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Alternatives to Power Politics

CHAPTER THREE
International Relations 8/e Goldstein and Pevehouse
Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Longman 2008

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.

The Waning of War


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


Events in the post-Cold War era continue this long-term trend toward smaller wars. Todays 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 IsraeliLebanese war left lasting wounds, and Sri Lanka resumed a civil warbut progress continued elsewhere.
Congo, Uganda, Nepal

Kant and Peace


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 todays United Nations (reciprocity). 2. Peace depends on the internal character of governmentsspecifically 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 and Peace


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.

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

International Regimes
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)

Collective Security
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
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 Iraqs aggression against Kuwait


All the great powers bore the cost of confronting Iraq

Iraq: Worlds 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 Democratic Peace


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 worlds regions.

Social Theories
Several distinct approaches in IR theory may be grouped together as social theories. They rely on social interaction to explain individuals and states preferences. These theories contrast with realisms assumption of fixed, timeless preferences, e.g., states want more power.

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.
Logic of Consequences vs Logic of Appropriateness

Postmodernism
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

Marxism
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

Peace Studies
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
Criticism: normative bias Conflict resolution
Mediation Citizen diplomacy Arbitration Confidence-building Linkage

Peace Studies
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

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

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.

Gender in War and 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 womens caregiving 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
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
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.

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 womens 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?

Figure 3.1

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

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