ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ I - Deneme Sınavı - 9

In post-WWII Western European politics, liberals such as David Mitrany studied the nature of international collaboration and how it could be achieved through apolitical processes in his integration theory named “functionalism”. According to Mitrany, nonpolitical experts could better deal with their areas of technical expertise and initiate collaboration which in time would expand into other areas as well.

liberal tradition has four main assumptions: (1) pluralist image of world politics where states, non-state and transnational entities are important actors (2) economic interdependence or interconnectedness where network of states, governmental and non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, groups and individuals turn into a global civil society that has a pacifying affect on states (3) an extensive agenda composed of all issue areas not limited with military and security issues but involving economic, social and environmental ones (4) individual level of analysis, opposed to a top-down analysis of structural realism and analysis of decision-making processes with an eye to individual, social, cultural differences.

According to Andrew Moravcsik, there are three variants of neoliberal theory, the common ground of which is the relationship between social preferences and state behavior. Ideational liberalism discusses the effects of the conflict and compatibility of collective social values and identities as regards public (collective) goods provision (like geographical border, political decision-making processes and socioeconomic regulation) on state behavior. Commercial liberalism is about the effects of gains and losses of the people in transactional economics on the state behavior. Finally, republican liberalism is about the effects of the variants of democratic representation and rentseeking on state behavior

As stated before, the liberal thesis is that free trade and democracy decrease the likelihood of war. The major question is then “whether the democracies are more peaceful or not in their foreign relations”. Democratic peace theory follows the Kantian tradition and scholars like Michael Doyle and Bruce Russett share the idea that democracies can maintain peaceful relations among themselves due to their shared values and common approach in their domestic republican governance.

According to the realist paradigm, nature of human has important results for the international politics. For realist scholars, human is naturally sinful, egoist, interest oriented, aggressive and all the time power seeking in character. In particular, classical realism depends on the opinions of Carr and Morgenthau, and explains the international politics through human nature. Objective laws which dominate human nature must be understood to conceive international politics. In other words, as long as these laws are neglected, IR cannot be figured out. Naturally, humans are created with negative evil character and has passion and vanity (Shimko, 1992: 286; Buzan, 1996: 50). Morgenthau and Niebuhr among leading post war realists explain IR with human nature. According to them, just like individuals, states also have negative characters such as interest seeking and aggressive. States seek persistently to increase their power and capabilities to the extent that they can take other states under their control. Therefore, in such a structure, war and conflict are normal processes.

According to realism, states are the major actors of international politics. Their interests and the rivalry for getting more powerful, shapes politics. Multinational companies (MNCs) and international organizations are not assumed as actors of international politics.

One of the important premises of realism (particularly neo-realism) is the anarchical structure of the international system. There is no central authority to govern the relations among states. In such an international environment, naturally providing security becomes the main concern of states. States have to deal with their own security problem that is called as the rule of “self help”.

According to realism, states are the major actors of international politics. Their interests and the rivalry for getting more powerful, shapes politics. Multinational companies (MNCs) and international organizations are not assumed as actors of international politics

Consequently, realism, philosophical roots of which depends on Machiavelli and Hobbes, depicted the international politics as a struggle for power and interest, and states as unitary actors capable of rational decision making

In contrast to realism or conservatism, Wilsonian idealism depends on Kantian liberalism, and it emphasizes the enlargement of the rights of individuals as a main point of concern.

Besides, for Kantian universalism representing the cosmopolitan outlook, the root of international relations is transnational relations and linkages rather than the struggle for interest. In fact, according to cosmopolitan mode of thought the will of all human beings are the same and is to reach the best and universal society. Moral and ethical factors are not disregarded and international relations looks like nonzero sum game models of the game theories in which cooperation is the main feature instead of struggle for conflicting interests. This approach is also called as liberal/ idealist view. This Kantian approach sees international relations (IR) as a cooperation process, and there are certain rules restricting the states to use power rather than to see the international relations as a war among gladiators or struggle of interest between states as in the Hobbesian thought. According to this approach, there is no anarchy and no state of war in IR. However, neither complete struggle of interest like Hobbesian view nor complete harmony of interest like in Kantian thought is the real/exact situation in international relations. Therefore, international society reflects either of the both cases to some respect. There are international institutions and international rules binding on states.

According to the Marxist theories focusing to explain war and peace through economic reasons, war and conflicts emanate from contradictions of capitalism.

Globalist approaches criticize the reasons behind the underdevelopment of Third World countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa while other countries get richer.

Positivism is distinguished by four important assumptions. First of these is the belief about the uniqueness of science. According to this assumption which is called as naturalism in philosophical language, there is no important difference between natural world and social world and through the methodology of natural science, social world can be analyzed. Second assumption is that there should be a distinction between facts and values. In terms of philosophy, this point of view which is known as objective position assumes that objective knowledge can be attained by scientific methods despite the existence of subjective factors influencing the research. Third assumption is based on the belief that as in the universe or natural world, there are also regularities in the social world. In this way, as research is carried out, either deductive or inductive methods are employed. According to the final assumption, research must be based on the methods of empirical verification or falsification.

Another epistemology is rationalism which is represented by certain philosophers belonging to Cartesian School such as Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza. This thought was developed by the scientific revolutions of Newton, Kepler and Galileo. It should be noted that Grotius and Kant also contributed significantly to this philosophical approach as well as they did in the field of IR. Rationalism reached to the top with Hegel. Rationalism has adopted deduction as a scientific method that depends on the reason and intuition as well as a source of knowledge rather than observation and experiment and it is called as a priori knowledge. According to this approach, the nature is commanded by certain rules and laws results of which could only be observed rather than themselves

In modern sense, however, it is influenced the most by two authors, namely, Edward H. Carr and Reinhold Niebuhr (Battistella, 2012: 129-131). Until today, there are, of course, many other names such as George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Nicholas Spykman, Henry Kissinger etc. who contributed to the development of the theory in its classical shape. Moreover, since 1980s, the realist paradigm has witnessed, a fragmentation for some, a sophistication or adaptation for others

In that respect, realist theory of international relations has four main assumptions upon which further various hypotheses are built to analyze certain events and/or phenomena. First of all, states are the central and most important actors of world politics. Secondly, from the realist point of view, state is seen as a unitary actor. Third realist assumption is based on the belief that, incarnated in the leader, states are, in essence, rational (purposive) actors. Fourth and the last main realist assumption puts emphasis on hierarchy of issues according to which the ones related to national and international security are located at the top.

Hans Morgenthau (1997) states six principles of realism that could help us comprehend profoundly the realist vision of international phenomenon. These
six principles are:
1. Politics is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.
2. Statesmen conduct themselves in terms of interest defined as power.
3. Interest determines political conduct within the political and cultural context which foreign policy is formulated.

4. Prudence is the supreme virtue in international politics. There can be no political morality without prudence.
5. Nations are entities that pursue their interests as defined by power and should not be judged by universal moral principles.
6. Political realism rejects the legalistic-moralistic approach to international politics.

Nevertheless, realists do not deny existence and necessity of a regulating mechanism at the center of an anarchical environment full of powerseeker, rational and amoral actors. This mechanism, called as “balance of power”, creates a kind of order and constitutes, as mentioned above, the distinction between anarchy and chaos.

Power politics is a component of political situation according to  Morgenthau’s Concept of Statecraft. The other are related with the political conduct.

self-interest and animus dominandi are among the components of human nature according to Morgenthau’s Concept of Statecraft