Westfailure System by Susan Strange - Essay Example

CRITICAL REVIEW Introduction: brief summarizing In the presented research, it is an analysis of two articles from international relations area. On the one hand, there is a research titled ‘Westfailure system’ written by Susan Strange in 1999. In this text, the author discusses weaknesses of Westphalian system, which serves as the background of contemporary behavior of states within international relations sphere. In general, her arguments develop from the standpoint of political economy. By being based on prevalence of state sovereignty in terms of political authority, Westphalian system jeopardized three key areas of public life: ecology, finance, and society. Among them, inability to regulate financial flows is the most urgent problem, while environmental concerns are the most serious ones. On social sphere, strong connection of social suffering with economic inequality causes wide gap between rich and poor classes, which potentially leads to uprisings. Thus, current power balance in terms of state sovereignty cannot manage all the domestic and global challenges the world faces today. On another hand, Mearsheimer’s ‘E.H.Carr vs. Idealism: The Battle Rages On’ (2005) discusses the role of power from both realist and idealist perspectives. Precisely, the author wants to draw the line and find possible compromise in describing state’s nature between its realist willingness to obtain power and proclaimed liberal ideals. Moreover, the author raises deep concern on neglecting of realist thinkers in contemporary academic circles. Even though states during post-Cold War world justify their actions by idealist rhetoric, Mearsheimer by citing Carr blames them to hide the real power interests behind them. Thus, explaining contemporary states and their behavior on international stage in only liberal terms is the wrong way of understanding global reality. 2. State and power arguments in the presented articles and commonalities between them Specifically, both authors construct their arguments by using concepts of state and power in different environments. In this section, there is a detailed description of the arguments presented in both researches with summarizing commonalities between them. As for Strange, she sees state in the broader context than only through appearance as political entity. Firstly, she refers to Nature as the inevitable part of state territory (Strange, 1999, p. 346). Then, she concentrates on the role of money in the state system. In her opinion, government purposes-to-pay as the new medium for transactions neglected the role of state and empowered market institutions within and even beyond the national borders (Strange, 1999, p. 347). Finally, current authority of states led society to suffering because of growing contrast between poor and rich groups. In other words, the author showed that role of state in terms of sovereignty is not that exclusive as creators of Westphalian system assumed. As the provided examples show, there are other influential factors (namely, ecological, financial, and social) than only political issues in domestic context. While analyzing international situation, Strange (1999) stresses on inability of both national states and transnational institutions to regulate world politics (p. 349). In terms of sustainability, each state concentrates on its own territory and becomes blind and passive in front of global environmental issues that need cooperation and unite strategy. In this context, Strange (1999) provides example of pollution conflict between developed countries and China in order to represent the inability of Westphalian system to protect nature (p. 351). Then, empowerment of transnational corporations serves as a manifestation of economic prevalence above the political capacities of states. Finally, the author claims that contemporary state is incapable to reduce the gap between rich and poor people domestically within countries and internationally in its current “tax and welfare measures” (Strange, 1999, p. 352). In Mearsheimer’s (2005) vision, state system is crucial for people’s living. In domestic context, each nation and any massive ethnic group seek for their own territory (for instance, he mentions Chechens and Kurds minorities). As the author explains the reason of this phenomenon, nationalism is still “the most powerful ideology on the planet” (Mearsheimer, 2005, p. 148). Here it is evident that people need traditional state, regardless to its contemporary role in international relations. In broader terms, power is inevitable element of international system, but seeking for it is only the component of state’s behavior along with its idealistic thinking. In the given circumstances, idealistic academics who rule current discourse in international relations tend to underestimate realistic thinking in their analyses. Notwithstanding, struggle for power remains the strongest reason of action for states on international stage. In fact, wars between states still happen, and nuclear weapon is still an issue for international system. To illustrate his idea by cases from international relations area, Mearsheimer (2005) refers to human rights and security concerns. On the first argument, he shows that human rights protection serves as a reliable reason to intervene, as U.S. operation in Somalia proved (Mearsheimer, 2005, p. 142). On security aims, the author writes that both post-Cold War idealists and realists fail to meet security requirements of contemporary states completely, because they combine both military (army, weapons) and human (AIDS, environment, poverty) aspects (Mearsheimer, 2005, p. 146). Thus, only acknowledgement of state’s dual rationale with both realistic and idealist argumentation makes it possible to understand the real situation both domestically and within the international sphere. In short, both readings have clear similarities in terms and concepts they analyze. In particular, Strange and Mearsheimer do not doubt the importance of state in contemporary world and include power relations in their analyses of international system. Furthermore, both authors show that state has direct impact on the contemporary situation in all the contexts. Thus, they create arguments in order to influence current political will that deals with all the other spheres (society, environment, security, human rights, and finance) both in domestic limits and on world arena. Finally, two analyzed articles show that international relations study is not only about politics. In fact, it includes variables from other intersected spheres, meaning economy (medium of money transaction, international trade, multinational corporations activity), environment (level of pollution, sustainability concerns), and society (gap between poor and rich, prevailing academic discourse, key values and ideas). 3. Persuasiveness of the analyzed readings In this section, each article is critically assessed in the broader academic context. Since the authors use different methodological focuses in developing their arguments, it is reasonable to represent their ideas by using the sources from which they make their findings. On the one hand, Strange (1999) stresses on the importance of finance and nature in contemporary world. At the same time, her argumentation lacks persuasiveness in the social argument, which she calls “social and economic” (p. 351). By combining these two spheres, she characterizes state from Marxian perspective, which states that economic basis rules all the other spheres. If the representatives of this approach criticize simplification in analysis, they mostly refer to “the neat mechanistic explanation derived … from … gold production and long-run trends in commodity price falls” (Triffin, 1964, p. 14). In other words, political economy approach determines all the social processes in economic terms, which neglects the role of creative personality in society and concentrates on big social classes. In Strange’s (1999) opinion, current political leaders in the circumstances of symbiosis between political system and market do not want to fix current social polarization that is not beneficial to any social group (including themselves) (p. 352). Illustratively, Mistry (1996) refers to Africa’s collective debt that international institutions try to manage. This means that failures of current international system have systematic character and they appear on not only bilateral but also multilateral level. However, Strange (1999) by herself does not provide strong arguments concerning social influence on states. In particular, she combines different examples from social sphere (like division between poor and rich countries, global consumerism, and perspectives to establish global society), but she does not write about society as a separate sphere with its own rules. Even though Strange’s argument is clear and easy to follow, it reveals its oversimplification in social matters while referring to the reality. In his turn, Mearsheimer (2005) seemed to provide objective critics on two prevailing methodological traditions in international relations: realism and liberalism. On the one hand, he describes the key elements of realism by referring to Carr’s Twenty Years’ Crisis (2001) that rises issues of power politics and excludes utopia from the methodology. At the same time, Mearsheimer mentions Alexander Wendt, the author of popular realist concept of anarchy in international relations. Precisely, Wendt (2003) shows that each state has individualistic nature, because it is anonymous formation from personalities. In other words, Wendt is a representative of rather constructivism than pure realism, because he discusses indentity and collective values on international level. In other words, Mearsheimer (2005) loses persuasiveness, as he does not clarify the complexity of IR area and simplifies current academic discourse to either realism or idealism. However, Dunne (2003) supports author’s idea that none of these perspectives provides comprehension of states’ behavior separately. Nevertheless, with the development of his argumentation it appears clear that Mearsheimer (2005) is not that neutral in describing these two academic perspectives. For him, Carr’s realism is an abandoned good, while idealism is an overestimated evil. In particular, the author writes about idealistic academics as homogenous group of utopians who destroy the international relations sphere. He writes about them, “They believe that they can take us to the promised land because they have significant influence over how large numbers of influential people think about world politics” (Mearsheimer, 2005, p. 146). In these words, there is rather emotional than rational argumentation. On another hand, he represents realist thinkers as calm and compromising judges. In his own words, “all the realists I know favor a discipline that houses a variety of perspectives, not one controlled by any single-minded group” (Mearsheimer, 2005, p. 150). With these quotations, the argument seems weaker and constantly tends to fall into judgmental statements, simplification, and personal conflict. 4. Conclusion: lessons learned In sum, each article provides its own vision on the role of power and state in domestic context and within international relations. On the one hand, Susan Strange uses Marxist background to show that reliance of Westphalian system on the state only is not enough to cope with rising economy, ecological problem, and social injustice. While referring to ozone layer, carbon dioxide and depletion of planet’s resources (p. 350-351), Strange (1999) warns the readers that emphasis on state and sovereignty in both domestic and international contexts leads the planet to destruction. In addition, her concentration on social classes enables the author to explain growing influence of multinational organizations that overcome national states in contemporary times. In other words, Strange managed to systematize current challenges from different spheres of public life in order to represent states’ weakness in front of them. Thus, it is crucial for state rulers to acknowledge the limits of their influence and protect themselves from public disturbance. In his turn, Mearsheimer (2005) represents concern on neglecting states’ traditional attributes and falling into purely idealistic discourse. Domestically, the power of state is hard to neglect with the strong positions of nationalism in contemporary world. Furthermore, Mearsheimer reminds academics that military security, power matters, and pragmatic reasoning are still determining within international politics. The key idea this author defends throughout his writing is that “it is unwise from an intellectual perspective for any group of international relations scholars, be they idealists or realists, to promote a hegemonic discourse” (Mearsheimer, 2005, p. 149). While Strange emphasizes on global non-political spheres, Mearsheimer clarifies the internal logic of state’s behavior in international relations. Thus, the key lesson taken from both articles is that only pluralism of ideas and interests can lead to satisfactory results in both domestic and international dimensions. Bibliography Carr, E.H. (2001). The Twenty Years’ Crisis: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations. Second ed. New York: Palgrave. Dunne, T. (2003). Inventing International Society: A History of the English School. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Mearsheimer, J. (2005). E.H. Carr vs. Idealism: The Battle Rages On. International Relations, 19(2), 139-152. Mistry, P. (1996). Resolving Africa’s Multilateral Debt Problem: The Response to the IMF and the World Bank. The Hague: FONDAD. Strange, S. (1999). The Westfailure System. Review of International Studies, 25(3), 345-354. Triffin, R. (1964). The Evolution of the International Monetary System: Historical Reappraisal and Future Perspectives. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Wendt, A. (2003). Why a World State is Inevitable: Teleology and the Logic of Anarchy. European Journal of International Relations, 9(4), 491-542. Read More