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Title: Theory of international politics (Addison-Wesley series in political science) by Kenneth Neal Waltz ISBN: 0-201-08349-3 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co Pub. Date: 1979 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.8 (15 reviews)
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: 4
Summary: The worst book on IR theory, except for all the others
Comment: Theory of International Politics is truly a five-star book when it comes to academic impact; I give it four stars only because the writing can be obtuse. Nonetheless, and despite criticism from other Amazon reviewers, Waltz's book lays the foundation of the theoretical paradigm that is dominant among international relations scholars. Anyone wishing to understand the current academic debates among international relations scholars should read at least excerpts of Theory of International Politics.
The reason Waltz's book carries such weight, despite flaws, is that Waltz lays out a simple, theoretically "testable" version of a much broader and older theory (Political Realism). Political Realism, as perhaps best laid out by (the German-turned-American) scholar Hans Morganthau, views nations as the unitary actors in international affairs (in much the same way as Marx viewed economic classes as unitary actors in the political sphere): states have "interests" that they will act on, regardless of the interests, ideologies, cultures, religions, etc. of individual state leaders or even of the individuals who make up a state. This interest is "power," understood as control over one's own destiny and (perhaps incidentally) the destiny of others. It is a very broad idea has a certain gut appeal. After all, the Athenians of Thucydides were Realists when they replied to the Melians' "international law" arguments by saying, "The strong do what they will, the weak do what they must."
Despite this appeal, Morganthau's argument has serious theoretical and historical problems. First, power is so broadly defined that the theory is "untestable." Was Hitler power-hungry? Yes, but that's not Morganthau's argument: Germany would have sought to aggrandize its "power" even if it had been led by Gandhi. Second, the idea, while perhaps empirically appealing, is largely assumed: why power? why not wealth? Perhaps countries do not seek power, but the wealth that power brings?
Waltz's "Neorealism" inserts "national security" where Morganthau had "power," and, while this may sound equally broad and vague, it actually is a more theoretically robust (if factually more problematic) concept. Whereas Morganthau had "black-box" (i.e., functionally identical) states pursuing power for reasons of "human nature," Waltz has black-box states pursuing national security for essentially Darwinian reasons. Leaders of states will invariably pursue policies that enhance their nations' security, or else they will be forced out of office (through votes, assassination, etc.) If the state-as-the-collective fails to do this, it risks annihilation (at worst) or subjugation (in one form or another). (Against the criticism by some like Paul Krugman that countries "do not go out of business," I would ask him to first check the opinions of the leaders of the Republic of South Vietnam or pre-WWII France).
Of course, pursuing national security can take many forms--it may mean forming alliances with erstwhile enemies (the U.S. with the Soviet Union in 1941, or China with the U.S. in the 1970s), or it may even mean sucking up (in one form or another) to the biggest potential threat (Finland to Russia during the Cold War, or perhaps Canada to the U.S. today). Consequently, alliances will be fragile and can be disgarded on a moment's notice, regardless of culture, ideology, etc. International trade can also be problematic, because even a "win-win" situation may be a loser if your trading partner/potential adversary wins more than you do and can convert the economic benefits into political or military power.
Neorealism may sound simplistic, but the theory, understood in broad terms, has proven remarkably powerful and, I would argue, is the closest thing political science has to an international relations theory that can actually be predictive. A Realist/Neorealist such as Henry Kissinger could predict that China, despite Communism, would part ways with the USSR and ally with the United States. A Neorealist such as Jim Baker might predict that an Arab-U.S.-Israeli coalition would hold together against Iraq, despite an eternal dream of pan-Arab unity. Looking forward, it predicts that the political differences between the United States and China will grow, and that Europe will continue to use trade as a weapon to undermine America's influence in the rest of the world and, regardless of whoever comes to power, Russia will not return to an adversarial relationship with the United States, but may, in fact, seek it as an ally against China and the EU.
Of course, there have been uncounted objections to Waltz and Neorealism. Yet Waltz's Theory of International Politics stands as an important work because the other powerful theories--Neoliberalism, Institutional Theory, et al.--all begin as an attempt to plug the theoretical gaps allegedly found in Waltz. A book and an idea that all feel compelled to address should not be dismissed so readily.
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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