ALTERNATIVES TO REALISM / POWER POLITICS

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ALTERNATIVES TO REALISM / POWER POLITICS

• Liberalism
• Feminism
• Peace studies
• Constructivism
• Post-modernism
• Decision-making

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REALISM LIBERALISM COMPARED

• issue realism liberalism
• human nature selfish
  altruistic
• antagonistic cooperative
• actors unitary states pluralized
  states non-state
• states autonomous interdependent
• state interests conflicting often convergent
• gains relative absolute
• relations conflict
  harmony
• sources of policy mostly external mainly
  internal
• ends security, order
  equity, justice
• means self-help intntl law
• power max. cooperation
• role of IGOs/law minimal
  significant
• system anarchy
  society or community

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Strengths and Weakness of Realism and Liberalism
Explaining the Post-9/11 World
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THE LIBERAL TRIPOD

• 1. The democratic peace
• 2. Interdependence/commercial pacifism/
  Manchester School
• 3. International Institutions
• web of norms, rules, procedures
• solve Collective Action problems
• produce Global Public Goods

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Regime Types

• Democratic (liberal illiberal)
• western fear re Islamic democracy
• 1-person, 1-vote, 1-time
• authoritarian/dictatorships
• totalitarian
• theocracy
• monarchy
• note national/domestic level of analysis how
  differences among states affect their foreign
  policies

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The Democratic Peace

• Kantian origins (pacific nature of republics),
  later Pres. Woodrow Wilson (contrast w/ Lenin)
• democracies no gt or lt war-prone than other regime
  types
• But strong historical pattern democracies almost
  never wage war against one another. Also, rarely
  ever in opposing alliances (though often engaged
  in violent conflict with non-democracies, and
  often successful)
• thus, concept of democratic peace, democracies as
  forming zone of peace or security community
  (though transition to democracy can be unstable
  and violent)
• Why democratic peace?
• Checks balances?
• Public opinion?
• Economic interdependence?
• Democratic culture Used to resolving
  differences peacefully?
• Long-term implications? End of history?

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IDEALIZED MODEL OF RATIONAL DECISION MAKING

• 1. Clear definition of national interest goals
• 2. Gather full / perfect information
• 3. Analysis of all policy options
• Likelihood of success
• Costs benefits, risks
• Transitive preferences
• 4. Maximizing / optimizing choice
• --------------------------------------------------
  ----------
• 5. Implementation
• 6. Evaluation of feedback
• 7. Correction

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More on RATIONALITY

• Rationality as property of individuals
• transitive ordering of preferences
• state as unitary actor assumption
• how define national interest
• Role of assumptions (as if) models
• unitary actor
• perfect information
• maximizing behavior
• 2 uses of RAM revealed posited preference

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Sources of deviation from rationality

• Misperception more likely across cultural
  language barriers
• Affective (emotional) bias personality
  idiosyncrasies, paranoia, ethnocentrism
• Cognitive bias/dissonance wishful thinking,
  false analogy (evoked set)
• Group Think how group dynamics affect d-m
  process

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Common Misperceptions

• Others (states or alliances) more unified,
  coherent than they actually are (SU China
  during Cold War)
• others behavior always intentional and planned,
  w/o allowing for chance or accident (US bombing
  of Chinese embassy in Belgrade)
• overestimating ones own capabilities and
  influence relative to others (WW1)
• belief that others understand you are not a
  threat
• belief in ones own inherent morality, others
  evilness (mirror image)

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3 dimensions of Crisis Situations

• Threat/stakes high---------------low
• decision time short--------------long
• awareness surprise---anticipated
  
  
• implication expect more deviations from
  rationality. Why?

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Feminist IR points to gendered nature of how we
think about IR

• Feminine traits
• Emotional, illogical
• Complacent
• Weak
• Passive
• Dependent
• Follower
• Suitable environments
• Private
• Domestic
• ordered

• Masculine traits
• Rationality, logic
• Ambitious
• Strong
• Active, aggressive
• Autonomous
• Leadership
• Suitable environments
• Public
• Political
• Anarchic

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Feminist IR (continued) psychological
hypothesis relation to primary caretaker and
role of similarities differences in
socialization

• Masculine behaviors
• emphasize abstract rules
• who is right wrong
• argument/negotiation as means of conflict
  resolution
• fluidity of relationships (difference,
  separateness)

• Feminine behaviors
• emphasize context
• mutual responsibility
• group cohesion, loyalty
• Stress similarity, connectedness
• Enduring relationships

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Feminist IR (cont.)

• Some consequences of these socially constructed
  gender roles
• anarchy/sovereignty/autonomy/independence/individu
  ality reflect how males tend to interact (eg, the
  Marlboro man)
• in contrast, connectedness, interdependence,
  cohesion are more characteristic of females
• Feminist thought not monolithic. One main
  difference
• Essentialist feminism (core bio diff) v.
  Liberal feminism (M F )
• Margaret Thatcher and Madeleine Albright as
  exceptions that prove the rule

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PEACE STUDIES

• ACTIVISM, participation, integration of theory
  practice rather than objectivity, scholarly
  attachment (realism is ideology, not neutral)
• WAR is not normal part of IR is presumptively
  bad.
• MILITARISM as
• glorification of war, force, violence
• structuring of society around war,
  military-industrial complex
• making resort to war more likely
• assoc. w/ states, hence states state system
  need to be transformed

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Peace Studies (cont.)

• POSITIVE PEACE
• --not just (temp) absence of war
• --also resolves underlying causes
• --provides political equality, human
  rights
• --concept of structural violence
• PEACE MOVEMENTS as strategy, means toward end.
• NONVIOLENCE as philosophy, practice, tool of
  powerless.
• Renunciation of force
• not passive, but active in
• resolving conflict
• preventing violence
• standing up to injustice
• associated with M. Gandhi Martin Luther King,
  Jr.

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CONSTRUCTIVISM

• social reality is what we make of it, a matter of
  how we construct it, how ideas, norms culture
  shape it. Note the contrast between this
  ideational emphasis and the realist emphasis on
  material capabilities.
• key constructivist concepts
• identity how created expressed
• norms how formed diffused agents
  structures how codetermined
• From a constructivist perspective, realism
  becomes a set of self-fulfilling prophecies. To
  focus on one key realist concept, anarchy is
  what we make of it
• More specifically, consider, for example, the
  question of whether China is a threat?
  Constructivists say, if we treat China as a
  threat (eg, containment, strategic competitor),
  then it is highly likely that it will in fact
  become one.
• Share w/ post-modernists the emphasis on lack of
  a stable, objective reality unlike
  post-modernists, however, constructivists attempt
  to offer a positive alternative

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