International Relations and Political Philosophy

This book collects Martin Wight’s works on the theory and philosophy of international politics. It includes classic works, such as “Why Is There No International Theory?” and “Western Values in International Relations,” as well as previously unpublished works such as “The Communist Theory of International Relations” and “Gain, Fear and Glory: Reflections on the Nature of International Politics.” These works encompass four categories: (a) traditions of thinking about international politics since the sixteenth century, (b) the causes and functions of war, (c) international and regime legitimacy, and (d) fortune and irony in international politics. Wight identifies and analyzes three major traditions of thinking about international politics in the West since the sixteenth century: Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism, also known as the Machiavellian, Grotian, and Kantian approaches. Wight examines the causes of war highlighted by Thucydides and Hobbes (material interest, fear, and reputation), and considers the functions of war in international politics (such as winning and retaining national independence and upholding the balance of power). Wight reviews the history of dynastic and popular legitimacy as well as post-1945 concepts of international and domestic legitimacy. Finally, Wight considers fortune and irony, including the decision-maker’s frequent rediscovery of the recalcitrance of events. Unintended, unexpected, and ironical consequences abound in international politics. This volume also features eight book reviews by Wight, including his assessments of works by Raymond Aron, E. H. Carr, Friedrich Meinecke, and Hans Morgenthau.

política internacional entendida como a política do poder

O presente artigo consiste em uma exposição dos princípios teóricos do realismo político moderno para o estudo da política internacional. Para tanto, apresenta-se os seis princípios de proposto por Hans Morgenthau visando elucubrar a dinamicidade das relações entre os principais atores internacionais para esta corrente teórica, relações estas que são baseadas no interesse próprio e na busca pela maximização do poder nacional a nível internacional. A utilização dos conceitos de Nação, Estado-nação e nacionalismo jogam luz sobre a dinâmica conflituosa da política internacional, levando em conta elementos que conformam o poder nacional, os quais, por sua vez, são instrumentalizados pela esfera política, que está acima de todas as demais esferas de análise, de forma que os recursos que as nações detêm são fontes que determinam o tipo de engajamento que terão no plano internacional. Recebido em 21/02/2021Aprovado em 30/05/2021

Nuevos actores políticos chinos en el conflicto del Mar de la China Meridional: un desafío teórico al concepto del estado como actor unitario

El conflicto del Mar de la China Meridional ha supuesto, durante casi medio siglo, un desafío a las relaciones diplomáticas de China con los países de la región. La disputa por las más de 200 islas, arrecifes y rocas agrupadas mayoritariamente en torno a los archipiélagos de las Islas Spratly y Paracelso ha desencadenado de manera recurrente encontronazos de carácter militar entre los distintos estados involucrados, así como manifestaciones populares en apoyo a sus respectivos países. En tanto la República Popular de China es un régimen socialista de partido único, cabría esperar que su respuesta al conflicto fuera unitaria y homogénea, cumpliendo el concepto realista del estado como actor unitario. Según este concepto, los estados actuarían a nivel internacional como entes unitarios y racionales, cuyo comportamiento viene determinado por la estructura del sistema internacional y no por su composición interna. Por tanto, el presente artículo tiene el objetivo de analizar hasta qué punto dicho concepto es aplicable al comportamiento de China en la disputa del Mar de la China Meridional. La elección del enfoque del artículo se fundamenta en dos razones. En primer lugar, porque China parecería, a priori, un caso de estudio favorable para la viabilidad del concepto del estado como actor unitario, dada la naturaleza de su régimen político. En segundo lugar, porque la disputa del Mar de la China Meridional es un tema de actualidad sobre el que no se espera una solución a corto o medio plazo, y por tanto dicho enfoque se antoja imprescindible para poder comprender mejor futuras acciones de China en el conflicto. Para ello, se analizará la participación en el conflicto de los órganos de liderazgo del Partido Comunista de China, el Estado, el Ejército Popular de Liberación, los gobiernos provinciales y locales, las empresas comerciales y la opinión pública. Estos actores son conscientes de que China no renunciará a sus reivindicaciones territoriales en la zona, y por tanto intentan ejercer influencia en función de sus propios intereses y puntos de vista. El artículo concluye que los actores analizados no sólo son capaces de influir en las consideraciones y decisiones de los principales líderes chinos, sino que además con sus acciones -en ocasiones contradictorias- hacen que ya no resulte posible hablar de un país cuyo comportamiento encaje con el concepto de estado como actor unitario desarrollado por autores realistas como Hans Morgenthau o John Mearsheimer. El artículo se estructura de la siguiente forma. El primer epígrafe desarrollará el marco teórico del artículo, explicando el concepto realista del estado como actor unitario. Además, pondrá en contexto la evolución de la formulación de la política exterior china durante las últimas décadas, proceso que ha ido adquiriendo una creciente complejidad, y presentará el estado de la cuestión del estudio sobre el conflicto del Mar de la China Meridional. El segundo epígrafe analizará el impacto en el conflicto de los distintos actores políticos chinos anteriormente mencionados. Finalmente, la conclusión presentará de manera sucinta los principales resultados obtenidos por el artículo, sugiriendo nuevos enfoques para futuros estudios.

The matrix reloaded: Reconstructing the boundaries between (international) law and politics

Interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of international law (IL) and International Relations (IR) has illuminated the roles of politics in law, of law in politics, and of the shifting boundary between the two in various areas of international affairs. The boundary itself, however, has proven resilient. While critical approaches investigating the politics of international law have come to insist on the lasting significance of legality proper, IR approaches to legalization have returned to politics. Although the apparent limits to challenging the boundary between legality and politics are not new, we suggest that they are intimately related to another great divide, i.e., that between the state and the international. Together, these two cross-cutting lines have shaped the possibilities and constraints of articulating substantive positions ‘in’ (international) law and politics at least since the Interwar period. Reading these distinctions as intertwined ‘nested oppositions’, this article reconstructs the stylized but paradigmatic debates between Max Weber and Hans Kelsen over the nature of the state and between Hans Morgenthau and Hersch Lauterpacht over the nature of the international. We further illustrate how the same conceptual oppositions still enable and constrain current debates in IL and IR, discussing as examples the creation of states and the justiciability of international crimes. Crossing and contesting the boundaries ultimately reaffirms them as the matrix in which conflicts over states and the international are articulated as legal and political.

Realismo y Relaciones Internacionales: una observación desde la historia de la ciencia y la epistemología

El presente artículo busca realizar un análisis sobre la argumentación de la teoría Realista en Relaciones Internacionales. El Realismo presenta una batería de conceptos para entender el sistema internacional basado en el centralismo del Estado Nación, un sistema internacional anárquico, el balance de poder, y la auto ayuda. En este trabajo nos proponemos recorrer la trayectoria de estos conceptos y preguntarnos si resultan pertinentes para entender la política internacional. Se encontrará que los argumentos que caracterizan las lecturas realistas trasladan conceptos pensados y difundidos en las ciencias de la naturaleza a partir del Siglo XVI, cuyas lecturas de los asuntos naturales responden a visiones mecánicas del universo y se trasladan a la naturaleza humana y el comportamiento político entre las unidades estatales. Dada la prolífica producción de esta escuela de pensamiento, hemos seleccionado para hacer una lectura crítica descriptiva y explicativa a 1) Hans Morgenthau, quien se considera el fundador del Realismo académico, 2) Kenneth Waltz, quien planteó una lectura Neorealista desde una visión estructural, y por último 3) Henry Kissinger a quien se considera un realista como hacedor de política en la función de gobierno. En una primera parte de este trabajo analizaremos el contexto en cual surgieron los conceptos que nutrieron al Realismo. Luego, rastrearemos el origen de estos conceptos que provienen de la filosofía natural que conformó el pensamiento moderno. Finalmente, extraemos algunas conclusiones sobre las implicaciones de pensar lo internacional con categorías y metafóricas provenientes de los orígenes epistemológicos de otras ciencias.

International Relations Theory

The study of international relations is dominated by the school of Realism, articulated in its classical form by Hans Morgenthau. It teaches that great powers are focused on enhancing their national interest defined in terms of power: military, political, and economic. Reinhold Niebuhr became known as the father of Christian Realism, adding his own biblical and Augustinian insights about human nature and its effects on the evil uses of power. Traditionally, both forms of Realism incorporated ethical judgement within their analysis. After Niebuhr’s death, Realism became neorealism, a value-free social science which eschews ethical judgement as any part of international relations study, as did the other major schools—except for the English School. This chapter argues that the English School represents the modern paradigm closest to Niebuhr’s perspective.

Theory of Irrational Politics: Classical Realist Lessons on Foreign Policy Analysis

This article argues that efforts to strengthen the theoretical foundations for foreign policy analysis (FPA) should take as a vantage point the smallest social unit—the human being. It advocates far-reaching engagement with psychology and the life sciences for insights on the individual in the social context. Research on emotion, as a general human phenomenon and one that has been extensively researched across disciplines, is thought to offer a particularly promising conceptual lens on foreign policy. For cues on how to incorporate scientific findings with historical analysis and situate resulting hypotheses in relation to prevailing theoretical paradigms, the article draws on classical realism. Especially mid-twentieth century realists such as Hans Morgenthau expressed a nuanced conception of human agency and the interplay between emotion and cognition. Substantial aspects of their theories, based largely on experience and intuition, have been corroborated by recent scientific research. This review is structured around four central issues. These have been both the loci of much criticism levelled at classical realism and remain a challenge to IR as a whole: the levels of analysis problem, the “scaling up” of emotion, the classification and choice of emotion(s), and the accessibility of the political world to scientific method.

Why read Reinhold Niebuhr now?

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) is perhaps the best known North American theologian of the twentieth century. Over the course of his life he was a Christian socialist, pacifist, a staunch anti-communist, and an architect of vital-centre liberalism. Niebuhr wrote on themes as diverse as war, democracy, world order, political economy and race. So significant was Niebuhr’s intellectual influence that George Kennan once described him as ‘the father of us all’. Indeed, from the thought of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King Jr. to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Hans Morgenthau to Kenneth Waltz, E.H. Carr to Jean Bethke Elshtain, Niebuhr has helped shape International Relations. Bringing together intellectual historians and international political theorists, this special issue asks whether Niebuhr’s thought remains relevant to our times? Can he help us think about democracy, power, race, the use of force, and cruelty in a moment when ethnonationalism appears ascendant and democracy in decline?