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Summary: Waltz - Theory of international politics - Chapter 5
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Politicial structures – Waltz Chapter 5To mark international-political systems off from other international systems, and to distinguish systems-level
from unit-level forces, requires showing how political structures are generated and how they affect, and are
affected by, the units of the system. How can we conceive of international politics as a distinct system? What is
it that intervenes between interacting units and the results that their acts and interactions produce?
I
A system is composed of a structure and of interacting units. The structure is the system-wide
component that makes it possible to think of the system as a whole.
.
To define a structure requires:
o Ignoring how units relate with one another (how they interact) and concentrating on how they
stand in relation to one another (how they are arranged or positioned).
Interactions, as I have insisted, take place at the level of the units. How units stand in
relation to one another, the way they are arranged or positioned, is not a property of
the units. The arrangement of units is a property of the system. By leaving aside the
personality of actors, their behavior, and their inter actions, one arrives at a purely
positional picture of society.
Three propositions follow from this.
o First, structures may endure while personality, behavior, and interactions vary widely.
Structure is sharply distinguished from actions and interactions.
o Second, a structural definition applies to realms of widely different substance so long as the
arrangement of parts is similar
o Third, because this is so, theories developed for one realm may with some modification be
applicable to other realms as well.
A structure is defined by the arrangement of its parts. Only changes of arrangement are structural
changes. A system is composed of a structure and of interacting parts. Both the structure and the
parts are concepts, related to, but not identical with, real agents and agencies.
Since structure is an abstraction, it cannot be defined by enumerating material characteristics of the
system. It must instead be defined by the arrangement of the system's parts and by the principle of
that arrangement.
II
The concept of structure is based on the fact that units differently juxtaposed and combined behave
differently and in interacting produce different outcomes.
Structure defines the arrangement, or the ordering, of the parts of a system. Structure is not a collection
of political institutions. but rather the arrangement of them. How is the arrangement defined?
In defining structures, the first question to answer is this: What is the principle by which the parts are
arranged?
o Domestic politics is hierarchically ordered. The units-institutions and agencies-stand vis-a-vis
each other in relations of super- and subordination. The ordering principle of a system gives
1
, the first, and basic, bit of information about how the parts of a realm are related to each other.
In a polity the hierarchy of offices is by no means completely articulated, nor are all
ambiguities about relations of super- and subordination removed. Nevertheless, political actors
are formally differentiated according to the degrees of their authority, and their distinct
functions are specified.
o Such specification of roles and differentiation of functions is found in any state, the more fully
so as the state is more highly developed. The specification of functions of formally
differentiated parts gives the second bit of structural information. This second part of the
definition adds some content to the structure, but only enough to say more fully how the units
stand in relation to one another. When offices are juxtaposed and functions are combined in
different ways, different behaviors and outcomes result,
o The placement of units in relation to one another is not fully defined by a system's ordering
principle and by the formal differentiation of its parts. The standing of the units also changes
with changes in their relative capabilities. In the performance of their functions, agencies may
gain capabilities or lose them. The third part of the definition of structure acknowledges that
even while specified functions remain unchanged, units come to stand in different relation to
each other through changes in relative capability.
A domestic political structure is thus defined, first, according to the principle by which it is
ordered; second, by specification of the functions of formally differentiated units; and third, by the
distribution of capabilities across those units.
The three-part definition of structure includes only what is required to show how the units of the
system are positioned or arranged. Every thing else is omitted.
They are omitted because we want to figure out the expected effects of structure on process and of
process on structure. That can be done only if structure and process are distinctly defined.
Political structure produces a similarity in process and performance so long as a structure endures. Similarity is
not uniformity. Structure operates as a cause, but it is not the only cause in play. How can one know whether
observed effects are caused by the structure of national politics rather than by a changing cast of political
characters, by variations of nonpolitical circumstances, and by a host of other factors? How can one separate
structural from other causes? One does it by extending the comparative method that I have just used. Look, for
example, at British political behavior where structure differs.
Within a country one can identify the effects of structure by noticing differences of behavior in
differently structured parts of the polity. From one country to another, one can identify the effects of structure by
noticing similarities of behavior in polities of similar structure.
Despite cultural and other differences, similar structures produce similar effects.
III
I defined domestic political structures first by the principle according to which they are organized or ordered,
second by the differentiation of units and the specification of their functions, and third by the distribution of
capabilities across units. Let us see how the three terms of the definition apply to international politics.
1. Ordering principle
Structural questions are questions about the arrangement of the parts of a system.
The parts of domestic political systems stand in relations of super- and subordination. Some are entitled
to command; others are required to obey. Domestic systems are centralized and hierarchic. Domestic
political structures have governmental institutions and offices as their concrete counter parts.
2
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