CHAPTER
1
Theory, Images, and International Relations:
An Introduction
Why do wars occur? Is nationalism the primary cause? Or ideology? Or the lack of world government? Or misperception? Or are people innately aggressive? How can stability (if not peace) be achieved? Why is there such tremendous social and economic inequality between different regions of the world? These are the sorts of questions that have preoccupied scholars and statesmen at various times over the millennia, whether the political entity in question were an ancient city-state or a modern nation-state, a centralized empire or a decentralized feudal system, a socialist or a liberal democratic society. Nor are these questions the private preserve of intellectuals, diplomatic practitioners, and assorted political pundits and commentators. At one time or another, most citizens reflect on one or more of these important queries.
International relations as a field of inquiry addresses such questions. Despite the adjective international, the field is concerned with much more than relations between or among states. Other actors, such as international organizations, multinational corporations, environmental organizations, and terrorist groups, are all part of what could more correctly be termed world politics. Studies have also focused on factors internal to a state, such as bureaucratic governmental coalitions, interest groups, and decision making. The study of international relations, therefore, ranges from balance of power politics and economic structures at the international level to the ideological and perceptual predispositions of individual leaders.
Given the tremendous diversity and complexity of what is studied, it is not too surprising that there is a multiplicity of views concerning how one studies international relations. The possible avenues go well beyond the realms of history and political science. They include economics, psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology. All this may seem rather intimidating to the student. If it is any consolation, it can also be intimidating to the professional in the field. As a result, many professionals tend to focus on one particular aspect of international relations, perhaps alliance behavior, the functioning of the United Nations and other international organizations, decision making in crisis situations, or the construction of international regimes.
No matter how ambitious or modest an international relations research project may be, however, every scholar approaches it from a particular point of view. Although
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some would argue that values ought to be central, most academics strive (or at least claim to strive) to reduce the impact of personal values when it comes to empirical research. Nevertheless, personal background and the nature of academic training inevitably influence the manner in which scholars interpret and examine international relations. As the German scholar Max Weber once argued: "All knowledge of cultural reality is always knowledge from particular points of view." How research is conducted will be "determined by the evaluative ideas that dominate the investigator and his age."1 In other words, each individual's work will be influenced by a particular doctrine, image of the world,, ideology, paradigm, or perspective. One may strive to be value free and objective, but at best, these goals can be achieved only imperfectly.
Different perspectives on international relations naturally generate debates. In the 1930s, realists and idealists argued over the nature of international politics and the possibility of peaceful change. In the 1960s, the so-called second great debate between traditionalists and behavioralists dealt with the question of appropriate methodology. Traditionalists emphasized the relative utility of history, law, philosophy, and other traditional methods of inquiry. Behavioralists argued in favor of social science conceptualization, quantification of variables, formal hypothesis testing, and causal model building. Dialectical approaches drawing on history and Marxist insights have been the subject of much discussion in certain journals in the field, although this debate is not widely reflected in the textbook literature. Critical theory perspectives raise doubts about the epistemological and ontological assumptions underlying much of the social science work on international relations. Social constructivists see states and nonstate actors not as mere products of the international system, but as actually playing a decisive role in shaping it. These actors influence, and are influenced by, the international norms and institutions they construct—activities that sustain or create new interests, values, and the ordering of foreign policy preferences.
In this book we emphasize three alternative images or perspectives of international relations we label realism, pluralism, and globalism.2 We argue that these images have provided the basis for the development of many theoretical works that attempt to explain various aspects of international relations. The image that one has of international relations is of critical importance. Each image contains certain assumptions about world politics—whether or not explicitly recognized by the researcher— concerning critical actors, issues, and processes in world politics. These images lead one to ask certain questions, seek certain types of answers, and use certain methodological tools in the construction and testing of hypotheses and theories. The advantage is that such images bring order to the analytical effort and make it more manageable. A potential disadvantage, however, is that alternative perspectives and insights maybe ignored or overlooked. Although the realist, pluralist, and globalist images are not mutually exclusive in all respects, the differences in point of view and emphasis are much greater than any apparent similarities. The resultant attempts at theory building, therefore, also vary considerably. Although some of these works fit neatly into one of the three categories or images we have identified, some efforts combine assumptions underlying different images. After all, theoretical work need not be constrained by preexisting taxonomies or organizing frameworks. Theorists are free to break out of or transcend existing categories, perhaps forging new syntheses. Indeed, the international relations field remains dynamic, with theorists continuing to break new ground.
In this chapter, we first address the question of what is meant by the term theory. We then briefly discuss the three images as alternative perspectives that influence the construction of international relations theory.
WHAT IS THEORY?
The word theory means different things to different people. It may even mean different things to the same person. In common parlance, for example, something may be true "in theory" but not in fact or in a particular case or set of circumstances. In this rather loose usage, "in theory" equates to "in principle" or "in the abstract."
Another meaning, somewhat more consistent with usage in this volume, views theory as a way of making the world or some part of it more intelligible or better understood. Theories dealing with international relations aspire to achieve this goal. Making things more intelligible may, of course, amount to nothing more than better or more precise description of the things we observe. Although accurate description is essential, theory is something more.
For many people, theory is explaining or predicting. One goes beyond mere description of phenomena observed and engages in causal explanation or prediction based on certain prior occurrences or conditions. Thus, whenever A is present, then B can be expected to follow. "If A, then B" as hypothesis may be subject to empirical test—that is, tested against real-world or factual data. "If states engage in arms races, then the likelihood of war increases" is an example of such a hypothesis. Indeed, formal statement and testing of hypotheses through the use of a statistical methodology is seen by many as central to the theory-building process. Others prefer to rely on nonquanti-tative case and comparative case studies, historical methods, and reasoned argument— the so-called traditional methods of theory building.
Whatever differences international relations scholars might have among themselves, they all agree on one thing—theory is necessary and unavoidable when it comes to explaining and attempting to foresee the future of international relations. As noted, theory is unavoidable in that all scholars approach their subject matter from what have been variously termed different perspectives, paradigms, metatheoretical constructs, or images. Theory is also necessary in that it tells us what to focus on and what to ignore in making sense of the world around us. Without theory, we would be overwhelmed and immobilized by an avalanche of mere facts. The sense we make of what we observe is informed by the perspectives and theories that we hold.
A theory, therefore, is an intellectual construct that helps one to select facts and interpret them in such a way as to facilitate explanation and prediction concerning regularities and recurrences or repetitions of observed phenomena. One can certainly think theoretically when it comes to explaining foreign policy processes in general or the foreign policy of a particular state. But international relations theorists tend to be interested in patterns of behavior among various international actors. In identifying patterns, the stage is set for making modest predictions about the possible nature and direction of change. To think theoretically, however, is not to engage in point predictions—"A will attack B the first week of the year"—however much foreign policy, national security, and intelligence analysts may aspire to such precision.3
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To think theoretically is to be interested in central tendencies. As James Rosenau notes in the article that follows this chapter, the theorist views each event as an instance of a more encompassing class or pattern of phenomena. Fitting pieces into a larger whole makes theory building analogous to puzzle solving. In fact, for many theorists, the goal is not merely explanation of patterns of behavior, but explanations of patterns that at first glance seem counterintuitive or different from what one might expect.
Furthermore, the best theories are progressive—meaning they lead researchers to ask new and interesting questions—and are also parsimonious—explaining a great deal of behavior through the use of a relatively few concepts with relations among them clearly specified. By contrast, theories that lack this parsimony contain too many factors—quickly becoming as or more complex than the reality they purport to explain.
War continues to be a topic of considerable concern among international relations theorists using a wide variety of methodological approaches to developing better causal theory. War poses a substantial puzzle to theorists. The phenomenon persists even though wars are extremely costly in terms of lives and treasure lost. It may be that in the minds of decisionmakers, the expected benefit of going to war still outweighs expected costs in particular cases. Quincy Wright's A Study of War and Lewis Richardson's Statistics of Deadly Quarrels were pioneering efforts at trying to solve this puzzle. Kenneth Waltz's Man, the State and War examined causes in the context of three levels of analysis. Since the 1960s, J. David Singer and others sharing his preference for formal hypothesis testing through the use of statistical methods have been engaged extensively in studying the phenomenon of war. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's The War Trap and Michael Doyle's Ways of War and Peace are examples of continuing efforts to gain better understanding of war by building better theory.4
One view is that the underlying cause of war is the absence of any world government or central authority vested with the capability to enforce rules, settle disputes, and maintain peace among states. It is this anarchy or lack of common government that poses no obstacle and thus permits war to occur. As such, anarchy is the permissive cause of war.5 Misperception may be the immediate or direct cause of a given war. Or, by contrast, war may break out not so much as the result of misperception or misunderstanding but because of the hardheaded, rational calculation that the benefits of going to war appear to outweigh the costs.
Theory in a stronger or more formal sense will go beyond proposing the cause of war in such broad terms and will insist that the relations among variables be clearly specified and weighted with the precision one finds in an algebraic equation or set of related equations.6 Such fully developed theory is not common in the social sciences, which are often said to be at a lesser level of progress than are the natural sciences.
General theories that would provide a complete account of the causes of war are less common than partial, or middle-range, theories that are more modest in the scope of what is to be explained or predicted. Part of the war puzzle addressed by such middle-range theorists, for example, involves crises and decision making in crises. Are partial theories about such things as crisis decision making like building blocks that can at some future date be assembled into a fully developed, general theory of war? Some theorists would say yes and that the most productive enterprise for the present is the devel-
opment of better middle-range theories. Not everyone would agree; some would argue that formulating general theory comes first, with partial theories being deduced or flowing from it.
The world of theory is an abstract one. Theories may exist apart from facts. Mathematical theorists, for example, deal entirely in the realm of abstraction, whether or not their work has direct relevance to problems of the world in which we live. Practical application for the work of mathematical theorists is sometimes found years later, if ever. Empirical theories in the social or natural sciences, by contrast, relate to facts and provide explanation or prediction for observed phenomena. Hypotheses associated with these theories are subject to test against real-world data or facts. The theorist need not have any purpose in developing such empirical theories other than satisfying his or her intellectual curiosity, although many will seek to make their work "policy relevant."7
Policy-relevant theories may have explicit purposes that stem from the value preferences of the theorist, such as reducing the likelihood of war or curbing the arms race. Acting on such theories, of course, is the domain of the policymaker, a task separate from that of the empirical theorist. Theorists who become policymakers may well make choices informed by what theories say will be the likely outcomes of implementing one or another alternative. Their choices may be informed by empirical theory or understanding of world events, but the decisions they make are still based on value preferences.
Normative theory deals precisely with values and value preferences. Unlike empirical theory, however, propositions in normative theory are not subject to empirical test as a means of establishing their truth or falsehood. Normative theory deals not with what is, the domain of empirical theory. Rather, normative theory deals explicitly with what ought to be—the way the world should be ordered and the value choices decisionmakers should make. Although the bulk of the effort in this volume is allocated to empirical theory within the context of separate images of world politics, we consider normative theory to be an important and policy-relevant, if often neglected, enterprise. Chapter 5 deals explicitly with normative theories relevant to international relations and foreign policy choices. We also identify normative preferences often associated with the three images of international relations theory that are at the core of our effort.
ALTERNATIVE IMAGES
This section provides an overview of the two most striking or immediately apparent distinctions among the three images of international relations under consideration: (1) the key actors, or units, and (2) the assumptions made about them. In the succeeding chapters, we go well beyond this brief examination of actors and underlying assumptions. The discussion of realism, for example, focuses on the concepts of power and the balance of power, the chapter on pluralism emphasizes decision making and transna-tionalism, and the treatment of globalism stresses the concept of dependency in a world capitalist context. We also discuss the intellectual precursors of these images and philosophical and conceptual issues such as determinism, voluntarism, system, and system change. Although normative assumptions and implications of the three images are
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treated explicitly in Chapter 5, they are also woven throughout the discussion in earlier chapters.
We begin this introductory overview with a discussion of realism. As will become apparent, proponents of the other two perspectives have to a certain degree been forced to come to terms with this long-established tradition. Indeed, many of their arguments are addressed directly to the strengths and weaknesses of work by realists.
Realism—Major Actors and Assumptions
Realism is based on four key assumptions. First, states are the principal or most important actors. States represent the key unit of analysis, whether one is dealing with ancient Greek city-states or modern nation-states. The study of international relations is the study of relations among these units. Realists who use the concept of system defined in terms of interrelated parts usually refer to an international system of states. What of nonstate actors? International organizations such as the United Nations may aspire to the status of independent actor, but from the realist perspective, this aspiration has not in fact been achieved to any significant degree. Multinational corporations, terrorist groups, and other transnational and international organizations are frequently acknowledged by realists, but the position of these nonstate actors is always one of lesser importance. States are the dominant actors.
Second, the state is viewed as a unitary actor. For purposes of analysis, realists view the state as being encapsulated by a metaphorical hard shell. A country faces the outside world as an integrated unit. A common assumption associated with realist thought is that political differences within the state are ultimately resolved authoritatively such that the government of the state speaks with one voice for the state as a whole. The state is a unitary actor in that it is usually assumed by realists to have one policy at any given time on any particular issue. To be sure, exceptions occur from time to time, but to the realists, these are exceptions that demonstrate the rule and that actually support the general notion of the state as an integrated, unitary actor.
Even in those exceptional cases in which, for example, a foreign ministry expresses policies different from policy statements of the same country's defense ministry, corrective action is taken in an attempt to bring these alternative views to a common and authoritative statement of policy. "End running" of state authorities by bureaucratic and nongovernmental, domestic, and transnational actors is also possible, but it occurs unchecked by state authorities in only those issues in which the stakes are low. From the realist perspective, if the issues are important enough, higher authorities will intervene to preclude bureaucratic end running or action by nongovernmental actors that are contrary to centrally directed policy.
Third, given this emphasis on the unitary state-as-actor, realists usually make the further assumption that the state is essentially a rational actor. A rational foreign policy decision-making process would include a statement of objectives, consideration of all feasible alternatives in terms of existing capabilities available to the state, the relative likelihood of attaining these objectives by the various alternatives under consideration, and the benefits or costs associated with each alternative. Following this rational process, governmental decisionmakers evaluate each alternative, selecting the one that
maximizes utility (maximizing benefit or minimizing cost associated with attaining the objectives sought). The result is a rank ordering of preferences.
As a practical matter, the realist is aware of the difficulties in viewing the state as a rational actor. Governmental decisionmakers may not have all the factual information or knowledge of cause and effect they need to make value-maximizing decisions. The process may well be clouded by considerable uncertainty as decisionmakers grope for the best solution. They also have to deal with the problem of human bias and mis-perception that may lead them astray. In any event, the choice made—if not always the best or value-maximizing choice in fact—is at least perceived to be a satisfactory one. It is a satisficing or suboptimal choice—less than a value-maximizing choice, but still good enough in terms of the objectives sought. The assumption of the unitary, rational actor is particularly important in game theory and many works on deterrence theory.
Fourth, realists assume that within the hierarchy of international issues, national security usually tops the list. Military and related political issues dominate world politics. A realist focuses on actual or potential conflict between state actors and the use of force, examining how international stability is attained or maintained, how it breaks down, the utility of force as a means to resolve disputes, and the prevention of the violation of territorial integrity. Power, therefore, is a key concept. To the realist, military security or strategic issues are sometimes referred to as high politics, whereas economic and social issues are viewed as less important or low politics. Indeed, the former is often understood to dominate or set the environment within which the latter occurs.
Pluralism—Major Actors and Assumptions
The pluralist image (often referred to as liberalism or as a liberal construct) consists of a different set of assumptions. First, nonstate actors are important entities in international relations that cannot be ignored. International organizations, for example, can be independent actors in their own right. The organization's own decisionmakers, bureaucrats, and other associated groups have considerable influence in areas such as agenda setting—determining which issues are most important politically. International organizations are more than simply arenas within which sovereign states compete. Organizational power and autonomy are neither absolute nor nonexistent but something in between, varying from organization to organization. Similarly, other nongovernmental actors, such as environmental organizations and multinational corporations (MNCs), cannot be dismissed as being of merely marginal importance, given an increasingly interdependent world economy. Indeed, in some cases, they are even capable of circumventing the authority of the state.
Second, for the pluralist, the state is not a unitary actor. Indeed, the realist view of the state as unitary actor is an abstraction that masks the essence of politics that is found principally within the state. The state is not some reified entity—an abstraction to be treated as if it were a physical being that acts with single-minded determination, always in a coherent manner. It is, rather, composed of individual bureaucracies, interest groups, and individuals that attempt to formulate or influence foreign policy. Competition, coalition building, conflict, and compromise among these actors are the stuff of politics. To speak of "the foreign policy" of the United Kingdom or the United
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States, for example, is really to speak of a number of foreign policy decisions determined by competition among a number of actors. Foreign policy preferences, therefore, are not set in stone. Pluralists disaggregate the state—break it into its component parts. They reject the notion of the state as an integrated entity, impermeable to outside forces. Both governmental and nongovernmental actors pass through this soft outer shell, sometimes taking actions with policy implications contrary to preferences of central state authorities. These are not just exceptional cases from the pluralist perspective. In fact, focusing on the state as if it were a unitary actor again misses the essence of politics. This is not only in terms of interactions within the state; equally important, it is the transnational dimension of state and nonstate actors that operates across national borders. The pluralist image thus offers greater complexity than the relatively simpler image of states as unitary actors interacting with one another.
Third, pluralists challenge the utility of the realist assumption of the state as rational actor. This follows logically from the pluralist image of the disaggregated state in which the foreign policy decision-making process is the result of clashes, bargaining, and compromise between and among different actors. In some cases, a particular policy may be suggested in order to enhance the bureaucratic power, prestige, and standing of one organization at the expense of others. Although this may seem rational from the perspective of an individual bureaucracy, it can lead to poor, if not disastrous, foreign policies. The pursuit of individual, value-maximizing strategies at the organization level can lead to collective disaster at the nation-state level. Moreover, the decisionmaking process is typically one of coalition and countercoalition building, bargaining, and compromising that may not yield a best or optimal decision. Attempting to establish a consensus or at least a minimum winning coalition is a process far different in kind from the earlier simple description of what is usually meant by the term rational. Misperception on the part of decisionmakers as a result of incomplete information, bias, stress, and uncertainty about cause and effect is also a key focus of attention for some pluralist scholars. All such factors undercut the idea of a rational decision-making process.
Finally, for the pluralist, the agenda of international politics is extensive. The pluralist rejects the notion that the agenda of international politics is dominated primarily by military-security issues. Foreign affairs agendas have expanded and diversified over recent decades such that economic and social issues are often at the forefront of foreign policy debates. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, himself a realist, noted as far back as 1975 that
progress in dealing with the traditional agenda is no longer enough. A new and unprecedented kind of issue has emerged. The problems of energy, resources, environment, pollution, the uses of space and the seas now rank with questions of military security, ideology, and territorial rivalry which have traditionally made up the diplomatic agenda.8
Not surprisingly, such a statement was made at a time of detente, or relatively relaxed tensions, between East and West. It may be that as international tensions decrease, economic and social, or welfare, issues tend to come to the forefront of international debate.
Globalism—Major Actors and Assumptions
Globalism, as we use the term, is a third perspective, fundamentally different from both the realist and the pluralist images. In the 1970s, debate within the international relations discipline tended to focus on the realists and pluralists. Only recently has attention been paid to the globalist perspective. Globalists typically assume that the starting point of analysis for international relations is the global context within which states and other entities interact. Globalists emphasize the overall structure of the international system or, more colloquially, the "big picture." To explain behavior, one must first grasp the essence of the global environment within which such behavior takes place. This is a dominant theme within the globalist image, although some realists and pluralists also share this perspective. To understand the external behavior of states requires more than merely examining factors internal to a state. One must first grasp how the structure of the system conditions and predisposes certain actors to act in certain ways.
Second, globalists assume that it is not only useful but also imperative to view international relations from a historical perspective. It is only through an examination of history that one can understand the current environment within which world politics takes place. For many globalists, Marxists as well as non-Marxists, the defining characteristic of the international system is that it is capitalist. This requires the study of the rise of capitalism as it emerged in sixteenth-century Western Europe, its development, changes, and expansion to the point at which today we can speak of a world capitalist system that conditions and constrains the behavior of all states and societies. Some states and societies benefit from this capitalist system; others do not. Furthermore, the evolution of the world capitalist system supposedly accounts for the creation of states, not just their behavior. While realists and many pluralists tend to see states as a given, utilizing them as independent variables, some globalists view states as dependent variables—that which is to be explained.
Third, although globalists recognize the importance of states-as-actors, international organizations, and transnational actors and coalitions, the particular focus of their analysis is on how these and other factors act as mechanisms of domination by which some states, classes, or elites manage to benefit from this capitalist system at the expense of others. More specifically, globalists are typically concerned with the development and maintenance of dependency relations among northern, industrialized states (in North America, Europe, Japan) and the poor, underdeveloped, or industrially backward Third World or less developed countries (LDCs) of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The basic argument is that these latter states and societies are underdeveloped not because they have failed to develop capitalist economic systems or because they are poorly integrated into the world capitalist system. On the contrary, it is not a matter of too little capitalism but of too much. Far from being placed outside the mainstream of the world capitalist system, LDCs have become an integral part of it. The structure of the global political economy has developed in such a manner—intentionally and unintentionally—as to keep the Third World countries underdeveloped and dependent on the rich northern states. The LDCs play a crucial role in the economic well-being of the United States and other advanced industrial countries by providing cheap labor, raw
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materials necessary to fuel the American economy, and markets for American manufactured goods. As part of the world capitalist system, LDCs cannot choose their own path toward economic and political development. Autonomous development in these circumstances is not possible.
Finally, as should now be apparent, globalists emphasize to a greater extent than either realists or pluralists the critical importance of economic factors when it comes to explaining the dynamics of the international system. Realists, you will recall, subordinate economic factors to those of a political-military nature. Pluralists argue that this is an open question; they typically reject this high versus low politics dichotomy. Social and economic issues to pluralists are at least as important as the security concerns of the realists. Globalists, however, start with the assumption that economics is the key to understanding the creation, evolution, and functioning of the contemporary world
TABLE 1.1 Alternative Images of International Relations: Underlying Assumptions
Realism
Pluralism
Globalism
Analytic       1. State is the Unit(s) principal actor
View of Actor(s)
Behavioral Dynamic
Issues
2. State is unitary actor
State is rational actor seeking to maximize its own interest or national objectives in foreign policy
4. National security issues are most important
1. State and nonstate actors are important
2. State disaggregated into components, some of which may operate transnationally
Foreign policymaking and transnational processes involve conflict, bargaining, coalition, and compromise—not necessarily resulting in optimal outcomes
Multiple agenda with socioeconomic or welfare issues as, or more, important than national security questions
1. Classes, states and societies, and nonstate actors operate as part of world capitalist system
2. International relations viewed from historical perspective, especially the continuous development of world capitalism
3. Focus is on patterns of dominance within and among societies
4. Economic factors are most important
system. Although the pluralist and globalist would seem to share common ground because both place importance on economic and social questions, they differ fundamentally in the ways in which they deal with them. The more fragmented pluralist image of multiple actors bargaining, compromising, and building coalitions within and across national borders contrasts sharply with the structural image of the globalist. The globalist would tell a pluralist that the outcome of bargaining among various actors is in most cases predetermined if it involves a North-South issue. Such interactions take place within the context of an exploitative and dependent relation that works, at the most general level, to the benefit of maintaining the world capitalist system and, more specifically, to the benefit of particular groups or classes.
Images of International Relations: Some Qualifications
We find the threefold division of realism, pluralism, and globalism to be a useful way to view the diverse images on which many theoretical efforts are based in the field of international relations. We are the first to admit that this classification scheme also has its limitations. Accordingly, we offer several qualifications and clarifications.
First, each image should be viewed as an ideal or pure type in that each image emphasizes what a number of seemingly diverse theoretical approaches have in common.9 For example, there are substantial differences in the works of Kenneth Waltz, Stanley Hoffmann, and the late Hans J. Morgenthau, but all three scholars share core assumptions of the realist perspective. What unites them as international relations theorists is more important for our purposes than what divides them.
Second, the overview of key assumptions of each of the three perspectives might give the impression that the three images are mutually exclusive in all respects. This is not the case. Realists such as Robert Gilpin and Stephen Krasner are prominent contributors to work on international political economy. In underscoring the importance of economic factors in international relations, they differ from some other scholars who put relatively more emphasis on political-military factors. Gilpin, Krasner, and other theorists who share their orientation to the international political economy focus on the political determinants or influences on international economic relations. They ask such questions, for example, as how do changes in the distribution of power among states affect the degree of openness in the international trading system?
Such globalists as Immanuel Wallerstein also recognize the significance of the state in international relations but prefer to emphasize economic trends and class relations. Similarly, many interdependence theorists of pluralist orientation do not deny the importance of the state as a key international actor, but they prefer to examine non-state actors as well as transnational, socioeconomic factors that they see as having reduced the autonomy of the state-as-actor. Even if the three images are not mutually exclusive in every respect, and even if every observer of international relations can agree that sensitivity to alternative perspectives on world politics is commendable, the reader may want to keep in mind how difficult it is to combine three images with so very different underlying assumptions from which all subsequent analyses, hypotheses, and theories derive.
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Third, we readily confess that not all international relations specialists can be assigned conveniently to one particular image. Bruce Russett, for example, has written on dependency, the democratic peace, and conflict between states-as-actors—each subject associated, respectively, with globalist, pluralist, and realist images. Robert Jervis has bridged two camps in his pluralist examination of psychological factors in foreign policy decision making and in his realist focus on national security questions associated with deterrence, arms races, and how the anarchical international system provides the environment within which wars occur. Robert Keohane was a prominent contributor in the 1970s to pluralist works on transnationalism and interdependence that reflected a liberal understanding of a world politics composed of multiple kinds of both state and such nonstate actors as international organizations, corporations, bureaucracies, and even individuals and small groups. Interest by Keohane and others in how international regimes and associated institutions influence, and are influenced by, both competition and cooperation among states led them to adapt the realist analytical assumption of the rational, unitary state as the starting point for work referred to as neoliberal institutionalism. Neoliberals understand the continuing importance of nonstate actors but are not about to ignore states that continue to play a prominent and often decisive role.
Although we believe that the vast majority of writers within the international relations discipline tends to be associated with one of the three perspectives, notable exceptions do not, in our estimation, undermine the utility of the tripartite division of the field that we employ in this volume. We acknowledge a certain amount of conceptual eclecticism by scholars in the study of international relations, perhaps reflecting the absence of a single, dominant perspective. For some, conceptual diversity is to be applauded; for others, it is a source of despair. Be that as it may, our focus is primarily on ideas, trends, and generalized images of international relations and only secondarily on the work of particular authors. Indeed, our references to work in the international relations field are meant to be representative of the images we discuss, not encyclopedic in scope. Just as it is hoped that the reader will come to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three perspectives, so too do many specialists in the field weigh the relative utility of these alternative images in generating insights helpful in answering particular theoretical questions they may be asking.10 Moreover, it is not surprising to find a certain amount of conceptual eclecticism in the work of a number of theorists whose interests have changed over the years."
Fourth, the images tend to focus more on what is studied than on how to conduct such studies. A central argument we make is that quantitative and nonquantitative approaches to the study of international politics are methods that transcend the three images we have identified. Statistical methods, formal hypothesis testing, and causal modeling find their adherents within each of the perspectives, as do the more traditional, nonquantitative, historical, philosophical, legal, case study, and comparative case study methods. Our point remains that these are methods, not images of international relations or world politics. Images may influence the choice of methods, but images and methods are not one and the same.
Although it has been the subject of endless debates and much bloodletting in academic circles, the behavioralist—traditionalist (or the "science"—traditionalist)
dichotomy is not particularly useful for our purposes. One can argue over the relative merits of particular methods for answering political questions, but a more fundamental concern is the conceptual framework within which those methods are used. Are these methods informed by realist, pluralist, or globalist images of international politics, and how useful are these alternative images by which we order or make some sense of what we observe?12
Efforts to predict global futures through complex modeling, for example, reflect one or another of the three images we identify.13 An image of international or world politics influences the selection of units or processes examined and variables identified and operationalized. Thus, for realists, states and state interactions are of key importance; for pluralists, transnational interactions to include communications flows across national borders may well be the central focus; and for globalists, patterns of class or North-South relations of dominance or dependence are perhaps most important.
Similarly, methods associated with the literature on decision-making and public choice theory—economic models applied to political decision making—transcend the three world images we identify.14 Assumptions made about actors and processes are informed by realist, pluralist, and globalist images and color the use a particular method is given. Thus, public or collective goods theory, game theory, econometrics, and other approaches identified with the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of political economy find their adherents among scholars holding diverse images and thus are not the exclusive preserve of realists, pluralists, or globalists.
Finally, we wish to state explicitly that the three images we identify are not theories of international relations.15 Rather, they represent general perspectives on international relations out of which particular theories may develop. Assumptions of an image may become part of a theory (such as the realist assumptions of a unified, rational, state-as-actor in some realist works), but more often than not, they simply help to orient a scholar's research by highlighting certain units of analysis for investigation in the construction of a theory and help to determine what constitutes evidence in the testing of hypotheses.
THE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
It is necessary to address further the question every scholar of international relations must first ask no matter what image or perspective one holds: Where should one focus one's research efforts? Let us assume that we are rather ambitious and wish to explain the causes of war between states. Does one deal with individual decisionmakers or small groups of individuals engaged in the policy process? How important, for example, are such factors as the correctness of individual perceptions or bargaining skill in determining the decision to go to war? On the other hand, if one looks outside the individual or small decision-making group to the entire state apparatus, society as a whole, or the international political system of states, one is acknowledging the importance of external or environmental factors as well.
Work by Kenneth N. Waltz in the 1950s on the causes of war represented a path-breaking effort due to his identification of distinct levels of analysis and his attempt to
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The Levels of Analysis
15
specify the relations among these levels16 (an excerpt is provided in one of the readings that follows in Chapter 2). Was the cause of war to be found in the nature of individuals? (Are humans innately aggressive?) Or in the nature of states and societies? (Are some types of states more aggressive than others?) Or in the nature of the international system of states? Each answer reflects a different level of analysis—individual, state and society, or international (see Figure 1.1). Waltz's conclusion was that the permissive cause of war is the condition of anarchy in the international political system of states, whereas the efficient causes of any given war can be found as well at the other levels of analysis (individual or state and societal levels). Whether or not one agrees with his conclusion, the important point is that his analysis of the problem of war was at different levels. In 1961, the importance of the question of levels of analysis to the study of international relations was further discussed in detail in an often-cited article by J. David Singer. Singer argued that one's choice of a particular level of analysis determines what one will and will not see. Different levels tend to emphasize different actors and processes.17
For example, it is quite common for the levels of analysis to include (1) the international system (distribution of power among states, geography, technology, and other factors); (2) the state (often treated as a unified actor) and society (democratic, authoritarian, etc.); (3) groups as in bureaucratic politics; (4) individuals as in psychology and individuals in the context of the groups of which they are a part as in social psychology. It is also quite typical for these various levels to be used to explain the foreign policy behavior of states—the dependent variable. The state, in other words, is often the unit of analysis, and explaining its behavior could entail taking into account factors at all of these levels of analysis.
But which level of analysis, one may ask, is most important? To take a specific example, let us assume that the foreign policies of most states exhibit relative constancy, or slowness to change. How is this constancy to be explained? Some scholars
International System		
	State and Society	
	1        Individual i	
		
FIGURE 1.1   Levels of Analysis
point to external factors such as the balance of power among states that is relatively slow to change in any major way. Others emphasize relatively constant factors within the state—the same decisionmakers or decision-making processes, with incremental or small changes being the rule.
Another example: How are arms races explained? Some scholars point to international factors such as the military expenditures and hostility of other states that lead to an increase in the production of weapons. Other researchers emphasize the importance of domestic factors such as bureaucratic competition between branches of the military services and budgetary processes that encourage a steady increase in expenditures.18
The easy answer to the question of which level of analysis should be emphasized is that all levels of analysis should be considered. Such a response is not particularly useful because it suggests that we have to study everything under the sun. Few scholars would even attempt such a task,19 and the resulting theory would hardly be parsimonious. Hence, a great deal of the literature on international relations is constantly posing the questions of what should be examined within each level of analysis, and how actors, structures, and variables relate to one another across levels of analysis and over time.
This issue of levels of analysis also subtly pervades the three images. What have been termed neorealists, for example, note how the overall structure of the international system influences the behavior of states or the perception of decisionmakers. Hence, neorealist analysis emphasizes the systems level. Similarly, certain globalists, as we have noted, examine how the historical development of the capitalist world economy generates state actors. Despite their differences, both neorealists and world-system theorists emphasize the systems level. Those authors associated with the pluralist image, however, who examine bureaucracies, interest groups, and individuals tend to emphasize the state-societal and individual levels of analysis. Some pluralists, however, are also interested in how the development and spread of international norms influence state behavior—a system-level focus.
There is a final important issue that should be mentioned in conjunction with the levels of analysis but that goes well beyond the latter as it raises basic philosophy-of-science questions concerning the so-called agent-structure problem. As summarized by one author, the problem
emerges from two uncontentious truths about social life: first, that human agency is the only moving force behind the actions, events, and outcomes of the social world; and second, that human agency can be realized only in concrete historical circumstances that condition the possibilities for action and influence its course. "People make history," observed Marx in an often-quoted aphorism, "but not in conditions of their own choosing." These truths impose two demands on our scientific explanations: first, that they acknowledge and account for the powers of agents; and second, that they recognize the causal relevance of "structural factors," that is, the conditions of action. The "agent-structure problem" refers to the difficulties of developing theory that successfully meets both demands.20
This problem is usually viewed as a matter of ontology, the branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature of being. In this case, the ontological issue deals with the nature
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of both agents (very often viewed as the state) and structures (as in the international system), and relations between them. As we will see in the following chapters, a constant theme is how authors deal with the relative importance of human agents and "structural factors," or what we call the issue of voluntarism and determinism. Very often unstated, one's position on this issue heavily influences how one goes about explaining international politics as well as assessing the possibilities and means of peaceful change.
SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING Positivism
All three images discussed in this book essentially reflect a positivist approach to understanding international relations. Positivism involves a commitment to a unified view of science, meaning a belief that it is possible to adopt the methodologies of the natural sciences to explain the social world, which includes international relations. Positivists believe that objective knowledge of the world is possible and, hence, have a faith and commitment to the Enlightenment's rationalist tradition. The so-called great debates of the international relations discipline—realism versus idealism and traditionalism versus behavioralism—have given way to debates on epistemology—how one knows or acquires knowledge. Accordingly, we undertake here a discussion of these epistemo-logical issues, including the vigorous critiques of mainstream international relations theorizing by postpositivists, critical theorists, and postmodernists.
Positivism has been under assault for its attempts to separate facts from values, to define and operationalize concepts into precisely and accurately measurable variables, and to test truth claims in the form of hypotheses drawn from theories. Whether using quantitative or statistical methods or such nonquantitative (or "qualitative") methods as case and comparative-case studies, those who have tried to be scientific have been criticized for ignoring or taking insufficient account of the personal or human dimension of scholarship. What we observe in either the natural or the social sciences is heavily influenced by the interpretive understanding we have of the concepts we employ, not to mention causal relations we infer when we specify the relations among variables, theories, hypotheses, and the observed behavior of states and nonstate actors in the political and social milieu in which they are immersed.
It was the Scottish writer David Hume (1711-1776) who objected to causal inferences drawn too readily. A skeptic at heart, Hume recognized that causality is itself not directly observable but merely a construct used by human beings to make what they observe around them understandable or even predictable. To Hume, causality is no more than an inference human beings draw from the conjunction of impressions about the things we observe. For example, when we perceive that some factor or event (X) precedes another (Y), our minds may be prone to think that X is the cause of Y. Consistent with Hume and also influenced by the positivism of the French philosopher, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) developed formal canons of induction that would allow both natural and social scientists to arrive at causal truth
claims by applying systematically one or another of five specified tests or methods to observed phenomena.21
The empiricism of these earlier writers was adopted by scholars in the "Vienna circle" of the 1930s who developed a somewhat extreme scientific form called logical positivism—the pursuit of a pure science that would separate fact from value and achieve the precision of mathematics. Among members of the Vienna circle were such luminaries as Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, and Rudolf Carnap. They were also influenced by the earlier work of their contemporary, Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose Tracta-tus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) related the thought and ideas we have to the words we use, focusing on the necessary logic and precision of language applied to observations about the world. Following Wittgenstein, the Vienna circle and its followers would seek both logical precision and clarity in scientific language.
In the post-World War II period, a broad, somewhat watered-down application of positivist premises to the social sciences—an approach that also included incorporation of statistical methodologies and the use of mathematical equations to specify causal relations among variables—resulted in a highly critical reaction to this "modernist" epistemology. Taking various critiques into account, refinement of positivist epistemology continued during the 1950s and 1960s.
Carl Hempel, for example, set forth a deductive-nomological schema for scientific explanation. He referred to "laws invoked in a scientific explanation" as covering laws. Thus, what is to be explained—the explanandum—is preceded by certain explanatory sentences—an explanans that "consists of general laws" and "other statements" concerning "particular facts."22 Hempel applied this formalized deductive approach in the formulation of both universal and probabilistic law-like statements.
In the mid-1930s, Karl Popper had addressed empirical tests of hypotheses drawn from theories. To "prove" empirically that a certain hypothesis or universal proposition is true is virtually impossible since to do so in an absolute sense would mean submitting it to an infinite number of tests in space and time. Popper argued that to be scientific, claims or propositions have to be stated in falsifiable form. Falsifiabil-ity means simply that if a proposition is false, it must be possible empirically to show that it is false. To Popper, scientific propositions must be falsifiable. With varying degrees of confidence based on logical consistency and available evidence, one can accept a falsifiable proposition at least until, by experiment or other scientific means, one shows it to be false.23
One example in the study of international relations of a positivist social science at work is the effort of Kenneth Waltz to offer a more formal theory of international politics. To Waltz, "theories explain laws."24 Waltz identifies a power-based structure of the international system that purportedly explains the behavior of states as the system's principal actors. Having stated "the theory being tested," one proceeds to
infer hypotheses from it; subject the hypotheses to experimental or observational tests;. .. use the definitions of terms found in the theory being tested; eliminate or control perturbing variables not included in the theory under test; devise a number of distinct and demanding tests; if a test is not passed, ask whether the theory flunks completely, needs repair and restatement, or requires a narrowing of the scope of its explanatory claims.25
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The positivism Waltz owes to Popper is clear in the last comment that underscores the importance of falsifiability in the testing of theories and hypotheses drawn therefrom.26
Interpretive Understanding, Critical Theory, and a Postmodernist Critique of International Relations Theory
If the central question of epistemology is how we know what we think we know, critical and postmodernist theorists set aside the abstract universalist claims of logical posi-tivists, focusing instead on the human perception and understandings that give diverse meanings to the concepts and theories we formulate and the behavior we observe.
That facts, concepts, and theories may not be separated from values stems from their observation and construction by human agency. To post-modernists, what we see, what we choose to see or measure, and the mechanisms or methods we employ are all of human construction that essentially rely on perception and cognitive processes influenced as well by prior understandings and meanings. Even the language we use constitutes an embedded set of values that are an integral part of any culture.
Thomas S. Kuhn's effort in his identification of "scientific revolutions" focused on the natural sciences,27 but it has perhaps had even greater impact on understanding in the social sciences. Arguing that paradigms, or frameworks of understanding, influence the way we observe and make sense of the world around us, Kuhn was criticized for his alleged relativism—a direct challenge to the positivist school. To some of his opponents, knowledge was understood to be empirically grounded and not so arbitrary as to be based on such preexisting or newly discovered frameworks of understanding. To be fair, Kuhn did not reject empirically based claims as such. He argued only that when theories and component concepts associated with a particular paradigm are challenged empirically or theoretically, holders of this paradigm may be forced through some modification to accommodate the new finding or insight or give way to a new paradigm.
Thus, the Ptolomeic idea of Earth as center of the universe—an understanding also closely tied to and reinforcing certain underlying religious beliefs—was toppled by the Copernican revolution in human understanding of the heavens, a paradigm shift developed further from the empirical observations of Galileo. A highly complex, Earth-central, Ptolomeic astronomy (still used in celestial navigation) was replaced by a vision that portrayed Earth as merely one among a number of planets revolving around the Sun— the solar system. Similarly, it was Einstein's theory of relativity that challenged the Newtonian understanding of gravity and the laws of motion, effectively reducing Newtonian mechanics to Earth-based, observable laws not as directly applicable either to the macrouniversal domain of astrophysics or to the microdomain concerning motion of subatomic particles in quantum mechanics. Of course, even these new paradigms are subject to challenge in an eternally skeptical, scientific approach to knowledge.
There is substantial debate within the social sciences generally, and in particular fields such as international relations, as to whether these fields are developed sufficiently to justify identification of paradigms. Setting this issue aside, the important point in Kuhn's thesis is that knowledge, even in the natural sciences, is grounded in human understanding in the form of paradigms that influence observation and the
construction of concepts and theories. At least as much or even more so, such interpretive understanding or agreed meaning would seem to apply to the social sciences that deal with human behavior in all its forms.
Hermeneutics is a linguistic study of the meanings human beings hold that contribute to, and flow from, the languages they construct and use. Emphasis in hermeneutics is on how we interpret or draw meaning. In Wittgenstein's later work, he became critical of earlier claims in his highly formal Tractatus, which is mentioned in the discussion above for its influence on the Vienna circle. Indeed, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1953) paint a picture more prone to coping with ambiguities that come from the context of language use.28
Both Weber (for his concept of Verstehen, or interpretive understanding) and the later Wittgenstein are among those figures whose ideas have influenced formation of epistemological challenges to modernist, scientific thought. These challenges have come from more recent critical and postmodernist theorists—Jürgen Habermas and his associates in what is commonly referred to as the Frankfurt school of critical theory and, separately, postmodernist French scholars Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and others. In the extreme, a few postmodernists deny the possibility of any empirically based truth claims, thus underscoring their total rejection of positivism.
Some critical theorists argue that beliefs held by theorists necessarily bias their truth claims and may well be part of global ideological schemes to legitimate particular world orders. In supporting an alleged agenda of domination, it may be convenient to advance ideologies often masquerading as scientifically based theories. One of the tasks of critical theorists is to unmask such deceptions, probe for deeper understandings or meanings, and expose the class or other interests these ideologies or alleged theories are designed to serve. Power is a core concept for critical theorists.
The present-day Frankfurt school is in some respects an outgrowth of the critical work of an earlier generation within this "school" of thought that included Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse. Indeed, the development of critical theory has included rather diverse philosophical influences: escaping from ideological constraints, as in the revolutionary spirit of Rousseau; searching for universal moral principles with the universality of application found in Kant; identifying the oppression of class or other socioeconomic structures observed by Marx; understanding the role of human psychologies in relationships of dominance, drawn from the work of Freud; and rejecting determinism in favor of a more Gramsci-style Marxism that adopts a normative, but practical, approach to challenging and overthrowing structures of domination.
One example of criticism applied to a positivist understanding of international relations is Richard Ashley's comment on Waltz's structural explanation summarized in the previous section. Although we are not classifying Ashley as a critical theorist, the influence of critical theory in the following passage is apparent. Referring to Waltz and the "poverty of neorealism," Ashley asserts:
What emerges is a positivist structuralism that treats the given order as the natural order, limits rather than expands political discourse, negates or trivializes the significance of variety across time and place, subordinates all practice to an interest in control, bows to the ideal of a social power beyond responsibility, and thereby deprives political interaction of those
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Summation
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practical capacities which make social learning and creative change possible. What emerges is an ideology that anticipates, legitimizes, and orients a totalitarian project of global proportions: the rationalization of global politics.29
Critical theory maybe viewed separately from postmodernism since most critical theorists retain strict methodological criteria to guide their work. Nevertheless, some critical theory does overlap with, or can be understood more broadly, as part of a postmodernist understanding. In this regard, postmodernist ontology30 is prone to find the subtexts and to deconstruct—unpack and take apart—the meanings embedded in what we say or write and even in the ways we act. Human beings are essentially subjective creatures; to postmodernists, claims made to empirically based, objective truth are necessarily hollow. Our understandings and meanings are, after all, humanly constructed. In the extreme, no knowledge or truth is possible apart from the motivations and purposes people put into their construction. From this perspective, truth is entirely relative.
These are, to say the least, significant challenges to "modernist" science more generally and to international relations theory in particular. It is difficult, however, so quickly to deny or dismiss scientific methodologies that have produced so much accumulated knowledge in so many diverse fields of human inquiry. Defenders of positivism see critical and postmodernist thinkers as misrepresenting science which, after all, retains an inherently skeptical orientation to truth claims and demands continued and unending empirical tests of such propositions. Just as it has historically accommodated empirical, theoretical, and philosophical critiques by modifying its methods and understandings, science remains open to critical, postmodernist, and other challenges.
What critical and postmodernist perspectives do contribute to theorizing in international relations is an ever-increased epistemological sensitivity to, and caution concerning, the fragility of what we think to be true. Normative theory may well influence the interpretive understanding that leads us to formulate the concepts we adopt.31
Interpretive understanding thus has its place in international relations theorizing—an enterprise captured by realist, pluralist, and globalist images specified in this volume and in the ongoing search for new syntheses in human understandings of the political world that will take us beyond these categories.
Feminism and International Relations Theory
Although some feminists are critical theorists or postmodernists, others remain posi-tivists. Accordingly, we place feminism as another, separate critique of conventional international relations theory that offers an alternative perspective and starting point for both theory and practice.
Feminist understandings have had and likely will continue to have substantial impact on a global scale concerning human rights to equal treatment and the empowerment of women, allowing them the same opportunities that traditionally and historically have been reserved in most cultures to men. Some feminists note that empowering women will also give them the means to limit family size voluntarily, thus reducing population growth rates to economically sustainable levels. Women are also
seen by many feminists as more prone to constructive, peaceful approaches to the many conflictual issues on the global agenda. They are underrepresented in these efforts.
At the risk of pushing gender stereotypes too far, we can summarize a feminist perspective in international relations32 theory as being more prone to see human beings coming together constructively and collaboratively in various organizational forms. Human relationships matter. Rather than adopt a cold, abstract analysis of the interaction of states and nonstate actors as, for example, structural- or neorealists often do, the feminist perspective underscores the constructivist potential of people. Multilateral rather than unilateral or hegemonic models enhance this human potential for building peaceful relationships and positive, interdependent linkages across national borders. Pluralist liberal institutionalism and regime construction are consistent with this perspective.
It is not as if men are incapable of such thoughts or that women cannot be hard-headed realists or any more or less aggressive than men. Indeed, it may be that many women have adopted what some feminist theorists have labeled "masculine" understandings, perhaps in order to be taken seriously in a male-dominated world that extends to academic communities.
Advocates of the feminist perspective in international relations theory, however, identify a feminist perspective not tied by gender to particular individuals, but rather generally associated with women across cultures due to both genetic and environmental factors. Although not all would agree, a few point to traditional family and community-building roles that women have historically played as informing the feminist perspective. Having said that, however, feminist perspectives are not in any way restricted to women. Indeed, many men engaged in theorizing are quite capable of (and often have adopted) what are labeled feminist perspectives.
SUMMATION
For the realist, states are the principal or most important actors on the international political stage and represent the key unit of analysis. States are viewed as unitary actors that behave in a generally rational manner. National security issues dominate the hierarchy of the international agenda. For the pluralist, by contrast, nonstate actors are also important entities. The state is disaggregated into its component parts and is continually subjected to outside elements, including state as well as nonstate actors. The hierarchy of world issues is also subject to change and is not always dominated by matters of military security. For the globalist, all actors must be viewed within the context of an overarching global structure. The defining characteristic of this structure is its capitalist nature; it must be viewed in a historical context with a particular emphasis on the role of dominant classes that transcend the particular confines of any one state. To understand the mechanisms of dependency whereby rich, industrialized states maintain poor LDCs in a subordinate position within this world capitalist system requires an appreciation of the paramount role played by economic factors.
We now turn to a more comprehensive discussion of the three images of international relations, giving in subsequent chapters summaries of major actors and