CIAO DATE: 2/08
Journal of International Relations and Development
Volume 9, Issue 3 (September 2006)
Note by the editors
Note by the editors
Articles
Lamarckian with a vengeance: human nature and American international relations theory
Jennifer Sterling-Folker
This essay considers three interrelated subjects: how the American social milieu effects American international relations (IR) theorizing, why realism has been singled out for criticism within this milieu, and how particular perspectives on human nature have served as the foundational bedrock for American social thinking. It argues that, even when incorporating Darwinian insights into their scholarship, American social scientists have subscribed to a Lamarckian perspective on human nature that reflects the American version of Enlightenment liberalism. This version combines a deep and progressive faith in individualism, capitalism, applied science and a moral national purpose derived from Protestantism. The American social scientific subscription to a Lamarckian perspective on human nature effects not only how realism is theorized in this milieu but also how American scholars see and do IR theory.
Rational paranoia and enlightened machismo: the strange psychological foundations of realism
Annette Freyberg-Inan
This article focuses critically on realism as an International Relations (IR) theory (family). It argues that realist theories share a particular view of human nature and that this view of human nature is flawed in several important respects. I begin by discussing the quality of human nature assumptions in realism and the way they are employed. The following section then argues that, in addition to its gloomy assumptions concerning the motives for human (and state) action, realism relies strongly on an assumption of rationality. This move splits descriptive from prescriptive realism and renders the paradigm both internally inconsistent and compatible in important respects with its rival paradigm of liberalism. I then turn to a critique of the neo-realist approach in particular, showing that and why in spite of claims to the contrary it cannot escape the foregoing critique. In conclusion, it emerges that the status of realism in the field of IR theory would likely sustain serious damage from a systematic examination of the nature and use of its claims about human nature. The paradigm is, in short, infused with a paradoxical psychological determinism that will not stand up to scrutiny.
Human nature as behaviour and action in economics and international relations theory
Rodney Bruce Hall
This article traces the current state of dominant theories or international relations (IR), particularly structural realism, liberal theories of preference, and rational choice theory to six foundation assumptions regarding human nature located in the canonical liberal texts from which neoclassical economics also proceeds. These assumptions are deductively and empirically critiques and their limitations for social theorizing are explicated. An alternative view of 'the human condition' more fruitful for constructivist theorizing in IR is generated with recourse to the Aristotelian analysis of Hannah Arendt.
Human nature and the first image: emotion in international politics
Jonathan Mercer
Analysts commonly view emotion as irrational, as part of human nature, and therefore as part of a first-image approach to politics. However, emotion is necessary to rationality and first-image and human nature arguments are not synonymous. A first-image explanation can be independent of human nature, and a human nature argument can be used at different levels-of-analysis. This essay first explores the relationship between emotion and rationality and breaks the literature on emotion down into four groups: as epiphenomenal, as a source of irrationality, as a tool for savvy strategic actors, and as a necessary aspect of rationality. After developing different approaches to emotion, the essay explores three uses of emotion at different levels-of-analysis.
Values, identity and ideational shocks in the transatlantic rift
Sonia Lucarelli
The current crisis in transatlantic relations shows an interesting relationship between processes of identity formation and the response to ideational shocks in complex communities with different degrees of consolidation. The United States (US) could adopt a pragmatic approach to the transformation of the existing international order not only because of its relative military and economic power in the post-Cold War system, but also because its international role and the political identity of Americans are not as dependent on its foreign policy as is the case for the European Union (EU). A polity-in-the-making like the EU has constructed all its self-representation on the EU's adherence to a European interpretation of the pillars of the post-World War II international order (multilateralism, embedded liberalism, constitutionalism), the same pillars that the US had strategically wanted and sustained throughout the Cold War but now has abandoned or pragmatically reinterpreted. What the George W Bush Administration has not taken into due consideration are the implications of a foreign policy which is disruptive not just for transatlantic relations but also for the political and cultural cohesion of the US. The article adopts a perspective which combines instrumental rationality with an ideational ontology.
Book Reviews
-
Transnational Politics of the Environment: The European Union and Environmental Policy in Central and Eastern Europe
Marianna Vindimian
MIT Press, Cambridge, London, 2004, 251 pp.
ISBN: 0-262-01206-5
Liliana B. Andonova -
Political Culture in Post-Communist Europe: Attitudes in New Democracies
Victoria Donovan
Detlef Pollack, Jorg Jacobs, Olaf Muller and Gert Pickel (eds)
Ashgate Publishing Company, Hants, 2003, 288 pp.
ISBN: 0-7546-1969-9