NATIONS CAN AND SHOULD ABANDON REALISM IN FAVOR OF COOPERATION

NATIONS CAN AND SHOULD ABANDON REALISM IN FAVOR OF COOPERATION

1. STATES HAVE GOOD REASONS TO COOPERATE AND ADHERE TO LEGAL NORMS

Harvey Starr, professor of international relations at the University of South Carolina, ANARCHY, ORDER, AND INTEGRATION, p. 100.

As noted earlier, rules or norms may serve as boundaries and trip wires. They alert others to behavior considered unacceptable and permit others in the international society to respond. It is in the self-interest of states not to cross lines that will bring about sanctions from others. Obeying international law is also in the self-interest of states because compliance brings with it a reputation as being a “law-abiding” member of the international society that others can trust and treat as dependable.

Harvey Starr, professor of international relations at the University of South Carolina, ANARCHY, ORDER, AND INTEGRATION, pp. 100-1.

Thus, with an informal sanctioning system, a state’s reputation is of central importance, inasmuch as a state that regularly flouts international law can expect to fail to benefit from the support of the society of states when it faces another rule breaker. Indeed, that happened to Iran in its decade-long war with Iraq. The lack of support for Iran in its war against Iraq (which was initiated by Iraqi armed forces) and on other issues was due in part to Iran’s clear disregard for the norms of international law regarding diplomats, internal interference, and shipping rights, among other offenses: an example of what some observers have called “renegade states.”
3. LACK OF COOPERATION CAUSES DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL HOSTILITIES

Bruce Cronin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, COMMUNITY UNDER ANARCHY, 1999, p. 132.

In the absence of mitigating factors, anarchy can lead to a climate of uncertainty, and in security affairs the states are too high to allow for miscalculation. Moreover, the institution of sovereignty reinforces a strong parochialism in domestic politics, which in turn exercises a strong force against transnational cohesion. Thus, even if anarchy does not constitute a single form with relatively fixed features, this does not mean that states can easily overcome their fears and parochialisms. In fact, even forward-looking and idealistic political leaders inevitably have conflicts between their international commitments and their domestic pressures. To the extent that domestic constituents believe that international politics is a zero-sum game, they are disinclined to extend their communities to include other societies.
4. REALISM’S CLAIMS ARE UNFOUNDED: COOPERATION EMPIRICALLY WORKS

Bruce Cronin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, COMMUNITY UNDER ANARCHY, 1999, p. 132.

Realist and neorealist approaches, however, see structural constraints as a universal condition and cannot conceive of circumstances under which the barriers can be overcome to any significant degree. Constructivists try to articulate such circumstances, and the preceding pages justify this attempt. Both the theoretical and empirical chapters demonstrate how reflection and interaction among political actors can lead to a change in traditional roles.

REALISM IS PHILOSOPHICALLY UNSOUND

1. REALISM IGNORES INTERDEPENDENCE AND NON-STATE ACTORS

Harvey Starr, professor of international relations at the University of South Carolina, ANARCHY, ORDER, AND INTEGRATION, pp. 105-6.

Realism does not do a very good job of dealing with interdependence in areas where the statecentric system must deal with the nonstate actors of the multicentric system. For example, recent activity in regard to human rights represents an expansion of the domain of international law and a real erosion of state sovereignty. Concepts of universal human rights, embodied in international declarations and treaties, deny states the prerogative to withhold those rights from their own citizens. In what is a rather radical departure from the state-centered nature of traditional international law, in the international law of human rights, individuals are considered legal entities separate from their state of national origin. Individuals are thus removed from important areas of state control. Human rights norms have increasingly because the basis for intrusion by IGOs and NGOs into the domestic affairs of states. This development strikes at the relationship between the state and its citizens, and thus at fundamental principles of legitimacy and sovereignty—especially the internal supremacy of states and the principle of nonintervention into the domestic affairs of states.

Harvey Starr, professor of international relations at the University of South Carolina, ANARCHY, ORDER, AND INTEGRATION, p. 107.

Research has demonstrated that pairs of democracies do not go to war against one another. Thus, it is in groups of democracies that form Deutchian security communities that the Realist perspective, and its approach to managing interdependence, is the most irrelevant in terms of conceptualization and explanation.
3. SO CALLED “REALIST” CLAIMS ARE ACTUALLY SELF-INTERESTED CONSTRUCTS

Eric Laferriere, professor of humanities at John Abbott College, and Peter J. Stoett, professor of international relations at Concordia University, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY AND ECOLOGICAL THOUGHT, 1999, p. 101.

Realists seemingly foreclose the future (and deny social freedom) by postulating an historical recurrence of violent conflict and studying human behavior through an epistemology of control. Radical appraisals, within and beyond ecological thought, pointedly demonstrate how such philosophical straightjackets are destined to deny the autonomy of subjects and to dissuade alternative thinking. Radical thought is holistic thought and maintains that historical “reality” is repeatedly constructed by the politically powerful.