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CIAO DATE: 5/99
Foreign Policy and International Transitions: The Case for Foreign Policy Paradigms *
Woodrow Wilson School
Princeton University
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
February 12, 1999 (draft)
This paper, drawn from the first chapter of the author’s dissertation “Debating the Dragon: Priorities in U.S. China Policy since Tiananmen Square,” sketches his argument about the role of foreign policy paradigms in the transition from Cold War to post-Cold War American foreign policy. The first section outlines the argument, and the second section critiques realist arguments about how international structure constrains state foreign policy choices. The second chapter examines the reciprocal impact of the paradigm transition on U.S. China policy and of the debate on China policy on the content of the emerging foreign policy paradigm.
Looking back at the transition from the Cold War to the post-Cold War world, the factor that stands out most is the high degree of uncertainty expressed by policymakers and analysts as they grappled with changes that were obviously far-reaching but whose ultimate impact remained unclear. Stripped of the conceptual benchmarks that had guided policy and analysis for fifty years, policymakers and analysts struggled to make sense of the emerging international system. Scholars drew on theory and history to produce a wide range of predictions about future patterns of world politics and even more divergent recommendations about what foreign policies were appropriate for the new international environment. 1 Policymakers tried to redefine the interests of their states and calculate the impact of alternative policies in an atmosphere of extreme uncertainty, with confusion and lack of domestic consensus leading to inconsistent and incoherent foreign policies. Although few agreed with the predictions of John Mearsheimer’s provocative essay “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” Mearsheimer’s title accurately captured the sense of loss that many felt for the certainties that had characterized foreign policy during the Cold War. 2
This confusion should not be surprising, because international transitions alter both the basic structure of the international system and the conceptual paradigms policymakers use to interpret the meaning of events and to formulate appropriate foreign policies. An international transition is a large and discontinuous shift in the distribution of power within the international system, usually resulting from a system-wide war (or in this case, the end of the Cold War). An “international transition” is similar to the concept of “leadership transition” or “hegemonic transition” in cyclical international relations theories. 3 “International transition” is a more general term that does not assume that the international system is organized in a hierarchy or that a hegemon exists that can unilaterally set the rules of the new international system. 4 The useage employed here emphasizes recurring cycles punctuated by transition periods, but does not assume either that the cycles repeat indefinitely with only minor variations or that the system necessarily evolves or progresses in any direction. 5 International transitions offer an opportunity for change in both the foreign policies of individual states and the operation of the international system as a whole. Whether change actually occurs—and what direction it moves in—is an empirical question that rests on the collective choices of major states. My goal here is to provide a framework for analyzing how states change their foreign policies after an international transition and how these foreign policy changes collectively shape the international system.
This chapter uses the transition from the Cold War to the post-Cold War international system to examine three fundamental questions for the study of international relations and foreign policy. First, how do states adjust their foreign policies after international transitions? I argue that the process of understanding and defining the new international environment has a significant impact on the content of a state’s new foreign policy, including the goals the state pursues and the means it employs to pursue them. Second, what is the relationship between the structure of the international system and the foreign policies of states within the system? I argue the relationship is reciprocal. Structural constraints of the international system, as interpreted by political actors within a state, shape foreign policy by influencing calculations about which goals are achievable, which means are effective, and how other states will react. I use the term “foreign policy paradigm” to describe this set of beliefs. But the foreign policy goals and strategic beliefs of major states can also help shape collective understandings of the international system, thereby influencing how other states within the system interpret supposed “structural” constraints. International structure incorporates ideational components that are partially endogenous, and is therefore not a completely independent variable. This looser conception of the relationship between international structure and foreign policy highlights a third important question. If international structure imposes only weak constraints on foreign policy choice, how can states formulate and implement consistent foreign policies? I argue that a state needs a shared understanding of how the international environment works and some degree of consensus on the relative priority of foreign policy goals to have a consistent and effective foreign policy. Domestic agreement on a foreign policy paradigm is necessary for a consistent foreign policy.
The discontinuous shifts in the distribution of power that characterize an international transition create new sources of uncertainty that make it hard for states to adapt their foreign policies to the new international environment. There are three main sources of uncertainty: increased difficulty in obtaining information about relative capabilities, the indeterminate nature of international structure, and conceptual confusion about which capabilities and interests will matter most in the new environment. The first source of uncertainty is lack of information. The rapid pace of change makes it more difficult to calculate relative power trajectories and determine the intentions of other states, even if a fixed set of reference points for calculating power are assumed to exist. 6 By definition, an international transition involves large and discontinuous changes in the relative power of major states; the long-term impact of such changes remains unclear for some time. The second source of uncertainty is the indeterminate structure of the emerging international system. International structure does not depend solely on the distribution of relative capabilities among states, as neorealists assume. 7 International structure also has an ideational component: collective strategic beliefs, existing international norms, and the political cleavages within the system at a particular time are all structural attributes which influence state behavior. These attributes are shaped by the collective choices of states and cannot be derived directly from the distribution of material capabilities. 8 International transitions force policymakers to make critical foreign policy decisions that will help shape the emerging international structure without a full understanding of the consequences of their actions. Given the lack of concrete information about relative capabilities and the indeterminate nature of international structure, foreign policy choices during transitions are heavily influenced by prevailing domestic and international ideas.
However these ideas are mostly the product of the old international environment. The relevance of old foreign policy ideas to the new emerging international system is unclear and subject to challenge. Thus the objective level of uncertainty increases at the same time that the subjective assumptions that policymakers rely on to interpret the international environment are being called into question. Policymakers face the challenge of formulating policies that both adapt to and help shape the new international environment while simultaneously reexamining fundamental assumptions about the international system. This third source of uncertainty—changing assumptions about how the new international environment works and which interests and capabilities will matter most—is the primary focus of this paper. These assumptions, which can be collectively thought of as a foreign policy paradigm, provide a conceptual map which helps policymakers formulate foreign policies appropriate to their international environment. 9 The old foreign policy paradigm contained widely shared contextual assumptions that guided the formulation and implementation of foreign policy, but these old assumptions can no longer provide guidance relevant to the problems that confront policymakers in the new environment. 10 The inadequacy of the old paradigm in the face of new policy challenges means that fundamental principles of foreign policy become open questions.
The challenge is political as well as intellectual. Breakdown of the previous domestic consensus on the principles that should govern foreign policy means that policymakers must not only construct a new set of assumptions that make sense of an uncertain and rapidly changing world, but must also articulate those assumptions persuasively enough to create a consensus behind the new foreign policy derived from those assumptions. Some degree of consensus is necessary to mobilize sufficient political support and resources from society to implement the foreign policy. Because policymakers operate in a political environment, the assumptions that make up a foreign policy paradigm are crafted with one eye on the international system and the other on the domestic political arena. Because the foreign policy paradigm’s assumptions bias foreign policymaking in particular directions and influence the costs of future efforts to alter policy, domestic interest groups and bureaucratic agencies have strong incentives to shape the content of the new paradigm in ways that serve their own interests. The new paradigm is thus the product of a political competition to reshape definitions of state interests and understandings of how the emerging international system works. International structural constraints are interpreted and constructed by self-interested domestic actors who recognize that these collective beliefs will influence their future ability to pursue their own foreign policy preferences. The outcome of this competition is influenced by domestic institutions and the relative power of competing actors, 11 but ideas and the ability to articulate a compelling vision of the state’s role in the new international system also play an important role in shaping preferences and mobilizing political actors. Because important attributes of international structure rest on the collective choices of states, the domestic debate over foreign policy paradigms does not merely reflect fixed international constraints; the outcome of the domestic debate in major states can also help shape international structure. 12
My argument draws on several theoretical approaches, but is broadly situated within a constructivist approach to international relations. 13 Constructivists argue that important attributes of international structure are the product of socially constructed international norms. I seek a middle ground between the positions of those who argue all aspects of international structure are socially constructed and those who define structure solely in material terms. International structure is best understood as a composite of both material and ideational components; the interaction between material and ideational factors can help determine the trajectory of change in each. 14 My argument also addresses the classic international relations theory problem of integrating systemic and domestic influences in foreign policy analysis. 15 I argue that a major international transition triggers a domestic struggle to redefine state interests and reshape understandings of the international system. Ideas and norms (especially about the degree to which the international system constrains foreign policy) affect the domestic foreign policy debate by mobilizing political actors, influencing definition of group identities and interests, and altering the preferences of domestic actors. The outcome of the domestic debate not only influences the state’s foreign policy, but can also shape the international system by affecting collective understandings of international structure. I argue that analysis of the ways that domestic and international beliefs interact and shape each other is necessary, whether we seek to understand an individual state’s foreign policy or the broader effects of international structure.
This focus differs from both realist and liberal approaches to international relations. Realist theories argue that the structure of the international system constrains all states, forcing them to adopt similar foreign policies and pursue similar interests. Liberal theories derive state interests from the underlying preferences of societal actors mediated by political institutions; international structure is the product (not the source) of these societal preferences. 16 Neither theory can fully explain the shifts in U.S. foreign policy priorities since the end of the Cold War. My argument also addresses the broad question of how states can formulate and implement consistent foreign policies. Realist theories tend to adopt a model of the state as a unitary actor, assuming away the problem of consistency. 17 Liberal theories support a pluralist model of foreign policymaking that predicts more variation and more conflict over policy, but the liberal focus on domestic institutions and interest groups cannot explain shifts in U.S. foreign policy priorities that are not correlated with changes in the relative political power of social groups.
These theoretical limitations become important in the next chapter, which addresses the problem of explaining changing priorities and inconsistency in U.S. China policy. Neither realism nor liberalism can explain the shifts in the relative priority of human rights, economics, and security interests. Both theories also have difficulty explaining the lack of consistency in U.S. China policy, which not only resulted in extensive conflicts between the executive and legislative branches, but also resulted in frequent conflicts between different agencies within the executive branch. Explaining these empirical puzzles—why policy priorities shifted from security interests to human rights to economic interests and how China policy moved from consistency to incoherence and back toward consistency—requires a different approach. In succeeding chapters, I will use the foreign policy paradigm model developed below to explain both specific shifts in policy priorities and variations in the degree of consistency in China policy.
A Model of Foreign Policy Paradigms
This paper presents a model for analyzing how states reformulate their foreign policy in response to major changes in the international system. The cause is usually a major change in the distribution of power in the international system, but changes in an individual state’s domestic structure or position within the system could also cause a state to reformulate its foreign policy. The argument focuses on how new assumptions about the international environment are constructed that can support a coherent foreign policy. Focusing on foreign policy paradigms yields three key insights into foreign policy: (1) states behave differently in periods when a shared foreign policy paradigm exists than in periods when there is no shared paradigm, (2) variations in the content of a foreign policy paradigm produce variations in state behavior, and (3) the process of constructing a foreign policy paradigm has a critical influence on its content. I will use examples from the U.S. debate about how to respond to the end of the Cold War to illustrate the argument, but suggest that the model can be applied more broadly.
My argument begins by asking how large collectivities like states can formulate and implement a coherent foreign policy. I argue that a minimum degree of agreement among policymakers, legislators, bureaucrats, and foreign policy elites on basic principles is necessary. A foreign policy paradigm can be defined as “shared agreement on the principles that ought to govern foreign policy.” These principles include assumptions about the relative priority of national interests, the effectiveness of various means in advancing those interests, and strategic beliefs about how potential allies and adversaries will behave. Taken together, these assumptions define the constraints and opportunities present in the international system and delimit the range of the state’s foreign policy choices. These assumptions are not universal truths, but contingent beliefs that apply in a particular historical and international context. The shared assumptions that comprise a foreign policy paradigm perform three primary functions: (1) providing a conceptual map which helps policymakers formulate foreign policy on the basis of limited information, (2) providing shared understandings about the relative importance of goals and about causal relationships which can help coordinate the foreign policy apparatus, and (3) providing arguments that can mobilize popular support and justify the use of scarce resources to pursue foreign policy goals. The latter function can be performed either by arguing that the international environment contains threats to key national values and interests or by arguing that the state should seek to make the international system more compatible with its values and interests.
The paradigm’s definition of the relative priority of interests plays a critical role in formulating policy and coordinating the bureaucracy. By defining a rough hierarchy of national interests, a foreign policy paradigm provides general guidance on how tradeoffs between interests should be resolved when conflicts arise in a specific policy context. This helps policymakers evaluate the many potential foreign policy goals and separate those which are more important and should be pursued from those which are less important and can be neglected. 18 During the Cold War, widespread agreement on the ideological and military threat posed by the Soviet Union made security interests the highest priority. 19 When a policy question involved tradeoffs between interests, the “first cut” answer was to examine the extent to which security interests were at stake. Unless the other interests at stake in a given issue were very large and the security interests very small, there was an a priori presumption that security interests would dominate. (For example, the United States was willing to tolerate persistent European and Japanese barriers to U.S. exports in return for cooperation on security issues. Although U.S.negotiators sometimes pushed hard for concessions during trade negotiations, the higher priority placed on maintaining the security relationship acted as a restraint on how aggressively negotiators could push). Shared agreement on the high priority of security interests helped define bureaucratic roles and curb the natural tendency of bureaucracies to pursue their own missions at the expense of larger strategic goals.
One way a foreign policy paradigm prioritizes interests is by defining some interests as primary goals of foreign policy and others as instrumental goals that advance more important interests. Groups seek to have their goals adopted as primary interests in order to maximize state efforts to pursue them. If they are unsuccessful, they are forced to argue that their goals and policies would be instrumentally useful in pursuing more widely accepted primary interests. Because an instrumental goal has a lower priority, it is likely to be neglected when conflicts arise between competing interests. For this reason, arguing that a goal is instrumentally useful is a second-best solution, but one that is commonly used to broaden support for a policy. During the Cold War, developmental assistance programs were often justified in terms of their instrumental value in preventing allied or non-aligned countries from adopting communist systems. This justified spending for these programs, even if their actual effectiveness was questionable. (Even if aid produced little economic development, the provision of aid to governments yielded diplomatic leverage and security benefits). With the collapse of communism, the instrumental justification for development assistance disappeared, the effectiveness of programs was widely questioned in Congress, and foreign aid budgets have been slashed. In the context of China policy, the question of whether human rights was a primary goal or an instrumental goal has been a major focus of the policy debate. Human rights advocates initially argued that human rights should be a primary goal, but after President Clinton’s decision to delink China’s most-favored nation (MFN) status from its human rights performance they were reduced to arguing that human rights and the rule of law were instrumentally useful in advancing U.S. economic and security interests. An argument based on the instrumental utility of human rights placed human rights advocates in a weak position whenever human rights goals clashed with economic and security interests.
The shared assumptions of a foreign policy paradigm bias foreign policy debate and regulate access to the foreign policymaking apparatus. They limit serious policy debate to arguments that make sense within the intellectual confines of the paradigm. This helps ensure a more coherent policy, but also serves as a cognitive and political barrier to the adoption of new goals, new causal beliefs, and new assumptions about how other states will behave. 20 A widely accepted foreign policy paradigm increases the executive branch’s autonomy and structures interactions between interest groups and the executive and legislative branches. Because the paradigm’s assumptions are shared by the legislature, 21 Congress acts as a buffer that limits the ability of interest groups to challenge the paradigm’s major assumptions. Efforts by interest groups to influence policy in ways consistent with the paradigm’s assumptions are much easier than efforts that challenge the paradigm’s assumptions about goals, causal beliefs, and models of state behavior. Moreover if the paradigm incorporates the group’s key interests, the “default policy” may make further efforts to influence foreign policy unnecessary. Conversely, when the executive branch seeks to adopt policies that fall outside the paradigm’s framework, it has difficulty attracting support. To the extent that foreign policy issues are also important domestic politics issues, the foreign policy paradigm can help reinforce domestic political alignments by defining limits on debate.
The description above implies a static foreign policy paradigm that tends to resist change and results in stable, coherent foreign policies. International transitions add a dynamic element to the model. 22 Major changes in the international system create a disjuncture between this shared interpretation and the realities of the new international environment. As this disjuncture becomes evident, the paradigm’s effectiveness in performing the functions of formulating policy, coordinating implementation, and mobilizing resources breaks down. The paradigm’s assumptions about how the world works and its definition of threats are no longer helpful in solving pressing policy questions that demand answers. The policies derived from the old paradigm’s assumptions are either irrelevant or obviously do not make sense in the new environment. The paradigm’s core assumptions about how other states will behave are contradicted by important events, such as Gorbachev allowing Eastern European Communist governments to fall. The conditions the paradigm’s causal arguments are based on disappear, rendering policies derived from those assumptions moot (what does it mean to resist communism when few communist states are left?) The paradigm’s assumptions about which means are effective or ineffective are no longer convincing because the context within which those assumptions were formed has been altered beyond recognition. There is increasing recognition that the world has changed and that the old paradigm’s guidelines for understanding it are inadequate.
Paradigm breakdown makes a coherent foreign policy harder to achieve, because there is no longer a consensus on how the international environment works or on which goals are most important. Old policies must be adapted to the new conditions, but there is no agreement on what changes are appropriate. Government bureaucracies continue to work under the old assumptions, but when those assumptions produce policies which are obviously inappropriate, agencies begin to adopt new assumptions that serve their bureaucratic interests and expand their authority. Controls on technology exports to communist states provide a good example. Once communist governments fell in Eastern Europe, the Commerce Department argued that export controls were no longer necessary, while the Defense Department argued that technology could still make its way to the Soviet Union and should continue to be controlled. The dispute between the Commerce Department and the State Department over which agency should control licenses for satellite exports to China is another example of how the lack of shared assumptions on policy priorities generates bureaucratic conflict. In the absence of agreed priorities, agencies begin pulling in different directions and pursuing policies that reflect their parochial goals. This not only reduces overall policy coherence, but also provides interest groups with opportunities to influence policy by taking sides in bureaucratic disagreements. Senior policymakers are regularly forced to intervene in bureaucratic disputes at lower levels to coordinate policy implementation and to impose their will on quarreling bureaucracies (the China satellite license case ultimately required a decision from President Clinton). Strong leadership from the top can contradict some of these centrifugal tendencies, but executive attention is a scarce resource and the absence of an accepted view of how the new international environment works makes it hard for leaders to chart a firm course with confidence. The problem is not only to formulate policy and to control the bureaucracy, but also to persuade the public and Congress to support new policies. In the early stages of paradigm breakdown, policies grounded in the old assumptions can still command support. As the disjuncture between the paradigm and the new environment becomes more obvious, the lack of shared assumptions makes it increasingly difficult to gain support and mobilize resources for new policies. 23
The breakdown of the old foreign policy paradigm creates a demand for a new way of looking at the world that can answer pressing policy questions and serve as the basis for a coherent foreign policy. Senior policymakers try to articulate a new vision for foreign policy, but the high degree of uncertainty makes it hard to develop a paradigm that can win widespread support. (Post-Cold War American foreign policy has already seen two failed attempts: the Bush Administration’s “new world order” and the Clinton Administration’s policy of “engagement and enlargement”). Shared agreements on priorities that previously structured relations among bureaucratic agencies and insulated the executive branch from social pressures decay along with the paradigm. The breakdown of consensus creates opportunities for interest groups and bureaucratic agencies to advance new policy goals and new explanations of international behavior that support those goals. The competition between groups inside and outside the government to define policy goals and explanations of the international system makes foreign policy even more incoherent until a new consensus is formed.
The stakes for bureaucracies are high. Their responsibilities, organizational structures, and budgets are all justified in terms of the assumptions in the old foreign policy paradigm. 24 Its breakdown is a direct threat to their continued existence. Bureaucracies try to maintain support for the old paradigm that justified their budgets for as long as possible, but as it comes under increasing challenge they begin to look for new missions and new justifications for their old missions. Although their organizational capabilities were adapted to the demands of the old environment, bureaucracies try to present themselves as solutions for any new problems that appear to have substantial political support. March and Olson’s “garbage can” model of solutions seeking problems applies to this bureaucratic search for new missions. 25 In this search, bureaucracies are likely to encroach on the missions of other agencies and to seek support from interest groups and Congress for non-traditional missions. The military’s post-Cold War interest in “non-traditional” missions such as drug interdiction, environmental security, and humanitarian intervention as a means of showing its continued relevance illustrates this tendency. 26 Bureaucracies respond to organizational imperatives, but their instrumental goals do not dictate a fixed view of the world. The Department of Defense has a bureaucratic imperative to show that the world is a place where military power is useful, but it will support any arguments that have strong political support in order to justify its claim on resources. Because a foreign policy paradigm defines what issues are viewed as problems and what solutions are useful, bureaucracies have a strong interest in influencing its content.
Interest groups whose goals were well-represented under the old paradigm face a similar challenge. They must construct persuasive new explanations for why old policies that serve their interests still make sense and should be continued in the new environment. For groups whose goals were not well-served by the old paradigm, however, the construction of a new foreign policy paradigm is a major opportunity. With views about foreign policy goals, causal beliefs, and the international environment in flux, they have a chance to promote assumptions more compatible with their goals. They can form alliances with bureaucracies seeking new missions or a higher priority for old missions. 27 Many interest groups do not have well-defined foreign policy interests. If they decide the international environment is either unthreatening or irrelevant to their interests, they may not seek to shape foreign policy at all. Even economic interest groups, who have a relatively well-developed framework for thinking about their economic interests, may not have firm foreign policy preferences when they are not sure how the international economy will function. An export-oriented business might have very different policy preferences in a world with three regional trade blocks than in a world with an integrated global economy. When it is unclear which world will ultimately prevail, it is hard for the exporter to define its interests, much less lobby for them effectively. Yet the United States has some ability to affect the evolution of the world trading system, and business groups have some ability to influence U.S. policy. Changes in how important groups define their interests can sometimes trigger major changes in policy. Because a foreign policy paradigm helps shape conceptions of interests, it does not merely build a coalition of like-minded interest groups. A paradigm can also help shape the identities of existing groups as well as redefine their interests and views about what kind of foreign policy is desirable.
Forming a consensus on a new paradigm capable of guiding foreign policy is not a neutral process based on academic evaluations of competing theories of international relations. It is an intensely political process, with political actors pursuing their own goals by advancing different interpretations of the international environment. Policymakers seek a paradigm that can guide an effective foreign policy and muster political support. Bureaucrats seek a paradigm that protects their agency’s budget and increases its power within the bureaucracy. Interest groups seek a paradigm that places a high priority on pursuing their most important material and ideal interests. The result is an intense debate about how to interpret the international environment, fierce arguments about which foreign policy goals are desirable and attainable, and a political struggle within the state to shape a new foreign policy appropriate for the new environment. Lack of consensus often results in inconsistent policies that reflect competing policy goals and incompatible assumptions. Many policies in a transition period can be thought of as experiments that produce information about how the world works. Typically interest groups advance a new policy goal, and try to win support from bureaucracies seeking to prove their relevance in the new environment. The U.S. military intervention in Somalia can be interpreted as the product of this kind of relationship. 28 The failure of this mission discredited the goal of “peacemaking” for its own sake and cast doubt on both the utility of military intervention to rebuild “failed states” and on the ability of the United Nations to manage military operations. The interpretations of foreign policy experiments are also socially constructed and the product of political competition. 29 They become political symbols in the broader struggle to define the foreign policy paradigm.
The ability of policymakers, bureaucracies, and interest groups to get their foreign policy preferences adopted by the state does not rest solely on political position and political resources, though these factors are important. It rests importantly on the quality of the actor’s arguments and ideas. 30 The question is not only “whose preferences?” but also “what preferences?” Three kinds of arguments are important: normative arguments, causal arguments, and cost arguments. 31 Normative arguments assert that the preference is shared by (or will benefit) many domestic groups and therefore should be a state foreign policy goal. They help build a broader base of political support for the goal. An example is the normative argument that “America’s mission” is to promote democracy in other societies, expressing and promoting values shared by all Americans. 32 Causal arguments argue that a goal can be achieved (or at least advanced) by implementing specific policies. If a goal is unattainable, why should the state expend scarce resources to pursue it at the expense of other goals? Causal arguments usually contain a behavioral model or set of strategic beliefs about how other states will react. The causal arguments of advocates suggest the goal is readily attainable, while the causal arguments of opponents suggest the goal is impossible. Cost arguments focus on the costs and the externalities involved in pursuing a goal. Opportunity costs are always present, because any expenditure of scarce resources (including the attention of senior policymakers) on one goal implies fewer resources to pursue other goals. The debate usually centers on the magnitude of these costs in a given case. Externalities can be either positive or negative. Negative externalities imply that pursuing the goal will interfere with the attainment of other goals. Positive externalities imply that pursuit of the goal will advance other goals. The claim that a goal is both intrinsically worthwhile and instrumentally useful in advancing other valued goals is often extremely useful in coalition building.
All three kinds of arguments are important political resources for actors trying to get their preferences adopted by the state. Each kind of argument implies specific beliefs about how policies to advance the preference will work in practice. The key is that uncertainty about the international environment during an international transition creates a high degree of uncertainty about what goals are possible, how they might be achieved, and what it will cost to pursue them. Uncertainty and intellectual confusion create space for alternative arguments. Moreover the inherent ambiguity of goals such as “power” and “security” means that even traditional realist goals require contextual redefinition before they can guide policy formulation and implementation. 33 The ability to influence other people’s normative and causal beliefs to build support for a foreign policy goal becomes a key political resource, a resource unavailable when people are confident they know how the world works and what their interests are. Karl Mannheim’s arguments about the role of ideology in motivating action also apply to shaping foreign policy preferences. 34 Normative arguments can change others’ conceptions of their values and beliefs about which foreign policies are desirable. 35 Causal arguments can change others’ conceptions of how their material and ideal interests are affected by the international environment and what foreign policy can and cannot do about it. Arguments about the international environment can reshape how other actors define their interests, values, and identities. They can also bring new actors into the foreign policy debate by demonstrating that important interests and values are at stake in foreign policy, a realization that has the potential to reshape political coalitions and change foreign policy outcomes. 36 Feedback from policy experiments can either help build support for particular policy goals by showing that key assumptions appear to be validated by experience, or discredit goals by suggesting that key assumptions are wrong or that the goals are unattainable.
This view challenges rationalist (neorealist and neoliberal) international relations theories that assume preferences of individuals and states are formed prior to and independently of strategic calculations. 37 Defining state preferences, or individual preferences and processes of preference aggregation, are a vital but neglected aspect of international relations theory. 38 Rationalist theories either define state and individual preferences exogenously or insist that preferences are independent of strategies. Both approaches bracket important questions about fundamental sources of preferences and how individual preferences shape state interests. 39 I argue that the political process of aggregating individual and group preferences into state preferences necessarily includes arguments about which preferences are worthwhile, which preferences are attainable, and about what it costs to pursue specific goals. Debate about these questions can alter both the preferences of individuals and social groups and their willingness to pursue these goals through the political process, and therefore plays a critical role in state preference formation. Once a consensus is reached on state preferences, they are likely to remain relatively stable because they are supported by a set of causal and strategic assumptions invoked during the debate over foreign policy goals. The process of socially constructing a foreign policy paradigm involves building a consensus on what is at stake in foreign policy that reflects current domestic political views and also helps shape future views. Conversely, the inability to build a consensus means that foreign policy will be inconsistent, incoherent, and subject to frequent interventions based on transient domestic political concerns.
This conception of the foreign policy process yields three key insights. The first is that states behave differently in periods when a shared foreign policy paradigm exists than in periods when there is no shared paradigm. Under a shared paradigm, foreign policy tends to be stable, interpreted similarly across government agencies, and relatively consistent across countries and issue areas. The existence of a dominant and institutionalized set of ideas makes it relatively hard for states to adopt new ideas, which must be justified in terms of the shared conceptual framework and hierarchy of interests in the dominant paradigm. Conversely, the lack of a shared paradigm is likely to result in foreign policy that changes frequently, is interpreted differently across government agencies, and which varies widely across countries and issue areas. The absence of a dominant paradigm makes it easier to incorporate new ideas into foreign policy; interest groups and policy advocates can seek to shape conceptual frameworks and definitions of national interest rather than accepting them as given.
The second is that variations in the content of a foreign policy paradigm produce variations in state behavior. Because the paradigm attaches specific meanings to objective reality and emphasizes some factors while de-emphasizing others, definitions of national interests, causal beliefs, and the resultant range of “rational” foreign policies can vary widely under different paradigms. Although international structure and domestic political institutions influence the content of the paradigm, many alternative paradigms can fit the same structural conditions. 40 States operating under different sets of beliefs are likely to make different policy choices when facing the same structural conditions. In order to predict how a state will behave in a specific set of circumstances, we need to understand its foreign policy beliefs and preferences, which cannot be derived solely from a material definition of international structure. The content of a state’s foreign policy paradigm exerts a significant independent effect on state behavior.
The third insight is that the process of constructing a foreign policy paradigm has a major influence on its content, and therefore on the state’s future behavior. (If the state is a great power, the content of the paradigm it develops may also affect overall patterns of behavior in the new international system.) Paradigm construction is a path-dependent historical process whose outcome cannot be predicted in advance. Some of the contending ideas about foreign policy priorities and the effectiveness of alternate means get filtered out and discarded during the process of paradigm construction; others become widely accepted and resistant to even well-founded challenges. Domestic political institutions and international structure influence paradigm construction, but they do not determine paradigm content or state behavior. International and domestic structural constraints allow a wide range of choice in the paradigms states use to understand the international system, define their national interests, and calculate the prospects of alternate courses of action. There is a reciprocal influence between the ways that international structure shapes beliefs about foreign policy and that the ways that the foreign policy beliefs of states shape the international system. 41 Foreign policy paradigms can be used to examine both domestic foreign policy debates (such as my empirical problem of explaining shifting priorities in U.S. China policy) and overall changes in the international system following an international transition.
Constructing International Structure
The approach outlined above differs from both liberal and realist understandings of how state preferences are formed. Liberal theories emphasize how domestic political institutions and the distribution of power aggregate pre-existing, fixed individual and group preferences into state preferences. As suggested earlier, this approach ignores the role of persuasion and beliefs in shaping preferences and influence whether actors seek to influence foreign policy. Realist approaches to international relations emphasize that international structure generates some state interests directly and severely constrains the range of rational state foreign policy choices. For realists, a state’s freedom of choice is limited by the distribution of power in the international system and the state’s relative position within that system. The distribution of power is the independent variable; state behavior is the dependent variable. The ideas that make up a foreign policy paradigm are usually considered to be an epiphenomenal product of international structure. 42 The core insight of realist international relations theory is that “international structure provides opportunities and constraints that shape state behavior significantly, even if they do not determine it entirely.” 43 For realists, the most important feature of the international system is anarchy—the fact that in international politics there is no sovereign to enforce rules or prevent the use of force. Because the use of force is always possible, states must ensure their survival via their own military capabilities or through alliances with others. 44 Realist theories emphasize the ways that states form shifting alliances to preserve the balance of power, preventing any one state from achieving a dominant position. 45 The security dilemma inherent in an anarchical system means that measures one state takes to ensure its own security automatically threaten other states, because those states can never be sure those capabilities won’t be used against them at a later date. International cooperation is limited, because states are always concerned that others may benefit more from cooperation than they do and later use those improved capabilities against them. Realist theories emphasize the ways that the anarchical structure of the international system forces states “to pursue second- and third-best strategies strikingly at variance with their underlying preferences.” 46
Realists are correct that international structure constrains state behavior, but the degree of constraint is less than realists commonly assume. At least four factors weaken the influence of international structure during international transitions. Two relate to informational uncertainty, and can be included in a realist analysis: 1) the difficulty of calculating relative power after a transition and 2) the problem of determining the ultimate structure of the international system when the system itself is in flux. Two relate to the indeterminate nature of international structure, and cannot be easily analyzed from realist premises: 3) the fact that international structure is partly the product of choices that great powers make and the beliefs that influence those choices; and 4) that structural influences operate mainly through states’ beliefs about how structural constraints will influence other states’ responses to their actions.
Realists have long admitted the difficult of accurately measuring power, that power has a psychological component, and that it is perceptions of power rather than objective measures that influence action. 47 Accurate information about state capabilities is especially hard to obtain during a transition period. The end of a system-wide war is usually marked by a retreat from wartime levels of militarization towards more sustainable peacetime military forces. 48 The future capabilities of defeated states will often be radically different from their capabilities at the end of an unsuccessful war, making it difficult to calculate how long it will take to rebuild their economies and what capabilities they will ultimately have. (Who predicted the emergence of German and Japan as major economic powers when their industrial base lay in ruins after World War II?). These factors make it especially difficult to project current state capabilities into the future. 49 Moreover the effectiveness of various forms of power (such as military power, structural power, economic power, and “soft” power) depends partly on international structure, which is unknown during a transition period. Uncertainties about current and especially future capabilities are therefore multiplied by uncertainties about how effectively particular capabilities can be translated into outcomes. During transitions there is a higher degree of uncertainty about how much power states have now, how much they will have in the future, and which capabilities will be most important.
For structural realists, international structure is defined by the ordering principle of the system (anarchy) and the distribution of capabilities (power) within the system. 50 Given those assumptions, they predict that balances of power will form. Many realists further assume that the number of great powers in the system affects state behavior within the system and the stability of the system. Using an undifferentiated definition of power to define system structure is problematic (as is the assumption that anarchy automatically results in balances of power). 51 But even within those terms, realists initially disagreed whether the emerging structure of post-Cold War international politics was best characterized as “altered bipolarity”, U.S. global hegemony, a “unipolar moment”, or a fully multipolar world. 52 Today realist analysts continue to disagree about whether the world is better viewed as a world with one superpower, as a fully multipolar system, or as some intermediate hybrid. Since the chief analytical thrust of realism is the way in which the international system and the distribution of capabilities shape state behavior, uncertainty about fundamental features such as the structure of the international system makes it difficult for theory to provide much policy guidance. 53
Moreover, there is no compelling reason to accept the realist frame of reference. Realism assumes that power balancing results in alignments within the international system, but cannot explain specific patterns of alignments or predict which power grouping a given state will join. 54 Answering these questions requires either delving into the threat perceptions of individual states or expanding the definition of international structure to include a principle that determines patterns of alignment. 55 The concept of a systemic alignment principle that both shapes and reflects state threat perceptions is a useful way to approach this question. A variety of principles have governed patterns of alignment during different historical periods. During the crusades, the alignment principle was religion; in the eighteenth century Concert of Europe, the alignment principle was relative power; and in the Cold War, the alignment principle was the ideological choice of a communist or capitalist system. Which principle is viewed as dominant has a strong influence on a state’s choice of potential allies and how it envisions itself within the international system. 56 These beliefs can shape important decisions; European integration has been facilitated by the shared belief that European states must act together to maintain their economic competitiveness. The realist claim that allies are chosen solely on balance of power considerations is historically incorrect. Realists prescriptively describe how states should behave (balancing in accordance with realist theory) while ignoring considerable historical evidence that factors other than power influence alignment. 57 Realists could argue that structural constraints override domestic considerations and force states to align to maintain a balance of power, but this argument loses considerable force when the shape of international structure itself is in flux during an international transition. 58
Analysts have suggested a number of different principles that might characterize post-Cold War alignment patterns, ranging from culture and religion (Samuel Huntington) 59 power (John Mearsheimer) 60 democracy (Michael Doyle, Anthony Lake), membership in one of three regional trade zones, developing/developed status, or participation in the global economy. My argument is that the alignment principle is an important aspect of international structure, but that it is the socially constructed product of strategic interaction between the most powerful states in the system rather than a fixed principle. For weak states, the alignment principle is effectively an exogenous variable; “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” 61 But powerful states have some influence on which principle determines alignments, so the international system’s constraining effect depends at least partly on the state’s own beliefs and actions. 62 Rather than the model of perfectly competitive markets employed in much realist analysis, it is better to employ an oligopoly model, where large states have some ability to shape market conditions. The process of determining the alignment principle can be viewed as a prisoner’s dilemma, where the most likely outcome is mutual suspicion and an alignment principle that preserves a balance of power. 63 In this sense, the default outcome is consistent with realism, but realism does not predict which specific principle will be adopted. But it may also be possible for a dominant state to advocate an alignment principle that changes the strategic calculations of other great powers and avoids the balancing behavior that realism predicts. (In the oligopoly model, this is akin to a price-fixing agreement among major firms brokered by the largest firm). Arguably, the United States has done so by defining participation in the global economy as the alignment principle for the post-Cold War world. 64 Despite suspicions of U.S. intentions, other great powers such as China, Russia, Japan, and France have decided they will fare better by accepting this cooperative principle than by advocating an alternative (such as strict realism, regional trade blocs, or anti-imperialism). This outcome does not necessarily imply that other great powers accept the normative and causal logic that caused the U.S. to advocate this particular principle, but it does mean that they do not challenge the alignment principle. 65 Because the alignment principle is an endogenous variable that partly depends on the choices of powerful states, great powers can be less constrained by systemic forces than weak states. 66
A fourth factor is the mechanism through which structure influences state choices of foreign policies. Structure seldom directly determines or directly punishes state behavior. Examples such as Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait only to unexpectedly face an overwhelming international coalition are rare, partly because the consequences of a major mistake in international relations are high. Instead, states anticipate how structure will lead other states to react, and then analyze their options in light of these expectations. Expectations of structure’s impact are what constrain foreign policy choices. But what expectations are rational in a new international system? Even for realists focused on anarchy and the distribution of power, the difficulty of measuring power in transitions and uncertainty about the emerging international structure make it hard to calculate the ways in which structure will influence responses. If the relative power of states, the structure of the international system, and the principle that governs alignment are all open questions, how do states know the extent to which they are constrained by the international system? In an important sense, states are only as constrained as they think they are. Uncertainty makes it hard to anticipate likely consequences and therefore reduces the influence of international structure during transition periods. The indeterminate nature of international structure also gives ideas importance; by motivating action ideas can help shape international structure.
One qualification is necessary. The description given above has emphasized the fluidity of international structure after an international transition. In previous system transitions such as the end of World War I and the end of World War II, old international institutions were destroyed by system-wide wars and states faced the task of designing new international institutions from scratch to avoid future wars and to facilitate international economic transactions. The task of creating new institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations required both political imagination and the exercise of power. The end of the Cold War differs from these transitions because the international institutions created after World War II were still in existence and were not discredited by their failure to prevent a systemic war or economic collapse. I would argue that there was still a high degree of uncertainty about how effectively these institutions could function in the post-Cold War world and whether they would last. Could the United Nations become an effective forum for preserving international peace? Would the GATT be able to liberalize the global trade regime? Would NATO continue to exist now that its primary mission was gone? But despite these uncertainties, the continued existence of these international institutions clearly shaped definitions of state interests and thinking about future patterns of international relations. In this sense, the “fact” of their existence defined bureaucratic interests and helped structure domestic debates about foreign policy. 67 Moreover institutions such as NATO and the European Union can also shape identity and narrow the range of choices. Given the existence of these specific institutions, states must develop attitudes towards them and measure the costs of modifying them, rather than building new institutions from scratch. This can (and does) have a lasting impact on identity and definitions of national interests.
The next chapter sketches China’s place in the definition of American interests in the post-Cold War world. I argue that the debate over China policy has largely been a debate over the relative priority of national interests. Business groups have been able to articulate a coherent (but unproveable) view of how pursuing economic interests is inherently worthwhile and will also eventually further security and human rights interests. They also argued that diplomatic and economic pressure would be ineffective in improving human rights conditions in China, especially if other states did not cooperate. By contrast, human rights groups have failed to persuade the public that their tactics can improve the human rights situation in China without unacceptable damage to other interests. As a result, human rights advocates have been reduced to arguments about the instrumental utility of human rights and the rule of law in furthering American economic and security interests.
Endnotes
*: Paper presented to the 1999 ISA annual convention, February 16-20, 1999, Washington, DC. Back.
Note 1: The International Security readers America’s Strategy in a Changing World and The Perils of Anarchy give a good sense of the range of the debate and the variety of policy recommendations. Sean M. Lynn Jones and Steven E. Miller, eds., America’s Strategy in a Changing World (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1993) and Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn Jones and Steven E. Miller, eds., The Perils of Anarchy: Contemporary Realism and International Security (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1995) Back.
Note 2: John J. Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1990, pp. 35-50. Back.
Note 3: Notably A.F.K Organski, World Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968) and Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). For a review of cyclical theories of world politics, see Joshua Goldstein, Long Cycles and War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 4: Organski and Gilpin assume a predominant hegemonic state able to impose rules on other states in the system. For these authors, these rules are not part of “international structure,” even though they have a similar impact on the behavior of weaker states and operate through the same mechanism of expectations. Without a hegemon, these theories produce indeterminate predictions. How rules are defined in non-hegemonic systems is addressed later in the paper. Back.
Note 5: Directional change (toward a greater number of democratic or authoritarian states, for example) is possible within this framework, but operates through changes in individual states and in state foreign policy beliefs. Back.
Note 6: The difficulties involved in assessing relative power accurately are pointed out in Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 3-17. The assumption that a fixed set of reference points exist for calculating power is challenged in William Curti Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions during the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 1-31 and 288-307. Back.
Note 7: Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1979). Back.
Note 8: Alexander Wendt “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” International Organization Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 335-70. Back.
Note 9: How does this paper’s use of “paradigm” differ from Thomas S. Kuhn’s influential definition in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edition, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)? Kuhn views a scientific paradigm as defining the legitimate problems of a research field for practitioners. A paradigm fulfills this function by attracting “an enduring group of adherents” away from competing paradigms and by being open ended enough to leave interesting problems for the practitioners to resolve. A paradigm serves as a conceptual map that orders existing knowledge and focuses attention on unresolved questions that are particularly relevant for future research. Kuhn focuses on the cognitive role that a paradigm plays in ordering “normal science.” My use of the word “paradigm” includes the cognitive function of defining and formulating responses to foreign policy problems, but also includes two other functions: coordinating the actions of a bureaucracy and mobilizing resources from society. My argument focuses on the role of changes in international structure, rather than intellectual factors, in forcing paradigm change. This use of a “policy paradigm” is broadly compatible with Peter Hall’s definition in Peter Hall, “Paradigms, Social Learning and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 25 (April 1993), pp. 275-96 and “The Movement from Keynesianism to Monetarism: Institutional Analysis and British Economic Policy in the 1970s,” in Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, eds., Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Also see Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993) and Kathleen R. McNamara, The Currency of Ideas: Monetary Politics in the European Union (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Back.
Note 10: For example, a fundamental assumption of U.S. Cold War policy in Europe was that West Germany must not fall under Communist control. Both this problem, and the policies associated with it, became irrelevant after German unification. Back.
Note 11: For a useful discussion of the role of institutions and preferences, see Helen V. Milner, “Rationalizing Politics: The Emerging Synthesis of International, American, and Comparative Politics,” International Organization, Vo. 54, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), pp. 759-786. Back.
Note 12: This view of international structure as a loose and flexible constraint on state behavior is similar in some ways to Henry R. Nau’s view of how “national purpose” can, over time, reshape and loosen international constraints. See Henry R. Nau, The Myth of America’s Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 25-32. Back.
Note 13: Overviews of constructivism include Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), Vendulka Kublálková, Nicholas Onuf, Paul Kowert, eds., International Relations in a Constructed World (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization (New York: Routledge, 1998), and Alexander Wendt, (forthcoming). Back.
Note 14: By defining particular capabilities (such as moral reputation or economic competitiveness) as important, ideas can shape state efforts to build a portfolio of particular material capabilities, thus influencing the trajectory of material change. But as this paper seeks to demonstrate, the major shifts in material conditions that define an international transition can also force changes in ideas. By examining the interaction of ideational and material factors, I am adopting a different research strategy than most constructivists, who seek to demonstrate the independent causal power of ideas by examining cases where material factors are constant and cannot explain variations in outcome. Back.
Note 15: Classic references are J. David Singer. “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,” World Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1961), pp. 77-92 and Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). Back.
Note 16: Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn 1997). Back.
Note 17: Notable exceptions include Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) and Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict,1947-1958 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). Both authors argue states sometimes adopt sub-optimal foreign policies in order to mobilize domestic resources and maintain a coherent, albeit sub-optimal, foreign policy. The content of these policies is therefore influenced by the relative strength and prevailing ideology of domestic interest groups. For Christensen, this decision is usually a conscious choice by senior policymakers making rational trade-offs between the optimal policy and the need to mobilize domestic support. I argue that that a foreign policy paradigm plays a cognitive role in framing the perceptions of policymakers in addition to its routine role in influencing how the bureaucracy implements policy and shaping how beliefs of domestic groups constrain foreign policy choice. Back.
Note 18: In practice, the argument that a particular goal is not worth pursuing is seldom made, since the goal appeals to at least some people. Once policymakers decide that a goal is not achievable or is a low priority, they usually affirm it in rhetoric and neglect it in practice. Back.
Note 19: The focus on the Soviet military threat is consistent with realism, but the conception of Communism as an ideological threat is not. This connection between Communist ideology and threat ultimately led the United States to intervene in many conflicts in the development world, where threat perceptions based solely on realism would have suggested nonintervention. The specification of threats has an ideational component that cannot be derived directly from realist theory. Back.
Note 20: Hall, “Paradigms, Social Learning and the State.” Back.
Note 21: If the paradigm’s assumptions are notshared by the legislative branch (and more broadly by the foreign policy elite), the paradigm cannot perform the function of mobilizing resources for foreign policy. One of the basic tasks in construction of a foreign policy paradigm is to find assumptions that are acceptable to Congress, a requirement that obviously influences the content of the paradigm. Back.
Note 22: Major foreign policy failures can also result in modifications of the foreign policy paradigm. U.S. reluctance to intervene militarily after the Vietnam War is an example of such a modification. But even in this case, only one element in the paradigm (beliefs about the effectiveness of military force in limited wars) changed; most of the paradigm’s assumptions remained unchanged. This interpretation falls into what Peter Hall terms the “punctuated equilibrium” model of paradigm change. Hall, “Paradigms, Social Learning and the State.” Back.
Note 23: In some areas, executive authority and direct involvement of senior officials may allow coherent policy implementation. But when policy requires Congress to grant more resources, the executive branch is likely to have difficulty winning approval. U.S. policy towards Eastern Europe is a good example. National Security Council and senior State Department officials were able to manage most aspects of German unification and policy towards post-Communist Eastern Europe with minimal Congressional involvement, but were unable to persuade Congress to provide funding for dramatic increases in foreign aid to the new non-Communist governments in these states. See Robert Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account of U.S. Policy in Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Back.
Note 24: The Department of Defense, the military services, and U.S. intelligence agencies all took on their present structure between 1945 and 1949, as the Cold War foreign policy paradigm was being shaped. Back.
Note 25: Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, Johan P. Olsen, "A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice," in James G. March, Decisions and Organizations (New York and Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), pp. 294-334. Back.
Note 26: But the Gulf War showed how quickly these justifications could be dropped when a “traditional mission” arrived. One highly touted drug intelligence center had its staff cut, its office moved to a remote location, and its operating hours reduced once space and personnel were needed to support forces deployed in the Persian Gulf. Back.
Note 27: For example, nuclear disarmament groups fought an uphill battle during the Cold War because their views contradicted important elements of the Cold War paradigm. Unable to influence U.S. foreign policy directly, they sought to affect policy indirectly by shaping public opinion and forming transnational ties with groups in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War, however, they won allies in the Department of Energy and nuclear weapons laboratories by helping those agencies redefine their mission from building nuclear weapons to dismantling them and disposing of the nuclear material. Back.
Note 28: The criticism that Somalia was the result of “policymaking by CNN” has been discredited in Jonathan Mermin, “Television News and American Intervention in Somalia: The Myth of a Media-Driven Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 112, No. 3 (Fall 1997), pp. 385-403. Mermin argues that Congressional leaders interested in famine relief played a key role in putting Somalia on the policy agenda. The criticism (heard most loudly after the mission’s failure) that the U.S. had no national interests at stake in Somalia reflects the lingering influence of the Cold War paradigm; I would argue that Congressional leaders were trying to win support for new definitions of national interests. Back.
Note 29: One conclusion derived from the Somalia episode could have been that Army doctrine, tactics, and training were ill-suited to peace-keeping missions and required major modifications that would be highly disruptive to the Army’s organization and traditional conception of its mission. Instead the Army blamed the United Nations command system, even though U.S. officers were in command of the local mission. Back.
Note 30: Arguably this is even true in the case of authoritarian political systems. A dictator can get her arbitrary preferences adopted as state goals, but will have difficulty getting the state apparatus to pursue them with vigor. This is one possible interpretation of Mao Zedong’s goals in launching the Cultural Revolution, which attacked a state bureaucracy that Mao regarded as ineffective in pursuing his goals. Back.
Note 31: Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane classify three types of beliefs in their work on ideas and foreign policy: world views, principled beliefs, and causal beliefs. World views refer to broad patterns of identity and beliefs, such as those shaped by religions. Principled beliefs correspond to my term “normative arguments”; causal beliefs correspond to my term “causal arguments.” See Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” pp. 8-11, in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 32: For an example of this normative argument, see Tony Smith, America’s Mission (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 33: Arnold Wolfers, “National Security as an Ambiguous Signal,” in Discord And Collaboration, pp. 147-166. Back.
Note 34: Note that the functional utility of ideology does not depend on whether the ideology is true or false. See Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936). Back.
Note 35: See Albert Hirschman’s comments on metapreferences in “Against Parsimony: Three Easy Ways of Complicating some Categories of Economic Discourse,” Economics and Philosophy, Vol. 1 (1985), pp. 7-21. Back.
Note 36: E. E. Schattschneider’s The Semisovereign People (New York: Holt, 1960) is the classic argument on how adding participants to a debate can change outcomes. Back.
Note 37: Jeffrey W. Legro, “Culture and Preferences in the International Cooperation Two-Step,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 1 (March 1996), p. 118-137. Back.
Note 38: Milner, pp. 767-779. Back.
Note 39: Stephen K. Vogel highlights problems in assigning preferences to groups based on analysis of their objective interests in “When Interests are Not Preferences: The Case of Japanese Consumers,” REFERENCE?. Masato Kimura and David Welch recognize the difficulties involved in defining state interests and suggest that state preferences should be treated as exogenous. See “Specifying ‘Interests’: Japan’s Claim to the Northern Territories and Its Implications for International Relations Theory,” International Studies Quarterly, No. 42 (1998), pp. 213-244. Back.
Note 40: William Wohlforth notes that the United States and the Soviet Union had very different strategic beliefs about state behavior, differences that persisted for most of the Cold War. Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance, pp. XXX. Back.
Note 41: Alexander Wendt makes a related argument in “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” International Organization Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 335-70. Back.
Note 42: Ideas about the importance of power and the influence of structure which are central to realist predictive and prescriptive analysis are privileged; they are “laws” which states neglect at their peril rather than ideas. Back.
Note 43: Michael Mastanduno, “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 51-52. Back.
Note 44: These assumptions are common to both realist theorists such as Hans Morganthau and neorealist theorists such as Kenneth Waltz. See Hans Morganthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1985) and Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics(Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1979). Back.
Note 45: Robert Gilpin is an exception to the rule. Though generally classified as a realist due to his emphasis on power, Gilpin emphasizes the role of a dominant state (a hegemon) in defining the rules of the international system. See War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Back.
Note 46: Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn 1997), p. 522. Back.
Note 47: Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1972), Friedberg, The Weary Titan, William Curti Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions during the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993) and Rosemary Foot, The Practice of Power (New York: Clarendon Press, 1995). Back.
Note 48: Although a global war generates information about the maximum capabilities of a state at a given point in time, this information is obsolete as soon as states begin demobilizing and converting to a peacetime economy. Leaders considering long-term strategy and crafting post-war institutions are more concerned with the capabilities of states in the future, which are dependent on the long-term capacity of the peacetime economy and are not directly revealed by war. Back.
Note 49: The normal means of projecting future capabilities (taking current capabilities and calculating a percentage change) is unavailable when the baseline is known to be unrepresentative. Thus estimates have a higher level of uncertainty. Back.
Note 50: This discussion follows Waltz, Theory of International Politics. Back.
Note 51: Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of it” International Organization Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 395-421 and Alastair Iain Johnson “Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China” in Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Back.
Note 52: Kenneth Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 48-52., William Wohlforth “Realism and End of the Cold War” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), Christopher Layne “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise”, International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), and John Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War.” Back.
Note 53: The point is not to criticize realism, but to argue that uncertainty about the structure of the emerging international system is a characteristic of system transitions. Back.
Note 54: Stephen Walt’s “balance of threat” theory addresses this question, but only by delving into state threat perceptions. See Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 55: By alignment principle, I mean the beliefs of major states about which cleavage (power, ideology, religion, etc.) determines the pattern of alignments within the system. Back.
Note 56: Arguably the ideological communist/capitalist alignment principle produced similar outcomes for the U.S. and the USSR as a power alignment principle would have. But for other countries in the world, ideology is a better predictor of alignment than relative power. It not only couched the language in which they appealed to the superpowers for assistance, but also which superpower they appealed to. Back.
Note 57: For analysis of the prescriptive use of the term “balance of power,” see Ernest Haas, “The Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept, or Propaganda?” World Politics, Vol. 5, No. 4 (July 1953), pp. 442-77 and Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), pp. 117-132. Back.
Note 58: A potential counter-argument is that uncertainty about the ultimate structure encourages state to behave cautiously during transitions; thus structure continues to influence foreign policy even when the shape of the structure is unclear. This logic would suggest weak, rapidly changing alliances should be the norm. This does not seem to have occurred to date. Back.
Note 59: Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs. Back.
Note 60: John Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990). Back.
Note 61: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (New York: Modern Library, 1982), pp. XXX. Back.
Note 62: This is similar to Alexander Wendt’s argument in “Anarchy is what States make of it,” but expressed in a different form. If states agree that the alignment principle is power, than realist behavior is likely. But other alignment principles can lead to different forms of behavior, even in an anarchical system. Back.
Note 63: This principle may not be realism. Religion and ideology might, or might not, produce balances. Back.
Note 64: One could alternatively argue that the U.S. has defined a few “rogue states” who contrast with normal states who abide by international principles. However the U.S. definition of who the rogues are (Iran, Cuba, Libya) is not fully accepted by other great powers, and in any case largely corresponds with participation in the global economy. The key point is that the alignment principle is an inclusive one that offers benefits to the other great powers. One might argue that the US is practicing a form of weak hegemony: it lacks the economic strength to create a new set of rules and institutions unilaterally, but is able to maintain adherence to existing institutions (and some expansion of them). U.S. weakness forces it to pursue cooperative approaches that can persuade others. Broad international normative agreement on market principles (or at least the lack of alternatives) masks this weakness. But U.S. efforts to expand democracy to unwilling states may be a better illustration of U.S. relative strength. Back.
Note 65: In other words, China may still believe that balance of power is the alignment principle, but accept participation in the global economy as the global principle because the consequences of acting as if balance of power mattered would be so negative. (e.g. If China started actively building an alliance to balance against the U.S., the U.S. would probably respond by limiting Chinese access to the global economy, with disastrous consequences for Chinese economic growth. Instead, China can lean towards the Soviet Union, while not explicitly challenging the U.S.). Back.
Note 66: Realism tends to focus on the way the international system constrains the most powerful states. Back.
Note 67: The continued existence of these institutions saved the U.S. from having to create new institutions. In the “weak hegemon” model, the U.S. would have had difficulty in creating new institutions; the existence of old institutions that could be adapted easily helped maintain a high level of international cooperation in the West which could be broadened to include other states. Back.
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