings between nationalgovernments are but one strand in thegreat web of human interactions

– Therefore are critical of the exclusivity of therealist approach, while not rejecting it entirely



Globalist Paradigm

• See a complex set of actors including not just national governments but many non-state actors concerned with not just war

and peace but a host of more narrowissues as well – Multinational corporations

– Non-governmental organizations

– Transnational labor union leaders

– etc



Case Study: Friedman’s Dell

Theory of Conflict Prevention

• Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat , 2005

• Argues that globalization

has “flattened the world” ina way that has made newforms and tools forcollaboration possible

• We’ll talk more aboutglobalization andinterdependence in Lsn 20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thomas_Friedman_2005_%284%29.jpg




Theory of Conflict Prevention• Friedman noticed that his Dell computer was

made up of parts from a global supply chain thatincluded factories in Ireland, China, Brazil, theUnited States, and Malaysia and about 400

companies• All those players have a vested interest in

keeping the supply chain moving• Therefore….

– “No two countries that are both part of a major globalsupply chain, like Dell’s, will ever fight a war againsteach other as long as they are both part of the sameglobal supply chain.”





• Friedman uses this phenomenon toexplain the diffusion of the 2002India-Pakistan nuclear crisis

• India is home to General Electric’sbiggest research center outside ofthe US and many othercorporations also have large R & Doperations in India

• In 2002 Pakistan and India beganmassing troops at their borders andtheir were reports that both sideswere threatening to use nuclearweapons

General Electric’s 50

acre research anddevelopment facility

in Bangalore, India





• The US State Department even issued a traveladvisory urging American citizens in India toleave the country

• A chief information officer from one companyprobably United Technologies sent an emailsaying “I am now spending a lot of time looking

for alternative sources to India. I don’t think you

want me doing that, and I don’t want to be doingit.” that ultimately got forwarded to the Indian

ambassador in Washington





• India quickly realized how important foreigninvestment had become to its country and that ifit could not provide a stable, predictable

operating environment for that investment, Indiawould lose it and the economy would suffer

• Friedman credits this realization as being asignificant, but not exclusive reason, for India’s

decision to restrain its behavior – Claims “That cease-fire was brought to us not by

General Powell but by General Electric.”



Marxist Paradigm

• Karl Marx (1818-1883)and Friedrich Engels(1820-1895) met in

Paris in 1844 anddeveloped a belief thatthe social problems ofthe 19th Century werethe inevitable results ofcapitalism EngelsMarx



Marxist Paradigm

• Held that capitalism divided people into twomain classes – Capitalists who owned industrial machinery and

factories (the means of production)

– The proletariat who were wage earners with only theirlabor to sell

• The state and its coercive institutions (police,courts, etc) were agencies of the capitalist ruling

class and kept the capitalists in power andenabled them to continue their exploitation of theproletariat



Marxist Paradigm

• In 1848, Marx andEngels wroteManifesto of the Communist Party andaligned themselveswith the communistswho wanted toabolish private

property and institutea radically egalitariansociety



Marxist Paradigm

• All human history has beenthe history of strugglebetween social classes

• The future lay with the

working classes because thelaws of history dictated thatcapitalism would inexorablygrind to a halt – Crises of overproduction,

underconsumption, anddiminishing profits wouldundermine capitalism’sfoundation



Marxist Paradigm

• At the same time, members of the constantly growingand thoroughly exploited proletariat would come to viewthe forcible overthrow of the existing system as their onlyalternative

• The socialist revolution would result in a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which would abolish private property anddestroy the capitalist order

• After the revolution, the state would wither away – Coercive institutions would disappear since there would no

longer be any exploitation of the working class

• Socialism would lead to a fair, just, and egalitariansociety infinitely more humane than capitalism



Marxist Paradigm

• With this development there would be nofurther need for national governments andnation-states

• A harmonious global communist societywould result, with each person receivingwealth according to need rather than

privilege



Marxist Paradigm

• As capitalism proved to have more stayingpower than Marx anticipated, latter day Marxistsexplained the phenomenon by saying capitalist

states relieve their inner class tensions byexploiting other, less developed countries

• They recognize the same transnational actorssuch as multinational corporations as the

globalists do, but assign a much more sinisteraspect to these actors



Marxist Paradigm

• Marxists see business leaders ofdeveloped capitalist states as being inleague with their partners in less

developed states• The average laborer in a capitalist state

has lost his class consciousness and hasbeen co-opted into the ranks of thebourgeoisie by purchasing the products ofexploited workers in less developed states



Marxist Paradigm

• Marxists view international relations more as astruggle between rich and poor classes than acontest between national governments and

nation states• The answer lies in leadership to emerge to

replace the free market capitalist economies withmore mass-oriented, centrally planned and

managed economies which will supposedlyresult in more harmonious social relations bothdomestically and internationally



Case Study: Congo Free State

• Imperialism is a term associated with theexpansion of the European powers, andlater the US and Japan, and their

conquest and colonization of African andAsian societies, mainly from the 16th through the 19th Centuries

– We’ll talk more about imperialism in Lsn 16




• Imperialism was effected not just throughthe force of arms, but also through trade,investment, and business activities that

enabled the imperial powers to profit fromsubject societies and influence their affairswithout going to the trouble of exercising

direct political control




• Overseas colonies couldserve as reliable sourcesof raw materials not

available in Europe thatcame in demandbecause ofindustrialization

– Rubber in the Congo River

basin and Malaya – Tin in southeast Asia

– Copper in central Africa

– Oil in southwest Asia Rubber trees in Malaya




• In the 1870s King Leopold II ofBelgium employed HenryStanley to help developcommercial ventures and

establish a colony calledCongo Free State in the basinof the Congo River

• Leopold said the Congo FreeState would be a free-trade

zone open to all Europeanmerchants in order to forestallcompetition from his morepowerful European neighbors

Leopold II




• In reality, Leopold ran the Congo Free State asa personal colony and filled it with lucrativerubber plantations run under brutal conditions

– Beatings and lashings as well as kidnapping familymembers were used to coerce workers to meetquotas

– Leopold’s private army, the Force Publique (Africansoldiers led by European officers) burned villages

and slaughtered the families of rebels

– Force Publique troops cut off the hands of theCongolese as a form of punishment and terrorizingthe population into submission




• Humanitariansprotested Leopold’s

colonial regime

• In 1908 theBelgiumgovernment tookcontrol of the

colony and itbecame known asBelgian Congo

Clearing tropical forests ate awayat Leopold’s profit margins so

Congolese farming villages suchas this one were leveled to make

way for rubber tree plantations



Identity Paradigm

• International relations are governed by theideas that define the identities of thesystemic, domestic, and individual level

actors and motivate the use of power andnegotiations by these actors



Identity Paradigm

• If actors identify themselves in adversarialor diverging terms, negotiations are moredifficult to achieve and power balancing is

more likely to occur

• Conversely, if actors have similar orconverging identities, cooperation is more

likely



Case Study: The Decision toInvade Iraq

• A key goal of Frenchforeign policy since theend of World War II hasbeen a multipolar world

• This became evenmore pronounced afterthe end of the ColdWar when the US

became the world’sonly superpower

Hubert Verdine (left), French foreign

minister from 1997-2002, insistedthat France could not accept “a

politically unipolar world, a culturallyuniform world, or a world dominated

by the one superpower.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hubert_vedrine_ben_ali.jpg




• France has sought to limit American hegemonyby developing rules for the international system

• Repeatedly used United Nations Security

Council Resolutions and international law toconstrain American freedom of action regardingIraq

• France’s emphasis on international rules

reflected its limited power relative to the US




• America’s hyperpower status made it much lessconcerned about the dangers of a world in which“might makes right”

• On Sept 17, 2002, President Bush issued a

National Security Strategy which stated, “Whilethe United States will constantly strive to enlistthe support of the international community, we

will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, toexercise our right of self-defense by actingpreemptively against such terrorists, to preventthem from doing harm against our people andour country.”




• Secretary of State Colin Powellpresented the US evidence ofIraqi WMD to the United Nationsand the US proposed a resolution

to the Security Councilauthorizing military force if Iraqrefused to disarm

• France, Russia, Germany, andothers opposed the US resolutionand it failed to pass

• Nonetheless, the US, joined byBritain and a “coalition of thewilling” launched Operation Iraqi

Freedom on March 20, 2003




• The US and Britain have long enjoyed a “specialrelationship” based on shared political, cultural,military, linguistic, historical, and economicvalues

• After September 11, Prime Minister Tony Blairvowed, the people of Britain “stand shoulder toshoulder with our American friends in this hourof tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest untilthis evil is driven from our world.”

• Shortly thereafter, Bush declared that Americahad “no truer friend than Great Britain.”




• In January 2003, Blair said, “First, we should

remain the closest ally of the US, and asallies influence them to continue broadening

their agenda. We are the ally of the US notbecause they are powerful, but because weshare their values.”

• “We can indeed help to be a bridge betweenthe US and Europe and such understandingis always needed. Europe should partner theUS not be its rival.”




• In April 2007, Blair said,“Forget the talk of Anti-Americanism in Europe.Yes, if you call ademonstration, you willget the slogans and theinsults. But people knowEurope needs America,and I believe Americaneeds Europe too.”




• In June 2007, Blairresigned as PrimeMinister, having lost

much of hispopularity becauseof his support for

Iraq and his closeties to Americanforeign policy

Various cartoons andcommentators depictedBlair as “Bush’s poodle”



Next

• Decision-making models

Documents

Alternatives to Realism and Idealism Lsn 4