Power and Organization

Power and Organization

1. Realism

   • E.H. Carr
     • "The Thirty Years Crisis": there's a need for science in IR. Utopian ideaology, while great and something that we should strive for, will never actually be accomplished because utopian scholars are so invigorated by the moral purpose of their thought that they fail to actually acknowledge the facts surrounding the thought
       • realists, on the other hand, can be nihilistic and never make any real 'progress.' Therefore, Carr concludes that there needs to be a balnce between realism and liberalism - liberals creating the ideas and realists actually carrying them out.
   • Hans Morgenthau
     • "Politics Among Nations": in essence, everything in IR comes down to power - "the struggle for power is universal in time and space and is an undeniable fact of existence." Therefore, everything in IR is about power - even seemingly 'moral' programs created by utopists are actually power grabs.
   • John Herz
     • "Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma": points out that humanity has been constantly circling through cycles of upheaval because of the world's anarchical state - throughout history, there have been countless idealist policies that fail because of the power-dilemma, for example, the French and Bolshevik Revolutions - power/perceived threats always win over utopian ideals.
   • Assumptions
     • Anarchy/Human Nature: cause of war, because there's no central authority
     • Continuity over change: international order never changes, it's always about power and insecurity
     • Distinction between domestic and international politics (order, authority, morality): what's going on inside a state doesn't matter because in the end, states are out to protect themselves no matter the cost - protection over chancing it in the world
     • Politics trump economics: states secures the 'secure life' for its citizens, so even if economy would get a boost, it could be a security threat later on
   • Concepts
     • State: territorial entity composed of government and stable population
     • Power: capabilities, all of the guns, bullets, resources, etc.
     • National Interest: states are constantly on the lookout for security threats, will do whatever it takes to protect themselves from perceived threats
     • International System: Set of interrelated parts connected to form a whole
     • Polarity: three different ways international system works - unipolar (hegemonic), bipolar (2 roughly equal powers over time, seesaw), and multipolar (3 or more roughly equal powers), each of which are more (bipolar and flexible multipolar) or less (unipolar and rigid multipolar) stable over time
     • Security: states are out to protect themselves from any and all perceived threats
     • Security dilemma: continuity over change, all states engage in 'self-help' which results in constant insecurity
     • Hegemony: system controlled by a dominant leader, controls ways in which other states operate, highly unstable unipolar system, likely to dissolve into war
   • Means
     • Self-help: states will protect themselves through whatever means required, whether legal or not
     • Balance of power: best represented under a bipolar system, when two roughly equal states remain roughly equal over time, acting as a seesaw
     • Diplomacy: everything is a power show, blunt, state-to-state
     • Alliances: states coming together to create a balance of power to a state who's power has grown too much
     • Containment: limit other states' power to protect one's own
     • War: can be a mechanism to defend oneself, but states should never go to war to promote democracy, human rights, etc. Can never be overcome, only mitigated.

2. Liberalism

   • Woodrow Wilson
     • The 14 Points: lay out US views for armistice treaty - several key points: freedom of water, equal trade conditions, reduction of armaments, sovereignty, and international society plans.
     • "Make the world safe for democracy" Speech: to get Congress to go to war against Germany, but not for power play moves, instead "to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world" - discusses US willingness to make sacrifices for the 'greater good' of building free and self-governed peoples.
   • Alfred Zimmern
     • "The Testing of the League" : discusses the League's failure to stop the Italo-Ethiopian War, however, comes to the conclusion that the League was actually relatively successful - within 10 days, had imposed significant measures against the aggressors which states broadly put into effect, plus the League had the mechanisms to stop the war if it wouldn't have upset the balance of power even further. He also points out that even though it's hard to roll things forwards in IR, it's even harder to roll them backwards. Therefore the League can only go "forwards."
   • George Marshall
     • The Marshal Plan: created because if Europe didn't get substantial health, Marshall worried that there would be "economic, political, and social deterioration of a very grave character" which would disturb the world at large, therefore the US should help Europe's economy however possible, so long as European countries form a cooperative program.
   • Assumptions
     • Anarchy: is an environmental condition of international relations, doesn't impact outcomes., is just present.
     • Change in order is possible: relationships between states are not set in stone, and specific policies and circumstances can change them - for ex, US + USSR cooperation during WWII change to Cold War tensions
     • Multiple actors: states are not the only ones at work within the international system - for ex, terrorist organizations, IGOs, NGOs, individuals (to a certain extent), etc
     • Interactions between domestic and international levels (norms, relations, etc): Type of state involved in the 'input process' in international interactions matters - a capitalist, democratic state and a socialist, totalitarian state would lead to very different outcomes.
     • Politics and economics interact: states look out for both their political and economic interests, and economics can influence international relations - for ex, 2008 recession in US impacted international politics in that it contributed to China's rise.
   • Concepts
     • State: the end goal of every state is all about increasing the welfare of their own state and citizens.
     • Power: to get a sense of a state's power, one should add up all of a state's physical capabilities (ie guns, bullets, factories, economic capabilities, etc), and their influence based on a set of social relationships in the international society.
       • For ex, Switzerland doesn't have the most powerful military, but has bigggg influence in international politics
     • Democratic peace: Hypothesis that states that are more democratic are more likely to remain peaceful with other democratic states - essentially, democratic states = more likely to be pacific, non-democratic states = more likely to be war-torn
     • International order: set of relationships which remain stable over time, for ex US and USSR Cold War relationship
     • International organizations: created through international law, create the potential to fix problems through these organizations instead of war - for ex, UN
     • Regime: set of principles, norms, rules, and decision making procedures around which actors expectations converge on a given issue, leading to potential for international peace and security.
       • For ex: Principles = sovereignty, norms = transparency, rules = international law, and decision making processes as found within treaties.
     • Hegemony: a system regulated by a dominant leader who has system wide power and influence - for ex, US and China
     • Transnationalism: diffusion and extension of social, political, and economic processes in between and beyond the boundaries of sovereign states.
   • Means
     • Cooperation through institutions: not just bilateral state cooperation, rather multilateral through embedded organizations
     • Collective security: increase chances for peace and reduction of war because of collective ideology of power
     • Diplomacy: increases chances for peace through more collective ties and communication
     • Education: if intellectualism is greater, than more values of IR are made clear, and the more people understand the state and IR, and the more we understand how to move states forwards.
     • International law: binds states together legally - embeds regimes
     • National self-determination: even though states should cooperate, they still get to decide what they want to do
     • Trade: emphasizes vision of cooperation and forges ties

3. Constructivism

   • Nicholas Onuf
     • "Constructivism: A User Manual"
       • 'Rules make agents, agents make rules': rules make agents by giving them the opportunity to act upon the world, then agents make rules in order to ensure that no individual agent has full autonomy - therfore sovereignty is a matter of degree.
         • 'Rules form institutions, institutions form societies': regimes are families of rules and related practices that differ in size, from simple institutions made up of related rules, like in the balance of power, to complex international regimes made up of largely informal rules, like sovereignty. Rules work to support institution's principles.
           • 'Rules yield rule': Institutions give agents opportunities to follow rules or not, and being on the good side of rules yields rule over those who do not follow the rules. Furthermore, rules yield rule on their own, because they enforce other forms of rule.
   • Way of studying social relations, concepts and propositions
   • Fundamental belief: humans wouldn't be humans without social relations that construct us into what we are, and we then construct the world around us.
   • Agents: individuals and states who act in society to achieve goals
   • Institutions: rules and practices forming stable (but not fixed) patterns
   • More concerned with undertsanding IR than seeking to explain it. How does identity of states shape their interests? Fundamentally question war, end goals of the state, and even the state itself. Variables like race, class, emergence, etc all become important parts of the way to understand how agents identify themselves and then operate, not just input variables.
   • Anarchy is what states make of it
   • Hegemony: agents do the ruling by getting other agents to accept their ideas and beliefs through example and indoctrination.