Reading for assignment on stephen walt PDF

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ASSIGNMENT READING: CSS QA! The renaissance of security studies, Stephen Walt !

- The main focus of security studies is ‘the phenomenon of war’ ! - Fits with a realist paradigm! pp213! Military power! - Non military phenomena can also threaten states and individuals! e.g Poverty, AIDS, environmental hazards etc! ^ Therefore shows military power does not guarantee well being! - concept of leviathan irrelevant?!

- HOWEVER: In expanding security studies to this runs the risk of destroying its intellectual coherence and make it more difficult to devise solutions to any of these important problems! The golden age of international security studies: ! PP214! Limitations in the golden age! -Most relevant information of nuclear warfare was classified so empirical evidence for this was short. Forced scholars to rely heavily on deductive techniques such as game theory! ! Game theory: At theoretical framework for conceiving social situations among competing players. ! e.g prisoner’s dilemma ! Deterrence theory: Assumed the existence of a hostile ‘aggressor’ and concentrated on how one made retaliatory threats credible. ! ^ Focused primarily on how different force postures could alter the incentive to strike first! ! LIMITATION: ! Cold war: Soviet’s desire to expand was taken for granted, more attention was aid to deterring it than verifying the assumption or explaining its origins! ^ Concentrated on military problems and downplayed domestic politics, misperception and diplomacy ! The renaissance: ! PP217! New developments in security studies: ! - Comparative case study method- counter the ahistorical approaches that had characterised the first wave of security studies ! - Expanded the set of relevant hypotheses and helped expose the limitations of existing theories ! The challenge to rational deterrence theory: ! - The use of history questioned the assumptions of perfect information and rational calculation that lay at the heart of the rational deterrence paradigm!

Explaining the renaissance of security studies : ! - The end of the Vietnam war ! - The collapse of détente ! - Increased access to data ! - Increased outlets for publishing ! Problems and prospects for security studies: ! - The war in the Persian gulf reminds us that military power remains a central element fo international politics. ! - Collapse of the cold war will create new policy problems and research puzzles ! Potential problems! If security studies succumbs to the tendency for academic disciplines to pursue "the trivial, the formal, the methodological, the purely theoretical, the remotely historical-in short, the politically irrelevent" (Morgenthau, 1966:73), its theoretical progress and its practical value will inevitably decline.! - Post-modern approaches have yet to demonstrate much value for comprehending world politics; to date, these works are mostly criticism and not much theory! ———————————! Reading: Realism, The domination of security studies - The threat of anarchy in the international system affects security strategy and thus security is understood within the language of insecurity and threat to the nation state ! - Unchallenged that there is an anarchic state system! Kenneth Waltz, ‘a state will use force to attain its goals’ under anarchy (Waltz 1959: 160), however ‘the ultimate concern for states is not for power but for security’ (Waltz 1988: 616). Security has therefore been defined by language of force and state interests (Stolberg 2012: 16). In so being, the terminology of security has been dominated by realism.! However: (Glaser 1996: 145) ! If not state is seeking power they are not seeking to expand! Fear generated by states is therefore misplaced! - If all states are relatively sure that none seeks expansion then the security dilemma falls away. ! - What are the genuine interests of the state? Is the behaviour of states based on a misunderstanding of the interests of states? -realist critique ! ^^ Whether the security dilemma is brought through a misconceived threat does not undermine the notion that state behaviour is determined by state based assumptions!- The overarching paradigm of an insecure international environment remains! Security dilemma in action: ! Arms race in south east Asia after the cold war! ! After withdrawal of the states and soviet union authority after the cold war, anarchic uncertainty returned! ! Perceptions of state behaviour as determinant for aggressive action under an anarchic system shows how far realism has dominated the understanding of security of this region! !

- Some realists have argued that realism does not take a scientific position, instead applying a philosophical approach that is not subject to a principle of falsifiability!

- However this challenge implies that realism does not bridge the gap between real events in -

global politics and analytical theory! Although realist assumptions are ‘legitimate as analytic statements’, they can also ‘produce vacuous distinctions, false dichotomies, and logical contradictions’ (Schroeder 1995:194). This attack on realism undermines any meaningful dominance over security studies, given the inherent contradictions in its application.!

! The definition of security has also expanded! ! Now under the definition are issues beyond territorial conflicts and inter-state aggression, things which a classical realist perspective fails to address. ! ^^ ! Must consider economic security! Environmental concerns through developing cultures could cause internal security of the kind unexplained by realism! Does this undermine or strengthen state systems?! POST MODERNISM: ! - In the post- modernist world interests are not understood through the prism of security, but are defined as a ‘political process’ (Cooper 2000: 27).! - Security is not about protecting interests but about a framework of co-operation (Cooper 2000: 34-35). Unlike realism, post-modernism does not argue this is the way the world order has always been, rather that this is the direction international relations is going in! - A european order based on ‘new concepts’ is one where ‘balance’ is too dangerous and hegemony is no longer acceptable’ ! - Human rights and self determination are at the heart of this world order!! - ^^ Links to liberalist views of opening the ‘black box’ of state! - Post modernism takes into account a new kind of anarchy! ! = Robert Kaplan argued that political forces in West Africa are a microcosm of the coming world order (Kaplan 1994). This world will be one where a ‘jagged-glass pattern of city- states, shantystates, nebulous and anarchic regionalisms’ replaces the realist state-centric global politics (Kaplan 1994: 72).!

- Realism does not accommodate the change in the international system! ! However!!! ! -Doesn’t replace realist explanations! ! Critical theory: ! - Looks to replace realist explanations with an outline to the relevance of identity and ideas! ! - Socially constructed concept, irremovable from the ontology of the analyst l! ^ Rejected by realism on the grounds that ‘structure affects the outcome of behaviour, regardless of the intentions and motives of the actors themselves! The state’s forces themselves ‘may remain the greatest threat to the population that neo-realism assumes they are protecting’ (Krause and Williams 2003b: 33! This is shown with the on-going Israel-Palestine conflict, demonstrating that at the ‘heart of many structures of insecurity’ is the question of citizenship and identity, and not inter-state behaviour (Krause and Williams 2003: 43) !

- Realism confined security studies into examining only the shifts in geostrategic arrangements as the source of global systemic change, thus ignoring the role of collective identities that have influenced security strategy! ^^^^ E.G ! The building up of norms through socialisation through NATO can show the abstraction from the social structures which govern our realist preconceptions ! Identity drives the fact that we are ‘meanings-makings species’ (Booth 2003: 91! ^ THUS: The construction of identity underpins our understanding of international politics, something which the realm of realism fails to acknowledge ! - How we understand international politics is at the root of the meanings we make of security ! CONCLUSION: ! Critical theory shows how negligent realism is of matters central to security formulation, such as identity. ! The nature of this critical challenge is unlike other oppositional theories, such as liberalism and post-modernism, in so far as it does not provide an alternative vision of reality but instead provides an ‘ethos’ of critique (Campbell 1998: 226)! —————————!

Anarchy is what states make of it Wendt, A. (1992) “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” 46(2), pp. 391–425! Debate: With the extent to which state action is influenced by ‘structure’ (anarchy and the distribution of power) versus ‘process’ (interaction and learning and institutions! Rationalism: Treats the interests of agents as exogenously given and focuses on how the behaviour of agents generates outcomes! ^^ Both neorealist and neo liberalist take the ‘self interested state’ as the starting point for theory.! NEO REALISTS: Believe anarchies are "self-help" systems, systems in which both central authority and collective security are absent.! Self help problem creates the competitive dynamics of the ‘security dilemma’ and collective action problem. ! States failing to conform to the logic of self help will be driven from the system, so the behavioural adaptations are necessary! The redefinitions of identity and interest are not! ANARCHY AND POWER POLITICS: ! Classical realists such as Thomas Hobbes, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hans Morgenthau attributed egoism and power politics primarily to human nature, whereas structural realists or neorealists emphasize anarchy.! Kenneth Waltz's work is important for both. In Man, the State, and War, he defines anarchy as a condition of possibility for or "permissive" cause of war, arguing that "wars occur because there is nothing to prevent them.’!

Neo realist conception: Strict! The role of practice in shaping the character of anarchy is substantially reduced, self help and power politics are simply given exogenously by the structure of the state system! 1. Concepts of self help and anarchy by showing that self interests conceptions of security are not a constitutive property of anarchy! 2. Self help and competitive power politics may be produced causally by process of interaction between states in which anarchy plays only a permissive role!...