INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN AN ERA OF DEMOCRATIC PEACE: THE ENDURING QUALITY OF WALTZIAN STRUCTURAL REALISM by EBEN COETZEE Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree PHILOSOPHIAE DOCTOR in POLITICAL SCIENCE in the FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL STUDIES AND GOVERNANCE SUPERVISOR: PROF. H. SOLOMON 27 JANUARY 2017 ii PLAGIARISM DECLARATION I declare that the enclosed work, entitled International politics in an era of democratic peace: the enduring quality of Waltzian structural realism, is my own work and that I have acknowledged all my sources. Signature: Date: iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………........ vi 1. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF WAR AND PEACE IN AN ERA OF DEMOCRATIC PEACE: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND OUTLINE……... 1 1.1 Introduction and significance……………………………………………………….. 1 1.2 The continuity of thought-patterns in international politics: framing the research problem………………………………………………………………….... 8 1.3 Aims and objectives…………………………………………………………………. 18 1.4 Methodological considerations……………………………………………………... 19 1.5 The structure of the study…………………………………………………………... 21 2. THE IDEA OF THEORY IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS................................ 23 2.1 Introduction........................................................................................................ 23 2.2 The structure of scientific theories and Waltz’s theory of theory……………….. 27 2.2.1 Laws versus theories……………………………………………………………… 28 2.2.2 Thoughts on the structure of scientific theories.............................................. 34 2.2.3 Waltzing towards theory: reflections on Waltz’s theory of theory.................... 37 2.3 Testing theories: procedures and limitations…………………………………....... 44 2.4 The nature and state of theory in international politics………………………...... 51 2.5 Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………….. 62 3. WALTZING TOWARDS A THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS………. 64 3.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………… 64 3.2 “He is a troublemaker” versus “He makes trouble”: reductionist and systemic theories of international politics……………………………………………………. 67 3.3 The nature of (political) structure and the structure of international politics…... 80 3.3.1 The notion of structure and the structure of the international-political system………………………………………………………………………………. 80 3.3.2 Defining (international-political) structure……………………………………….. 82 3.4 The structure of the international-political system: beyond definition and towards effects………………………………………………………………………. 86 3.4.1 The nature of the beast: anarchic realms and international politics…………. 87 3.4.2 The virtues and vices of international-political systems……………………….. 94 iv 3.5 Evaluation……………………………………………………………………….……. 99 4. SHALL WE WALTZ ONCE LAST TIME? DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY IN LIGHT OF THEORY AND HISTORY…………………………………………….. .101 4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. .101 4.2 The evolution of the democratic peace research programme: a critical appraisal………………………………………………………………………………106 4.3 Birds of a feather flock together? Claims and expectations of democratic peace theory and Waltzian structural realism…………………………………… 124 4.3.1 Democratic peace theory: general expectations of war and peace………… 129 4.3.2 Democratic peace theory: a wish upon a shooting star? Waltzian expectations of war and peace…………………………………………………. 132 4.4 Peering from within: (Waltzian) theoretical reflection on democratic peace theory……………………………………………………………………………….. 135 4.5 Promises, promises? Waltzian structural realism, democratic peace theory and the weight of history…………………………………………………………... 144 4.6 Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………… 154 5. ‘THE THING THAT HATH BEEN, IT IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE’: MULTIPOLAR AND BIPOLAR SYSTEMS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT……. 156 5.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 156 5.2 Multipolarity: diffusion of dangers, confusion of responses………………….. 163 5.2.1 War makes for strange bedfellows…………………………………………….. 170 5.2.2 Emulate or die: competition, emulation and socialisation…………………… 180 5.2.3 ‘Balances disrupted will one day be restored’: balancing and alliance management in multipolar systems…………………………………............... 185 5.2.4 Democratic peace, democratic wars and the multipolar (European) great- power system…………………………………………………………………….. 190 5.3 The post-war world: international politics in a bipolar world…………………… 206 5.3.1 A world gone M.A.D.: nuclear weaponry and international peace……......... 207 5.3.2 Bipolarity: clarity of dangers, certainty about who has to face them……….. 210 5.3.2.1 Balance-of-power theory and alliance management………………………. 211 5.3.2.2 The power-political foundations of the European peace and prosperity… 214 5.3.2.3 Strange bedfellows and shifting alliances in bipolar systems…………….. 219 v 5.3.2.4 Democratic, peace, democratic wars and the bipolar Cold War system… 222 5.4 Evaluation………………………………………………………………………….. 227 6. THE NOT-SO-NEW NEW WORLD ORDER: INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN A UNIPOLAR WORLD…………………………………………………………. 229 6.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 230 6.2 The vice of unipolar systems: “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”………………………………………………………………… 235 6.3 Are there any strange bedfellows left?............................................................. 239 6.4 Competition and emulation in a unipolar world…………………………………. 245 6.5 Democratic peace, the EU and Brexit: and back to the drawing board we go.258 6.6 Balance-of-power theory: tomorrow, not today…………………………………. 266 6.7 Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………… 275 7. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………… 277 APPENDICES: TABLES AND FIGURES…………………………………………… 287 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………….. 289 Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….. 340 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have done this on my own. In fact, there is a very real sense in which I keenly desire to remove my name from the cover page of this study and to stand back, giving glory only to God. In every possible sense, this is a monument to His power and grace. As has so often been stated, there is no such thing as a great man of God – only weak, pitiful, faithless men of a great and merciful God, to whom belongs all glory, power, majesty and dominion, forever and ever. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude for my supervisor and colleague, Professor Hussein Solomon. It was (and still is) an immense pleasure exchanging ideas with him about international relations theory, the state of current politics (national and international), and the future of our discipline (i.e. International Relations (IR)). Sometimes such exchanges occurred by way of more formal channels in which he offered critical comments about my progress; at others times, these exchanges occurred over a cup of coffee, which was not only particularly enjoyable, but provided me with the freedom to test new ideas in an environment congenial to free and critical thinking. A sincere word of thanks to him for making this journey such an enjoyable one – and, perhaps more importantly, for the wonderful example he has set for me. There are, indeed, several other people to whom I owe the deepest gratitude for their encouragement and support. I will, as always, convey my gratitude to you in person – words in a formal acknowledgement are often so empty. 1 CHAPTER ONE THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF WAR AND PEACE IN AN ERA OF DEMOCRATIC PEACE: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND OUTLINE 1.1 Introduction and significance In the history of the battle of ideas, few contenders have drawn and redrawn their intellectual swords more fiercely than the realist and liberal scholar of international politics. For realist scholars, old and new, the prospect of nations or states unshackling themselves from the bondage of power and interest, and subsequently of conflict and war, remains a chimera. On their part, liberals, especially those of an overly idealist orientation, without much difficulty conceive of a world in which harmony, cooperation and peace are the natural condition of man (Waltz, 2008a:3). In the world of the former, an essential continuity is discernible; in the latter, the world is amenable to the twin features of change and peace, the achievement of which rests solely on the condition that the actors that compose it are of a certain kind and creed (Hoffmann, 1995:161). Democracy or liberalism, or some combination of both, accordingly enables (liberal) democratic states to resolve their conflicts peacefully and provides a promise of perpetual peace. Within the liberal canon, this idealist variant remains an alluring proposition, owing in large measure to international-political changes at the close of the twentieth century. With the Soviet Union removed from the centre of international politics, liberal democratic values and institutions and, as a corollary, the liberal approach increasingly held sway (cf. Fukuyama, [1989] 1998). Liberal theory, it seemed, had been vindicated. Preceding these developments, however, and in a sense laying the conceptual foundations of the impending liberal ascendency, was the philosophical (re)discovery of the Kantian proposition of democratic peace. The proposition advanced and the finding thus reached, eloquently penned down by Michael Doyle [1983] (1996), pointed towards the explanatory value of a Kantian inspired liberal international theory in accounting for (liberal) democratic peace. For Doyle (1986; 1996), as for other scholars labouring in defence of the democratic peace theory (i.e., the 2 empirical observation of the absence of war between (liberal)