International Relations: Realism in the 21st Century Essay

Introduction

The theory of Realism in the International Relations has been a dominant concept. The dominion lasted long. However, in the 21^st century, realism, particularly in the context of international relations, is no longer valid and could be termed as out of date. It generally fails to satisfy when relation of democratic states is taken into consideration. It is also confusing and debate oriented with six different variants that adds to the confusion. Even the balance of power theory has been found to be inaccurate and the tendency of making self serving adjustments to avoid criticisms has also contributed to the fact that realism in international relation is no longer valid in the 21^st century.

International Relations

The International Relations Theory or the IR theory is the tool to understand international politics. It is necessary to apply a tool like the International Relations Theory to understand the international politics because of its vastness and complexity. The field of international politics is so huge that the virtually covers everything happening around the world including the wars, revolutions, gender inequalities and human rights. The IR Theory is applied in order to understand this deep field of complex diversities. Cynthia Weber in the book “International Relations Theory: A critical understanding” (Weber 2005) says about IR theory that “IR Theory is a ….looks like” (Weber 2005, 182).

International Relational theory can be called a framework of concepts relating to the understanding and analysis of the international relations. The IR theory can be divided into two broad categories, rationalist school giving priority to state level analysis, and post – positivist school extending the meaning of security and incorporating class, gender and postcolonial security within the scope. There are three very popular theories related to the International Relations. These are realism, liberalism and Marxism.

The above mentioned theories have seen a lot of changes and evolved in newer forms. Afterwards, many other theories like the “constructivism and feminism have entered in the arena with the intention of drawing attention” (Spegele 2003, 208). The definition of realism, its attributes, origin, different varieties and criticisms, all are necessary elements which can give idea of the relevance of the theory, or the lack of it, today (Bilandzic 2006, 267).

Realism: an Introduction

Realism is a theory that puts the national interest and power politics ahead of any other point of views like ideology, social reconstruction or morality. Realism is distinctive but diverse. It has emerged as a tool to analyze the international relations through the contributions of a number of analysts. Though it is a very well established theory it can not be defined that easily as there are considerable number of variations in the definitions of the elements that constitute realism and this complication has made way to make this theory irrelevant in the 21^st century.

The problem starts with the fact that no definite sets of propositions and assumptions are there to define realism. Realism places emphasis on the concept that the human nature has placed constraints “over politics and the absence of international government” (Spegele 2003, 205). International relations are nothing but a sphere of power and interest.

Realism has been involved in all the major events since the last half a century. There are six main varieties of realism that had been used in the study of international relationship in the twentieth century. All of them bear their own set of different beliefs. But they in common believe in the fact the relations among the states either never alters basically or if they do they do it in a repetitive manner. Either defensive directives of the anarchic international system or the corrupt nature of the leaders of the state is the main determining force behind behavior of the state. Realism actually has believers with a pessimistic view who consider the human power thirst or the necessity to gather resources to survive in a self – help world as the reasons behind all the conflicts and wars occurring one after another (Butler 2004, 17) but with each variant pointing different results the reliability lessens in the 21^st century.

How realism originated

Understanding realism demands the tracing the roots of the discipline back to its history. In the ancient histories of Rome, Greece, India and China realism in some or the other form can be spotted. Thucydides has been argued by many realists to explain the relation between the states in Greece according to their position in power. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) is considered by one of them by the realists. He had been a supporter of rulers who consider power and security of the state as the only concerns without caring for any morality. Another prominent name stated by the realists as a pillar of realism is Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Hobbes describes the lives of individuals as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Spegele 2003, 207) as they are engulfed by succession of conflicts with each other in a state where no overriding authority is present.

There are many arguments among the latter analysts that whether those classical ancient works can be termed as realist or not and whether there was any conception of balance of power at all in the ancient time. But it is a fact that there have been several conflicts which tends to support the pessimistic point of view expressed by realism (Finlay 2007, 829) and thus, historically, the theory becomes irrelevant today.

Types of realism

Realism as such can be subdivided into two broad categories, the Classical Realism and the Neorealism. But worthy of mention are four other branches of “contemporary realism, namely, ‘rise and fall’ realism, neoclassical realism, structural defensive realism and structural offensive realism” (Spegele 2003, 201).

Classical realism

Classical realism was a discipline of research originating in 1939. The most powerful and recognized work on political realism on classical realism was the “Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace” by Morgenthau (Kulviksi 2008, 348). It could be called the standard reference for realism in the international relations.

Classical realism considers the flaws present in the human nature as the reason for a reason for constant conflict between the states. The human nature is ever thirsty for more and more power and drives the states to struggle against each other in order to go up in the power status. Because there is no existence of an authority equivalent to a state government at the international level, the states can get no hindrances when they greed for more power. Human failings thus are the root causes of confliction in the behaviors of the states. Wars take place because of the self serving narrow minded tendencies of expansionist statesmen.

Classical realism is of the opinion that the behavior of the state is rational. The benefits and costs of each course of action are considered before creating any strategies. The classical realism started to decline after the 1960s as it faced some criticisms for inconsistencies. It gave way to the quantitative and behavioral theories (Hare 2010, 767).

Neorealism

Neorealism was responsible for brining back the focus on realism again after it faded out in the 1960s. This revival took place after Kenneth Waltz’s ‘Theory of International Politics’ (Spegele 2003, 199) arrived in 1979 to replace Morgenthau’s ‘Politics Among Nations’ (Spegele 2003, 199). According to Waltz political systems comprise of three elements: an anarchical or hierarchical ordering principle, the functionally similar or differentiated characters of the units and the distribution of capabilities. Two of these elements are constants; absence of overarching system means anarchy and the self help principle indicates functionally alike units. The only variable element is the distribution of capacities.

In contrast to classical realism neorealism does not consider the internal make up of the states and does not hold the characters of leaders as a deciding factor in the behavior of the state. Neorealism denies the state strategies being decided rationally and argues that strategies are the products of competition between states or socialization (McArthur 2003, 82) and this is unacceptable in the 21^st century globalization.

Rise and fall realism

Rise and fall realism considers the international system as being directed by the most powerful or the leading state. The leader state gathers a lot of power and the international politics run according to the wishes of that state. This leading position is sought by all the major powers of the world. According to the rise and fall realism the states come to the leading position after gaining power, lead the international politics and then fall from their position. The wars for power take place among states which bring about the changes in the leading position (Page 2004, 254).

This theory is based on the rational behavior of the states. The first ranker takes preventive measures when the second ranker tries to catch up and if it fails the second ranker night overpower the leader through a war.

Neoclassical realism

Neoclassical realism places emphasis on the domestic characters of the state as the determinant of the state’s behavior. A state behaves in the way largely in which its domestic preferences motivate it to. Rasler and Thompson point to the tendency of the ideology and ambition of some states getting disruptive. And because of that those actors in world politics form predatory strategies that keep on leading to some conflict or other. For the analysis of international outcomes the neoclassical realists put stress on the material capabilities and distribution of power (Patterson 2010, 120) but this fails to cover the wider view and thus fails to define international relation of the 21^st century.

Defensive structural realism

Holding some similar views with the neorealism but keeping the own distinctiveness intact the defensive structural realism believes in the theory of state motivation. It emphasizes on the assumption that in an anarchical system the main threat of the state comes from the other states and that’s why it looks for security. The main differences of this theory with the neorealism are: firstly, it has multiple microfoundations; secondly, it takes the offense – defense balance as a variable and thirdly, as an outcome of the combination of rationality with the offense – defense balance favoring defense this theory advocates the necessity of the state to support the status quo (Finlay 2007, 836). However, this theory cannot be applicable in the market oriented scenario of the 21^st century

Offensive structural realism

Holding an opposite view with the defensive structural realism which advocates the accumulation of an appropriate power by the state, the offensive structural realism supports the accumulation of as much power as possible by the states. Mearsheimer (2001) in “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics” (Spegele 2003, 209) has argued that in an international environment that is unstable and poses threat of harm like overriding by the other states it is absolutely necessary to gather power for security. This again, holds no truth 21^st century because the concept of power has shifted from predominance of military to finance.

Conclusion: is realism out of date in the 21^st century?

After considering the various aspects of realism and the point of views held by the variants of this discipline it is time to conclude by analyzing whether it is really out of date in the twenty first century or not.

There is no doubt that realism is a very adaptable and multifaceted theory it faces certain criticisms as well. Some of these criticisms are:

1. Realism does not hold true for the relation of democratic states with each other.
2. Realism is said to open up debates rather than closing them.
3. The six variants of realism differ in points of view from each other. The assumptions of each variant do not agree with each other.
4. Realists have been criticized for the tendency of making self serving adjustments to avoid criticisms of their theory.
5. The balance of power theory has been termed as inaccurate by Vasquez. It was also termed degenerative when judged by Lakatos’ criteria (Hare 2010, 765).

Apart from the about mentioned criticisms realism has also been discredited by “Legro and Moravcsik (1999) for including arguments in the area of their theory that are meant for competing with the other theories like liberalism or constructivism” (Patterson 2010, 120). All these criticisms together definitely argue very strongly that realism has become less coherent and the determining power of the theory has become very weak. If they are to be believed then it has to be accepted that realism is becoming really out of date in the twenty first century.

However, the realists protest against this opinion. They have brought forward vigorous debated whenever any criticism has tried to prove them outdated. They consider their role in the international relations analysis as still relevant and their own theory as fruitful. They deny becoming weak. Therefore though there are definite proofs of realism getting weaker and people becoming skeptical of the theory (Spegele 2003, 204), it will need some more time to be considered as totally outdated in the 21^st century.

References

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Butler, D., 2004. Meaning And Metaphysics In The Moral Realism Debate. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 26 (1), pp. 9-27.

Finlay, S. 2007. Four Faces of Moral Realism. Philosophy Compass, 2 (6), pp. 820-849.

Hare, C., 2010. Realism About Tense and Perspective. Philosophy Compass, 5 (9), pp. 760-769.

Kulviksi, J. 2008. Pictorial Realism as Verity. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64 (3), pp. 343-354.

McArthur, D., 2003. Is Pickering’s ”Pragmatic Realism” Viable? Dialectica, 57 (1), pp. 71-88.

Page, S., 2004. Searle’s Realism Deconstructed. The Philosophical Forum, 35 (3), pp. 249-274.

Patterson, J., 2010. The Art of Swinging Left in the 1930s: Modernism, Realism, and the Politics of the Left in the Murals of Stuart Davis. Art History, 33 (1), pp. 98-123.

Spegele, R., 2003. Three Forms of Political Realism. Political Studies, 35 (2), pp.189-210.

Weber, C., 2005. International relations theory: a critical introduction. London: Routledge.