A critical analysis of Realism, Liberalism, Marxism and Constructivism in the post-cold war era.

 

The end of the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union signified an unexpected and dramatic shift in the analysis of international relations. Hobsbawm (1994:559) noted, “For the first time in two centuries, the world of the 1990s entirely lacked any international system or structure”. Unbridled bloody ethnic conflicts; the pursuance of nuclear weapons programmes by rogue states; and the harrowing global realities revealed in a 1994 UN Human Security report—generated feelings of a post Cold War disorder. Enough so, that US President Bill Clinton famously asserted “Gosh! I miss the Cold War” (White 1998:256). Building on this, the report will critically evaluate Realism, Liberalism, Marxism and Constructivism through a lens of power; concluding neorealism possesses a pragmatic approach under which the varying concepts of power can be related back to. All politics is a struggle for power that is “inseparable from social life itself” thus, international politics is synonymous with power politics (Morgenthau 1948:18). In realist terms, power can be both material and latent, the former based on money, technology and military and the latter based on the size of the population and its share of global wealth (Mearsheimer 2006:73). States are the key actors in a zero-sum, self-help anarchical system and can never be sure about other states’ intentions, so seek to maximise their power to best ensure survival. Neorealists explanations for the end of the Cold War is weak, the abandonment of power and sovereignty far exceeded their theoretical predictions, as few scholars of ‘realpolitik’ would believe states to willingly abandon and dismantle their territories (Sylvester 2000:7). Despite this, Waltz (2000:36) reinforces that unipolarity is the least durable system and “eventually, power will check power” restoring the system back to a stable balance. This is evidenced by the body of literature on the rise of China and its eventual surpassing of the US economy in 2030. Liberalism attributes the end of the Cold War to the triumph of neoliberal policies over authoritarianism and command economy; individuals’ calls for freedom and aspiration; and superpower cooperation which led to peaceful relations. Despite Fukuyama’s (1989:1) “end of history” claim that western liberal ideas were the end of mankind’s ideological evolution” the 1990s saw conflicts fuelled by nationalism, tribalism and today, there are arguments of a latent “illiberal order” (Boyle 2016:39). The “democratic peace thesis” according to Owen (1994:88) tends to “prod liberal states into war with illiberal states” and Freedman (2005:99) illustrates “liberal wars” are usually framed under narratives of “just wars” legitimised on ‘humanitarian grounds' masking “liberal imperialism”. This supports realist claims that states will ultimately pursue national interests, regardless of regime type noting the “internal excellence of states is a brittle basis for peace” and there is “no guarantee that today’s friend will not be tomorrow’s enemy” (Waltz 2000:13). Liberal institutionalist’s posit that world politics and the relations between states have been transformed through a rise of “sovereignty-free” collectivities, non state actors, global corporations and transgovernmentalism (Haass 2008, Slaughter 1997, Rosenau 1993, Nye 1994). Neorealists refute such claims, stating there has been changes in the system, not transformations of the system, reinforcing that states remain the key actors. Haass (2008) himself reinforces this, when comparing the possible rise of the EU in relation to the US’s decline, he asserts that it is not politically fashioned like a nation-state and will therefore not surpass it. Moreover, neorealists argue liberal institutions give the “illusion of inclusion” but are really “vehicles for the application of state power”(Pfaff 2004, Strange 1996:14,Waltz 2000). Rosecrance (1999) and Ohmae (1990,1995) claim ‘globalisation’ has weakened state power, crumbled sovereign borders, and diminished territorial conquests. Yet, politico-military geopolitics remains, evidenced by the South China sea disputes, Crimeas annexation, the US INF withdrawal, and exacerbating spending of state defence. Reinforcing that the traditional power politics of states remains significant, even today. Marxism, similar to neorealism can be applied to structurally view state competition and the maximisation of power. The difference is, instead of the ontological nature of realism, marxism takes a more epistemological and historical approach suggesting the state is constituted by intersubjective ideas, which in turn, forms a “social material framework in which historical action takes place” (Cox 1996:52). It views the state as functioning to protect the power of the bourgeoisie, by preserving the exploitation of the proletariat (Melkonian 1996). Marxist analysis uses a Gramscian approach to evaluate the “order” of the post Cold War global economic system in international politics, which Wallerstein (1993:4) argued, revealed the “exploitative” economic inequalities between the ‘neoliberal hegemonic bloc’ of the developed cores and the underdeveloped peripheries. This is evidenced in IMF voting shares, where Bangladesh hold 0.24% of votes despite its population of 164.7 million and Ireland, which holds a population of 4.7 million possesses 0.71% of the votes. This supports realist claims that neoliberal institutions are merely tools for the application of state power to increase shares of global wealth (Strange 1996, Mearsheimer 2006:73). As long as globalisation continues to widen the gap between the rich and poor, Marxism will remain an important theory of IR in the post Cold War world, as its historical roots in economic inequality serve to efficiently explain the perpetual dependency of the global South upon the global North to maintain state power. Unlike neoliberalism and neorealism, constructivism was able to explain the end of the Cold War. Constructivists claim both states reinvented their identities to no longer perceive each other as enemies. Gorbachev’s ‘Perestroika’ allowed the reconstruction of state identity. Constructivism rejects the rationalist idea of neorealism, and instead argues that the world system is constituted by ideas, not material forces, emphasising the primacy of normative over material structures. Wendt (1994:396-400) demonstrated that 500 British nukes were less threatening than 5 North Korean nukes, illustrating the importance of ideational meanings given to material structures. Nevertheless, neorealists claim ‘communitarian norms’ fail to address the uncertainty and distrust in state relations which, combined with anarchy and offensive capabilities leave little choice but to compete aggressively (Mearsheimer 1995:367). Although realism is critiqued for its “black box” analysis, constructivism is too broad-church and “cannot subscribe to mechanical positivist conceptions of causality”(Checkel 1998:325). Resulting in constructivism being labelled as “a method” a “meta-theory” or “more of a worldview than a theory” (Blair and Curtis 2009:147). Even if we peel back the black boxes of states, the focus is always power. One of neorealism’s biggest critiques is its ontological nature, yet it is also the reason as to why it has heralded such dominance in IR purely because positivists do not probe the intersubjective content of events. Neorealism, thus serves as the most appropriate theory for explaining state relations and the continual pursuit of power in a globalised post cold war era. Bibliography Dalton, Yasmin. (2019). A critical analysis of Realism, Liberalism, Marxism and Constructivism in the post-cold war era.