Institutions or the Balance-of-Power
Writing by abuhatem on Friday, 14 of March , 2008 at 3:34 am
G. John Ikenberry is truly brilliant and is perhaps the greatest modern proponent for the institutionalist (or “neoliberal”) school of international relations. Ikenberry’s work “After Victory” on how the new hegemon victors of great wars often attempt to re-shape the international system is the strongest argument for institutionalism that I have seen. Only Richard Roscerance, an international relations scholar and political economist, in his analysis on “concerts of great powers” in classical international systems has an argument which compares to Ikenberry’s in strength.
In last month’s Foreign Affairs, Ikenberry wrote an article on the ultimate contemporary litmus test for the realist (balance-of-power) and idealist (institutionalist) schools of international relations - China. While many realists - including John Mearsheimer and Kenneth Waltz - see China as a potential regional hegemon and rising power which must be balanced against and contained to preserve American preeminence, Ikenberry argues that the modern institutionalist “neoliberal” world order based in international norms, democracies, and interdependent globalized markets, will thus integrate China to the international system.
I tend to be convinced by Ikenberry much more than the realist school. Realism is useful in explaining balances of power, yet its determinism, scientism, and completely amoral analysis makes it anathema to me.
A note on historicist theory:
For philosophy of science purposes I do not believe in a “theory” of international relations which is simply another of a myriad of failed manifestations of historicism. Karl Popper’s work The Poverty of Historicism provides an ingenious refutations of such theories which claim to predict the future by finding “laws of history.” Indeed much current literature in international relations repudiates systemic “theories” of international relations. However, this does not mean that there does not exist some usefulness to their study. I am currently in the process of researching a very long 20-40 page paper on some of the assertions of international relations on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and I have found a degree of usefulness to these systemic theories as long as you take the historicism out.
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