The rise of Neorealism as the Most Dominant Explanatory Theory of IR - Research Paper Example

 The end of the First World War brought with it substantive disciplinary questions for the political science academy. For the first time, scholars found it imperative to broaden the agenda for understanding the causes of war and the prospects of peace in the international society of states, giving rise to the sub-discipline of international relations (IR). However, the (Wilsonian) idealism of the 1920s, with its emphasis on open diplomacy and collective security, was short-lived as revisionist regimes in Germany and Italy gradually precipitated the inevitable outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Telling critiques of idealism followed (most notably, Carr 1939), and the realist school of thought emerged to explain the fragile peace of the inter-War years, along with the motives and intentions of the belligerents. As realist theory assumed the sceptre of dominance as the most powerful explanatory theory of IR in the 1940s, Hans J. Morgenthau surfaced as the paradigm’s most distinct voice. Morgenthau’s conception of political realism, and its imperatives for rational foreign policy- and decision-making, set the tone for IR theory in general and post-War diplomacy in particular, leading many to conclude that all IR theory is essentially a debate between Morgenthau and his critics. This essay shall attempt to show that although Morgenthau’s contributions to IR theory remain seminally important, future directions in realist theory and a more general development of theoretical approaches to the study of international politics make the statement under discussion untenable, by considering departures from both within the realist research program and without. Morgenthau elaborated six principles of political realism, which remained at the very core of his contributions toward the understanding of international politics. However, to understand the full weight of his intellectual input, we must consider his most important work – Politics among Nations (1948/1985) – within the context in which it was conceived and articulated. As mentioned above, the post-War IR academy was left deeply dissatisfied with the cheery optimism of liberal idealism, and Morgenthau supplied the first realist text of great stature. Not only did his work seek to answer Carr’s call for the development of a separate science of international politics (Burchill, 2001, p. 77), the book was also expressly purposed to influence foreign policy making in post-War United States (US). Realism, it should be noted here, seeks to explain the world as it is, rather than how it should be; therefore, as a theory of IR, it is purely explanatory of the existing reality, and makes no adjudication in normative terms about what goals or objectives nation-states should follow and how they should approach such ends. The theory seeks to explain the recurrent causes of war in order to construct the paths to peace, and its inherent pessimism is only the result of a turbulent and violent international system where war has endured through millennia. It is not, by any means, a doctrine of aggressive foreign policy, but is instead – purportedly – the fountainhead of pragmatic external action. It is against this background that we must consider Morgenthau’s contributions to IR theory. His ideational underpinnings located the causes of war and other imperfections in the international system in human nature, and it was imperative that to improve existing conditions, policy-makers worked not against but with the forces of the human condition (Burchill, 2001, p. 78). He contrasted his ideological position from that of liberal idealism and developed the six principles of political realism, which defined realist theory for the next three decades. Morgenthau argued that universal laws, which find their genesis in human nature, govern politics. These laws remain immutable over time, regardless of the range of human preferences; therefore, international politics can be explained objectively by distinguishing between fact and opinion, and this objective framework could then be used to predict state behaviour on the international stage (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, pp. 4-5). Secondly, Morgenthau maintained that the currency of international politics is power, thereby making IR an autonomous sphere of action, by making it amenable to theoretical treatment (Burchill, 2001, p. 79). Every state, just like every politician, craves power, and national interests are defined in terms of gains that can objectively tilt the balance of power in favour of the state concerned. He believed that ideology operated only as a decoy to the real intentions of statesmen and political leaders, and that the true pursuit of every country was the continuous augment of national power, defined in terms of economic capacity and military capability (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, pp 5-10). Morgenthau claimed that the form of power that a state exercises would vary according to a given context, but the pursuit of national interests (again, defined in terms of power) shall continue to endure. Importantly, however, there should never be “a perennial connection between interest and the nation-state” (Burchill, 2001, p. 79), given that the latter is a result of historical process setting. He believed that change in the international system was indeed plausible – say from many nations to blocks of large states – but the same would involve a deep and patient manipulation of the forces of history which have shaped the past and lead the paths to the future (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, pp. 10-12). There remain no universal moral codes that can serve as blueprints for state behaviour but, Morgenthau argues, state behaviour shall nevertheless have moral and ethical implications. However, statements of moral outlook should never be the standard of foreign policy analysis, as the same are never more than empty rhetoric and sure signs of bellicosity. Political behaviour can only be judged in terms of the effects of policies and action and their deviation from the ends, which their operation tacitly implies. For political realism, Morgenthau believed that prudence was the final blueprint to guide action (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, pp. 12-13). Again, moral principles have no universal confirmation. While states may be try to use the rhetoric of morality to underpin their foreign policies, Morgenthau warns that the same is only used by countries as a smoke-screen to shield their true purposes, which involve the furthering of national interests by giving their policies the stamp of legitimacy. Since there is no universal moral code, states only project their own interpretation of what is moral (or what ought to be moral) in the international system (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, p. 13). Finally, Morgenthau asserts that IR is intellectually distinct from all other spheres of human enquiry, and presents its own dilemmas and problems for scholars of the discipline. As opposed to philosophy and economics, for example, IR has its own standards of intellectual persuasion, and therefore demands a theoretical approach that is indigenous to the discipline itself (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, pp.13-17). This autonomy provided the space for the articulation of political realism as a theory of international politics, and enshrined Morgenthau as the most important theoretician in the post-War IR academy. As noted above, these principles were elaborated not only because of Morgenthau’s intellectual beliefs, but also due to his ideological orientation. Liberal utopianism failed to foresee any of the revisionist tendencies exhibited by Germany or Italy in the inter-War years, while it was painfully evident to realists like Carr and Morgenthau. The theoretical basis of liberal idealism stretched from the extrapolation of domestic principles – democracy, freedom, and inclusion – to the international sphere. However, as Morgenthau correctly observed, such projections can neither explain international politics, nor break down the specific interests of nation-states, which follow long-term foreign policies motivated by the accumulation of power. Instead, as Morgenthau as explains it, IR should be looked at as a science, governed my objective and immutable laws that flow from the very essence of human nature (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985, pp. 18-27). These laws immediately reflect the causes of war and the prospects of peace: if there should be a rough equilibrium between the powers of two states in conflict, aggressive behaviour becomes meaningless. A negative peace ensues till such time as one or the other state gathers a decisive advantage. International politics, thus, swings between conflict and competition, and “[p]eace…is never a permanent feature of the international system” (Burchill, 2001, p. 81). Perhaps the most important analytical tool that Morgenthau developed for theoretical inquiry in IR was the concept of the balance of power. Though the idea has undergone significant modifications in the following decades, the basic principle has remained the same: the thesis holds that “because states pursue power as a means to security, they frequently tend to expand,” and the increase of one state’s power – understood as military capability – is checked by the countervailing power of another (Wohlforth, Kaufman, & Little, 2007, p. 8). Morgenthau argues that states are essentially power maximisers, and the increment of one state’s (or a group of states’) power breeds insecurity on the part of a rival state (or alliance). This insecurity is then serviced by an increment in the military capability of the second state, which subsequently insecuritises the first. This vicious cycle of graduated military build-up eventually culminates in the security dilemma of an arms race that may finally break into open war. The balance of power was used by Morgenthau to explain the behaviour of the great powers and the revisionist forces during the inter-War years and the Second World War, especially the actions of Germany and Italy during 1919 to 1939. The remilitarization of the Rhineland, the conquest of Abyssinia, Germany’s pact with Stalinist Russia and Hitler’s march on Europe, are all accommodated by this tenet of realism, which maintains that it was the aggressive pursuit of power by revisionist Germany that led to insecurities on the part of Britain and France (Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985). Thus, we find that the realist explanation of great power behaviour during the inter-War years accurately depicts the events of the time in IR. The rational and positivistic bent of realist theory, as propounded by Morgenthau, proved to be unputdownable and served as a body blow to liberal idealism. Having consciously developed his own position in opposition to the ‘utopian’ liberal school, and having risen to the pinnacle of international theory by the early 1950s, Morgenthau was the epitome of IR theory, and in that time and place, it could have very well been claimed that all international theory was a debate between Morgenthau and his critics. However, the development of IR theory, both within realism and in contrary interpretations, moved away from the logic of Morgenthau’s theory, even though the essence of positivism remained in the discipline’s most dominant theoretical articulation. It is important to note, here, that difference does not necessarily connote opposition: as IR theory developed and was refined over the years, more compelling explanations (and challenges) of the international were found in the works of later theorists. The fabric of human nature revealed or explicated far too little of the complexities of an evolving international system, far less predicted nation-state behaviour on the world stage. While power remained the currency of international politics, it also served as the point of departure for the subsequent reorientation of realist theory; similarly, normative questions of justice and equality proliferated in international political theory, opening up a whole new dimension of scholarship in IR; again, in the post-Cold War era, IR theory expanded into human and critical dimensions. Firstly, realism’s explanatory scope expanded with the enterprise of Kenneth Waltz and his neorealist outlook. While Waltz maintained a positivist – or what he claimed “scientific” – outlook on theoretical endeavour in international politics, he understood the problems of IR differently from Morgenthau. A key aspect of neorealism is its systemic persuasion, which maintains that the absence of an overarching authority in global politics makes the international system anarchical, and this anarchy fuels inter-state conflict and security competition (Walt, 1998, p. 31). For neorealists, anarchy offers the most comprehensive answer to the puzzle of war’s causation, instead of explanations rooted in human nature, as forwarded by Morgenthau, or the internal configuration of states, as understood by liberal internationalists (Waltz, 1959, pp. 159-223; 1979). The lack of a central organizing principle in the international realm leads states to opt for policies of self-help, since states inherently try to maximize their national interests and security considerations. The selfish interests of states, thus, explains the failures of international cooperation, not only during the Cold War when the United Nations was hamstrung by superpower rivalry, but also the post-Cold War era, which has seen the lack of political will characterize the inability of effective multilateral action in Rwanda, Bosnia (Srebrenica), and present day Darfur. Neorealism explains the problem of order in IR, and the resultant effects of that order, by looking at the capability – understood as military might, economic resources, and war preparedness – of states in the international system. For realists, “…the units of the international system are functionally similar sovereign states, hence unit-level variation is irrelevant in explaining international outcomes. It is the third tier, the distribution of capabilities across units, that is…of fundamental importance to understanding crucial international outcomes.” (Dunne & Schmidt, 2001, p. 169) This distribution of capabilities can then be used to obtain the number of great powers within the international system at any given point of time, and that number, in turn, determines the structure of the international system. As can be seen, neorealism understands international politics differently, though its articulation is not devised in opposition to Morgenthau: it is instead a clarification, where theoretical progress shows the remits of classical political realism by providing a more analytically clear and methodologically rigorous perspective. Secondly, the rise of neorealism effectively replaced classical realism as the most dominant explanatory theory of IR. As contending perspectives developed, they centred more on responses to neorealist theory than Morgenthau’s six principles. The most robust challenge to the neorealist tradition came in the form of neoliberal institutionalism, with its roots in the functional and regional integration literature of the 1940s through to the 1960s. The neoliberals understand the international system as a web of complex interdependence, with growing linkages between states and non-state actors, and consider international issues without distinction between survival and other motives. They claim that a multitude of channels and levels of interaction among nation-states and across international borders, and that there has been a gradual decline in efficacy of the military as a tool of statecraft. Neoliberals are in agreement with neorealists that the structure of the international system is anarchical and that states are the primary units within the structure. This is a perspective that has become central to the current debate in IR theory; Morgenthau, however, had maintained that states could eventually give way to other types of organizing mechanisms, a view curiously held by many anti-realist theories of IR (like cosmopolitanism). Again, another key debate about progress in IR theory (Vasquez, 1996) takes exception to neorealist theory as the dominant force in the discipline, meaning the debate centred on Waltz, rather than Morgenthau. In addition, the rise of normative theory in IR since the late 1970s has also developed as a response to both neorealism and international political economy. It rejects the positivist fact/value distinction by claiming that theorization involves both of these: it is primarily engaged with the “ethical standards used to judge international conduct” (Griffiths & O’Callaghan, 2002, p. 310). Normative theorists attempt to find what is desirable for IR, making their endeavors naturally prescriptive. They are concerned with the existential rules of life and the normative content of institutions and practices, like human rights or the rules of war (Jackson & Sorensen, 2007, p. 297). By clarifying the basic moral issues of international relations, normative theory gives a theoretical account of the rules, practices and institutions that make up the international system. Communitarianism, cosmopolitanism, social constructivism and just war theory all inherently employ a normative framework for analyzing IR, engaging with issues such as state autonomy, international distributive justice and the ethical use of force. Evidently, these new developments in IR theory employ a broader framework of analysis than what Morgenthau had envisaged in his vision of political realism. By his own admission, Morgenthau understood that at the time he was writing, IR theory had very limited perspectives to offer. Responding to Martin Wight’s seminal article (2000), which professed to show the (perceived) paucity of international theory as a guide to the international system, Morgenthau said that “[w]hile [he could] not, of course, subscribe to the unqualified negativism of the title for both personal and professional reasons, [he found] the paper a most illuminating and penetrating discussion of the problem.” (Morgenthau, 1970, p. 248) However, he remained optimistic in his hope that IR theory would flower into a vigorous field of research: “…the nature of a theory of international relations and the intellectual and political functions a theory of international relations performs and ought to perform are not, in essence, different from the nature of general political theory and the functions such theories have performed since the beginning of history. That we have only in recent years turned toward explicit theoretical reflection about international relations is, in good measure, due to our recognition that international relations is not something to be taken for granted but something to be changed beyond the present limits of its political structure and organisation.” (Morgenthau, 1970, p. 261) The above perspective conveys two distinct aspects: firstly, if the functions of IR theory are not different from political theory, the paucity of the former is only explained by the short history which the discipline had witnessed, as opposed to the millennia of development for the latter; secondly, if change is an enduring aspect of IR, theoretical approaches to the subject must also recompense for such changes and undergo systematic reformulations, if not total recantations. Realism has remained the dominant theoretical perspective in IR, but it is neorealism and not classical realism which has captured the imagination of supporters and dissidents alike since 1979. The salience of Morgenthau’s theory remains, but the key debates in IR theory have expanded beyond the context of the post-Second World War world; in that light, it is difficult to say that all IR theory is indeed only a debate between Morgenthau and his critics. References Burchill, S. (2001). Introduction. In S. Burchill, R. Devetak, A. Linklater, M. Paterson, C. Reus-Smit, & J. True (Eds.), Theories of International Relations [2nd Edition] (pp. 1-28). London: Routledge. Dunne, T. & Schmidt, B. C. (2001) Realism. In Baylis, J. & Smith, S. (Eds.), The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations [3rd Edition] (pp. 161-183). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffiths, M. & O’Callaghan, T. (2002). International Relations: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge. Jackson, R., & Sorensen, G. (2007). Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches [3rd Edition]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morgenthau, H. J. & Thompson, K. N. (1985). Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Morgenthau, H. J. (1970). Truth and Power, Essays of a Decade: 1960-1970. New York: Praeger. Vasquez, J. A. (1996). The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to Neotraditionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walt, S. M. (1998). International Relations: One World, Many Theories. Foreign Policy, Spring 1998, 29-46. Waltz, K. N. (1959). Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press. Waltz, K. N. (1979). Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wight, M. (2000). Why Is There No International Theory? In A. Linklater (Ed.), Critical Concepts in Political Science: International Relations (pp. 27-42). London: Routledge. [Original published in 1960.] Wohlforth, W. C., Kaufman, S. J., & Little, R. (2007). Introduction: Balance and Hierarchy in International Systems. In Kaufman, S. J., Little, R., & Wohlforth, W. C. (Eds.), The Balance of Power in World History (pp. 1-21). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Read More