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The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism
Barry Buzan, Charles Jones and Richard Little
New York
1993
2. Waltz, His Critics, and the Prospects for a Structural Realism
Waltz's theory develops from the level of analysis problem in the study of international relations. Waltz himself explicitly used a "levels" approach to analysis in his 1959 book Man, the State and War, and the term "levels of analysis" was later given prominence by David Singer (Singer 1961:77-92). Singer's concern was to raise awareness of the need to distinguish between what he labeled state and system level explanations in the analysis of cause and effect in international relations. Waltz's purpose in TIP was to advance system theory down this path by showing how to differentiate clearly the system from the unit level. His method was to construct a definition of the system level in terms of structure that is precise enough to identify the boundary between unit and system factors. To facilitate this task, Waltz narrowed his focus down to the international political system, which enabled him to devise a neat, but very sparse, definition of system structure. This approach captured Singer's system level and made it available as a distinct basis for explaining part of the nature of international relations. As Waltz puts it:
Structure has to be studied in its own right, as do units. To claim to be following a systems approach or to be constructing a systems theory requires one to show how system and unit levels can be distinctly defined. Failure to mark and preserve the distinction between structure, on the one hand, and units and processes, on the other, makes it impossible to disentangle causes of different sorts and to distinguish between causes and effects. Blurring the distinction between the different levels of a system has, I believe, been the major impediment to the development of theories about international politics (Waltz 1976:78).
There is little reason to criticize Waltz's decision to focus on system structure. The relative simplicity of structure in comparison with the messy diversity at the unit level made clear identification of structure much the easiest approach to defining the boundary between the two levels. Waltz was fully aware that a structural theory would by definition focus mainly on the continuities in the international system. "Systems theories explain why different units behave similarly. . . Political structure produces a similarity in process and performance so long as a structure endures" (Waltz 1979:72, 87). "Structures never tell us all that we want to know. Instead they tell us a small number of big and important things. They focus our attention on those components and forces that usually continue for long periods" (in Keohane 1986:329).
Waltz was also fully aware that structural causes could never offer more than a partial explanation of international outcomes. "The weight of systems-level and of unit-level causes may well vary from one system to another," and it is important "to keep open the theoretically interesting and practically important question of what, in different systems, the proportionate causal weights of unit-level and of systems-level factors may be." (Waltz 1979:48-49) "One must ask how and to what extent the structure of a realm accounts for outcomes and how and to what extent the units account for outcomes." "Structure operates as a cause, but it is not the only cause in play." (Waltz 1979:78, 87) "Neither structure nor units determine the outcomes. Each affects the other." "Structures shape and shove. They do not determine behaviors and outcomes, not only because unit-level and structural causes interact, but also because the shaping and shoving of structures may be successfully resisted." (in Keohane 1986:328, 343) His many statements on this point have not prevented the emergence of a widespread and mistaken perception of him as a structural determinist. This is a worrying development for anyone trying to pursue cumulative scientific understanding in the field, and particularly for those trying to develop structural theory.
Waltz's theory made three major contributions toward a system theory of international relations.
On the negative side, Waltz seemed insensitive to the difficulties created by his very tight definition of system structure for other systems analysis approaches to international relations. He defined a system simply as "composed of a structure and of interacting units" (Waltz 1979:79; and in Keohane 1986:327). This dyadic approach strongly reflected both his earlier division of the universe of international political theory into reductionist and systemic categories (Waltz 1979:18), and his concern to identify the boundary between system and unit levels of analysis.
It is this part of Waltz's approach that created difficulty. The logic is as follows. First, he divided the universe of system into structure and unit levels. Second, he took structure to represent the system level of analysis. Third, he defined structure in highly restrictive terms. By this method Waltz could not avoid pushing a vast array of causes and effects down to the unit level. In addition, as Waltz's prime purpose in establishing the unit-system boundary was to elaborate theory at the system level, he naturally paid little attention to unit factors once he had banished them beyond the realm of his structural definition. He was always aware that unit causes played an important role in outcomes, and that "any theory of international politics requires also a theory of domestic politics." (in Keohane 1986:327, 331) But since the emphasis of his analysis in TIP was on system structure, he was simply not concerned to investigate what went on beyond his definitional boundary.
The consequence is that Waltz's definition effectively (but as will be shown in chapter 4 mistakenly) appropriated the whole content of the system level for his own narrow definition of structure. In the process, he forced down to the unit level all other attempts to conceptualize the international system in general terms. Many acknowledge the analytical centrality of his ideas on structure, but few are comfortable with his conclusion that all else is thereby relegated to the unit level. As Keohane and Nye argue it, "making the unit level the dumping ground for all unexplained variance is an impediment to the development of theory" (Keohane and Nye 1987:746). Consequently, there has been continuous pressure to push what Waltz counts as unit level factors back into the structural level. Waltz acknowledged "how difficult it is to keep the levels of a system consistently distinct and separate" (in Keohane 1986:328), but uncompromisingly defended his strict boundary. This struggle over the boundary has too easily ignored the possibility that Waltz's mistake lay not in the placement of the line between structure and unit levels but in the assumption that there is nothing else but structure in the system level.
This tension over the nature and placement of the boundary between the system and unit levels sets much of the tone of response to TIP, as indicated by the title of the 1986 volume, Neorealism and its Critics. Two lines of criticism stand out: one, that Waltz's theory is too narrow, the other, that it is too static. The complaint of narrowness has three sources. Firstly, and most broadly, criticism has occurred because of basic methodological differences between Waltz's positivist, structuralist approach, and the relativist, historicist positions of some commentators, most notably Cox and Ashley.
The second and third sources of narrowness arise from Waltz's restriction of his inquiry to the international political system and, within that confine, to his sparse definition of structure. In combination, these two restrictions exclude, or marginalize, a range of factors that others see as being: (1) "structural," (2) important to outcomes, and/or (3) lying both beyond a strictly political domain, and above a strictly unit level of analysis. Ruggie focuses on "dynamic density," defined as "the quantity, velocity and diversity of transactions that go on within society" (in this case world society) (in Keohane 1986:148). Keohane looks at richness of information, rules, and institutions in a similar light (Keohane 1986:190-97). Keohane and Nye highlight "non-structural incentives for state behavior" and "the ability of states to communicate and cooperate." (Keohane and Nye 1987:746) Both Ruggie and Cox also want to bring socioeconomic factors into the analysis: Ruggie draws attention to the linkage of property rights and capitalism to political sovereignty, while Cox wants to include the social forces engendered by the organization of production (in Keohane 1986:141-48, 220).
The charge that Waltz's theory is too static arises partly from the tendency of structuralists to emphasize continuities over change, which some find unacceptable (Ashley in Keohane 1986:265-67). This criticism is easily countered by the argument that one cannot make sense of change without first understanding continuity. Walker, for example, contrasts historicism and structuralism as extremes of concern with change and stasis, but does acknowledge that structure can be used to define change (Walker 1987:77). One merit of a strong definition of structure is precisely that it provides a benchmark with which one can differentiate between significant and trivial change (Jones 1981:1). More seriously, Ruggie and Keohane both criticize Waltz for excluding the sources of systemic change from his theory. As Ruggie puts it: "Waltz's theory of 'society' contains only a reproductive logic, but no transformational logic" (in Keohane 1986:152). This charge stems directly from the narrowness of Waltz's formulation in terms both of its confinement to the international political system, and its sparse definition of structure. In Waltz's scheme, change is either completely absent (the deep structure of anarchy), or infrequent (the single shift from multi- to bi-polarity), and its sources lie outside what is defined as structure (Waltz in Keohane 1986:343). Waltz kept variables to a minimum, and maximized the salience of continuity. Most of his critics want a more richly defined structure that is closer to the dynamics of change.
To some extent, these disagreements simply reflect matters of preference about the focus of analysis. Theory, after all, is nothing more than an abstract construct imposed on a selected body of objects, events, and processes. Provided the logic remains clear and coherent, many such formulations are both possible and legitimate, the choice among them being made on grounds of usefulness (Waltz 1979:8). Though we will have refinements to add in Section III, we take this pragmatist epistemology to be one of the points on which we are in substantial agreement with Waltz. Criticisms of Neorealism that it does not take adequate account of economic structures, that it does not explain change, and that it says little about the unit level, are thus true, but in one sense beside the point. Whether one agrees with his objectives or not, Waltz was primarily interested in identifying continuities of political structure, and in this he substantially succeeded. It is, however, possible to do much more.
The natural tension between the explanation of continuities and the explanation of change has plagued most attempts at the direct, empirical type of structuralism under consideration here, opening them to the charge of intrinsic conservative bias. So long as structural explanations are set within a bounded context of defined conditions, however, the tension between continuity and change does not seem to raise any fundamental intellectual issues. Waltz acknowledges that his structural theory is bounded by historical conditions: thus it is "problem-solving theory" in Cox's terminology (in Keohane 1986:208). The merit of structuralism as an explanation depends significantly on how durable the identified structure is. The salience of enquiry into change will be higher either if the specified structures have a short duration, or if the point of enquiry is close to the decay of a long-lived structure. Waltz's view was that he was dealing with long-lived structures, and that within his theory questions of structural effect were therefore more important than questions of structural change. Indeed, Waltz's deep structure is so durable that it does not seem to be a good use of one's time to be concerned with change on that level. Worrying about the end of anarchy is best left to those future generations who will be closer to it.
Others, of course, would simply challenge the description--or assumption--of continuity. The problem is in some degree linguistic. Continuity is most apparent to those who feel that key terms ("state," "nation," "anarchy") have been referring and continue to refer to essentially similar things over the past few centuries. By and large, status quo theorists, including Waltz, have perceived this to be the case, while revisionist or utopian theorists have repeatedly striven to introduce new vocabulary ("transnational") implying inadequacies in the ability of the existing terms to capture new (and very old) realities. We are aware that the theory of reference has been a lively area of development in recent philosophy, and that any attempt to bring the Realist tradition of international relations within the philosophical fold of a scientific realism of the sort that we sketch out in Section III will eventually have to cross this minefield. In brief, we suggest that the safest path would appear to lie in a causal or social account of reference of the kind advanced by Hilary Putnam, which sits well with political Realism by giving a special place in the division of linguistic labor to practitioners (Putnam 1977:118).
Although these criticisms of Waltz are beside the point in one sense, they nonetheless do define the challenge facing those who seek to develop a structural theory of international relations. In effect, the charge is not that Waltz's theory is wholly wrong (though bits of it are disputed), but that it is incomplete. Waltz's style of presentation exacerbates this problem. He took his structural theory to be the system level theory of international politics. Although the distinction between a system theory and a structural one may have been clear in Waltz's mind, it was not always clear in his prose. This was partly a problem of vocabulary. Waltz was clearly aware that a system is composed of a structure and interacting units. If this is so, then a system theory must logically incorporate both levels. But his concern to develop a structural theory led him into a terminologically unfortunate distinction between reductionist theories (those at the unit level), and systemic ones (those about structure). By this route, his usage of terms such as "systems theory" and "systems level" makes the term system effectively a synonym for structure. In confusing system and structure in this way, Waltz made his theory unnecessarily provocative, helping the case of those who wish to dismiss him as a structural determinist.
In their various ways, Waltz's critics all think that system theory needs to contain more than Waltz's structure. This "more" could either be a more comprehensive exposition of structure, or a more integrated theory of the system as a whole. Some want structure defined in more than political terms. Some want more recognition of language as an intervening system that allows no strictly neutral descriptions of international relations while also playing an ineradicable part in their conduct. Some want system theory to contain more linkages between the unit and structure levels. And some want a richer selection of generalizations about the international system to be available between Waltz's sparse conception of structure, at one end, and the densely populated unit level on the other, particularly in the area of process. In the chapters that follow in this Section and the next two, we hope to show how all of these desires for "more" can be met without compromising the basic distinction between structure and unit levels.
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