Alternatives to Realism and Idealism

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Alternatives to Realism and Idealism

• Lsn 4

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Agenda

• Globalist
• Marxist
• Identity

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Globalist Paradigm

• Pioneered in 1971 by Robert Keohane and Joseph
  Nye in Transnational Relations and World Politics
• Argue that dealings between national governments
  are but one strand in the great web of human
  interactions
• Therefore are critical of the exclusivity of the
  realist approach, while not rejecting it entirely

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Globalist Paradigm

• See a complex set of actors including not just
  national governments but many non-state actors
  concerned with not just war and peace but a host
  of more narrow issues as well
• Multinational corporations
• Non-governmental organizations
• Transnational labor union leaders
• etc

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Case Study Friedmans Dell Theory of Conflict
Prevention

• Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat, 2005
• Argues that globalization has flattened the
  world in a way that has made new forms and tools
  for collaboration possible
• Well talk more about globalization and
  interdependence in Lsn 20

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Case Study Friedmans Dell Theory of Conflict
Prevention

• Friedman noticed that his Dell computer was made
  up of parts from a global supply chain that
  included factories in Ireland, China, Brazil, the
  United States, and Malaysia and about 400
  companies
• All those players have a vested interest in
  keeping the supply chain moving
• Therefore.
• No two countries that are both part of a major
  global supply chain, like Dells, will ever fight
  a war against each other as long as they are both
  part of the same global supply chain.

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Case Study Friedmans Dell Theory of Conflict
Prevention

• Friedman uses this phenomenon to explain the
  diffusion of the 2002 India-Pakistan nuclear
  crisis
• India is home to General Electrics biggest
  research center outside of the US and many other
  corporations also have large R D operations in
  India
• In 2002 Pakistan and India began massing troops
  at their borders and their were reports that both
  sides were threatening to use nuclear weapons

General Electrics 50 acre research and
development facility in Bangalore, India
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Case Study Friedmans Dell Theory of Conflict
Prevention

• The US State Department even issued a travel
  advisory urging American citizens in India to
  leave the country
• A chief information officer from one company
  probably United Technologies sent an email saying
  I am now spending a lot of time looking for
  alternative sources to India. I dont think you
  want me doing that, and I dont want to be doing
  it. that ultimately got forwarded to the Indian
  ambassador in Washington

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Case Study Friedmans Dell Theory of Conflict
Prevention

• India quickly realized how important foreign
  investment had become to its country and that if
  it could not provide a stable, predictable
  operating environment for that investment, India
  would lose it and the economy would suffer
• Friedman credits this realization as being a
  significant, but not exclusive reason, for
  Indias decision to restrain its behavior
• Claims That cease-fire was brought to us not by
  General Powell but by General Electric.

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Marxist Paradigm

• Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels
  (1820-1895) met in Paris in 1844 and developed a
  belief that the social problems of the 19th
  Century were the inevitable results of capitalism

Engels
Marx
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Marxist Paradigm

• Held that capitalism divided people into two main
  classes
• Capitalists who owned industrial machinery and
  factories (the means of production)
• The proletariat who were wage earners with only
  their labor to sell
• The state and its coercive institutions (police,
  courts, etc) were agencies of the capitalist
  ruling class and kept the capitalists in power
  and enabled them to continue their exploitation
  of the proletariat

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Marxist Paradigm

• In 1848, Marx and Engels wrote Manifesto of the
  Communist Party and aligned themselves with the
  communists who wanted to abolish private property
  and institute a radically egalitarian society

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Marxist Paradigm

• All human history has been the history of
  struggle between social classes
• The future lay with the working classes because
  the laws of history dictated that capitalism
  would inexorably grind to a halt
• Crises of overproduction, underconsumption, and
  diminishing profits would undermine capitalisms
  foundation

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Marxist Paradigm

• At the same time, members of the constantly
  growing and thoroughly exploited proletariat
  would come to view the forcible overthrow of the
  existing system as their only alternative
• The socialist revolution would result in a
  dictatorship of the proletariat, which would
  abolish private property and destroy the
  capitalist order
• After the revolution, the state would wither away
• Coercive institutions would disappear since there
  would no longer be any exploitation of the
  working class
• Socialism would lead to a fair, just, and
  egalitarian society infinitely more humane than
  capitalism

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Marxist Paradigm

• With this development there would be no further
  need for national governments and nation-states
• A harmonious global communist society would
  result, with each person receiving wealth
  according to need rather than privilege

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Marxist Paradigm

• As capitalism proved to have more staying power
  than Marx anticipated, latter day Marxists
  explained the phenomenon by saying capitalist
  states relieve their inner class tensions by
  exploiting other, less developed countries
• They recognize the same transnational actors such
  as multinational corporations as the globalists
  do, but assign a much more sinister aspect to
  these actors

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Marxist Paradigm

• Marxists see business leaders of developed
  capitalist states as being in league with their
  partners in less developed states
• The average laborer in a capitalist state has
  lost his class consciousness and has been
  co-opted into the ranks of the bourgeoisie by
  purchasing the products of exploited workers in
  less developed states

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Marxist Paradigm

• Marxists view international relations more as a
  struggle between rich and poor classes than a
  contest between national governments and nation
  states
• The answer lies in leadership to emerge to
  replace the free market capitalist economies with
  more mass-oriented, centrally planned and managed
  economies which will supposedly result in more
  harmonious social relations both domestically and
  internationally

19
Case Study Congo Free State

• Imperialism is a term associated with the
  expansion of the European powers, and later the
  US and Japan, and their conquest and colonization
  of African and Asian societies, mainly from the
  16th through the 19th Centuries
• Well talk more about imperialism in Lsn 16

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Case Study Congo Free State

• Imperialism was effected not just through the
  force of arms, but also through trade,
  investment, and business activities that enabled
  the imperial powers to profit from subject
  societies and influence their affairs without
  going to the trouble of exercising direct
  political control

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Case Study Congo Free State

• Overseas colonies could serve as reliable sources
  of raw materials not available in Europe that
  came in demand because of industrialization
• Rubber in the Congo River basin and Malaya
• Tin in southeast Asia
• Copper in central Africa
• Oil in southwest Asia

Rubber trees in Malaya
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Case Study Congo Free State

• In the 1870s King Leopold II of Belgium employed
  Henry Stanley to help develop commercial ventures
  and establish a colony called Congo Free State in
  the basin of the Congo River
• Leopold said the Congo Free State would be a
  free-trade zone open to all European merchants in
  order to forestall competition from his more
  powerful European neighbors

Leopold II
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Case Study Congo Free State

• In reality, Leopold ran the Congo Free State as a
  personal colony and filled it with lucrative
  rubber plantations run under brutal conditions
• Beatings and lashings as well as kidnapping
  family members were used to coerce workers to
  meet quotas
• Leopolds private army, the Force Publique
  (African soldiers led by European officers)
  burned villages and slaughtered the families of
  rebels
• Force Publique troops cut off the hands of the
  Congolese as a form of punishment and terrorizing
  the population into submission

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Case Study Congo Free State

• Humanitarians protested Leopolds colonial regime
• In 1908 the Belgium government took control of
  the colony and it became known as Belgian Congo

Clearing tropical forests ate away at Leopolds
profit margins so Congolese farming villages such
as this one were leveled to make way for rubber
tree plantations
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Identity Paradigm

• International relations are governed by the ideas
  that define the identities of the systemic,
  domestic, and individual level actors and
  motivate the use of power and negotiations by
  these actors

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Identity Paradigm

• If actors identify themselves in adversarial or
  diverging terms, negotiations are more difficult
  to achieve and power balancing is more likely to
  occur
• Conversely, if actors have similar or converging
  identities, cooperation is more likely

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• A key goal of French foreign policy since the end
  of World War II has been a multipolar world
• This became even more pronounced after the end of
  the Cold War when the US became the worlds only
  superpower

Hubert Verdine (left), French foreign minister
from 1997-2002, insisted that France could not
accept a politically unipolar world, a
culturally uniform world, or a world dominated by
the one superpower.
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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• France has sought to limit American hegemony by
  developing rules for the international system
• Repeatedly used United Nations Security Council
  Resolutions and international law to constrain
  American freedom of action regarding Iraq
• Frances emphasis on international rules
  reflected its limited power relative to the US

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• Americas hyperpower status made it much less
  concerned about the dangers of a world in which
  might makes right
• On Sept 17, 2002, President Bush issued a
  National Security Strategy which stated, While
  the United States will constantly strive to
  enlist the support of the international
  community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if
  necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense
  by acting preemptively against such terrorists,
  to prevent them from doing harm against our
  people and our country.

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the US
  evidence of Iraqi WMD to the United Nations and
  the US proposed a resolution to the Security
  Council authorizing military force if Iraq
  refused to disarm
• France, Russia, Germany, and others opposed the
  US resolution and it failed to pass
• Nonetheless, the US, joined by Britain and a
  coalition of the willing launched Operation
  Iraqi Freedom on March 20, 2003

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• The US and Britain have long enjoyed a special
  relationship based on shared political,
  cultural, military, linguistic, historical, and
  economic values
• After September 11, Prime Minister Tony Blair
  vowed, the people of Britain stand shoulder to
  shoulder with our American friends in this hour
  of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest
  until this evil is driven from our world.
• Shortly thereafter, Bush declared that America
  had no truer friend than Great Britain.

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• In January 2003, Blair said, First, we should
  remain the closest ally of the US, and as allies
  influence them to continue broadening their
  agenda. We are the ally of the US not because
  they are powerful, but because we share their
  values.
• We can indeed help to be a bridge between the US
  and Europe and such understanding is always
  needed. Europe should partner the US not be its
  rival.

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• In April 2007, Blair said, Forget the talk of
  Anti-Americanism in Europe. Yes, if you call a
  demonstration, you will get the slogans and the
  insults. But people know Europe needs America,
  and I believe America needs Europe too.

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Case Study The Decision to Invade Iraq

• In June 2007, Blair resigned as Prime Minister,
  having lost much of his popularity because of his
  support for Iraq and his close ties to American
  foreign policy

Various cartoons and commentators depicted Blair
as Bushs poodle
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• Decision-making models