Realism and cooperation

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Realism and cooperation

• GV516 week 17

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Introduction

• Realism was the dominant paradigm in
  international relations after the second world
  war. It paints a grim picture of the
  international system and chances for
  international cooperation. In fact, according to
  many realists states only care about security
  issues and survival in an anarchic world. States
  are competitive and use whichever means
  guarantees their security. Neoliberal
  institutionalism such as the game theoretic and
  rational choice approaches which we will look at
  next week, grew out of realism or at least with
  reference to it.
• Realism and neoliberal institutionalism do not
  really aim at explaining the same thing since
  realism is mainly concerned with security and not
  cooperation. However, in the late 80s early 90s
  realists engaged in a debate with neoliberal
  institutionalism about the likelihood of
  international economic cooperation.
• Today we will first develop a realist picture of
  the world, ask how realists view institutions and
  under which conditions they believe cooperation
  to be possible.

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Realism

• The basic insight of realism is that in an
  anarchic world states have to be uncertain about
  others intentions and thus international
  politics is a steady struggle for power in order
  to address the security dilemma resulting from
  international anarchy.
• As a consequence of the struggle for power
  cooperation between states, which might happen,
  for example in the form of security alliances,
  does not change anything about the basic
  underlying structure of interaction, the security
  dilemma never vanishes!
• Realisms five assumptions
• The international system is anarchic in nature
  (does not mean chaotic), i.e. system of
  independent units without governing authority.
• States always have some ability to hurt another
  state.
• Uncertainty about future intentions (especially
  the use of offensive weaponry). Note you do not
  have to assume that states have bad intentions !
• States seek to assure survival in the system, in
  fact thats their major priority.
• States are rational and can think and act
  strategically.

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• Note that realism does not make any aggressive
  assumptions about states behaviour per se. In
  fact, as Mearsheimer points out, the fundamental
  assumption dealing with motives says that states
  merely aim to survive (p. 10). It is not one
  individual assumption that leads to the gloomy
  picture realism paints about the world, but the
  combination of all five assumptions (according to
  realists).
• According to Mearsheimer it follows that
• States in the international system fear each
  other and since there is no central authority to
  protect them they have to prepare for war.
• States aim to guarantee their own survival in a
  self-help system they cant rely on anyone in
  the long run. Thus states aim to maximise their
  relative power position in the system.
• In relation to the global economy this means
  (according to Grieco and Ikenberry 2003)
• States will try to enhance national growth and
  capacity.
• States will protect their autonomy, i.e. avoid
  dependencies on particular other states that
  could be a danger to them in the future.
• States are concerned about relative gains others
  make.
• This leads Grieco and Ikenberry (2003, p. 105) to
  suggest that states are profoundly ambivalent
  about world markets pointing to the difficulties
  of maintaining economic growth at competitive
  rates while not getting dependant on other states
  or giving away a crucial advantage to an
  adversary.

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Realism on Institutions

• Realists do not claim that states never
  cooperate, and they dont claim either that
  states do not utilise institutions to cooperative
  ends at times. However, realists view of
  institutions is that they emerge as the
  consequence of actions of self-interested actors
  trying to maximise their power and thus the
  set-up of an institution would reflect the
  (security) interests of the powerful states.
  Institutions are designed in a way that allows
  powerful states to either increase their power or
  maintain their power. Institutions are a mere
  mirror of the distribution of power in the
  international system.
• Mearsheimer suggests that NATO was an American
  tool for managing power in the face of the Soviet
  threat (p. 14) similarly Waltz has recently
  desceibed NATO of an instrument of American power
  over Europe.
• Realists do not believe that institutions have
  any independent impact on outcomes, they are, if
  at all, intervening variables. They do not have
  any independent impact since they are explained
  themselves by the distribution of power. And the
  distribution of power also explains other
  outcomes such as war, alliances, cooperation or
  non-cooperation. The example Mearsheimer gives to
  illustrate this is the following
• NATO certainly played a role in preventing world
  war III, but it was a manifestation of the
  distribution of power, and it was the
  distribution of power (i.e bipolarity, balance of
  power) and not the institution that prevented
  war.

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Realism on cooperation

• There are two arguments we are going to look at,
  the theory of hegemonic stability going back to
  Kindleberger and the absolute versus relative
  gains argument.
• Theory of hegemonic stability
• The argument goes back to Kindleberger and
  basically maintains that cooperation will only be
  possible if there is a hegemonic power that will
  profit from that cooperation and is prepared and
  has the capabilities to pay the costs to enforce
  such an act of cooperation.
• This theory is rooted in Olsons theory of
  collective action. Olson argues that in large
  groups, where the action of one individual does
  not make any noticeable difference and thus
  strategic interaction does not play any role, it
  is not rational for anybody to contribute to a
  public good, except that there is an individual
  which has such a strong incentive such that s/he
  provides the good unilaterally, regardless
  whether others contribute. Since we are talking
  about a public good, no one can be excluded from
  the benefits once they are produced.
• There is a tendency for the small to exploit the
  large who will provide the public good.
• In terms of international relations this concept
  can be categorised as a realist concept since
  capabilities is the factor that determines who is
  the large individual.
• Kindleberger thought of an international economic
  order (a public good in his view) when developing
  his theory.

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• Hegemonic stability theory applies this argument
  to international regimes and holds that
• (1) regimes are established and maintained by a
  hegemon
• (2) regimes decline when the hegemons power
  declines
• You might have noted that realist do not anymore
  claim that a hegemon is a necessary condition for
  cooperation (see Grieco and Ikenberry 2003,
  p.113), rather they are now talking about
  leadership when discussion HST.
• There are - at least - three problems with the
  theory
• (1) The logic basically applies to public goods
  and many issues requiring cooperation (such as
  trade) are not public goods (even though some
  authors make different claims), at least not pure
  public goods (the regime itself might be a public
  good however).
• (2) It is doubtful that the number of actors in
  the international system is big enough to warrant
  the conclusion that states do not act
  strategically and that any one states action
  does not make any difference to other states
  actions. As we shall see next week actors
  confronted with strategic interaction can
  cooperate for public goods.
• (3) Empirically there a number of cases that
  seem to contradict hegemonic stability theory.
  Examples are the GATT / WTO that did not collapse
  after the hegemon declined (in relative terms)
  additionally some environmental regimes (such as
  the Montreal Protocol) were established at a time
  when US hegemony had already declined).

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Relative gains issues

• According to realists, cooperation between states
  is difficult in absence of a hegemon for two
  reasons
• first because states might defect and
• second because there are relative gains
  considerations.
• Relative gains in economic cooperation matter
  since relative economic strength directly feeds
  into relative military strength and thus relative
  power.
• Rational choice / game theory deals with the
  first concern, but generally neoliberal
  institutionalists assume that states try to
  maximise their absolute gains and are not
  concerned with relative gains.
• The absolute vs. relative gains problem in its
  extreme shows how much the different perspectives
  look at different things! Where institutionalists
  see benefits from cooperation and thus a chance
  to cooperate, realists see a threat to a states
  security and thus no chance for cooperation.