Anarchy (international relations)
In international relations theory, the concept of anarchy is the idea that the world lacks any supreme authority or sovereignty. In an anarchic state, there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can resolve disputes, enforce law, or order the system of international politics. In international relations, anarchy is widely accepted as the starting point for international relations theory.
International relations generally does not understand "anarchy" as signifying a world in chaos, disorder, or conflict; rather, it is possible for ordered relations between states to be maintained in an anarchic international system. Anarchy provides foundations for realist, neorealist, and neoliberal, and constructivist paradigms of international relations. Liberal theory disputes that anarchy is a fundamental condition of the international system. On the other hand, constructivist scholar Alexander Wendt argued that "anarchy is what states make of it."
Etymology
The word anarchy literally means "without a leader", combining the Greek prefix "an-" meaning without, with the Indo-European root arkh meaning "begin" or "take the lead". It is adapted from the ancient Greek ἀναρχία meaning "absence of a leader". In common usage, anarchy has come to signify both the absence of a ruling authority and the disorder that some anticipate is bound up with the absence of such an authority.Origin and history of term
The British pacifist G. Lowes Dickinson has often been credited with coining "Anarchy" as a term of art in political science in his books: The European Anarchy, War: Its Nature, Cause and Cure and The International Anarchy. Some argue that Dickinson used anarchy in a context that is inconsistent with modern IR theorists. Jack Donnelly argues that Philip Kerr's book Pacifism is Not Enough was first to ascribe the same meaning and context to term anarchy that modern IR theorists do.Kenneth Waltz set off a fundamental discursive transformation in international relations with Theory of International Politics. One study finds that the term "anarchy" occurred on average 6.9 times in IR books prior to 1979 but 35.5 times in IR books after 1979. A special issue of World Politics in 1985 and Robert Keohane's edited collection Neorealism and Its Critics focused extensively on Kenneth Waltz's usage of anarchy in explaining international politics. Anarchy has subsequently become fundamentally important in International Relations scholarship.
Schools of thought
While the three classic schools of thought in international relations theory and their neo-counterparts agree that the world system is anarchic, they differ in their explanations of how they believe states should, and do, deal with this problem.Realism
The Realist theory of international relations asserts that states are the main power players in world politics. Realists respond to the anarchic world system by assuming a "self-help" doctrine, believing they can rely on no one but themselves for security. They believe that in the anarchical system, the basic motive of a state's behavior is survival, which they see in relative terms; holding that the increased security of one state will necessarily lead to a decrease in security of others. Thus, states are forced to constantly take into account that others might have more power than them or are planning to gain more power and are so forced to do the same, leading to competition and balancing.According to the classic realist thinker Niccolò Machiavelli, the desire for more power is rooted in the flawed nature of humanity, which extends itself into the political world, and leads states to continuously struggle to increase their capabilities. Another traditional realist, Hans Morgenthau, claimed “international politics is struggle for power” elaborating, that “the struggle for power is universal in time and space”.
Key to the realist belief is the conviction that power must be defined in military terms. Realism asserts that stronger military power will lead states to their ultimate goals, being either a hegemon for Offensive Realists or to a balance of power for defensive realists. In his 1988 article "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation", Joseph Grieco wrote: “for realists, international anarchy fosters competition and conflict among states and inhibits their willingness to cooperate even when they share common interests”. Therefore, realists see no reason to believe that states can ever trust each other, and must rely on themselves in the anarchic world system. In the course of providing for one's own security, the state in question will automatically be fueling the insecurity of other states. This spiral of insecurity is known as the "security dilemma".
Neorealism
The realist concept of self-help as a result of anarchy is also the foundation for structural realism or neorealism. Neorealists are often referred to as structuralists as they believe that much of the important subject matter of international politics can be explained by the structure of the international system, and its central feature, anarchy. While classic realists such as Machiavelli and Morgenthau attributed power politics primarily to human nature, neorealists emphasize anarchy.This idea was first advanced by Kenneth Waltz, in his neorealist text, Man, the State and War, and expanded on in his Theory of International Politics. For Waltz, the absence of a higher authority than states in the international system means that states can only rely on themselves for their own survival, requiring paranoid vigilance and constant preparation for conflict. In Man, the State, and War, Waltz describes anarchy as a condition of possibility or a “permissive” cause of war. He argues that “wars occur because there is nothing to prevent them”. Similarly, American political scientist John Herz argues that international anarchy assures the centrality of the struggle for power “even in the absence of aggressivity or similar factors”, emphasizing that a state's interests and actions are determined by the anarchic structure of the international system itself.
Liberalism
and liberalism both agree that the international system is anarchic, and the self-interested state is the starting point for both theories. However, unlike realism, liberal theories argue that international institutions are able to mitigate anarchy's constraining effects on interstate cooperation. This is where the two theories diverge.While liberal theory acknowledges that the international system is anarchic, it contends that this anarchy can be regulated with various tools, most importantly: liberal democratization, liberal economic interdependence and liberal institutionalism. The basic liberal goal is a completely interdependent world. Liberal theory asserts that the existence and spread of free trade reduces the likelihood of conflict, as "economically interdependent states are reluctant to become involved in militarized disputes out of fear that conflict disrupts trade and foreign investment and thus induces costs on the opponents". Liberal theory contends that it is not in a country's interest to go to war with a state with which its private economic agents maintain an extensive exchange of goods and capital.
Thus, for liberals, there is hope for world peace even under anarchy, if states seek common ground, forming alliances and institutions for policing the world powers. Realists tend to believe that power is gained through war or the threat of military action, and assert that due to this power-grabbing system there is no such thing as lasting alliances or peace. Liberal thought however, attributes more power to common institutions than to states, and takes into account the individual attributes that states possess, allowing for the idea of lasting alliances based on common beliefs and ideas. Rather than focusing solely on the military survival of states, liberals believe that common ideas can lead states into interdependence, and so remove allies as threats to sovereignty. Liberalism emphasizes that the real power for states comes from mutually held ideas like religion, language, economics, and political systems that will lead states to form alliances and become interdependent.
This sentiment is summed up by Norman Angell, a classical London School of Economics liberal, who claimed: "We cannot ensure the stability of the present system by the political or military preponderance of our nation or alliance by imposing its will on a rival".
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism, the process of implementing liberalism's political ideology, seeks to counter the neo-realist claim that institutions are unable to "mitigate anarchy's constraining effects on inter-state cooperation”. Neo-liberalism argues that even in an anarchic system of states, cooperation can emerge through the building of norms, regimes, and institutions. Neo-liberal thought contends that the “importance and effect” of the anarchic nature of the international system has been exaggerated, and asserts that nation-states are, or at least should be, concerned first and foremost with absolute gains rather than relative gains to other nation-states.For example, realists and neorealists assume that security is a competitive and relative concept, whereby the “gain of security for any one state means the loss of security for another”. However, neoliberals argue that states should recognize that security can be cooperative or collective, whereby states can increase their security without decreasing the security of others, or recognizing that the security of other states can in fact be valuable to themselves. Therefore, while both neoliberal and neo-realist theories consider the state and its interests as the central subject of analysis, the neoliberal argument is focused on what it perceives as the neorealists' underestimation of "the varieties of cooperative behavior possible within... a decentralized system".