scholarly journals The Historiography of International Relations: Martin Wight in Fresh Conversation with Duroselle and Morgenthau

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-267
Author(s):  
Bruno Mendelski
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
International Anarchy ◽  
Realist View

Abstract This article reviews three classic texts of the French, American-Realist and English schools in International Relations, namely Tout Empire Périra (Duroselle 1992), Politics Among Nations (Morgenthau 1948), and Power Politics (Wight 1978). I argue that Wight’s approach can be regarded as a middle course between those of Duroselle and Morgenthau, and that Wight adopted this position in order to associate himself with important assumptions by both Duroselle and Morgenthau. In particular, there are similarities between Wight’s concept of ‘international revolution’ and Duroselle’s notion of the ‘unbearable.’ Both are critical of behavioural methods, and both search for recurrences in international relations. As regards Morgenthau, Wight shares with him a Realist view of international anarchy, a classical understanding of ‘national interest,’ and an understanding of ideologies as the legitimation of government actions.

Helsinki Syndrome: The Parachronistic Renaissance of Finlandization in International Politics

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tapio Juntunen
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Original Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Ukraine Crisis ◽  
International Anarchy

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has produced a number of commentaries that have tried to grasp the crisis through the comforting lens of historical analogies. One of the most perplexing of these has been the revival of Finlandization, or the idea of the “Finnish model” as a possible solution to the Ukraine crisis. In this article I interrogate these arguments, firstly, by historicising the original process of Finlandization during the Cold War. Secondly, I argue that the renaissance of Finlandization is based on parachronistic reasoning. In other words, the Finlandization analogy has been applied to modern-day Ukraine in such a way that the alien elements of the past context are, to paraphrase Quentin Skinner, “dissolved into an apparent but misleading familiarity” in the present re-appropriation of the idea and its contextual prerequisites. Indeed, the reappearance of Finlandization in the context of the Ukraine crisis reinforces the idea that the real drivers of international affairs can be reduced to the axioms derived from the transhistorical logic of international anarchy and the iron laws of great power politics. Thus, this article makes a novel contribution to the theoretical discussion on the role of analogies and myths in International Relations.

Thucydides, International Law, and International Anarchy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Greek City ◽  
City States ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
International Anarchy

Ancient Greek city-states existed in a world that was essentially bereft of international law. This lack of international law had profound effects on international relations. The anarchic environment encouraged the development of heavily militarized and diplomatically aggressive societies. The prevalence of such societies, combined with the absence of any overarching authority over them, made wars between polities common. Faced with a conflict of interest with another polity, every government independently decided what constituted justice for itself, and—in the absence of international law--all governments had to be ready to use violence or the threat of violence to enforce that view of justice. Hellenic intellectuals—most famously Thucydides, but including Aristotle and Demosthenes--reacted to the anarchy by hypothesizing that interstate relations were determined above all by relations of power. Thucydides expressed this view of power-politics in international life most clearly in what is called the Melian Dialogue (Thuc. 5.84-116). This essay also emphasizes Thucydides’ analysis of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (1.23), and underlines the nature of what he considered “the truest cause” (1.23.6) of that devastating conflict, demonstrating that the shift in the balance of power (ibid.) expressed itself in the specific “quarrels and disputes” of 1.23.5, so that there is no contradiction between the two Thucydidean explanations.

E. H. Carr: a ‘historical realist’ approach for the globalisation era

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldfischer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Economic Instruments ◽  
New Era ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Considerable Cost

Realist international relations scholars have approached the connection between economics and security in two ways. Cold War-era realists derived the national interest from the international balance of power, and assessed the utility of both military and economic instruments of statecraft. A second realist approach, advanced by E. H. Carr in his 1939 The Twenty Years' Crisis, places interstate competition in the context of another struggle over wealth and power in which no-one's primary concern is the national interest. That is the realm of capitalism (and resistance to capitalism). That deeper set of connections between economics and security was overlooked in Cold War IR literature, at considerable cost to our understanding of world politics. Understanding why Carr's ‘historical realism’ was bypassed can help pave the way for a more fruitful realist approach to comprehending a new era in world politics.

The invisible structures of anarchy: Gender, orders, and global politics

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Sjoberg
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political System ◽  
International System ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Multiple Orders ◽  
International Anarchy ◽  
The Invisible

This article argues anarchy is undertheorized in International Relations, and that the undertheorization of the concept of anarchy in International Relations is rooted in Waltz’s original discussion of the concept as equal to the invisibility of structure, where the lack of exogenous authority is not just a feature of the international political system but the salient feature. This article recognizes the international system as anarchical but looks to theorize its contours—to see the invisible structures that are overlaid within international anarchy, and then to consider what those structures mean for theorizing anarchy itself. It uses as an example the various (invisible) ways that gender orders global political relations to suggest that anarchy in the international arena is a place of multiple orders rather than of disorder. It therefore begins by theorizing anarchy with orders in global politics, rather than anarchy as necessarily substantively lacking orders. It then argues that gender orders global politics in various ways. It concludes with a framework for theorizing order within anarchy in global politics.

Political Asylum in Germany: International Norms and Domestic Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-49
Author(s):  
John Bendix ◽  
Niklaus Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Political Asylum ◽  
German Politics

Although political asylum has been at the forefront of contemporaryGerman politics for over two decades, it has not been much discussedin political science. Studying asylum is important, however,because it challenges assertions in both comparative politics andinternational relations that national interest drives decision-making.Political parties use national interest arguments to justify claims thatonly their agenda is best for the country, and governments arguesimilarly when questions about corporatist bargaining practices arise.More theoretically, realists in international relations have positedthat because some values “are preferable to others … it is possible todiscover, cumulate, and objectify a single national interest.” Whileinitially associated with Hans Morgenthau’s equating of nationalinterest to power, particularly in foreign policy, this position hassince been extended to argue that states can be seen as unitary rationalactors who carefully calculate the costs of alternative courses ofaction in their efforts to maximize expected utility.

scholarly journals Guns or Food: On Prioritizing National Security over Global Poverty Relief

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco García-Gibson
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Global Poverty ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Risk Of Death ◽  
Poverty Relief ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
International Anarchy

Political realists claim that international relations are in a state of anarchy, and therefore every state is allowed to disregard its moral duties towards other states and their inhabitants. Realists argue that complying with moral duties is simply too risky for a state’s national security. Political moralists convincingly show that realists exaggerate both the extent of international anarchy and the risks it poses to states who act morally. Yet moralists do not go far enough, since they do not question realism’s normative core: the claim that when national security is really at risk, states are allowed to disregard their moral duties. I contend that there is at least one moral duty that states should not disregard even if their inhabitants are at risk of death by military aggression: the duty to reduce extreme global poverty. The reason is that even granting that national security is about securing individuals’ right to life, global poverty relief is about that as well.

scholarly journals A Energia e seu Controle Histórico: A Questão do Etanol como Recurso Energético Alternativo / The Energy and its Historical Control: The Question of the Ethanol such as Energetic Alternative Resource

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-462
Author(s):  
José Alexandre Altahyde Hage
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Historical Control ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Renewable Fuels ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Alternative Resource

Este artigo apresenta a análise como a energia foi historicamente controlada pelas classes sociais mais bem posicionadas politicamente e, na atualidade, pelos Estados industrializados. No aspecto conceitual, o artigo adota duas correntes teóricas de relações Internacionais de modo complementar: o marxismo aplicado às relações internacionais e o realismo (política do poder) e seus componentes mais modernos. O objetivo do texto é demonstrar que em algumas épocas as classes dominantes foram aquelas que controlaram recursos energéticos. No campo das relações internacionais há possível analogia ao verificar que grandes potências são os Estados que conseguem cadenciar fluxos de energia. Por fim, o artigo tenciona analisar em que condições países em desenvolvimento, como Brasil, conseguem alterar o sistema internacional por meio dos combustíveis renováveis, como o álcool combustível.  ABSTRACTThis article aims to analyze how energy resources are historically controlled by social classes in the higher political echelons and by industrialized States abroad. As concepts, the article embraces two complementary trends of thoughts: Marxism applied to international relations and Realism (power politics) with its most modern components. The goal of this paper is to show that in some moments, the ruling social classes were the ones over the energy resources. In the international relations sphere, there is a possible analogy in which we attest that the great powers are the States that can regulate the energy resources flow. To conclude, the paper aims to analyze in which conditions developing countries, Brazil, play a part in the international system with renewable fuels, such as ethanol. 

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