International Relations-One World Many Theories

Stephen M. Walt’s ‘One World-Many Theories’ explains the various theories used to understand International Relations in the contemporary world. Whether one disagrees or not, when in discourse of International Affairs, one uses these various theories in one way or another. Different theories can have different perspectives for even a single issue in world politics. If we look at the rising influence of China, different perspectives could question different aspect of the issue. We must be cautious in our dealings with international affairs as no single approach can capture the complexities of contemporary world politics on its own. Understanding and considering more theories is important as they help identify strengths and weaknesses of the theories, thus preventing the autonomy of a single theory and rigid point of view. Some of the major International Relations theories that can be considered are Realism, Liberalism and Radical Approaches.

Realism is considered as one of the most dominant theories because it provides a simple yet powerful explanation for wars. It emphasizes the human struggle for power and the fact that due to self-interested states ambition to gain more power, war and conflict cannot be eliminated. Throughout the cold war, Realism evolved in many ways. Starting with classical realists who claimed that states like humans had a natural desire to dominate others thus war was imminent; moving to neorealists who ignored human desire and focused on international system’s effects on International affairs, where rather than trying to dominate others, states seek to survive in the world politics and finally reaching the offence-defence realists who emphasized the importance of increased defence mechanisms leading to less frequent occurrence of wars. By the end of cold war, realism moved from a pessimistic to an optimistic note.

After this period, despite many claims of realism being headed towards its demise, not only has realism continuously posed a bigger challenge to liberalism but new theories have come up, including the realist explanation on ethnic conflict and US foreign policy being termed to be consistent with realist principles. A major event that has occurred is the split between offence and defence realists, where the defence claims that states don’t have an interest in military expansion because its costs outweigh the benefits and great wars occurring due to domestic factors exaggerating external threat and giving effect to use of military force. Whereas the offence refutes those claims and anarchy encourages states to maximise their strength because of the threat of revolutionist states resurgence.

Liberalism a little less dominant yet still has posed a challenge to realism. Liberalists believe that in a world economy, wars would be less preferred due to protection of economic prosperity. Democracy is considered a major tool to deter wars as it is believed to be a much more peaceful and sensible form of government than authoritarian ones. According to Liberalists states are central players in International Affairs, it is their own interests and beliefs that influence their actions rather than factors from outside.

In the post-cold war era, like realism, liberalists have devised new theories to explain international affairs. The democratic peace theory has further been deliberated upon, along with critics refuting its claims as well. The economic strand of liberal theory has made great strides and liberalists believe that shifting of focus from military security to economic and social welfare is vital to prevent conflicts. They urge to restrict competition to the economic realm rather than fighting physically.

Although not quite a dominant theory, Marxism a radical approach during the cold war era was the main alternative to realism and liberalism. Orthodox Marxists blamed capitalism as central cause for international conflict because capitalist states battled to maximise their own profits. Neomarxists said that an ‘unholy alliance between capitalist states and rich elites of developing nations’ allowed them to exploit the less developed states. But as cold war came to end, so did Marxist theories as most of them were proven to be false as history and contemporary examples proved that capitalism did not always lead to wars and developing nations had proved themselves capable to bargain with big powers instead of being exploited.

Constructivism replaced Marxism as an alternative to Realism and Liberalism as well as a radical approach to International Affairs after the cold war. This set of ideas emphasized the impact of ideas and paid close attention to discourse that reflects and shapes beliefs and interests. Realism and Liberalism failed to anticipate and give reasons for the end of the cold war in the way it happened, but constructivists did have an answer, mainly that the new set of ideas adopted by the Soviet leadership was the main reason for its ultimate downfall. The constructivist theories are diverse and don’t give unified set of predictions on any issues. But one common theme in this theory is that how discussion and deliberation on ideas and principles shape how political actors define themselves and their interests thus modifying their behaviour.

Even though these theories are quite diverse and seem to be distinct to each other, they in fact have some convergence and there is opportunity for ‘intellectual arbitrage’. Regardless, it is well accepted fact that realism remains the most compelling framework to understand International Relations. States continue to pay close attention to balance of power and worry about possibility of conflict. But it is important to stress on the point again that a wise scholar must consider insights from other paradigms as well. Policy makers would be blindsided if they ignore these major theories and their benefits entirely. Each perspective captures important aspects of world politics, and a scholar should not be confined to a single framework as their understanding of IR would be incomplete.