International Politics and the Historical Importance of Class - Essay Example

Running Head: analyzing international politics In analysing international politics, historical materialists emphasise the importance and, inthe contemporary period, of capitalism. How does this lead to a distinctive understanding of international politics? [Name of the writer] [Name of the institution] In analysing international politics, historical materialists emphasise the importance of class and, in the contemporary period, of capitalism. How does this lead to a distinctive understanding of international politics? From the realist perspective social structures are an important variety οf generating mechanism in the social sphere. Accordingly there are two major tasks for the sociological study οf social structure. The first task is simply to describe the nature οf various social structures as generating mechanisms, paying particular attention to the ways in which they generate their causal properties. Marx Capital is a paradigmatic example οf such a description. The second task is to explain particular historical events in terms οf conjunctures οf structural mechanisms. Partly because each conjuncture is unique and partly because human behaviour is intrinsically non-law like, such explanations must adopt the form οf a historical narrative. One οf my major objectives was to show how such narratives can coherently combine elements οf both agency and structure. The Marxian conception οf social structure is fundamentally different from the Durkheimian conception. According to the Marxian conception, social structure consists οf a nexus οf relationships among social classes. Social classes are categories οf individuals who are similarly situated vis-à-vis the means οf satisfying basic human interests -- that is, the means οf production. Whereas the relationships connecting social classes are οf many different types, the definitive relationships are relations οf production. These structured interests, opportunities, powers, and predicaments are part οf what is meant by social structure on the Marxian view. They form an integrated set οf conditions in terms οf which the behaviour οf individuals can be analyzed. (Silver 1999) For example, as a function οf their attempts to maximize profit and to maintain a competitive edge in relation to other capitalists, industrial capitalists are interested in reducing the wages paid to labour and in minimizing the costs allocated to the maintenance οf suitable working conditions. For them the existence οf a proletarian underclass willing to work for less pay and under poorer working conditions constitutes an opportunity. For the better-paid workers the existence οf such an underclass represents a predicament. Likewise, any power the better-paid worker can exert to exclude the underclass from the labour market constitutes a predicament for the underclass. On the other hand, the capitalist class faces its own unique set οf predicaments -- the increasing severity οf the competitive process, the falling rate οf profit, the saturation οf the market, and so on. The powers and resources wielded by the different classes and class fractions for achieving the satisfaction οf their interests are also socially structured. When it comes to an open struggle between the capitalist and the proletariat as in a strike, the capitalist suffers only in his capital whereas the proletariat suffers in his livelihood (Marx, 1963, 61-120). Thus the members οf the capitalist class are immediately more powerfully situated. Beyond that, different class fractions within both the capitalist and proletarian classes exhibit different degrees οf socially structured power. Big capital, for example, overwhelmingly commands the money and resources to ensure that political policies favour its interests even at the expense οf other capitalist class fractions -- for example, medium and petty capital. Among the proletariat the better-paid workers are generally more organized and more articulate than the members οf the underclass and consequently better able to make their influence felt in the political sphere. Consider, for example, the Jim Crow laws, which were enacted in response to the demands οf the better-paid white workers to exclude cheap black labour from the competition for wages (Wilson, 1980, 178-83). From this Marxist perspective, change will only come about by means οf class conflict. Social conflict will emerge and change will take place in consequence οf the suppression and domination by a dominant class over another weaker class. It is interesting to see how ideas associated with the School were challenged. So, for example, in the 1970s we note the antithesis between the atheoretical, empiricist and reformist tendencies in scholarship at the School and an emergent sociology οf law intended to achieve a unified scientific understanding οf law as a social phenomenon. (A Phase in the development οf socio-legal studies in Britain elaborated by R. Cotterell, Laws Community. Legal Theory in Sociological Perspective (Oxford, 1995), chap. 4.) Law and economics justifies its exclusivity with its historic victory in modern societies, with the society-wide and today almost world-wide institutionalisation οf economic rationality. At the same time, this is exactly the great weakness οf the law and economics movement. Economic rationality does not have the privilege οf society-wide institutionalisation all to itself. There has, indeed, been a paradigm shift. (Cotterrell, 2003, 67-74) However, it is heading in a different direction. It is not the case οf eliminating moral-political monotheism in favour οf economic monotheism which law needs only to reflect. Rather, it is the case οf a change from monotheism to polytheism, from the monotheism οf modern rationality to a polytheism οf the many discourses. There is a paradigm shift to the particularistic rationalities οf the many gods to which law has to respond in other ways than by just adopting a new god. (Bromley 1999) Apart from economics, it is, above all, politics, science and technology, the health sector, the media, the law and possibly also the morality οf life worlds which have all individually developed their own self-centred rationalities. They all expose a strange contradiction. On the one hand, they are all clearly particularistic rationalities. On the other hand, they are all institutionalised, in effect, society-wide and they all demand universal acceptance. In this way, the cost-benefit calculus οf economic rationality is only institutionalised in economic transactions; however, economisation takes hold οf the whole society and rational choice makes its claims in all social contexts. Accordingly, rational choice also demands laws obedience. Efficiency instead οf justice. The same is true for political rationality. Democratic legitimation οf power is typically only institutionalised in the political context. Nevertheless the ideal οf democracy demands society wide acceptance and, accordingly, realisation in law. Democratic legitimacy today is seen as the only valid foundation οf law. (Burnham 1994) Again, the core οf scientific rationality--uncompromising search for intersubjective truth--is essentially only institutionalised in teaching and research. However, scientification is a society-wide process which forces even the law to take a scientific approach in its regulatory aspirations. Finally, moral criteria develop typically only through concrete small-scale interactions as evidence οf mutual esteem. Nevertheless morals, especially in their academic forms οf philosophical ethics systems, want to regulate all social, today especially ecological issues and request a hearing on legal issues as well. (Cox 1987) If all these belief-systems were only airy-fairy theoretical constructs, mere philosophical abstractions, law could easily reject their claims for universality as merely academic. However, the many new gods do not just create faint theologies. They exercise their firm power grip in concrete world-regimes. Max Webers iron cages or, as one would say today, computer networks οf a new domination have their foundations in social practices themselves. These universal regimes οf particularism have five characteristics οf social effectiveness which render their influence on law well nigh irresistible. First, their material base consists οf manifest social practices, on which the distinctions οf the various universalities have been inscribed. Markets and business organisations, elections and political associations, government and opposition, research practices and technologies, information systems οf the media and the agencies οf health and social security systems all demand from law specific regulatory measures which have to reflect the universal principles οf particularism which each οf these entities has institutionalised separately. The modern plurality οf gods is not a matter οf individual belief but is a hard social reality which is forced inexorably upon law. To the detriment οf its effectiveness, law has to abandon the simple model οf threatening disobedient subjects with sanctions and must reformulate its norms in order to match specific constraints in the economic, political and scientific-technological domains. (Krueger 2000) Secondly, neither are these social practices mere conventions, brought about by the typical economic, political, scientific, or ethical motives οf actors. Rather, the many gods have created many theologies, elaborate social abstractions in the form οf self-concepts and reflexive theories, which in turn control and rationalise the practices. As we said, they are bold enough not to respect their own boundaries. Each οf these partial reflexive theories claims to be accepted as the one and only one universal rationality. Economic theory has long since crossed the borders οf its specific domain οf the economy and claims to be the valid theory οf society which interprets society as a giant network οf cost benefit calculations. The same applies to political theory which in its turn reduces society into conflicts οf interest and power between groups and political aggregates. As both these reflexive theories are not restricted to cognitive issues only, serious consequences emerge for law. Both theories develop, each by itself, mutually exclusive normative concepts about a just society which compete, as political justice or economic justice, with a specific legal justice. Beyond economics and politics, sensitive observers have discovered other spheres οf justice in many social domains which present their own autonomous concepts οf a non-legal justice. Thirdly, the many gods have even taken residence in the inner sanctum οf law, in legal theory and jurisprudence. Οf course, political theories οf law are not new; there is a long tradition οf providing concepts οf law from the perspective οf political sovereignty. Today, however, political theories οf law have experienced an extraordinary radicalisation, ranging from old German Freirecht and American legal realism, the international movement οf law and society, and the more recent critical legal studies movement to feminist jurisprudence and critical race theories. In their way οf destructing the legal in law, they are only surpassed by recent economic theories οf law. Law is politics is the war cry οf critical legal studies, but is now drowned out by the war cry law is economics. As if that were not enough, we can hear today a crescendo οf aesthetical-antirational theories οf law announcing the ultimate deconstruction οf the legal proprium. Fourthly, legal practice itself has not been spared the plurality οf gods either. Politicisation, moralisation, scientification and economisation οf legal practice itself have profoundly changed methods οf judicial decision-making and their use οf legal doctrine. Although the results are strikingly different, the new method is always the same: law plays society. (Krueger 2000) References Bromley, Simon. (1999). "Marxism and Globalisation", in Andrew Gamble, David Marsh and Tony Tant (eds.) Marxism and Social Science (London: MacMillan) Burnham, Peter. (1994). "Open Marxism and vulgar international political economy", Review οf International Political Economy 1(2): 221-231 Cohen G. A. 1978. Karl Marxs Theory οf History: A Defence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 63 Cotterrell, R, Laws Community: Legal Theory in Sociological Perspective ( Oxford, 1995). 110 Cotterrell, R.(2003) The Sociology οf Law. 3rd ed, London: Butterworths. 67-74 Cox, Robert. (1987). Power, Production and World Order (New York: Columbia University Press) Krueger, Richard A., and Mary Anne Casey. 2000. Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Marx Karl. 1959. "A Contribution to the Critique οf Political Economy". In Lewis S. Feuer (ed.), Marx & Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. 99-102Marx Karl. 1963. "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts". In T. B. Bottomore (ed.), Karl Marx: Early Writings. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 61-120. Silver, Beverly J. and Eric Slater. (1999). "The Social Origins οf World Hegemonies", in Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (Minneapolis, University οf Minnesota Press) Smith, Paul. (1997). "One World: Globality and Totality", Chapter One in Millennial Dreams: Contemporary Culture and Capital in the North (London: Verso) Wilson, William J. 1980. The Declining Significance οf Race. Chicago: University οf Chicago Press. 178-83 Read More