Lsn 4 Alternatives to Idealism and Realism

Alternatives to Realism and Idealism

Lsn 4

Agenda

• Globalist• Marxist• Identity

Globalist Paradigm

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

• Argue that dealings between national governments are but one strand in the great web of human interactions– Therefore are critical of the exclusivity of the

realist 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 narrow issues 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” in a way that has made new forms and tools for collaboration possible

• We’ll talk more about globalization and interdependence in Lsn 20

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


• Friedman noticed that his Dell computer was made up of parts from a global supply chain that included factories in Ireland, China, Brazil, the United 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 global

supply chain, like Dell’s, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both part of the same global supply chain.”


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

• India is home to General Electric’s biggest research center outside of the US and many other corporations also have large R & D operations in India

• In 2002 Pakistan and India began massing troops at their borders and their were reports that both sides were threatening to use nuclear weapons

General Electric’s 50 acre research and development facility in Bangalore, India


• The US State Department even issued a travel advisory urging American citizens in India to leave the country

• A chief information officer from one company probably United Technologies sent an email saying “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 doing it.” that ultimately got forwarded to the Indian ambassador in Washington


• India quickly realized how important foreign investment had become to its country and that if it could not provide a stable, predictable operating environment for that investment, India would lose it and the economy would suffer

• Friedman credits this realization as being a significant, 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 and developed a belief that the social problems of the 19th Century were the inevitable results of capitalism EngelsMarx

Marxist Paradigm• Held that capitalism divided people into two main

classes– Capitalists who owned industrial machinery and

factories (the means of production)– The proletariat who were wage earners with only their

labor to sell• The state and its coercive institutions (police,

courts, etc) were agencies of the capitalist ruling class and kept the capitalists in power and enabled them to continue their exploitation of the proletariat

Marxist Paradigm • In 1848, Marx and

Engels wrote Manifesto of the Communist Party and aligned themselves with the communists who wanted to abolish private property and institute a radically egalitarian society

Marxist Paradigm

• All human history has been the history of struggle between social classes

• The future lay with the working classes because the laws of history dictated that capitalism would inexorably grind to a halt– Crises of overproduction,

underconsumption, and diminishing profits would undermine capitalism’s foundation

Marxist Paradigm • At the same time, members of the constantly growing

and thoroughly exploited proletariat would come to view the forcible overthrow of the existing system as their only alternative

• The socialist revolution would result in a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which would abolish private property and destroy 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 egalitarian

society infinitely more humane than capitalism

Marxist Paradigm

• With this development there would be no further need for national governments and nation-states

• A harmonious global communist society would result, with each person receiving wealth according to need rather than privilege

Marxist Paradigm

• As capitalism proved to have more staying power than Marx anticipated, latter day Marxists explained the phenomenon by saying capitalist states relieve their inner class tensions by exploiting other, less developed countries

• They recognize the same transnational actors such as multinational corporations as the globalists do, but assign a much more sinister aspect to these actors

Marxist Paradigm

• Marxists see business leaders of developed capitalist states as being in league with their partners in less developed states

• The average laborer in a capitalist state has lost his class consciousness and has been co-opted into the ranks of the bourgeoisie by purchasing the products of exploited workers in less developed states

Marxist Paradigm

• Marxists view international relations more as a struggle between rich and poor classes than a contest between national governments and nation states

• The answer lies in leadership to emerge to replace the free market capitalist economies with more mass-oriented, centrally planned and managed economies which will supposedly result in more harmonious social relations both domestically and internationally

Case Study: Congo Free State

• Imperialism is a term associated with the expansion of the European powers, and later the US and Japan, and their conquest and colonization of African and Asian societies, mainly from the 16th through the 19th Centuries– We’ll talk more about imperialism in Lsn 16


• Imperialism was effected not just through the force of arms, but also through trade, investment, and business activities that enabled the imperial powers to profit from subject societies and influence their affairs without going to the trouble of exercising direct political control


• Overseas colonies could serve as reliable sources of raw materials not available in Europe that came in demand because of industrialization– Rubber in the Congo River

basin and Malaya– Tin in southeast Asia– Copper in central Africa– Oil in southwest Asia Rubber trees in Malaya

Case Study: Congo Free State• In the 1870s King Leopold II of

Belgium employed Henry Stanley to help develop commercial ventures and establish a colony called Congo Free State in the basin of the Congo River

• Leopold said the Congo Free State would be a free-trade zone open to all European merchants in order to forestall competition from his more powerful European neighbors

Leopold II

Case Study: Congo Free State • In reality, Leopold ran the Congo Free State as

a personal colony and filled it with lucrative rubber plantations run under brutal conditions– Beatings and lashings as well as kidnapping family

members were used to coerce workers to meet quotas

– Leopold’s private army, the Force Publique (African soldiers led by European officers) burned villages and slaughtered the families of rebels

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

Case Study: Congo Free State • Humanitarians

protested Leopold’s colonial regime

• In 1908 the Belgium government took control of the colony and it became known as Belgian Congo

Clearing tropical forests ate away at Leopold’s profit margins so

Congolese farming villages such as this one were leveled to make way for rubber tree plantations

Identity Paradigm

• International relations are governed by the ideas that define the identities of the systemic, domestic, and individual level actors and motivate the use of power and negotiations by these actors

Identity Paradigm

• If actors identify themselves in adversarial or diverging terms, negotiations are more difficult to achieve and power balancing is more likely to occur

• Conversely, if actors have similar or converging identities, cooperation is more likely

Case Study: The Decision to Invade Iraq

• A key goal of French foreign policy since the end of World War II has been a multipolar world

• This became even more pronounced after the end of the Cold War when the US became the world’s only superpower

Hubert Verdine (left), French foreign minister from 1997-2002, insisted that France could not accept “a politically unipolar world, a culturally uniform 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 hegemony by developing rules for the international system

• Repeatedly used United Nations Security Council Resolutions and international law to constrain American freedom of action regarding Iraq

• France’s emphasis on international rules reflected its limited power relative to the US


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

• On Sept 17, 2002, President Bush issued a National Security Strategy which stated, “While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country.”


• Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the US evidence of Iraqi WMD to the United Nations and the US proposed a resolution to the Security Council authorizing military force if Iraq refused to disarm

• France, Russia, Germany, and others opposed the US resolution and it failed to pass

• Nonetheless, the US, joined by Britain and a “coalition of the willing” launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 20, 2003


• The US and Britain have long enjoyed a “special relationship” based on shared political, cultural, military, linguistic, historical, and economic values

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

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


• In January 2003, Blair said, “First, we should remain the closest ally of the US, and as allies influence them to continue broadening their agenda. We are the ally of the US not because they are powerful, but because we share their values.”

• “We can indeed help to be a bridge between the US and Europe and such understanding is always needed. Europe should partner the US not be its rival.”


• In April 2007, Blair said, “Forget the talk of Anti-Americanism in Europe. Yes, if you call a demonstration, you will get the slogans and the insults. But people know Europe needs America, and I believe America needs Europe too.”


• In June 2007, Blair resigned as Prime Minister, having lost much of his popularity because of his support for Iraq and his close ties to American foreign policy

Various cartoons and commentators depicted Blair as “Bush’s poodle”

Next

• Decision-making models

Documents

Lsn 4 Alternatives to Idealism and Realism