Chapter 3 Revision Guide

  • Structural realists (sometime also called neorealists) believe that power is the currency of international politics. 
  • Power as understood by structural realists is based on the material capabilities that a state controls.  States compete for power and do all they can to shift the balance of power in their favour.
  • Whereas classical realists believe that a will to power (and consequential conflict) is hardwired into human nature, structural realists believe it is the architecture of the international system (i.e. the anarchic order of the international system) that forces states to pursue power politics.
  • Structural realism is based on five assumptions about the international system:
    1. Great powers are the main actors and they operate in an anarchic international system.  By anarchy realists do not mean ‘chaos’ but simply the absence of a centralized authority which can command state actors to follow rules and principles.
    2. All states possess offensive military capability – this varies over time.
    3. States can never be certain about other states’ intentions.  A defensive military doctrine espoused by one state can look like offensive threat to another. Linked to the realist debate on offensive and defensive realism, distinctions are made between revisionist states (those who aim to alter the balance of power in their favour) and status quo states (those who are satisfied with the current order). This zero sum predicament is often referred to as the security dilemma.
    4. The main goal of states is survival.
    5. States are rational actors operating with imperfect information: they sometimes make serious mistakes.
  • There is an important debate within structural realism between ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ camps. 
    - Offensive realists argue that states should always be looking for opportunities to gain more power, with the ultimate prize being hegemony, as this is the best means to ensure survival. 
    - Defensive realists argue that unrelenting expansion is imprudent – conquest is often costly and troublesome.  For this reason defensive realists argue that states should seek an 'appropriate amount of power' (Wlatz, 1989: 40). In the past, however, behaviour of great powers has been more in accordance with the predictions of offensive realism.
  • Structural realists recognize that there are many possible causes of war.  Of these, the question whether a multipolar system (3 or more great powers) or a bipolar system (2 great powers) is more stable is hotly debated. 
  • Realists who think bipolarity is more stable offer three supporting arguments:
    1. There is more opportunity for great powers to fight each other in a multipolar world
    2. Equality between great powers tends to be more even, and balancing behaviour is easier, due to a relative balance in terms of wealth and population, the building-blocks for military power.
    3. There is greater potential for miscalculation in multipolarity
  • Realists who think multipolarity is more stable offer the following two supporting arguments:
    1. More great powers are better in part because deterrence is easier.  In multipolarity, more states can join together to confront an aggressive state.
    2. There is less hostility among the great powers as their attention is more diffused.
  • With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, many realists argued that unipolarity has arrived.  Advocates argue that such a world is likely to be more stable than either bipolarity or multipolarity.  Logically, there can be no war or security competition among great powers; minor powers will not cause any trouble for fear of offending the unipolar power. 
  • One danger in a unipolar world is that the absence of security competition encourages the great power to withdraw from outer regions thus increasing the likelihood of war breaking out.  Or a hegemon might use its overwhelming power to engage in ideological engineering, causing insecurity and triggering ideologically driven counter-balancing behaviour.
  • Other realists argue that it is not polarity that is the key variable explaining war, rather it is the amount of power each great power controls. 
  • Another version of this argument focuses on changing dynamics in the balance of power. Accordingly, some structural realists argue that the distribution of power among actors is more relevant than the number of great powers at play in the international system. What matters is to maintain a relative even amount of (balanced) power among all great actors. Where the distribution of power is skewed, this leads to the emergence of a preponderant power.
  • Some structural realists maintain that the presence of a preponderant power may offer stability as competition is less likely.
  • Others question this stance arguing that the presence of a preponderant power does not eliminate conflict among less powerful states and maintaining that the most dangerous system of all is when a preponderant power is faced with a rising challenger (for example, Germany confronted by Russia in 1914 and the Soviet Union in 1939).
  • Case Study: Can China Rise Peacefully?  As the Chinese economy continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, realists confront the question of what will China do with its military muscle, and how will others (e.g. the USA and China’s neighbours) react?
  • Case Study continued. Offensive realists would predict that China and the USA will engage in security competition.  They expect a rising China will imitate the USA to become a regional hegemon in Asia, meaning removing all local threats to its security and pushing American military forces out of Asia.  This will be resisted by the USA as it does not tolerate peer competitors.
  • Case Study continued. Defensive realists argue that it would be smarter for China to consolidate its power (as Bismarck did for Germany) rather than have a run at establishing regional hegemony (as Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler did).  Nuclear weapons in the hands of rivals such as India ought to restrain China.  Also, as the USA is finding out in Iraq, the costs of conquest in an age of nationalism are exorbitantly high.
  • Case Study continued. The rise of China will also shed light on realist predictions about unipolarity.  Some argue that even if China alters the system to one of bipolarity, the Cold War demonstrated the possibility of a stable balance between the two great powers. Others, however, view preponderance to produce peace and would thus be vary of a shift in the current power-structure. In sum, structural realists do not reach consensus on the question of whether China can rise peacefully, as their understandings of degrees of necessary power among states, as well as the causes of war diverge fundamentally.
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