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Title: Theory of International Politics by Kenneth N Waltz ISBN: 0-07-554852-6 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 01 January, 1979 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $81.65 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.8 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Has anybody read Man, The State and War???
Comment: Going through the reviews for this book, I can't help but wonder why no one has noticed that much of the criticism in these reviews stems from a lack of understanding of a very simple methodological fact: Waltz is not writing about human nature, nor is he writing about how the state is shaped or organized in any way, because he is writing about the structure of the international system. Why is he doing so? Maybe some of those reviewers should read the other classic by Waltz, "Man, the State and War", in which he discusses the now famous levels of analysis. In it, they would learn that human nature being constant, but human behavior being not, human nature proves everything and its opposite. The advantage of a "third image", the structural level, is that it is of a sufficient abstract level to get rid of that kind of phenomenon. Of course, there is the "second image", the intermediate level. Some think it is now more promising than the structural level, but only the latter allows us to generalize enough to dispense of the idea that a political system can change the world and still observe change (as Alexander Wendt convincingly show in his -constructivist and positivist (sic)- book). Waltz may have got it wrong with his structure, but he was right with the level of analysis. Allow me to make a second point. Some say that Waltz's book is abstract, even dry. I suppose they never read Kant or Hegel. I strongly advise them not to read these writers, for if they find Waltz difficult they have seen nothing yet, as many of you know. Waltz is abstract, but not anymore than any other theorist would, placed in front of the same problem. Furthermore, since when being abstract is wrong? I thought that being abstract was simply a way to explain things that could then be better generalized. Maybe from now on we should all start being concrete, to see what happens. Maybe that would increase our understanding of international relations? Sorry to say that, but if someone finds Waltz too dry or abstract, they should not study international relations. I don't mean to be rude, but so many comments seemed out of this world, I couldn't help but put the record straight. Your comments, and reviews, are welcome.
Rating: 5
Summary: The most influential book ever written on International Poli
Comment: This is the groundbreaking book that defined the Neorealist concept of International Relations.Some of the propositions set forth by Waltz are indisuputable: The results of anarchy on state behavior and how it limits interstate competition; How the system forces states to behave in certain ways, making the unit-level factors much less important. Also included is why security considerations always outweigh economic ones, and the benefits of internal balancing versus external balancing. Some of his precepts are more subject to critisicm: The benefits of bipolarity of multipolarity. N Nonetheless, this is the book that made the field of IR a real social science rather than a history-like humanities study. Any real student of International Relations needs to start here to understand both the academic discipline, and the real world of interstate relation.
Eric Gartman
Rating: 3
Summary: Can Waltz Adequately Explain Alliance Formation?
Comment: To illuminate the puzzle of why states form alliances with other states, if they (according to his theory) are necessarily "selfish", Waltz first makes the necessary distinction between domestic and international politics. This distinction is necessary so that Waltz can show us how alliance formation follows a fundamentally different logic in an anarchic system than it does in a system with some form of central authority (hierarchy) like the state, because the state monopolizes legitimate violence, so that a domestic system is not self-help - one can appeal to the state for defense. While it is debatable that all or even the majority of states have enjoyed a true monopoly on legitimate violence throughout history, we must grant Waltz this axiom if the remainder of his arguments are to hold.
Waltz then takes the domestic/international comparison into the realm of economics and interdependence, arguing that within the state, actors are "free to specialize because they have no reason to fear the increased interdependence that goes with specialization" (104). Because the state guarantees security, all can be most concerned with their own (absolute) gains. However, in a self-help system, worries about survival in anarchy make units more concerned with relative gains. States do not want to be dependent on other states, which hinders the benefits of specialization. Interdependence, instead of enriching all, becomes a threat to survival, because it creates vulnerability. This is a result of the structure of the anarchic system, despite the best intentions of those who want cooperation. "Structures cause actions to have consequences they were not intended to have" (107). Thus, the only thing that can change these effects is structural change.
Against those who would argue that the international system is not a pure anarchy because we see alliances, Waltz would argue that they confuse structure with process. He does admit that states sometimes cooperate, obviously, but "only in ways strongly conditioned by the anarchy of the larger system" (116). The primary way of doing this, captured by balance-of-power theory, is "moves to strengthen and enlarge one's own alliance or to weaken and shrink an opposing one" (118). Interestingly, Waltz claims that his theory does not require rationality on the part of the actors - they simply emulate more successful rivals, or else they perish. Thus, "balances of power tend to form whether some or all states consciously aim to establish and maintain a balance" (119).
Why should we expect to see alliances balancing one another, as opposed to bandwagoning onto a winning alliance? Again, the structural logic does the explanatory work. Because the international system is self-help, "balancing is sensible behavior where the victory of one coalition over another leaves weaker members of the winning coalition at the mercy of the stronger ones" (126). In other words, nobody wants anybody except themselves to "win", and so states gang up against a likely winner, meaning that the structure induces security (not power per se) as the primary concern. Waltz even characterizes this induction as a kind of sociological process, positing that the "socialization" of nonconformist states (he gives the Soviets as an example) is inevitable, given that isolationism is not an option: "one party may need the assistance of others. Refusal to play the political game may risk one's own destruction" (128).
For Waltz, then, the only important changes are structural ones. Since anarchy will not disappear, the only structural changes that can happen is changes in the distribution of state capabilities. Given that Waltz has solved the puzzle of alliances and balancing by showing how they are structurally necessary if states hope to survive, he then goes on to link changes in the distribution of state power with the question of the likely configuration(s) of alliances that will arise from these changes. In order to do so, he first establishes how to measure power and "polarity" (number of alliances/powers in the system). After rather sarcastically rebutting critics who think the world is not bipolar, and arguing that his theory boils down to "common sense", Waltz predictably defines power as the total and combined distribution of material capabilities across states, meaning that only the U.S. and the Soviet Union qualify. For Waltz, this bipolarity is a normatively good thing, because his argument touts its peace-enhancing characteristics. Since interdependence is dangerous, and since interdependence decreases as the number of powers decreases, security is enhanced, and uncertainty is reduced. Waltz even goes so far as to claim: "now governments are more involved in their national economies than they are internationally. This is fortunate" (159).
The key point to highlight here, for Waltz's theory of alliances, is that alliances are formed and balanced in response to structural conditions. Preferences, costs and benefits to individual states do not matter, because the structural properties of unitary states, anarchy, and the distribution of power determine the configuration that assures outcomes. If the distribution of power happens to be in a certain configuration, meaning that states only make gains or losses relative to that overall distribution, then the likely resulting alliance pattern is pre-ordained. Any "deviant" path taken by any state will result in certain defeat for that state, and thus states will avoid taking this path in the first place.
Of course, rationalist or strategic choice theorists would say that Waltz neglects the role of calculation and doesn't provide microfoundations, while constructivists would proclaim that Waltz ignores the role of identity. However, by ignoring these (probably important) factors, Waltz reaps a large payoff in terms of parsimony and explanatory leverage.
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Title: Politics Among Nations, Brief Edition by Hans J Morgenthau, Kenneth W Thompson ISBN: 0070433062 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 01 July, 1992 List Price(USD): $36.71 |
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Title: Man, the State, and War by Kenneth N. Waltz ISBN: 0231125372 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: New Thinking in International Relations Theory by Michael W. Doyle, G. John Ikenberry ISBN: 0813399661 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $39.00 |
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Title: After Hegemony by Robert O. Keohane ISBN: 0691022283 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 August, 1984 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939 by Edward H. Carr ISBN: 0061311227 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 25 April, 1964 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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