International Law and the Collapse of Sovereignty

After watching the lecture for this module, one question posed by Professor Jackson stuck with me: can international law be strengthened without doing away with state sovereignty? My answer to this question is a realist response, that state sovereignty cannot exist with the expansion of international law. The mere state of being a member of an international organization with a judicial branch implies that the state is no longer sovereign, no longer having unconditional authority over it's actions. 

The reason for this is fairly simple, by allocating more authority to a body that dictates international law, the state loses a portion of its authority, and a state cannot be autonomous without the monopoly on authority. An important point to note here, is that sovereign states can enforce international law. However, once this is done, autonomy is eradicated. According to Professor Jackson, the superior legal authority within international law, means that states in the international system are no longer fully autonomous. By giving authority to an international body which governs international law, the state is no longer sovereign, and no longer has full autonomy.

To aid in comprehending this idea, let's look at a body that governs international law, the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ, was created as a means to solve legal disputes between member states. By submitting to the Court's jurisdiction, states relinquish a piece of their sovereignty. The state would no longer be autonomous, no longer having all authority to govern itself. The reason for this being that if the state was brought before the Court in a dispute, the state must then adhere to the ruling of the Court, losing authority over that specific matter. Therefore, if a state wishes to remain sovereign, it should abstain from the realm of global governance.

Some people may argue against this idea, claiming that in reality there is a grey area where states can retain sovereignty while international law is strengthened. However, this issue is black and white, either states are sovereign, or they are not. There is simply no middle ground on which to hide from the reality of the international system.


https://auisgroup1summer18.blogspot.com/2018/06/international-law-and-collapse-of.html

Week 8 Post Class

Recently the United States has made overtures at recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights. This is significant in that this would be the first time since the end of World War II where the United States would recognize a territory captured by military means. This recognition could potentially set in place a precedent which could grant other states the public authority to recognize other territories captured by military means in the future. Since there is no superior legal authority within the realm of the international, public authority is dictated by precedent, and the willingness of states to follow through with said precedent. This particular precedent bears the threat of a belligerent sovereign using the threat of violence on a smaller state in order to expand their territorial claims inside the smaller state, and then having these territorial claims be recognized by the allies of the belligerent sovereign. Any attempt by other states to disavow this claim to the belligerent's new territoriality would be nominal, as any military action within these new borders can be interpreted by states which recognize this new border as a violation of sovereignty.

A similiar situation occurred after the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state in 2008. Kosovo's territory was located within the sovereign country of Serbia, and (to summarize a complex series of negotions) declared independence in 2008 without the consent of Serbia. Kosovo was promptly recognized by a number of states including the U.S. shortly after declaring itself independent. This set a negative precedent that regional separatist movements do not require any public authority from the sovereign country they are declaring independence from. This precedent was then used by Russia in the Georgian autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to justify military intervention in Georgia to protect the sovereignty of these two regions. One of the main differences between the Golan Heights recognition and the recognition of Kosovo would be that only the U.S. would recognize the Golan Heights and Kosovo received recognition from a broader international audience, however the threat of establishing this precedent still remains and should be taken very seriously.

week 6 post class blog Trump card

This class was very interesting as we had the opportunity to examine the recent summit between President Trump and Kim Jong un.  I really appreciated the hopeful opinion that Emma shared that this may be the opening door for something greater. I however do not feel hopeful about future relations.  I agree with the sentiment that this is more show than anything. Trump has made millions on using smoke and mirrors to trade on his name. I think he continues this same technique with his presidency to maintain his base. There was no real diplomatic presence for this meeting. There are no assurances for a follow on meeting. The United States gained no real concessions and has agreed to pull away from military exercises on the border. I think his style of diplomacy is dangerous and sets a precedent that States can appeal to Trump's ego and gain valuable concessions. I believe that Trump won this for himself and his base but the American people and diplomacy have lost big time. At some point I have to wonder if the United States is near to breaking off from being a rational actor on the international stage.

I tend to fall more along a constructivist lines. I believe that humans have a lot more control over the way we set our social order and are capable of fundamental change.  I will utilize an example from a previous blog post utilizing international women's movements. Today people have access to the freedom of information that has the capability to rapidly transcend international borders. We have seen ISIS move across boarders to execute attacks within the United States as well as Europe. Clearly in the modern world we are faced with a new challenge to identity. With this shift in identity the major players on the international scenes have the potential to be non state actors. One cannot ignore the international business market and their ability to manipulate states in their best interests. Apple is a great example of a power international business organization in the way their moved their headquarters to Ireland. They were so powerful that the current administration set current tax laws to be more favorable.  This sway of powerful companies within government is nothing new however the way in which they clearly move outside a home based country and pit countries against each other shows a new style and autonomy. Technology has allowed dispersed offices to all be in the same room with each other. This allows organizations to break free of the chains of identity based on location and reach out to new markets and people. the increase of technology will only increase the capabilities to reorganize with non state actors.  I think this will continue and ultimately the whole dynamic of power will shift. 

Limits to the control of violence

I thought this weeks topic was an interesting examination of the question of statehood in the face of the growing presence of transnational organizations and international systems of law.

In theory, states should place the limits to the control of violence as the highest priority on their list. Without the "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence," state sovereigns cede authority, and if they are replaced as the legitimate source of the use of violence then they ultimately forfeit their sovereignty. Privatization may supplant other government services such as healthcare, education, transportation, and even tax collection (depending on the nature of the social contract the sovereign as with their subjects). Ultimately however, the sovereign's legitimacy lies in the ability to protect it's citizens, and enforce law and order. If citizens do not respect this legitimacy of the state, then the sovereign has no public authority within that territory, leaving a vacuum for another type of sovereign (organized crime or a separatist government for example).

The introduction of privatized police forces and the use of militias in weaker states threatens this dynamic for sovereigns in states wrestling with these issues. In states with significant security gaps, often times they are forced to resort to alternative measures to enforce their own security. Take for example the instance of Ukraine, where the conventional military is not sufficiently powerful to handle the separatist insurgency in the East of the country. They are forced to rely on nationalistic militias to tackle this security threat, and these militias are not always loyal to the government, and there have even been instances of armed conflict between the government and these forces (Oliphant). Despite these confrontations, the state still heavily relies on these militias to do much of the fighting in the East of the country, and these militias have gained much local popularity as a result of their efforts. This creates an issue of legitimacy for the state, where it doesn't necessarily have a monopoly on the use of legitimate violence, and calls into question how much sovereignty the state truly has. In summary, states need to worry about how much legitimacy the give to state actors in terms of legitimate use of violence, because it creates issues of sovereignty down the road.


Roland Oliphant, "Far-Right group Pravy Sektor challenges Ukraine government after shootout," The Telegraph, 27 July, 2015. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11734520/Ukrainian-forces-surround-nationalist-militia-following-deadly-attack-in-western-Ukraine.html (accessed on 25 July, 2018)

Who will fill the gaps?

Both the Williams and the Abrahamsen and Williams articles this week emphasized the idea that where gaps exist in the capacity of states to exercise authority, other actors and mechanisms will fill them in.

How is an actor granted authority in the international realm? From what we’ve read this week, ideally it’s the states that would have to grant authority through formalized processes. In the case of industries like privatized security, this may not always be the case. While they have to work within the rules set forth by governments of the states they work in, they ultimately answer to  corporate, private decision-makers. In the case of privatized security at the Koido Holdings diamond mine, for example, distrust of the public police force has driven increased reliance on private security companies and thus “PSCs have stepped into the breach created by the incapacity of the Sierra Leonian State” (Abrahamsen & Williams).  The verdict is still out on whether these entities are any more trustworthy than state provided security forces but it seems the combination of the public and private security actors has allowed at least this diamond mine in Sierra Leone to inch closer to peace of mind.

In the above mentioned case, a private company has moved to fill the void left by state actors but as Williams’ article on transnational organized crime has pointed out, the actors that move to fill the void are not always legalized entities. If private companies can move to fill the void, what’s stopping criminal organizations from doing so? If distrust in the state legitimizes constituents’ reasoning for turning to other actors, they will ultimately turn to someone they trust more than the state. It would seem that the combination of public and private authorities holds more parties accountable. The danger is that this could develop to more accountability expected from one actor over the other. Could arrangements like these end up privatizing the legitimation of violence? If that is the case I would have to agrees with Abrahamsen and Williams that “the role of the state has shifted from rowing towards steering.”

Williams, Phil. "Transnational Organized Crime and the State," in The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance, ed. Tom Biersteker and Rodney Bruce Hall (Cambridge, 2002).

Rita Abrahamsen and Michael C. Williams, "Security beyond the State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics," International Political Sociology 3:1 (2009)

Fundamental Change: What a Week

The assignment for week six was definitely and interesting one. Personally, I enjoy debating, and arguing, so it has been a fun week for me. I put in more effort this week, re-reading the assigned articles for the module, and continually checking to see if the "pro group" had posted their rebuttal. When reading their rebuttal, it was almost as if my body had been taken over. I instantly started coming up with arguments to make, and jotting down the specific quotes from their post so that I could reference the precise spots in which they were wrong. After what had only seemed like an hour, I looked up to see that it was approaching 11pm. I had been working for hours. In this post, I am going to talk about how I think the "pro group" did, what point I believe they should have made, and how I think the exercise went overall.

One point that started to drive some of our group members crazy, was the fact that the pro group did not have a basic definition of what they believed fundamental change was, specifically. If I were in their group, I would have made the example of the international environment changing from a bipolar world, to a multipolar world as the point that fundamental change is possible. This argument alone would have made me struggle to oppose the idea that fundamental change is not only possible, but that it already happened in the international environment. The group could have then based all of their arguments on this one point, that it has happened before, and therefore it is possible to happen again.

Overall, I think the exercise, including the class discussion, went well. It was more of each side arguing why they were right, and less trying to convince the other side that their view was wrong. I do not believe that any minds were changed during this activity. During the class discussion, some people got a little testy, including myself, when our personal arguments were under scrutiny. This was a fun exercise, but took more work than our usual interactive group activities. This activity only worked to emphasize my view of humanity, that all humans are just self-interested. That humans will look out for their own security, and believing that this will never change. In conclusion, I guess that I was lucky to be placed in the group that was based on realist theory, as I believe that I am generally a realist when it comes to international relations, even though I did end up agreeing with a Green Bay Packers fan. I guess there is a first for everything.


https://auisgroup1summer18.blogspot.com/2018/06/fundamental-change-what-week.html

A realist approach to fundimental change

This debate brought forth some interesting notions regarding fundamental change in the realm of international relations, what it's nature is, and how it can be accomplished. One of the key points discussed was the issue of sovereignty and whether states would be willing to forgo their sovereignty and under which conditions this might happen. The argument is that states will not only forgo their own security, but in a certain regards their own survival in order to join this greater institution or entity. I do believe that if there is some recreation of the sense of self, in terms of role and identity, that this might happen within certain contexts (the creation of a European identity for example). That being said, I do ultimately believe that these cases are the exception more than the rule. Central to the argument made by the pro-fundamental change side was that this change happens within the context of large international institutions (and to a lesser extent created by borderless social and political movements) and that once certain values of these institutions were exported that they would be institutionalized within the new member state. The institutionalization of these new sets of norms and values are then one of the key factors of reshaping a state's identity or role within international society. One of the main problems with this theory is that state's join these institutions for a variety of reasons, and once they join it does not necessarily mean that their value system will change at all, and some actors will use these institutions to advance their own domestic agenda and therefore further entrench the idea of sovereignty. If the issue around fundamental change is centered around the idea that states will surrender their sovereignty in due time as a result of a restructuring of their values system or change in role and identity, then this neglects the role of individuals on the domestic level play and the internal power struggles within a state. Ultimately, the realm of international relations is a collection of states with their own set of individual actors vying for power on the domestic level, and without some external force or threat serving as a catalyst for cooperation, these individual actors are not (as a whole) likely to give up sovereignty which is their vehicle for obtaining power.

Time to Take a Step Back

Aliens and zombies. What a great session it was today. Aside from the sharp turn into sci-fi and Game of Thrones town, I thought the debate was a lively one and one that, though it was never truly resolved (like a recent conference in Singapore), it did highlight the very real lines in the sand currently drawn between liberals and realists.

So is fundamental change possible? It's a great question and one I look forward to exploring much more deeply my paper. My summation of today's class is that there is very little agreement as to what fundamental change looks like, what would cause such a shift, or whether we'd even perceive it right away if it did occur. Even outside of our pro/con groups I think a pretty solid breakdown in the class of those that believe that fundamental change is possible and those that think it isn't. I would also say the balance leans toward a more interest/realist-based approach. Our class seems skeptical that actors can stray from Hobbes' man in the state of stature. I find myself simultaneously agreeing that human nature is the hardest of habits to break, but also that normalizing behaviors and outside stimuli can create lasting change.

At the end of the day I really want the zombie apocalypse to show up or, as mentioned in class, a significant climate event to bind humanity together in a new system, a world government where all voices are equal, with strong considerations for human rights and the ability and capacity to maintain justice within that system. Let me dream.

Thank goodness I don't have to be a realist anymore...

Going into the debate I was very much against the idea that international actors are destined to be stuck in this Hobbesian state of being. When I think of the Hobbesian state I think of the programmed characters in video games whose sole purpose is to exist to protect themselves against the player. Programmed to protect themselves in the same endless loop again and again until the player wins and they become irrelevant. Luckily, I’m glad to say, I don’t agree this is the way the world works. Although arguing from this perspective did really make me question to what extent the international system can change. If states are made up of people, whose only drive is to survive, how then could the states themselves move past this servitude to survival?

I believe the answer lies in the composition of states and the composition of the types of people within and around them. In the world we live in today, it’s naïve to think that the influences of the state are influenced solely by the ideas within that state.  Even if leaders are not influenced by the needs of their own people, they will be influenced by the ideas of the states around them.

Maybe in the times of Hobbes, I could’ve believed that the fight for survival could only produce anarchy but now, being able to look back on history I have to say that ideas, practices, and norms have been the big game changers on the international scale. Over time it has become easier and easier to survive. Technologies have changed, driven by the novelty of ideas, and there is no end in sight for that.

Without getting into too much detail, what I can see as fundamental change is that it happens but it happens at a glacial pace. While ideas drive the practices and the norms that can instigate change through a kind of snowball effect, it is an incredibly slow rolling snowball. The way that we as humans, and ultimately states, view change is limited by the time in which we can view it and act in it. Luckily ideas transcend time, which then means change may also transcend time. As others have mentioned throughout this class we can see this in the changes of ideas in social movements. The generally accepted views of women within societies, for example, have changed almost everywhere in the world at some point in history and progressively so in the West. These ideas didn’t start in our lifetime, they’ve been changing over the centuries and have snowballed into what we see unfolding before us today. Big change, fundamental change, comes slowly.

Week 4 Post-Class

Neither one nor the other model fully explain the international system or why actors behave the way that they behave. Laffey/Weldes and Goldstein/Keohane posit two separate approaches to the behaviors of actors. Goldstein and Keohane push the rationalist approach, while Laffey and Weldes push a more constructivist idea.

The rationalist model is all well and good for making very generalized predictions about actor behavior. It essentially states that states are driven by their interests and moved along a track, but ideas/world views can be the track along which those states are moved. In short, ideas and interests are separate, but ideas can help inform how interests are carried out. As stated before I believe this to be the better of the two in explaining the world, but more because a more accurate model is likely not possible.

In comparison, Laffey and Weldes describe a world where interests ARE ideas, or at least constituted or made up by them. I think that their model is very compelling is actually a better understanding of what is actually going on in the world. However, I would assert that the model is too complex to be applied for predicting behavior. By my understanding of the model, it would essentially mean that from state to state there would be no common interests, but rather ideas/interests unique to them. While I would tend to agree this is essentially true, it's just too much.

Week 5 Pre-class

The idea of a world without sovereign states is absolutely mind-boggling from a theoretical standpoint. On its face we look at it and say, "Well, yeah it's been done in Star Trek, Star Wars, and all these other sci-fi universes and it looks pretty achievable." From a theoretical standpoint it seems increasingly difficult and, while not impossible, highly improbable short of a necessary outside stimulus.

What I loved about the lecture this week was the look at how, since its inception, IR theory has always been focused on the nation-state, sovereignty, and anarchy. Even those theories that try to get away from those ideas still need to be formulated in such a way that it caters to those who view the world that way. And so the idea of a world without sovereign borders, of a truly global village, is absolutely wild when you take a step back and look at it from the theorist's perspective.

Constructivism

Initially I found the idea of constructivism a bit daunting, especially when presented in the context of symbolic technologies from Laffey and Weldes.  The more it comes into play, the more intriguing I find it. It makes sense to me in the way it kind of wraps these ideas that make up the various theories and starts to dig for their formulation.  The way constructivism emphasizes the intersubjectivity of interests and ideas also makes sense to me. We touched on this a little with Laffey and Weldes when they address interests as the result of rationality and interests themselves based on ideas. Now we begin to get into how I ideas are formed by social interactions, which are guided by rules.

Onuf emphasizes the intersubjectivity of constructivism between institutions and structures. He sets up structure as what observers see and institutions as what agents act within. In the meantime, the agents within these structures are all restricted by rules of varying levels. Onuf approaches rules in three different categories: instruction, directive, and commitment, and explains rules and their related practices as these malleable concepts that can be shaped when actors respond to them. Rules form these chains of reactions and when you act on one rule you’re also effecting, maybe altering, the rules related to it.  

 My initial reaction to these rules is to try to match them to the types of IO’s that operate under them. When I think about the “instruction-rules” in their application, I think of agents that aim to establish international law or governance such as the EU. When I think of “directive-rules,” I think of private companies with a hierarchy of officers such as CEO’s, VPs, associates, etc. and when I think of “commitment rules” I think of co-operations such as those seen in international development when organizations will partner on a program to address different aspects of the same problem.

Sources: 

Onuf G. Nicholas, “Constructivism in social theory and international relations.” Making Sense, Making Worlds.(2013).15-20.

module 3, Pre Class, Fundamental change. Hell yea

During this Module the major question is, are international actors capable of fundamental change? I believe this is certainly true. Furthermore, I believe that agency is the largest factor contributing to fundamental change. I want to delve into what agency means and examine physical as well as cultural limitations of agency for international actors.

Currently states all have autonomy and some have minimal agency. Factors affecting agency include physical constraints due to resources and accepted norms. As Professor Jackson stated , in His lecture for part A of Module 3, cultural values define scope of acceptable behaviors. This is similar to what Nicholas Greenwood Onuf talks about in Making sense, Making worlds. “The Freedom that agents do have depends on their ability to recognize the material and social limits that apply to them. They must also be able to evaluate the consequences of exceeding those limits” pg. 9. Actors may have autonomy in all situations but they clearly often do not have choice. It’s easy to see how constraints based on resources affect choices. Most industrialized countries to include the United States and Europe need significant amounts of oil to meet their needs for consumption. This clearly drove the U.S. Policy in regards to relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Did not have much agency in regards to it’s interests in obtaining crude oil.  Again, we can examine Iran and the current climate in the middle east to see how current actors intrinsically exhibit certain social factors reducing agency. Clearly no Muslim state could ever elect a female leader due to the limitation of current societal standards, this would no doubt lead to a falling out among allied neighbors. Now that I have covered the background I would like to go into factors within the international environment promoting agency in both physical constraints as well as societal.

Physical constraints are the most difficult to adjust as they depend largely on resources and technology. I think the largest factor creating an increase in agency for states and actors is technology. Since 1979 there have been major clashes between the U.S. and multiple middle eastern states that center around oil and our dependence on it. Solar power is nothing new but the interest and push the develop has skyrocketed due to recent environmental concerns. Alternative energy technologies have cropped up all over the united states where huge wind turbines now stand out against the deserts of California and planes of Texas. Electric cars and the Obama administration’s push to provide government incentives to buyers is aimed at removing this demand and dependency on oil. This increase in agency created by the United States changes the dynamic with the Middle east allowing another option for policy decisions. In The Rational Design of International Institutions  Snidal, Koremos, and Lipson  identify several factors that play a major role in the stability of international organizations. “Taken together, these factors-distribution, enforcement, large numbers, and uncertainty-suggest that cooperation can be very brittle in the real world” pg. 766. When this book adressess uncertainty it hits a very important point for international cooperation. Why would an actor take a risk without true assurance in order to behave in a cooperative manner? I think that here, technology can play a role in reducing uncertainty and overcoming some physical boundaries that used to affect communication. With the rise of the digital age every document can be scanned and uploaded to a data base. The ease of information access has created an age of transparency unheard of in human history prior. Wikileaks is an example of how government policy and corruption can be published to the masses with ease. Additionally, Facetime and other web-based video conference programs can be used to increase transparency of communications. Not only can an actor hear the voice of the person they are communicating with but their can see them and read their body language. This increase in transparency obviously helps to significantly reduce the uncertainty. This increase in technology not only helps to overcome some physical constraints of agency, it also opens doors for societal constraints.

Societal constraints are sometimes harder to clearly define. A lot of societal constraints can be unwritten rules that govern social behaviors as is touched upon in Making Sense, Making Worlds. it is easy to segue off of the topic I was just discussing regarding technological advances that increase interstate communication. We can observe international movements for women’s rights as an example of a unifying cause that can spread across borders due to the information age. The iconic band “pussy Riot” gained international attention for their protests in Russia. Their documentary “Pussy Riot a Punk Prayer” was released in many countries but notable in the U.S. on HBO in 2013. They all wore knitted balaclavas to protect their identities.  In the recent marches in Washington D.C. many women were seen wearing pink knitted hats While it may not be directly attributed to the influence of “Pussy Riot” it is clear that those within this movement fall around similar symbols. This international pressure and movement has even affected our own military and caused fundamental changes. International pressure has led to redefining actors’ interests worldwide creating more autonomy for actors in choosing intrastate policy. Individuals in power affect the policy choices that are made therefore; opening more powerful positions to women opens and entire population that can bring unique thought processes to the process of international politics.   

Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, “The Rational Design of International Institutions,” International Organization 55:4 (2001).

Nick Onuf, “Constructivism: A User’s Manual,” in Making Sense, Making Worlds (Routledge, 2013).

HBO Documentary Films presents ; Goldcrest Films and Roast Beef Productions, in association with BBC, Bertha/Britdoc ; a film by Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorovkin ; produced and directed by Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorvkin. Pussy Riot : a Punk Prayer. [United States] :Docuramafilms : Cinedigm Entertainment, 2014.

Neorealist Theory, Where Have You Been?

With Module 3, we have started to move away from the question of whether ideas or interests cause/explain events in the international political realm. We now move to a new theory in international politics: neorealism. This theory focuses on the two different levels of international politics: the structural level and the unit level and looks to find the causes and reasons for war on the two different levels, and further, the existence of peace in today's world. In his article "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory", Kenneth Waltz explains that within neorealism, the emphasis is on how structures affect actions and outcomes. An important point to note here is that according to neorealism, there is autonomy in the international political system where states focus on their own security and make decisions for themselves. Instead of just summarizing the main points of the article, which I know everyone read, I will discuss a connection I made to another text, points that stood out to me, and questions I had after the first reading.

When reading the article by Waltz, I couldn't help but think about the Leviathan and Thomas Hobbes's "state of nature". There are obvious similarities between the two philosophers as they are both a type of realist theory. However, I am interested in examining the difference between these two theories. A difference between Waltz' neorealism and Hobbes's realism is the fact that Hobbes believed that war and international conflicts came from the underlying nature of human beings to be self-interested and vicious, to use any means necessary to achieve their safety. Waltz however argues that the causes of war are from the anarchic international political system of bipolar and multipolar worlds.

I found this new theory interesting as it is not one I have previously explored in such detail. I tend to agree with the neorealist explanations more than I have of realist explanations for international conflict. The idea that the recurrence of war should be looked examined rather than the particular reasons a war occurred, is the only way to hopefully help states learn from history, and not repeat it. I think the reason I found this theory so interesting is because it is not typically looked at today when examining wars and conflicts.

One question that I had after this reading is why the neorealist theory and ways of analyzing conflicts is not more widely used today. If this theory can help prevent future conflicts, why is it not commonly looked at? Why are there not more books, journalists, and political scientists using this way of thinking? Another related question is: do we currently live in a bipolar world or multipolar world? I will share my opinion on which type of world I believe that we currently live in, in my next blog post. Until then, I would appreciate hearing other people's opinions on this question as well as the other questions posed.


https://auisgroup1summer18.blogspot.com/2018/06/neorealist-theory-where-have-you-been.html


Sources
Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18:4 (1988).

Neorealist Examination of the Modern World

"The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory" by Kenneth N. Waltz really resonated with me, and I believe that the neorealist theories regarding polarity provided an interesting perspective for the modern world. Waltz made the claim that the world was safer under the bipolar balance of power that was the result of the Cold War, and that there was no ambiguity in action when there are only two great powers in the international stage (Waltz, 622). Using a hypothetical example in the Cold War context, if a crisis were to erupt in Angola the United States and the Soviet Union would both be forced to react in order to gain some sort of competitive edge over the other, and both sides knew that indecision would lead to a geopolitical loss. Much of the indecision now in American politics can be seen through this lense, for example the failure to react to Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea or Russia's wars in Georgia and Ukraine, none of which evoked a significant response from the United States. The case can be argued that the cost of war in these situations outweighed the potential gains for the United States (Waltz, 624). However this would be even more accurate when describing provocations by China and Russia respectively as these crises were in their regions and would affect them more significantly than the would the U.S.. The case can also be made that a loss of a clearly defined roles and identities and the increased predominance of multiple actors playing a role in each international situation created a cloud of ambiguity for the U.S., with so many allies and no clear enemy any given move might lead to the defection of an ally. This makes threat analysis all the more difficult, particularly considering that states are now considerably more interconnected now than they were during the Cold War, and therefore dependant on each other.

Waltz, Kenneth. "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18:4 (1988). 615-628.

Module 2: Week 4 post-class

One observation that I noted through the Laffey and Weldes reading was that they did not reject the notion of ideas being used as tools by those who wield power. Quite often they referred to interpretations of ideas as tools or commodities as being incomplete when described by rationalist academics. Their main criticism stems from the notion that in order for ideas to be "wielded" (Laffey and Weldes, 206) by policy-makers, they must be separated from beliefs as beliefs cannot be changed and molded in such a quick manner as to be manipulated. Rather, their definition of symbolic technologies allows the room for actors and policy-makers to create rhetorical devices and symbols for their own rational self-interest, but draws the line at implying the have agency over the ideas once they have been created. I believe this interpretation to be most accurate, although I personally would have preferred if the authors would have elaborated more on this issue. Actors can create symbols which can be used in the pursuit of their own rational self-interest (as they perceive those interests to be),  however the idea may be molded into something else entirely once released into society. My initial reading of Laffey and Weldes made me believe that their interpretation of ideas did not allow for actor-centered interpretations of international relations, but upon re-reading their text with this goal in mind I discovered this to be untrue. I believe it is important to make this distinction as in order to understand the events in many authoritarian regimes and other top-down styles of government, an actor centered interpretation is required (at least to further some kinds of discussion) to understand how events unfold.

Mark Laffey and Jutta Weldes, "Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relationships," European Journal of International Relations, 3:2, 1997.