Against the Grain
Volume 26 | Issue 3 Article 42
2014 Collecting to the Core: International Relations Jeremy Darrington Princeton University, [email protected]
Anne Doherty CHOICE/ACRL, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons
Recommended Citation Darrington, Jeremy and Doherty, Anne (2014) "Collecting to the Core: International Relations," Against the Grain: Vol. 26: Iss. 3, Article 42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.6782
This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Collecting to the Core — International Relations by Jeremy Darrington (Politics Librarian, Princeton University; Political Science Editor, Resources for College Libraries)
Column Editor’s Note: The “Collecting versal government to enforce a system of law processes of socialization and competition to the Core” column highlights monographic or compel obedience to a set of shared rules or among the units. As the units independently works that are essential to the academic li- norms of behavior. In this Hobbesian state of act and react to one another in a shared envi- brary within a particular discipline, inspired nature, each sovereign state is forced to rely ronment, their interactions generate pressures by the Resources for College Libraries bib- on its own power and capabilities to secure its that promote a similarity of behaviors and liography (online at http://www.rclweb.net). interests. In a system of many sovereign states outcomes — for example, individuals may be In each essay, subject specialists introduce with competing interests, conflict leading to ostracized for violating group norms or firms and explain the classic titles and topics that war becomes inevitable, because there is no may go bankrupt if they fail to emulate the continue to remain relevant to the undergrad- global authority to prevent some states from practices of successful competitors. uate curriculum and library collection. Dis- using force to achieve their aims. Since the Structures thus define the arrangement ciplinary trends may shift, but some classics preeminent desire of all states is to ensure of the units and their relation to each other never go out of style. — AD their own survival, all states must account for in the system. In the international system, this existential threat and prepare accordingly. Waltz argued, three key elements define this Of course, this insight was not new. In ex- structure. First, the organization of the units is or most of its history, the predominant plaining the origins of the Peloponnesian War, decentralized and anarchic; in the absence of concern of the study of international Thucydides argued more than 2,000 years ago a central authority “whether those units live, Frelations (IR) has been to analyze and that the “growth of the power of Athens, and the prosper, or die depends on their own efforts.”6 explain the nature of the international system alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war Second, the principal units of the system are of states and their interactions, particularly inevitable.”3 Howev- states, which are func- why states frequently engage in violent con- er, Waltz’s point was tionally similar, even flicts and war. The field of IR has produced precisely that anarchy though their interests many ambitious attempts at building theories is the most important and capabilities differ to explain these interactions, and the debate and enduring feature widely. States are not has been vigorous and wide-ranging. While of the international the only actors that the literature of IR theory is voluminous, two system, and he traced matter in international seminal works by Kenneth Waltz stand out as attention to its conse- politics, Waltz argues, classics that belong in every political science quences through the but they are the major collection. Waltz’s 1959 Man, the State, and writings of numerous ones, and it is their War and his Theory of International Politics, statesmen and phi- interactions that drive written two decades later, had a profound 1-2 losophers, including the structural dynam- impact on the subsequent scholarship of IR. Thucydides, Rous- ics of the international Waltz’s arguments were concise and forceful seau, Machiavelli, and Clausewitz. The first system. Third, the structure is defined by how and strongly shaped the contours of the debate and second levels of analysis can explain the power is distributed across the units in the sys- in IR for more than two decades, influencing forces driving states’ interests and policies, but tem. Changes in the number of great powers a generation of IR scholars. These works without considering the effect of international (e.g., a change from a bipolar to a multipolar continue to occupy a prominent place in most anarchy, “it is impossible to assess their impor- system) will change our expectations about introductory IR courses. tance or predict their results.”4 Furthermore, state behavior and the outcomes of internation- In Man, the State, and War, Waltz pio- failing to consider the international environ- al interactions. For Waltz, the structure of the neered the application of “levels of analysis” in ment leads to erroneous conclusions about anarchic international system produces regular explaining the causes of war and international preventing war, essentially saying “To end war, patterns of behavior: to ensure their survival, relations more generally. Waltz posited that improve men; or: To end war, improve states.”5 states will seek to maximize their power and explanations of war could be grouped at three However, as long as there is the possibility that will seek to counter the rise of potential aggres- distinct levels or “images,” as he called them. some men or states may not improve and will sors or hegemonic states, leading to a balance “First image” explanations of war focus on choose to resort to force to accomplish their of power in the system. human nature and individual psychology. goals, all states will be forced to consider war Waltz’s work formed the basis for what Explanations at this level argue that war is a as an option to ensure their survival. came to be known in IR as structural realism or result of human selfishness, greed, evil, miscal- In Theory of International Politics, Waltz neorealism. His emphasis on structural forces culation, or other individual factors. “Second extended this argument into a more ambitious shaping state behavior thus distinguished his image” theories look instead to the internal attempt at theorizing the major patterns of work from the classical realist tradition in IR. structure of states to explain war. For example, international politics. Waltz sought to explain This tradition — exemplified by Hans Mor- wars may be caused by despotic or imperialist various “laws” of state behavior by formulating genthau’s classic Politics among Nations, first states looking to expand their territory, by states explanatory theories rooted in the structure of published in 1948 — was also concerned with attempting to overcome internal strife by unit- the international system. Much of Waltz’s anarchy and state power, but it traced the source ing against an external enemy, or by domestic argument revolved around defining the con- of power politics in the international realm to political pressures that may make it costly for cepts of system and structure and showing the the fundamental role of human nature.7 “Hu- states to pursue peaceful diplomatic solutions. necessity for systemic theories in explaining man nature, in which the laws of politics have Without dismissing the contributions of international relations. Waltz defined a system their roots, has not changed” since antiquity, explanations at these levels, Waltz forcefully as a set of interacting units or parts (in this Morgenthau declared, and “the tendency to argued that they were incomplete without a case states) and a structure, which he defined dominate, in particular, is an element of all consideration of the international environment as a set of conditions or forces that limit the human associations.”8 Furthermore, while so- in which states operate, his “third image.” For variety of behaviors and outcomes that occur ciety “restrains aspirations for individual power Waltz, states exist in an anarchic international in the system. In social and political systems, within the national community,” it “encourages system. It is anarchic, because there is no uni- structure constrains behavior indirectly through continued on page 77
76 Against the Grain / June 2014