Dr. Tabakian’s Political Science 7 Modern World Governments – Spring/Fall 2014

Supplemental Power Point Material #5

LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS (1) • Liberal Institutionalism • Liberal Challenge to Realism

– International Regimes • Social Theories • Collective Security • The Waning Of War • Peace Studies • Democratic Peace Theory • Kant & Peace

LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS (2) • Why Gender Matters • Gender In War & Peace • Women In IR • Constructivism / Rationalism • Constructivism / Feminism • Postmodernism • Marxism & Gender Theories Like Feminism

LIBERAL THEORIES • Realism offers mostly dominance solutions to

the collective goods problems of IR. • Alternative theoretical approaches that draw

mostly on the reciprocity or identity principles are called liberal theories.

• These approaches are generally more optimistic than realism about the prospects for peace.

LIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM Liberal institutionalism cannot adequately explain international relations or how to maintain a stable international system in a post-Cold War world. John J. Mearsheimer asserts that focusing too much on economic cooperation while neglecting issues relating to conflict causes the theory to be fundamentally flawed. Collective security on the other hand deals with how to produce peace by recognizing that military power is a fact of life in the international system. It calls for armed states to properly manage their respective militaries along with allies to maintain proper balances. Advocates of collective security argue that institutions can states behave according to three anti-realist norms: states have to renounce using military force to change the status quo; “responsible” states should not act according to their narrow self-interest when pursuing aggressors, but should instead equate their national interest with that of the international community; and states should have faith that all parties will follow the first two norms.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY (1) John J. Mearsheimer lists nine reasons why states may be unwilling to base their fate on collective security systems that are constructed mainly to thwart aggressive actions with overwhelming force. First, collective security system can only work when states are able to differentiate between aggressor and victim and utilize force against the later. Second, collective security assumes that all aggression is wrong. Third, states may be for historical or ideological reasons, overly friendly. Fourth, states that have shared hostile relations in the past may not be willing to cooperate. Fifth, states that agree to combat aggression may not be able to distribute the burden associated with doing so. Sixth, it is difficult to react quickly in a collective security system. Seventh, states may not be willing to join a collective security system, as every local conflict can become an international quagmire. Eighth, forcing states to instantaneously react to aggression impinges on state sovereignty. Ninth, responsible states that normally see war as repellent may not be willing to rescue threatened states.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY (2) Alexander Wendt lists stages that states may follow to emerge from a competitive security system to a cooperative system: breakdown allegiance to identities; examine old ideas and how the state interacted with other actors; change how other actors define themselves, their interests and how it maintained old systems of interaction; foster reciprocal rewards for cooperative actions. Alexander Wendt believes that any transition to new international structures requires fervent support of states as they serve as conduits to a new “post-international” era in politics. The author claims to be a realist and statist as any new system may coincide with theories of anarchic interstate politics. However, definitions of statism do not have to be construed by the dictates of realism about how best to define a “state”.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY (3) • Concept grows out of liberal institutionalism. • Refers to the formation of a broad alliance of most

major actors in an international system for the purpose of jointly opposing aggression by any actor. – Kant – League of Nations – Organization of America States, Arab League,

and the African Union

COLLECTIVE SECURITY (4) • Success of collective security depends on two points:

– Members must keep their alliance commitments to the group.

– Enough members must agree on what constitutes aggression.

• Ex: 1990-91 – Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait – All the great powers bore the cost of confronting Iraq

• Iraq: World’s collective security system is “creaky” and not always effective, but bypassing it to take military action also holds dangers.

• Concept of collective security has broadened in recent years. – Failed states – weak control over territory – implications

for their neighbors and the international system – Domestic politics as international anarchy – need for

intervention

THE WANING OF WAR (1) • In recent years, a strong trend toward fewer wars has

become evident. – For the world as a whole, the current period is one of

the least warlike ever, with fewer and smaller wars than in the past.

– World wars killed tens of millions and left whole continents in ruin.

– Cold War – proxy wars killed millions and the world feared a nuclear war that could have wiped out our species.

– Iraq and Sudan and wars like these kill hundreds of thousands.

• We fear terrorist attacks, but we do not fear that life on the planet will be destroyed.

THE WANING OF WAR (2) • Events in the post-Cold War era continue this long-

term trend toward smaller wars. • Today’s most serious conflicts consist mainly of

skirmishing rather than all-out battles. • In 2006, wars in Darfur (Sudan), Iraq, and Afghanistan

all worsened, a brief Israeli-Lebanese war left lasting wounds, and Sri Lanka resumed a civil war…but progress continued elsewhere. – Congo, Uganda, Nepal

THE WANING OF WAR (3) An estimated 300,000 child soldiers are currently fighting in armed conflicts raging in more than 30 countries around the world. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from the Congo to Colombia, children as young as seven years old are forced to fight in wars about which they have little understanding. Yet, the individual states and the international community are starting to awaken to the issue, and a number of organizations are seeking to address the use of young boys and girls in war, and the failure of national public policy to prevent it. This video examines women, children and war in Sudan.

WOMEN & CHILDREN OF SUDAN

INTERNATIONAL REGIMES (1) • Set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the

expectations of actors converge in a certain issue area. – Participants have similar ideas about what rules will

govern their mutual participation. • Regimes can help solve collective goods problems by

increasing transparency. • Conception of regime. • Enforcement and survival of regimes.

– Role of permanent institutions such as the UN, NATO, and the IMF.

• Culmination of liberal institutionalism to date is the European Union (EU).

INTERNATIONAL REGIMES (2) Robert Dahl argued that pluralism insured that groups could not single handedly influence public policy. Rather, cross-cutting cleavages would form, as groups would compromise with others to build coalitions that would succeed in affecting change. One can argue that this rebuts Marxism’s contention that major capitalism can succeed n directing public policy. International regimes was seen by liberals as a good way to challenge realism. These regimes are based on long-standing traditions of international law. John Ruggie was the first to give credence to international regimes, followed by Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye. John Ruggie defined regimes as sets of “mutual expectations, rules and regulations, plans, organizational energies and financial commitments, which have been accepted by a group of states.” Keohane and Nye regarded regimes as “governing arrangements that affect relationships of interdependence.” John Ruggie’s definition is rooted in constructivist thinking for what is agreed to within a regime represents what the state desires. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye recognized regimes as a tool for actors to pursue their interests.

INTERNATIONAL REGIMES (3) Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert O. Keohane and Stephen D. Krasner suggest that realism remain vulnerable due to the apparent problematic nature of its core assumption. They identify four: (1) states are the key actors in the international system; (2) states are all similar in construction as they all act on behalf of their self-interest; (3) analysis can always conclude that states will act according to their self-interest; and (4) the anarchical international system presents a never ending risk of war and coercion whenever there a conflict exists between self-interested states. They list three major liberal challenges to realism’s assertion that states could be regarded as fused rational actors: neofunctionalism, bureaucratic politics, and transnational relations and linkage politics, with all three adhering to how pluralism affects state policies. International regimes was seen by liberals as a good way to challenge realism. These regimes are based on long-standing traditions of international law. John Ruggie was the first to give credence to international regimes, followed by Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye.

INTERNATIONAL REGIMES (4) John Ruggie defined regimes as sets of “mutual expectations, rules and regulations, plans, organizational energies and financial commitments, which have been accepted by a group of states.” Keohane and Nye regarded regimes as “governing arrangements that affect relationships of interdependence.” John Ruggie’s definition is rooted in constructivist thinking for what is agreed to within a regime represents what the state desires. Keohane and Nye recognized regimes as a tool for actors to pursue their interests.

PEACE STUDIES (1) • Challenges fundamental concepts behind realism and

neoliberalism. • Seeks to shift the focus of IR away from the interstate

level of analysis and toward a broad conception of social relations at the individual, domestic, and global levels of analysis.

• Connects war and peace with individual responsibility, economic inequality, gender relations, cross-cultural understanding, and other aspects of social relationships. – Social revolution – Transnational communities

PEACE STUDIES (2) • Criticism: normative bias • Conflict resolution

– Mediation – Citizen diplomacy – Arbitration – Confidence-building – Linkage

PEACE STUDIES (3) • Role of militarism

– Glorification of war, military force, and violence through TV, films, books, political speeches, toys, games, sports, and other avenues.

– Structuring society around war • Conceptualization of peace

– Positive peace – Structural violence

• Peace movements – Pacifism/nonviolence – Gandhi

DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY (1)

Christopher Lane has shown that democracies have not fought each other not out of respect for other democracies, but that the threat of a third party helped to unite democratic states. Democratic peace theory is unfounded for if it were valid then the United States would not have helped overthrow the democratically elected Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic by sending 23,000 troops whose mere presence helped to topple his government. Henry Kissinger would validate this action under the tenets of democratic peace theory by arguing that the Dominican Republic is a “wayward” democracy that may be in danger of tilting toward communism or authoritarian rule. Waltz claims that democracies may currently live at peace with other democracies, but even if all states became democratic that the international system would remain anarchic. Michael Doyle, James Lee Ray and Bruce Russett argue that democracies are inherently more peaceful than autocratic states. They argue that democracies may fight as often as other states, but rarely if ever fight one another.

DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY (2)

Michael Doyle has argued that the existence of modern democracies over the last 200 years demonstrates that the democratic peace theory has proven successful. Realists have countered these assertions through claims that liberal democracies were either not next to one another or shared a mutual threat that encouraged them to look past differences. Another reason provided is that external forces may force a state to become democratic if it wished to get along with other democracies. This suggests that power relations have always remained a viable factor for non-democratic states may desire good relations with strong democracies like the United States. Nationalist struggles are welcomed as precursors to the solidification process of tolerant and democratic societies. Nationalisms serve to establish unique identities in a world of ever increasing democratic homogenization. It is a process that the United States has been a party as were emerging democracies in Western Europe in the nineteenth century.

DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY (3)

• IR scholars have linked democracy with a kind of foreign policy fundamentally different from that of authoritarianism. – Theory: Democracies are more peaceful than

authoritarian regimes. • Not true: Democracies fight as many wars as do

authoritarian states. – Democratic Peace:

• What is true about democracies is that although they fight wars against authoritarian states, democracies almost never fight each other.

• Trend is toward democratization in most of the world’s regions.

KANT & PEACE (1) • What explains this positive trend toward peace? • Kant gave 3 answers over 200 years ago:

1. States could develop the organizations and rules to facilitate cooperation, specifically by forming a world federation resembling today’s United Nations (reciprocity).

2. Peace depends on the internal character of governments- specifically that republics, with a legislative branch that can hold the monarch in check, will be more peaceful than autocrats (identity principle).

3. Trade promotes peace, relies on the presumption that trade increases wealth, cooperation, and global well-being -- all making conflict less likely in the long term because governments will not want to disrupt any process that adds to the wealth of their state.

KANT & PEACE (2) • Kant argued that states could join a worldwide

federation and respect its principles. – Remain autonomous – But forego certain short-term individual gains

• Kant: International cooperation more rational option than going to war. – To realists, war is a rational option; to liberal

theorists, war is an irrational deviation that results from defective reasoning and that harms the interests of warring states.

KANT & PEACE (3) • Neoliberal approach differs from earlier liberal

approaches in that it concedes to realism several important assumptions: – States are unitary actors rationally pursuing their

self-interests, but they say states cooperate because it is in their self-interest.

– Mutual gains better than cheating or taking advantage of each other.

– State that neorealists’ pessimism is unjustified. States cooperate MOST of the time.

– Positive reciprocity

WHY GENDER MATTERS • Feminist scholarship seeks to uncover hidden

assumptions about gender in how we study a subject. – Core assumptions of realism reflect the ways in

which males tend to interact and to see the world. – Complex critique – Beyond a basic agreement that gender is important,

there is no such thing as a “feminist approach” to IR • Difference feminism: gender differences

important and fixed • Liberal feminism: gender differences are trivial • Postmodern feminism: gender differences

important but arbitrary and flexible

GENDER IN WAR & PEACE • Difference feminists find plenty of evidence to support

the idea of war as a masculine pursuit. – Males usually the primary, and often only,

combatants in warfare. – Testosterone.

• Both biologically and anthropologically, no firm evidence connects women’s care giving functions with any particular kinds of behavior such as reconciliation or nonviolence.

• Idea of women as peacemakers has a long history. • Gender gap.

WOMEN IN IR (1) • Liberal feminists are skeptical of difference

feminists’ critiques of realism. – They believe that when women are allowed

to participate in IR, they play the game basically the same way men do, with similar results.

WOMEN IN IR (2) • Liberal feminism focuses on the integration of women into

the primarily male-dominated areas of foreign policymaking and the military. – Evidence: Female state leaders do not appear to be any

more peaceful, or any less committed to state sovereignty and territorial integrity than are male leaders.

– In U.S. difficult to compare voting records of men and women on foreign policy: too few women

• Women have never chaired the key foreign policy committees

– Women as soldiers • In sum, liberal feminists reject the argument that women

bring uniquely feminine assets or liabilities to foreign and military affairs.

CONSTRUCTIVISM • An approach that focuses on the nature of

norms, identity, and social interaction. • Can provide powerful insights into the

world of IR. • Focus: How actors define their national

interests, threats to those interests, and their relationships to one another.

• Constructivism puts IR in the context of broader social relations.

CONSTRUCTIVISM / RATIONALISM (1)

Constructivists are prone to emphasize the impact of ideas instead of material factors like power or trade as realism and liberalism focus upon. Constructivists would argue that the interests and identities of states are determined according to its history and that prevailing discourses have helped shape its society’s beliefs and interests, in time establishing accepted norm of behavior. They are prone to argue that states do not necessarily strive only to survive, but that their behavior in the international system can also be explained by those norms that are adhered. Constructivists describe rationalist assumptions about economics as actors with clear-cut interests that they have to satisfy by acquiring scarce resources pursued by their rational peers. Constructivist theorists examine the process by which actors see reality, including how they come to identify their interests. They do this by referencing humanities and the sociological environment from which actors emerge. Rationalism and constructivism offer two distinct arguments that have yet to be resolved.

CONSTRUCTIVISM / RATIONALISM (2)

Rationalism and constructivism both recognize beliefs or knowledge as fundamental. The authors use game-theoretic rationalists and constructivist research as examples. Game-theoretic rationalists acknowledge that actors who share common knowledge about the game allow all sides to engage in collective bargaining. Constructivist research on the other hand focuses on how the identity of actors developed and how all sides came to accept the rules of the game. Rationalists see their method of persuasion as using acquired information to tailor incentives to bargain in a way that affects how the other side determines its interests. Constructivists focus on the progress of social processes that in turn determine normative beliefs by appealing to identities, moral obligations and appealing to norms that strive for new standards of appropriate behavior. Critical theorists believe that “how we think and talk about the world, largely shapes practice.”

CONSTRUCTIVISM / RATIONALISM (3)

John J. Mearsheimer states that critical theorists desire a world where states are guided by “norms of trust and sharing”. This theory challenges realist assumption that structural factors are the primary determinants of state behavior. It instead proposes that ideas and discourse are what helps shape the world, but does recognize that structural factors can have a minor role in influencing the outcome. Neorealists and neoliberals share a commitment to rationalism. Neorealism’s description of self-help has allowed the discipline to explain the competitive nature of the security dilemma and the reason why collective action fails to maintain stability. The origin of self-help is not a written law of international relations, but rather one that is developed from classical realism’s assertion that human beings are naturally competitive for power. Neorealists argue that states are not competitive for power, but rather for preserving their security in order to ensure their survival. Liberals concede that the international system is anarchic, yet argue that it is possible to produce institutional processes that encourage cooperative behavior, thus moving states away from a self-help system.

CONSTRUCTIVISM / FEMINISM (1)

Constructivists make the case that the school of International Relations is a study dominated by Anglo and Euro-centric male policymakers who are deeply rooted in masculine ideas. It has been argued that state policies may influence men and women differently. States are said to be dependent on women’s ability to reproduce additional offspring and that the state takes on the male role of regulating their activities in order to ensure social procreation. Anne Tickner has promoted a “non-gendered global security system” that is comprised of two components. The first is a discipline that thinks in multi-dimensional terms. The second component requires International Relations to consider how insecurities have been cultured according to gender as well as how they affect both men and women. Spike V. Peterson has argued that for this to be successful that it is necessary to universalize claims in a way that is understandable across various cultures and that they are gender neutral.

CONSTRUCTIVISM / FEMINISM (2)

Cynthia Enloe has argued that, “…gender made the world go round” and made her point by asking, “where are the women?” while demonstrating “how much power it takes to maintain the international political system in its present form”. Anne Tickner has made reference to Kenneth Waltz’s “Man, The State and War” that the international system is anarchic as there is no higher power than the state. She made has stated her opposition to the conception that competition is inherent within all of humankind, instead making students aware that the result may be the lack of feminine participation. Christine Sylvester prefers post-modern feminism as a good means for students to better understand the claims made by feminists about how males came to define international relations for so long. She asserts that post-modern feminism allows us to question how identities have come to be so that students may be able to apply new definitions.

DIFFERENCE FEMINISM VERSUS LIBERAL FEMINISM?

• Are the two totally at odds? – Difference feminists argue that realism reflects a

masculine perception of social relations and they believe that women’s unique abilities will transform the entire system.

– Liberal feminists think that women can be just as realist as men and they believe that female participation in foreign policy and the military will enhance state capabilities.

• How can these two positions be reconciled?

POSTMODERN FEMINISM • Line of criticism directed at realism that combines

feminism and postmodernism. • Seeks to deconstruct realism with the specific aim of

uncovering the pervasive hidden influences of gender in IR while showing how arbitrary the construction of gender roles is.

• Archetypes: Just warrior and beautiful soul – Power and potency: State capability and male

virility – Realism and liberalism ignore all the sexual aspects

of weaponry • Impact of feminist theory

THE MASCULINITY OF REALISM • Difference feminism provides a perspective from which to reexamine

realism. – For example, difference feminists have argued that realism

emphasizes autonomy and separation because men find separation easier to deal with than interconnection.

• Psychological view – Caretaker in early years generally female: Girls form

gender identity around their similarity with the caretaker (environment in which they live) and boys perceive their difference from the caretaker.

– Boys develop social relations based on individual autonomy, but girls’ relations are based on connection.

– Women held to fear abandonment; men more likely to fear intimacy.

– Boys dissolve friendships more readily than girls. – Empirical evidence is mixed.

• An international system based on feminine principles might giver greater importance to the interdependence of states than to their autonomy.

POSTMODERNISM (1) • A broad approach to scholarship that pays special

attention to texts and to discourses – how people talk and write about their subjects.

• Central idea: There is no single, objective reality but a multiplicity of experiences and perspectives that defy easy categorization. – Postmodernism itself is difficult to present in a

simple or categorical way. • Postmodernists seek to “deconstruct” such

constructions as states, the international system, and the associated stories and arguments with which realists portray the nature of international relations. – Deconstruction – Subtext

POSTMODERNISM (2) Sociological work encompasses three areas: conventional, critical, and postmodern. Conventional constructivists claim that sociological perspectives provide tools that may either challenge or supplement rationalism’s assertions. Critical constructivists want to know how actors and systems coexist and believe that social scientific knowledge can be based on empirical research. They do not like to create norms or laws, instead remaining pluralistic, or desiring a mix of competing research methods. Postmodernists are unwilling to recognize any foundation from which knowledge may be based. Postmodernists are therefore self-relegated to discovering how power relations affect history or how society claims to profess knowledge. Conventional and critical constructivists were heavily influenced by new innovative ideas in the humanities promoting shared norms and values while at the same time epistemologically different from postmodernist theory. It is suggested that students may find that rationalism within the national security field and constructivism have established greater linkages than in the International Political Economy field.

MARXISM APPROACH TO IR (1) Orthodox Marxism identified capitalism as the primary cause for international conflict as capitalist states fought one another in an effort to increase profits. In their eyes, capitalist states battled socialist states for the later served to discredit the hypocrisy of capitalism. Neo-Marxist dependency theory asserted that the world system was created by capitalism in an effort to control the means of production by allowing rich states to profit off of the raw resources of poor states, namely labor and resources. As Marxism succumbed to its failings, deconstructivist theorists devised a systematic approach to discredit the trend of devising general or universal theories like realism and idealism. They instead focused on fundamental seeds of culture like language and discourse and how it shaped overall social outcomes both within a given society and worldwide.

MARXISM APPROACH TO IR (2) Marxists claim that the degree of capitalist influence has a direct affect to political and economic outcomes in both the domestic and international realms. It is focused on structural or institutional arguments instead of being actor centered. Marxism also contends that states were the creation of major capitalists. Enriching the states so that it becomes ever more powerful allows those in control, capitalists, to utilize its power so to further expand markets, thereby increasing profit, all while increasing the degree of exploitation. Structural Marxism sought to understand why states would introduce social security and recognize labor unions by arguing that capitalist states would enact policies that sought to further strengthen loyalty to the system being forever expanded. Early Marxists believed that capitalism would dissolve before assuming global penetration. The school took on a new theoretical approach following the fall of communist spheres. Their assumption was that capitalism had to first achieve dominance, mature for a long time and then collapse due to its hypocrisy.

MARXISM APPROACH TO IR (3) • Holds that IR and domestic politics arise from unequal

relationships between economic classes. • Branch of socialism, a theory that holds that the more

powerful classes oppress and exploit the less powerful by denying them their fair share of the surplus they create.

• Class struggle. • V.I. Lenin and his theory of imperialism

– His idea still shapes a major approach to North-South relations.

– Globalization of class relations. • Mao Zedong. • Leon Trotsky. • State of Marxist theory today.