The structural realism school

2.3.1 The structural realism school 2.3.1 The structural realism school 2.3.1 The structural realism school

As noted by Thompson (1988:36-37), there are considerable difficulties encountered when attempting to give a broad overview of the literature that can be said to belong to this school.

This is due mainly to the large degree of divergence within the literature, and the

‘polarization’ of the interests of authors in this school. For instance, many authors within the structural realism school have shown little interest in global warfare. Others again ignore the international political economy to focus intensively on issues of ‘classical’ war and peace.

However, Thompson identifies the work of Robert Gilpin as being the most representative of the structural realism approach, and the features of Gilpin’s argument will be discussed shortly.

Goldstein (1988:123) summarises it well when he argues that the foundation of the realist approach can be condensed to the search for “timeless laws of national behaviour” and accordingly, there exists a strong focus on national power and balance-of-power politics within this school. As such, this school regards hegemony primarily in terms of political-military predominance (Goldstein, 1988:125). Goldstein (1988:141) traces the origins of the school back to the approach taken by Organski (1958), according to whom a state’s relative power position affects the likelihood of war. Doran and Parsons (1980) continued within Organski’s tradition (and added a cyclical element that was not present in Organski’s work), and noted that all the major powers after 1815 have passed “through a cycle indexed by relative capability” (quoted in Goldstein, 1988:142). This cycle revealed how states gained and lost their share of world political-military power over time, and Doran and Parsons found that extensive wars were most likely to occur at points when the rate of growth (or decline) in this cycle of world power shifted suddenly, in other words when changes were rapid and “disruptive of past trends.”

The time frame used by Doran and Parsons (1980) reflect the tendency for this school to limit its temporal scope to the relatively recent past, namely the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Thompson (1988:34) concludes that, in general, the authors of this school are unwilling to apply their framework to periods before the nineteenth century (Gilpin is a notable exception). As will be seen later, this contrasts markedly with the other two schools.

Furthermore, the structural realism school emphasises subsystemic units of analysis, specifically the hegemonic state, and while certain wars are regarded as ‘watersheds’, in general very little attention is given to the consequences of those wars (Thompson, 1988:33-34).

2.3.1.1 Gilpin 2.3.1.1 Gilpin 2.3.1.1 Gilpin 2.3.1.1 Gilpin

Robert Gilpin (1981:x) primarily uses rational-choice theory that builds upon the assumption that individual behaviour is determined by rationality. Gilpin maintains that this

‘rational actor’ model (originating in the field of economics) can be applied to politics (Goldstein, 1988:143). For Gilpin (1981:xi), the purposes and natures of social institutions are determined by self-interest, as well as by the relative power of the individual members of those institutions. A political institution (such as the interstate system) thus reflects the interests of its most powerful members, until the relative power of the members changes.

Gilpin (1981:xii) furthermore follows in the tradition of Kenneth Waltz (1979). For Waltz, the interstate system is composed of individual states, and due to the fact that they have only limited control over its operation, these states must conform to the “logic of a competitive, anarchic system of interacting states” (Gilpin, 1981:xii). From this, Gilpin proceeds to build his main argument.

Despite the growing belief that increased interdependence among states in the interstate system has worked to foster peaceful cooperation, and that economic and welfare goals have consequently replaced security concerns as the top priority of states, Gilpin (1981:7) argues that the fundamental nature of international relations has not been altered, and that states are still engaged in an age-old struggle for wealth and power. For this reason, Gilpin considers lessons learned in the pre-modern world as valid, and places particular emphasis on the history of the Peloponnesian War, as related by Thucydides in the fifth century B.C.

(1951).

As mentioned above, Gilpin (1981:9), in his argument accounting for structural change, maintains that the interstate system at any given time reflects the interests of the most powerful members of the system. This status quo does not remain constant however, due to technological, economic, and other developments, which over time alter the balance of power within the system. This disequilibrium between the growing power of some states, and the declining power of others (whose interests are still encrusted in the interstate system), results in a need for change – which is brought about by the waging of hegemonic war.

These changes then result in the redistribution of benefits and costs to members of the system (Gilpin, 1981:10). It is for this reason that Gilpin’s focus falls on the interstate system as a whole, and on the efforts by individual states to alter that system for their own benefit.

For Goldstein (1988:143), Gilpin’s theory fits well into the power transition school, since the disequilibrium arising from differential rates of economic, technological, and military growth are corrected by periodic hegemonic wars. This also correlates with the “power cycle”

– the rise and fall of a state’s relative capabilities – as identified by Doran and Parsons (Goldstein, 1988:141). It can also be noted that the work of Paul Kennedy (1988) relates closely to this point regarding differential rates of growth, and will be returned to later in this chapter.

Thompson (1988:40) considers the fundamental problem of international change in Gilpin’s view to be that, as the distribution of power in the interstate system changes, disequilibrium and crisis is to be expected, until the system’s structure is brought back “into realignment with the new distribution of military, economic, and technological capabilities.” Hegemonic war is the primary means by which this disequilibrium and crisis is resolved (Thompson, 1988:41). These hegemonic (or Great Power) wars have as the primary issue at stake, the nature and governance of the interstate system, and as a result they are intense conflicts which act as the confrontation between the (declining) dominant power and the (rising) challenger, and their respective allies. The treaties which are negotiated at the conclusion of these Great Power Wars then represent the new status quo, and act as

‘constitutions’ for the interstate system (Gilpin, 1981:36).

As mentioned before, Gilpin (1981:200) does not restrict his inquiry to the modern (post 1500) world, and he classifies the Peloponnesian War and the Second Punic War as hegemonic wars. In the modern era, the Thirty Years’ War, the wars of Louis XIV, the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and World Wars I and II meet Gilpin’s criteria.

After these decisive wars, the new hegemonic power becomes a champion of free trade and supplies the economic rules of the system, while providing investment capital and an international currency, and protecting property rights on a global scale (Thompson, 1988:44). However, this is not done out of altruism, but because the hegemonic power, which has the most technologically advanced and efficient economy, stands to benefit most from such an arrangement. Self-interest is thus once again the guiding principle for states, according to this school.

2.3.1.2 Mearsheimer 2.3.1.2 Mearsheimer 2.3.1.2 Mearsheimer 2.3.1.2 Mearsheimer

John Mearsheimer (2004) is another author who openly casts himself in the realist tradition (specifically ‘offensive realism’). Although not identified as such by either Thompson or Goldstein, in this study Mearsheimer will be placed within the structural realism school.

Mearsheimer follows in the tradition of Hans Morgenthau (1973), and argues that the structure of the interstate system accounts for the aggressive actions of states toward each other (2004:184). Mearsheimer identifies three features, very much representative of the realist perspective, as being responsible for this, namely the ‘anarchy’ of the interstate system (the lack of a central rule-making authority), the fact that states always possess some form of offensive military capability, and the ever-present uncertainty about the intentions of other states. For Mearsheimer (2004:184), hegemony is the ultimate guarantee of a state’s survival, since no other state could “seriously threaten such a mighty power.”

However, Mearsheimer sees hegemony in a much more limited light than many other authors, including Wallerstein (2000a:185). For Mearsheimer, this stems from the difficulty for any state to project its power over the world’s oceans, even with a powerful navy. No state, hegemonic or otherwise, can have the same dominance in other areas of the world that it enjoys in its own region. As a consequence, Mearsheimer argues that the only kind of hegemony to which any state can aspire is regional hegemony (2004:186-7). If a state manages to be the only regional hegemon in the world, it occupies the highest position available in the interstate system. Maintaining regional hegemony, while preventing other states from becoming hegemons in their own regions, is the task with which hegemons are faced. For Mearsheimer, the hegemon therefore becomes an ‘offshore balancer’.

Mearsheimer further identifies the United States as the only regional hegemon in modern history, although other states, such as Germany and Japan, have sought regional hegemony but ultimately failed to achieve it (2004:186). This represents a marked difference in

interpretation, especially in contrast to Wallerstein (2000a:256). In the next chapter however, it will be argued that Dutch hegemony can be interpreted as regional in nature, given that the early modern world-system was primarily centred on Europe and the American periphery (primarily the Spanish colonies).

Naturally, Mearsheimer’s argument is embedded in the realist tradition, which places military-political power above economic power, which is so vital in the world-economy school. In fact, for Mearsheimer, hegemony means that a state is so powerful that no other state can challenge it militarily, and that in effect, the hegemon dominates all the other states in the system (2004:185). Furthermore, Mearsheimer clearly states that, in his view,

“security also trumps wealth when those two goals conflict” (2004:192). The wider academic tradition within which authors find themselves thus has a significant influence on the approach taken, and the conclusions reached, when investigating the link between Great Power War and hegemony.

For Mearsheimer, the structure of the interstate system is what compels states to strive for hegemony (2004:196). It is thus not a consequence of agro-industrial efficiency, commercial or financial domination, but very clearly the result of a (military) decision that states make to enhance their chances for survival in an anarchic and uncertain world.