The course aims to introduce the key assumptions of the international relations theory as a part of social science and as an analytic tool, focusing on the problems of war and peace, foreign policy decision-making, etc. The course combines historic approach and analysis of the modern political problems. The historic part shows the evolution of the international relations theory from being a part of political philosophy to its emergence as a special branch of political science, which is essential to understand the key ideas of the IR science. The lectures also include broad outline of the modern concepts and debates in the context of the contemporary political problems, such as rise of China and other emerging powers, threat of terrorism, US-Russia confrontation, etc. The lectures of the two outstanding Russian scholars and political analysts – Timofey Bordachev and Dmitry Suslov - cover such fields as the problems of international security and conflict resolution, international economic relations, foreign policy decision-making, global governance, the role of power in the IR.
Historic context: the Cold War
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Del curso dictado por National Research University Higher School of Economics
Understanding International Relations Theory
28 calificaciones
National Research University Higher School of Economics
28 calificaciones
De la lección
Kenneth Waltz and Structural Theory
The Cold War became a new intellectual challenge for the IR thinkers. How to survive in the nuclear age? The module introduces to the realist answer, which took a form of the structural realism.
Conoce a los instructores
Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
Hello and welcome back to the course on international relations theory,
prepared by the professors of
National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Today, we will speak about relatively new theory of international relations,
structural realism or neorealism.
And as you can see from the title of today's presentation,
this theory is very,
very much connected to the distinguished American scholar,
Kenneth Waltz, which has been at the same time absolutely distinguished personality,
the man who was born not long before the Second World War.
However, he managed to go to war in Korea.
And after that, he joined the academy.
So, I will talk more about his theory and his individual projects a little bit later.
But let us now have a look at why and in what time
the structural theory of international relations
emerged in the second part of the 20th century.
As we know, from the basics of our science,
every theoretical paradigm in the theory of
international relations emerges because of the certain historical preconditions
which help the academicians and which encourage us to think about why
the things go in one way or another and
to develop certain hypotheses and certain theories.
So, structural realism or neorealism as well,
it emerged in the very unique historical conditions of the Second World War.
And the major factors which influenced transformation of the released approach,
neorealism, as you can see it from the name,
is a continuation of the realist approach in a certain way.
There were three major historical factors.
First, relatively non-flexible structure of
international relations after the Second World War.
This relatively non-flexible structure of
international relations was connected to the emergence of military blocs,
which have been confronting each other.
There were two blocs.
We will go into detail a little bit later.
The third important fact, the strategic deterrence.
The nuclear weapons emerged soon after the Second World War.
And two major superpowers,
and later on, also France, United Kingdom,
and China, have been able to deter each other with ultimate weapons.
And this strategic deterrence also helped to understand
international relation system in a more structured way.
But in the same time,
the theory of structural realism or neorealism is also called a status-quo theory.
That means that it has connected to the social status-quo situation,
very stable in traditional environment.
And as a result of these three factors,
reactive, defensive strategies, and acceptance of status-quo,
rather than pro-active struggle for power and glory,
policies of the key actors emerged and have been
dominated international relations during the all second part of the 20th century.
One of the most important historic preconditions were
the unique character of the relationships between two strongest powers,
the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States with their respective allies.
Emergence of the two camps after the Second World War,
capitalist and socialist within two military blocs,
NATO and Warsaw Pact,
as the cornerstones led to relative decrease of international flexibility.
For the centuries before,
the states had been able to form
the different coalitions to fight entirely because of the certain particular reasons.
But already after the Second World War,
the international system was stabilized by the two cornerstones,
by the two confronting military blocs,
which did not permit their participants to take action on their own.
However, the peaceful coexistence of
the two massive military and political alliances demanded
a theoretical explanations and understanding of its potential developments.
You can see these two gentlemen,
both are sitting on the nuclear bombs.
That means that there are contradictions between them and
their ability to destroy each other have been ultimate.
But at the same time, both parties,
Soviet Union and the United States,
did understand that they don't want to do it.
And thus, they have developed a certain strategic culture.
The other important historic precondition,
as I said, was deterrence.
Let us speak more in detail about this important factor.
First of all, appearance of nuclear weapons,
as a factor of the international politics,
strongly influenced the international relations theories.
Never before, nations possessed such strong weapons and never before,
these weapons have been threatening the existence of entire humanity.
It was called mutually assured destruction or MAD.
Mutually assured destruction emerged as the basic concept of the Cold War coexistence.
In a strategic situation,
when any aggressive actions may lead to catastrophic consequences,
the logic of classical political realism was hardly reliable.
The states have been seeking for domination still,
but seeking for domination as a survival strategy gave a way to keeping a status-quo.
In other words, the major powers understood that they
can not dominate in order to survive but in order to survive,
they need to maintain a status-quo.
That's why structural realism is also called status-quo theory.
In some way, the new structural theory emerged as
a representation of this political logic of the Cold War.
But beyond the historical preconditions,
the unique international environment of the Cold War,
there were also several conceptual preconditions.
These conceptual preconditions emerged as a result of what is called,
in international relations history and history of
the theory of international relations, the great debates.
What are the great debates generally?
The great debates are the discussions between bigger group of the scholars.
Usually, these groups of the scholars,
they share certain approaches,
but they diverge ultimately on the other approaches, and they discuss it.
They publish academic articles and books,
where they argue in defense of their approach,
of their vision of a certain international phenomenon.
So, these conceptual preconditions were of
no less importance than historical preconditions because, well,
their history moves the political practice and challenged
the academicians with the challenges of
the everyday practice and the everyday political needs and deterrence.
But the theoretical challenges are not of less importance because the science of
international relations has already emerged by
that time and there were very many scholars which diverge within approaches.
So, the second round of great debates in international relations theory,
which started out narrowly in the 1960s,
1970s, was focused on the father methodological developments of this science.
Primarily, these debates have been conducted between the scholars in the United States.
But later on, the European Scholars
and scholars from the other countries also joined them.
In the last third of the 20th century,
the social sciences were influenced by a huge intervention of the precise sciences,
what had led to a clash between
so-called traditional and positivist or scientists approaches.
So, the great debates in the second part of the 20th century have been
conducted between traditional and positivist or scientists approaches.
Let us first speak about the traditional approach in international relations studies,
which also includes classical political realism and classical political liberalism.
The traditional approach argued that an international relations research should be
based on a certain major starting points and a certain rules of the game.
First of the rules, the observation of an actor.
What is actor? Actor is the state.
So, our task, as classical realist and classical liberal say,
is to look at the action of the state and take
the state as the major important actor and the same time,
factor of the international relations.
And so, the state was considered as the only one,
and the behavior of the state could have been explained and could have been understood
accordingly to the representatives of political realism and classically liberal theory.
Second, a prerequisite was a focus on diplomatic and international history.
And historical experiences have been taken by the all classic approaches
as the most important source of knowledge about why the states act in a certain way,
why the states reacted in a certain way at the behavior of the other states.
Third, a prerequisite was analysis of international law and treaties.
Law and treaties binding the states have been
considered as the major written experiences,
and the major embodiment of the states will increase and will.
Next, the memoirs and other descriptive materials,
as the main sources,
have been taken and advocated by the political realists.
So, for the political realists,
there was no general theory per se.
Everything was connected with
the concrete practical experiences explained in the treaties,
memoirs, and other descriptive materials.
And last but not least, case studies was considered by the classic political realism,
the main research method.
So, they studied every state and its policy,
and they tried to predict the behavior of the state
based on the case studies from the previous historical books.
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