INTR2010 Study Guide - Final Guide: Lee Kuan Yew, East China Sea, Kenneth Waltz
18 Jun 2018
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THEORY I: IR IN THE ASIAN CONTEXT
AN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY OF ASIA?
The purpose of theory
What is theory? Explain or recommend A way of explaining what is happening in
the world understanding the word, for instance: causes and effects
Why theorize? Helps one understand reality and explains reality
How to theorize? Topics, puzzles, questions, arguments, and methods
Common problems: argument, evidence and method
Debates: over concepts, scope, methods, empirics
Realism
Anarchy and war (e.g. Thucydides: the strong and the weak)
The “prince” and national security (e.g. Machiavelli)
The security dilemma (e.g. Hobbes) the lack of an international government means
that states will always be insecure, fearful of interventions of others, don’t know if
others have threatening intensions or not and that states need to always be ready for
war
Realist branches: Classical (focused on role of leaders, the need for realist diplomacy
rather than idealist diplomacy), structural (focusing on how the system works, and
working out a scientific method of understanding interactions between states in terms
of shifting the balance of power), strategic (focus on negotiation and the use of
collusion in international politics) and neoclassical (turn back to the nature of
leadership and diplomacy in conducting international relations)
Key concepts: anarchy, power, threats, balancing and bandwagoning
David Kang has seized upon the non-realization of Realist warnings of post-war
Asia being “ripe for rivalry” to critique not just Realism, but Western IR theory
in general for “getting Asia wrong”
Kenneth Waltz developed a later version of “neo-Realism” – stresses the
importance of the structural properties of the international system, especially the
distribution of power, in shaping conflict and order, thereby downplaying the impact
of human nature or domestic politics in IR
Until the end of the Cold War, realists argued that Asian IR was closer to
classical Realism than neo-Realism developed by Kenneth Waltz, which stresses
the causal impact of the distribution of power
Kang’s arguments:
-That the pessimistic predications of Western scholars after the end of the Cold
War - that Asia would experience a period of increased arms racing and power
politics – has largely failed to materialize something scholars must confront if
they are to develop a better understanding of Asian relations
-Asian states do not appear to be balancing against rising powers such as China –
but bandwagoning – contrary to the expectations of realists
New realist argument about Asian IR – end of bipolarity spells disorder and
even doom for the region
Realism was the dominant perspective on the IR of Asia
Realists would see the case of Chinese “assertiveness” in the South China Sea and
East China Sea as vindication of their arguments about the coming instability in Asia
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Amitav Acharya:
-Realists take the international system to be in anarchy in which states, as the main
actors in IR, are guided mainly by considerations of power and the national
interest
-IR is seen as a zero-sum game where states are more concerned with their relative
gains rather than absolute gains
Realists view the balance of power as the key force shaping Asia’s post-war IR,
with the US as chief regional balancer:
-Singapore’s senior statesman, Lee Kuan Yew ascribes both Asian stability and its
robus economic growth during the “miracle years” to the US military presence in
the region – he believes that the US presence and intervention in Indochina
secured the region against Chinese and Soviet expansion and gave Asian states
time to develop their economies
-However this view has been criticised recently as realism’s causal emphasis on
US military presence as a chief factor behind Asia’s stability and prosperity
ignores the role of other forces, including Asian regional norms and institutions,
economic growth, and domestic politics
Defensive realism
-E.g. Waltz
-Defensive realists such as Robert Jervis or Jack Snyder – maintain that states
are generally satisfied with the status quo if their own security is not
challenged, and thus they concentrate on maintaining the balance of power
-States seek power in order to be secure – they are then fundamentally defensive.
-Excessive power is counterproductive – it leads to counterbalancing enough
insecurities
-As long as a balance of power is achieved, the international system is stable – but
whilst states try to gain excessive power, that’s when we have an issue
-Defensive realists would say that a stability agent is possible and likely as states
want to ensure that they have security for themselves and their partners and they
will stop at that
Offensive realism
-Offensive realists such as Mearsheimer – argue that states are power
maximisers: going for “all they can get” with “hegemony as their ultimate
goal”
-States seek hegemony in order to be secure – they want power/dominance over a
region in particular – e.g. the US wanting to have power over the Americas – to
be the dominant power
-Geography means only regional hegemony is possible. Where we have rising
powers in a single region, because they are seeking dominance rather than just to
be secure, there is far more likely to be conflict therefor states should always
be seeking dominance rather than just security through some power
-Offensive realists state that conflict is much more likely because when the minute
you have competing major dominant powers, they will seek to establish
hegemony
Liberalism
Progress, cooperation e.g. Locke & state legitimacy (states behaving through the
consent of the people through democracy, so therefore more cooperatively
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internationally), Bentham and international law (int’l law drives states relations and
that we again offer stability for states to interact and cooperate and that even if there
are conflicts, international law can provide a way to resolve and encourage
cooperation to end these conflicts peacefully) for Kant and republics and peace
he focused on republics and the rise of republics in international politics argued
that people more like republics would be more likely to cooperate and this would
result in perpetual peace
Whilst realism is preoccupied with issues of security and order, liberalism is
more concerned with the nature and dynamics of the international political
economy
For liberals, the foundations of the post-war IR of Asia were not laid by the region’s
distinctive geography or culture, or by security threats facing the region, but rather by
the post WWII international economic system under American hegemony they
were central to the creation of IMF, World Bank, GATT, etc.
Liberal branches sociological, interdependence, institutional and republican
1. Commercial Liberalism
-…or the view that economic interdependence, especially free trade,
reduces the prospect of war by increasing its costs to the parties
2. Republican Liberalism
-…or the “democratic peace” argument, which assumes that Liberal
democracies are more peaceful than autocracies, or at least seldom fight one
another
3. Liberal institutionalism
-…focuses on the contribution of international organizations in
fostering collective security, managing conflict, and promoting cooperation
Key concepts democratic peace theory, interdependence (states engage more in
trade and investment, become mutually dependent on each others interests and their
own interests, decreasing the chance for war), institutionalisation (the idea that to
ensure a more stable international system and to ensure that international politics
remain more peaceful, we should use international institutions to manage
international affairs – e.g. UN) and globalisation
Interdependence
-Liberal conceptions of the IR of Asia have particularly stressed the role of
interdependence as a force for peace
-This argument was advanced with even more vigor with the end of the Cold War
and rise of Chinese economic power
-Many argued that it was a major factor in making China’s rise peaceful –
criticisms from realists – who often take the failure of European economic
interdependence to prevent WWI as a severe indictment of the “if goods do not
cross borders, soldiers will”
Democratic peace theory:
-Has fund little expression in writings on Asian IR as historically Asia has had few
democracies to test the claims of this theory meaningfully
-In Asia, this theory has found more critics than adherents
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