THEORY AND
Each of these theoretical approaches developed in particular historical
GLOBAL POLITICS
The great debates: An introduction to different world
views
Theories are those abstract, simplified and generalized propositions which
answer, or at least attempt to answer, ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions pertaining
to individual events and cases and how these fit into larger patterns (the
bigger picture that makes up global politics). Most theories attempt to
explain and/or predict actors’ behaviour in global politics.
A worldview is an intellectual tradition built on a distinctive set of ideas and
arguments about political life. Each such tradition embodies a set of concerns
– for example, security, wealth, liberty, or social justice. It also includes a body
of causal reasoning about how the political world works, particularly in ways
deemed relevant to explaining the identified concerns. Intellectual traditions
tend to grow out of distinctive historical eras or cultural contexts as people
ponder the ends and means of politics with a particular set of concerns in
mind.
Each tradition thus highlights certain types of issues, actors, goals, and types
of relationships – typically those that defined the era in which the ideas
originated and reflect the values of the advocates for these perspectives –
while ignoring or deemphasizing others.
When looking at the evolution of theory in global politics (or international
relations), the discipline’s history is usually organised into 3 phases or great
debates concerning theory. These are:
i. Realism v Liberalism
ii. Traditionalism v Science
iii. Postpositivism, Constructivism and the ‘Third Debate’
contexts, and need to be understood within these particular contexts to
understand their relevance and influence. Moreover, it is worth noting that
these debates still ‘rage on’ (i.e. they haven’t been settled and no one theory
has emerged as a clear winner).
REALISM V LIBERALISM
Historical Context
▪ Formal recognition of International Relations as a discipline - 1919
▪ Timing is important given the connections between its foundation and
the events which preceded it. Initially concerned with a narrow range
of questions:
o How and why World War I had begun
▪ Goals of early IR thinkers - essentially normative - attempting to
"discover" the general causes of war in order to avoid a similar
catastrophe.
The first great debate pitted realists against liberals (also known at this stage
as idealists / utopians). This debate revolves around the relevant actors and
issues in global politics.
The modern debate between realists and liberals began in 1939, shortly
before the Nazi invasion of Poland (which started World War II), with the
publication of E.H. Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919 – 1939.
This debate in IR is perhaps the one that receives the most attention. This
debate served to indicate IR's coming of age as a science. The origins of this
debate in the context of modern IR theory can be traced back to the
immediate period following World War I. World War I left deep psychological
and political scars which provoked a sequence of reactions, mainly on the part
of Woodrow Wilson and other idealists. Idealists sought to create a better
understanding of international affairs which in turn would promote the cause
of peace. They believed in a harmony of interests between nations. Idealists
wanted to develop a set of institutions, procedures and practices that could
1
build upon the harmony of interests and could eradicate or at the very least
control war. The jewel in the crown of idealism was the establishment of the
League of Nations in 1919.
The 1930's were turbulent times and events such as the annexation of the
Sudetenland by Germany demonstrated that utopian orthodoxy could not
take being slammed up against what Vigneswaran & Quirk (2004:19) call ‘the
brutal coalface of reality during the 1930s'. For many, the outbreak of World
War 2 signalled the end of idealism/utopianism and left it bereft of credibility.
As a result the proponents of idealism/utopianism were painted as naïve
pacifists and legalists that were blind to the realities of politics among
nations.
The failure of idealism/utopianism to deal with the foremost crises of the
1930s and the outbreak of another world war caused many to look for a more
pragmatic approach to international affairs.
REALISM
Realism is often referred to as power-politics. Its tradition can be traced back
to ancient China (Sun Tzu – The Art of War) and classical Western thinkers
such as Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War), Niccolò Machiavelli
(The Prince) and Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan).
Realism, as Robert Gilpin once observed, ‘is founded on a pessimism
regarding moral progress and human possibilities.’
From the realist perspective, incompatible goals and conflict are the defining
features of world politics. Without enforceable international rules, decision
makers have little choice but to compete with other states for security, status,
and wealth. The competition is expected to be difficult, since the others are
also likely to view their power resources and security positions in relative
terms.
According to Kenneth Waltz, realists thus expect ‘the necessities of policy [to]
arise from the unregulated competition of states.... Calculation based on
these necessities can discover the policies that will best serve a state's
interests ... [and] the ultimate test of policy ... is defined as preserving and
strengthening the state.’
Key Premises of Realism
▪ The international system is anarchic. There is no authority above states
capable of regulating their interactions; states must arrive at relations
with other states on their own, rather than it being dictated to them by
some higher controlling entity (that is, no true authoritative world
government exists).
▪ Sovereign states are the principal actors in the international system.
International institutions, non-governmental organizations,
multinational corporations and other sub-state or trans-state actors are
viewed as having little independent influence.
▪ States are rational unitary actors each moving towards their own
national interest. There is a general distrust of long-term cooperation
or alliance.
▪ The overriding 'national interest' of each state is its national security
and survival.
▪ In pursuit of national security, states strive to amass resources.
▪ Relations between states are determined by their comparative level of
power derived primarily from their military and economic capabilities.
In summary, realists believe that mankind is not inherently benevolent but
rather self-centred and competitive.
Realists believe that states are inherently aggressive and/or obsessed with
security; and that territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing
power(s). This aggressive build-up (especially in attempting to ensure a
state’s security), however, leads to a security dilemma where increasing one's
own security can bring along greater instability as the opponent(s) builds up
its own arms. Thus, security is a zero-sum game where only relative gains can
be made.
2
▪ Main Actors = States (legally sovereign actors)
▪ States  unitary, rational actors
▪ Sovereignty means that there is no actor above the state that can
compel it to act in specific ways
▪ Other actors (e.g. NGOs, MNCs) have to work within the framework of
inter-state relations.
▪ Human nature = centrally important
= fixed & selfish
▪ Realism  represents a struggle for power between states (each trying
to maximise their national interests)
▪ Order exists because of the balance of power (whereby states act so as
to prevent any one state from dominating)
▪ International Relations bargaining and alliances
o diplomacy = key mechanism for balancing various national
interests
o most NB tool re. foreign policy = military force
▪ Global Politics = anarchy  self-help system (states must rely on their
own military resources to achieve their ends)
▪ Often these ends can be met viz cooperation (alliances)  but potential
for conflict remains
▪ Neo-Realism  structure of the international system NB in affecting the
behaviour of all states [e.g. Bipolarity of Cold War World]
All schools of Realist Thought subscribe to what are
referred to as the 3 Ss:
▪ Statism: Centrality of state and its monopoly to legitimately use force
▪ Survival: All states are concerned with survival, and hence security is
the most important item on the agenda
▪ Self-Help: In the international system, the state’s structures are the only
form of preventing and countering the use of force and each state has
to have its own mechanism of doing so, hence the necessity of having
defence systems and ensuring a balance of power
Although realists agree about the centrality of power in global politics they
disagree about why the search for power is so central.
Classical realism: A worldview based on the assumption that the principal
sources of conflict in politics lie in human nature because people are self-
interested, competitive, and power hungry.
Classical realism typically begins from a pessimistic notion of human nature.
Self-interested, competitive, and power-hungry behaviour is seen as rooted
deeply in the human condition. To preserve himself, Hans Morgenthau
argues, each person must, to some extent, act selfishly. Morgenthau believes
that this tendency typically leads to conflict: ‘What the one wants for himself,
the other already possesses or wants, too. Struggle and competition ensue....
Man cannot [therefore] hope to be good, but must be content with not being
too evil.’
Neorealism (structural realism): A worldview based on the assumption that
the anarchic nature of the interstate system is the principal source of conflict
in world politics.
Neorealism sees interstate conflict as rooted not in human nature, but in a
specific characteristic of the interstate environment: the absence of legally
binding rules. The interstate system is one of anarchy.
Neorealists argue that the absence of a neutral authority that can enforce
rules and agreements creates an insecure, self-help situation in which all
policy makers are pressured to act competitively, regardless of their
individual natures or personal preferences.
This argument is not entirely new; it was a key theme in the work of
seventeenth century English thinker Thomas Hobbes. In his book Leviathan,
written during the English Civil War, Hobbes contended that in a world
without a common power that could guarantee security, people had a ‘right
of nature’ to use any means necessary to preserve themselves. But Hobbes
also assumed that ‘all mankind ... [has] a perpetual and restless desire of
power after power that ceases only in death.’
3
The modern neorealist tradition drops the assumption that people desire
power because of an innate inclination and focuses exclusively on the
incentives created by the absence of a neutral authority that can enforce
rules in interstate politics.
Kenneth Waltz, for example, contends that the main cause of war must lie in
some regularity at the level of the interstate system, rather than within
particular leaders or states, since war has been waged for all sorts of specific
reasons and by ‘good’ as well as ‘bad’ leaders." That regularity, according to
Waltz, is the self-help pressures created by anarchy. Without enforceable
interstate rules, states must either resist possible domination by others
through a policy of balancing against others' power capabilities, or by
bandwagoning (joining a coalition that supports an aggressive state), in hopes
of turning its aggression elsewhere. Waltz believes that large states have the
capacity, and thus often the willingness, to resist the strength of others. The
result, as he sees it, is a tendency for competitive policies among the major
states regardless of their leaders' views or the nature of their domestic politi-
cal systems.
LIBERALISM
Unlike realists, liberals are optimists about the human condition and the
possibilities for cooperation. Instead of viewing world politics as a "jungle" –
a metaphor commonly used by realists-liberals see it as a cultivatable
"garden" in which peace as well as war can grow.
For liberals, the building block of politics is the individual acting alone or,
more typically, as part of voluntary groups. The more liberty individuals have
to pursue their goals within and across societies, the more harmonious and
peaceful political life will be.
Key Premises of Liberalism
Principles underlying all liberal thinking:
▪ Idealist underpinnings of optimism, moralism and universalism
▪ pluralist assumptions
▪ cooperation and interdependence as opposed to conflict
▪ strategies such as institution-building, international regimes and
collective security
Main Themes:
▪ Human beings are perfectible
▪ Democracy is necessary for this to develop
▪ Ideas matter
▪ Belief in progress
▪ War ≠ natural condition of world politics
▪ State is NB  but question idea that the state is the main actor
▪ MNCs, TNAs (e.g. terrorist groups), IOs = central actors in some issue-
areas of world politics
▪ State ≠ unitary actor (rather a set of bureaucracies each with its own
interests)
▪ No such thing as a national interest
▪ Liberals stress the possibilities for cooperation
▪ Key issue = devising international settings in which cooperation can be
achieved
▪ Global politics = complex system of bargaining between many different
types of actors
▪ Order emerges from the interactions of many layers of governing
arrangements
▪ Interdependence between states = NB feature of global politics

Liberals view much of realist thinking as a self-fulfilling prophecy: If one

expects competition and acts accordingly, others will tend to respond in kind.
Liberals' main concern is to understand the conditions under which this cycle
can be broken.

4

The Optimistic Assumptions of Liberalism
Traditional liberalism is based on the following fundamental assumptions:
▪ Actors' goals can be compatible and, consequently, that joint gains are
possible. We can all get better off together.
▪ People will act cooperatively as long as the environment makes it
possible to succeed through cooperation. For liberals, the anarchic
character of the interstate system does not imply that policy makers
face an unchanging situation of international conflict. The prospect of
economic, technological, and cultural benefits may give policy makers
reasons to cooperate with other states.
▪ The existence of compatible goals and the possibilities for joint gains
through cooperation are frequently blocked by misperception, a lack of
understanding, and political structures that create false antagonisms. In
particular, liberals worry that a lack of individual liberty within countries
may block the opportunities for cooperation and productive exchange
within and among states.
Given these views, the liberal tradition emphasizes the importance of:
i. making the world more transparent and thereby minimizing the
likelihood of misperception, so the compatibility of actors' goals can be
revealed;
ii. eliminating institutions and norms that restrict individual liberty and
promote false antagonisms; and
iii. focusing on absolute, as opposed to relative, gains so we can all become
better off together.
Like realism, the persuasiveness of liberal arguments has varied with the
circumstances that thinkers and statesmen faced over the centuries during
which this tradition developed. Beginning in the seventeenth century, one
group of thinkers conceived of liberty in terms of a small, unobtrusive
government.
This variant was introduced by Englishman John Locke and was later
supported by the French philosopher Voltaire and early American thinkers
such as Thomas Paine. For them, as for Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and
Jeremy Bentham, who focused (during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries) on the benefits to the individual and society from unrestricted
international commerce, the goal was to give individuals as much freedom
as possible, consistent with public safety and order. Among other things, this
broad objective meant that individuals should be able to exchange goods and
services freely across state boundaries.
Immanuel Kant contributed to liberalism the argument that war stemmed
from authoritarian regimes, since governments based on popular consent
were less likely to take actions that ordinary citizens would find costly in
human lives and money.
Variants on these themes have been picked up and elaborated since the end
of the nineteenth century. President Woodrow Wilson believed that German
militarism in the decades before World War I reflected the authoritarian
political patterns in that society. Only a world of democracies, he claimed,
would ultimately be peaceful. In the meantime, he argued that an
international organization devoted to keeping the peace – the League of
Nations – could check the impulse to wage war by pledging to resist
aggression before it could succeed. As the twentieth century wore on, various
thinkers and statesmen championed the idea that international
organizations, by taking some decision-making authority away from
independent states, could ease the rivalries often associated with
international self-help. Greater world peace and prosperity were expected to
follow. This reasoning laid the foundation for creating the United Nations and
many other contemporary international organizations, such as the World
Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Food and Agriculture
Organization.
Liberalism has thus come to signify at least the possibility of progress toward
a more prosperous, freer, and safer world. In the words of Stanley Hoffmann,
such hopes rest on ‘the possibility of devising institutions based on consent
... [institutions] that will make society more humane and just, and the citizens'
lot better.’
5
 in order to deal with large amounts of data. Numbers / statistics are viewed
TRADITIONALISM V SCIENCE as being more precise and credible.
The second debate, which erupted in the 1950s, concerns methodology –
how to conduct research of global politics.

Traditionalist scholars studied history, philosophy, international law, national
and international institutions, languages and cultures, in order to understand
the world. Their analysis usually took the form of case studies (looking at
particular events / wars and policies). Traditionalists routinely mixed their
discussions of facts (empirical evidence) with their views of what is right or
wrong (making normative claims).
Following WWII, the study of global politics was influenced by the so-called
behavioural revolution. The behavioural revolution marks a shift in political
science from the study of institutions, laws, history and single case studies,
toward the observation of human behaviour or its artefacts with an eye to
uncovering general propositions. In other words, political scientists should
study how people actually behave.
SUMMARY OF MAIN POINTS
▪ This debate focuses on how best to conduct research in global politics.
▪ Traditionalists argue that human behaviour is very complex and
unpredictable. It cannot be studied with scientific methods. Global
politics is similarly complex. Understanding it requires a detailed
understanding of individual actors and the context in which they
operate.
▪ Scientists argue that there are patterned regularities to global politics
that can be uncovered with scientific methods. Finding them requires
foregoing detailed knowledge of specific actors and context, but one the
patterns are found they can be used to predict and prescribe policies.

Behaviouralists believed that empirical and normative theory (facts and

values) should be strictly separated and that combining them led to confusion
because neither could be used to probe the other. This mixing ran the risk of
turning scholarship into moral fervour.

Traditionalists countered this claim by asserting that all observers of global

politics pursue a normative agenda, as social scientists study the world with
an aim to change or reform it.

Although behaviourlists also conduct case studies, they identify the

patterned behaviours (regularities) and generalise from them. Research
requires the gradual accumulation of facts, in line with the growing
recognition of their broader meaning.

Theorists begin by positing a hypothesis (a tentative prediction or

explanation that often takes the conditional form ‘if x, then y’). The theorist
then seeks to test the hypothesised prediction or explanation. This is done
by collecting cases or data. This led to the use of statistics and quantification

6
Key Issues Traditionalists
Complexity v Uniformity ▪ Human behaviour is too complex to
be understood in the way that
nature is.
▪ Scientific methods cannot be
applied to political science.
▪ Humans behave in unpredictable
ways.
Trees v Forests ▪ It is vital to understand the elements
(trees) of global politics in depth.
▪ To understand global politics,
scholars must be trained as
specialists on one or a few countries
rather than as generalists who
uncover broad patterns in global
politics.
Whole v Parts ▪ Scientists make a serious mistake by
isolating what they believe to be
important factors.
▪ Only by viewing a factor in context
(e.g. alliances, ideologies or military
strategies) as it interacts with other
factors can scholars generate valid
theories.
▪ Any outcome or event can only be
understood as the result of
interaction among all these factors.
Subjective v Objective ▪ By focusing on only those aspects of
global politics that can be easily
quantified and measured, scientists
often ignore the subjective (non-
observable) side of global politics,
and thus the most important
aspects of global politics.
Behaviouralists
▪ Humans, like all animals, are part of nature.
▪ They can, in principle, be studied like any other natural phenomenon.
▪ Complexity is in the mind of the observer, and what appears complex
at first glance becomes less so as more is learned.
▪ The traditional approach leads to overemphasis on the specific and
unique at the expense of the general.
▪ Traditionalists focus on individual trees in the forest and
overemphasise how each tree differs from the others.
▪ Studying many instances or cases historically or around the world
allows scientist to observe what is common among them and identify
regularities.
▪ The laboratory practices of natural science must be emulated to ensure
accuracy.
▪ Only by isolating individual factors can a researcher understand its
impact without having to worry that other factors are instead
producing an outcome.
▪ Although the tools for studying subjective factors are less reliable than
those for studying objective factors, those tools are improving.
▪ Scientists use them frequently to incorporate both subjective and
objective factors in their analyses.
7
 genuine theory and that concepts needed to build theory can only be defined
POSTPOSITIVISM, CONSTRUCTIVISM AND by the theorists and practitioners employing them.

THE ‘THIRD’ DEBATE
The third major theoretical perspective called constructivism emerged in the
1980s out of dissatisfaction with realism and liberalism and the dominant
influence of scientific methodology in global politics.
Constructivism assumes that political structures and behaviour are shaped by
shared ideas and that actors’ identities and interests are the result of those
ideas.
Postpositivists and reflexivists eject empiricism (positivism) and claim there is
no objective reality that can serve as a basis of theories of global politics.
Reflection and reason should be used instead.
Constructivism emerged as an effort to narrow the gap between empiricists
and postpositivists. According to various postpositivists and constructivists,
language and identity influence the meaning of concepts and the theories
political scientists create.
The ‘Third’ Debate was characterised primarily by a dispute over whether
there is an objective reality that can be observed and serve as the basis of
theories of global politics.
‘Truth’ is inaccessible because all knowledge claims are really efforts on the
part of those claiming to know the truth to acquire and maintain power over
others. This means that language and the ideas it expresses are themselves
forms of power that reinforce social and political hierarchies.
This lead to the untenable situation, as within the postpositivist framework it
becomes impossible to know what policies to follow, and theory has no
prescriptive value.This led to an intensification of the ‘third’ debate in the
1990s and the emergence of constructivism as an effort to narrow the gap
between empiricists and postpositivists.
Constructivists claim that people act in the world in accordance with their
perceptions of that world, and that the ‘real’ (objective) world shapes those
perceptions. These perceptions arise from people’s identities that are
shaped by experience and changing social norms. (It’s all about how you see
yourself in the world – rich, poor, strong, powerless).
Unlike realist and liberals who assume that identities and interests are
‘givens’ that remain largely unchanged, constructivists view identity
formation as a crucial and dynamic process.
 Interests are not inherent or predetermined but are rather learned
through experience and socialisation.
 Actors are social – and whose ideas and norms evolve in a social context.
 Identities, and interests, change over time in the course of interaction
and evolving beliefs and norms.

On the extreme side of this spectrum, postmodernists argue that we can

never know anything with certainty because language is not objective and
reflects only the version of reality of the speaker. There can be no objective
reality as every theorist’s view of the world will be influenced by the language
they use.

Thus, postpositivists abandoned the empiricists’ demand for facts-through-

observation in the belief that only insight and imagination could produce

8
 Reality in the Third Debate
Positivists  There is an objective reality that can be measured.
(Empiricists)  Even factors that cannot be observed directly, like
emotions and beliefs, can be measured indirectly
through behaviours, statements, and so forth.
Constructivists  Identity shapes perceptions of ‘reality’.
 One’s view of reality depends on one’s identity – e.g. as
poor / wealthy, American / Russian, Christian / Muslim,
or male / female
Postpositivists  Language shapes perceptions of ‘reality’.
 There is no universal truth to be uncovered in global
politics.
The Agent-Structure Problem
The agent-structure problem is the label for the controversy about whether
individuals and groups play the major role in explaining global politics or
whether features of global structure determine the behaviour of actors.
For constructivists, agents act freely within the constraints of structure. Their
perceptions of their environment and their interaction with one another
influence their behaviour, which in turn shapes, or constitutes, structure.
Constructivists are empiricists who focus largely on subjective factors like
norms, ideas and values. They argue that there are occasions when events
profoundly affect the beliefs and norms of individuals and groups.
To some extent, the agent-structure problem overlaps with levels of analysis.
Those who emphasise the dominance of the structure tend to focus on the
system level where critical structural factors like the global distribution of
power and anarchy are located. Others who delve into the state and
individual levels of analysis are implicitly suggesting that the actions and
beliefs of leaders and governments have an impact on key outcomes.
Example: America’s invasion of Iraq  is viewed as a collision between two
incompatible identities and the resulting clash of conflicting interests.
America’s socially constructed identity was that of a democratic society and
global superpower with the responsibility to protect friendly governments
from the ambitions of an authoritarian regime, whose leader, Saddam
Hussein, was flirting with those identified as militant Muslims such as Osama
bin Laden.
SUMMARY
Social constructivism straddles positivist and post-positivist approaches. It is
interpretive while at the same time has reshaped many of the core debates
in international relations and has emerged as a significant force in empirical
research.
Constructivists:
o are concerned with human consciousness
o treat ideas as structural factors
o consider the dynamic relationship between ideas and material forces as
a consequence of how actors interpret their material reality
o interested in how agents produce structures and how structures produce
agents
Knowledge is seen to shape how actors interpret and construct their social
reality. The normative structure shapes the identity and interests of actors
such as states.
Two basic assumptions:
i. the fundamental structures of international politics are social rather than
strictly material
ii. structures shape actors' identities and interests rather than simply their
behaviour.
Social facts (e.g. sovereignty and human rights) exist because of human
agreement; while brute facts (e.g. mountains and oceans) are independent
of such agreements.
9
Power = the ability of one actor to get another actor to do what they would  Account for 60% of all illiterates
not do otherwise + the production of identities and interests that limit the  And 80% of all refugees
ability to control their fate.

Although the meanings that actors bring to their activities are shaped by the
underlying culture, meanings are not always fixed but are a central feature of
politics.
Halliday: ‘In conventional ideology, women are not suited for such
responsibilities and cannot be relied on in matters of security and crisis.’
Grant: ‘… the whole theoretical approach to IR rests on the foundation of
political concepts which it would be difficult to hold together coherently were
it not for the trick of eliminating women from the prevailing definitions of
man as the political actor.’

FEMINIST INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Feminists argue that gender is a principle way of signifying power  Are the figures to do with the perception that men are naturally
relationships and that gender relations affect every aspect of human brighter, wiser, and better suited to high-paid jobs than women? OR
relations, including global politics. do the differences have to do with gender inequality. Gender refers
to socially learned behaviour and expectations that distinguish
In its analysis of global politics, feminist theory views the world from the between masculinity and femininity.
perspective of the disadvantaged and takes greater account of economic  We live in a gendered world in which values associated with
inequality, ecological dangers, and human rights in defining security than masculinity (e.g. rationality, activity, strength) are assigned higher
conventional (male) international relations theory, which emphasizes military value than values asscociated with femininity (e.g. emotionality,
issues. passivity, weakness). This amounts to a gender hierarchy: a system of
power in which men are privileged over women.
 Feminist theories of IR take as a starting point the fact that the focus of
 Feminists, therefore, concentrate on women because of the
international relations, as it has been traditionally conceptualised, is very
perception that women have been marginalised, subjugated and
narrow, and therefore presents us with only a partial story.
oppressed. Like structuralism feminism is also a bottom-up view of
 Fred Halliday: We need to question what the implications of the gender
the world constructed largely from the point of view of the
dichotomy are – i.e. why have women been ignored in IR?
marginalised groups themselves.
 Women are 50% of the global population
 They do a third of the paid work and two thirds of the unpaid work
 They grow 50% of the world's food (and in Africa they are actually
responsible for 75% of all subsistence agriculture)
And yet
 They make up less than 5% of the Heads of State and Cabinet
Ministers
 They receive only 10% of global income
 Own only 1% of global property

10

STRUCTURALISM
Aims: To give an account of the political and economic subordination of the
South to the North. Theories within this paradigm:
 Dependency Theory
 Centre-Periphery/Core-Periphery analysis / World Systems analysis
 Scientific Marxism, Structural Marxism, neo-Marxism
All share the idea that the North and South are in a structural relationship
with one another.
 A general theory of International Relations but also a Southern theory:
originated in the South, and its subject area is explicitly geared towards
the problems and interests of the South and is seen as a "bottom up"
approach to international relations which prioritises the conditions faced
by the poor and the oppressed.
Roots in Marxist Theory
 Marx concerned with causes of conflict in society  struggle between
different socio-economic classes.
 Capitalism = bondage 'from which people strive to be liberated'.
 Theory of history based on historical materialism, 'in which the system of
economic production determined the institutional and ideological
structures of society'. All history was the 'history of class struggle
between a ruling group, from which [came] a new economic, political and
social system’.
 Feudalism and Capitalism both contained the seeds of their own
destruction.
 Western capitalism capable of mass production of manufactured goods
and services. The principles of private ownership and the pursuit of profit
epitomise the relationship between the Bourgeoisie who own the means
of production and the Proletariat who sell their labour in exchange for a
wage. Marx claimed that the Bourgeois classes paid their workers much
less than the value of the products that they were producing – ‘surplus
value’ – in another words the profit.
The accumulation of this surplus value could be achieved in one of three
ways:
1. capitalists could search for new markets for the products of labour
2. they could constantly drive down the wages in order to extract more
surplus value from their workers
3. or they could replace labour with new technologies – e.g. machines
 Resulting in workers becoming too poor to afford the goods they
themselves produced leading to ‘alienation’ and development of a ‘class
consciousness" necessary for Revolution. These are the built in tensions
within Capitalism which would cause it to eventually collapse.
 Marxism views all political phenomena as the projection of underlying
economic forces.
Hobson and Lenin
 Argued that Marx had seriously underestimated the ability of Capitalism
to survive.
Hobson: imperialism resulted from problems within the capitalist system 
dilemma of over-production and under-consumption. Capitalists seek to
reinvest their surplus capital in profit-making ventures abroad  imperialism.
Lenin: was the architect of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and he borrowed
heavily from Marx and Hobson's ideas on Imperialism. Important in thinking
about connection between Marxism and an analysis of the expansion of
capitalism to the international level and the inevitable analysis of inter-state
conflict.
 Lenin equated Monopoly Capitalism with imperialism.
 Since finance capital was the main source for imperialism it also becomes
the principal source of international wars in the capitalist era and it was
in this context that Lenin referred to imperialism as the "highest state of
capitalism".
11
Dependency Theory
Prominence in the 1960s during period of decolonisation. But Western States
keen to preserve influence and so encouraged decolonising States to engage
in free trade with the rest of the world to encourage competition and growth.
Dependencia School  efforts of Latin American intellectuals to show that
despite following Western model their societies could not catch up to the
levels of development that the rich Western states of North America and
Western Europe. Dependency theory attacked notions of modernisation.
World Systems Theory
Immanuel Wallerstein argued that the world system could not be understood
in isolation and that an overall or holistic approach was necessary. The mini-
systems (eg hunter, farmer, carer etc) have been swallowed up by larger
systems of social, economic and political organisation the latest of which was
Economic.
 Core – periphery.
CORE
SEMI-PERIPHERY
PERIPHERY
Central Features of Structuralism
1. The nature of international relations is profoundly shaped by the
structure of the capitalist world economy, or capitalist world system
2. International politics is shaped or even determined by economic factors
3. The main actors are states, multinational and transnational corporations
and transnational social classes
4. The state reflects the interests of the dominant classes rather than there
existing a genuine national interest
5. Capitalism is a fundamentally unjust social and economic order which
generates conflict and disharmony
6. Capitalism is characterised by internal contradiction and is subject to
periodic crises.
POST-COLONIALISM
Post-colonialism examines how societies, governments and peoples in the
formerly colonised regions of the world experience international
relations/global politics.
 The use of ‘post’ by postcolonial scholars by no means suggests that the
effects or impacts of colonial rule are now long gone. Rather, it highlights
the impact that colonial and imperial histories still have in shaping a
colonial way of thinking about the world and how Western forms of
knowledge and power marginalise the non-Western world.
 Post-colonialism is not only interested in understanding the world as it is,
but also as it ought to be.
 It is concerned with the disparities in global power and wealth
accumulation and why some states and groups exercise so much power
over others.
 By raising issues such as this, post-colonialism asks different questions to
the other theories of Global Politics and allows for not just alternative
readings of history but also alternative perspectives on contemporary
events and issues.
12
Post-colonialism interrogates a world order dominated by major state actors
and their domineering interests and ways of looking at the world. It
challenges notions that have taken hold about the way states act or behave
and what motivates them. It forces us to ask tough questions about how and
why a hierarchical international order has emerged and it further challenges
mainstream core assumptions about concepts such as power and how it
operates.

Post-colonialism forces us to reckon with the everyday injustices and

oppressions that can reveal themselves in the starkest terms through a
particular moment of crisis.

 Whether it has to do with the threat of nuclear weapons or the

deaths of workers in factories churning out goods for Western
markets, post-colonialism asks us to analyse these issues from the
perspectives of those who lack power.
 It brings together a deep concern with histories of colonialism and
imperialism, how these are carried through to the present – and how
inequalities and oppressions embedded in race, class and gender
relations on a global scale matter for our understanding of
international relations.

13