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POL1032: Required Reading 3Structural realism
Realists believe that power is the currency of international politics. Great powers, the main
actors in the realists’ account, pay careful attention to how much economic and military
power they have relative to others. It is important to not only to have a substantial amount
of power, but also to make sure that no other state sharply shifts the balance of power in its
favour. For structural realists, international politics is synonymous with power politics.
Structural realists can also be called neorealists, they believe human nature has little to do
with why the states want power. Instead it is the structure or architecture of the
international system that forces states to pursue power. In a system where there is no
higher authority that sits above the great powers there is no guarantee that one will not
attack another, it makes eminently good sense for each state to be powerful enough to
protect itself from potential attacks.
Structural theories ignore cultural differences between states as well as differences in
regime type, mainly because the international system creates the same basic incentives for
all great powers. Whether a state is democratic or autocratic matters relatively little to how
it acts towards other states. Nor does it matter who is in charge of foreign policy. Structural
realists treat states as all the same, they are assumed to be alike, save from the fact that
some are more powerful than others.
Defensive realists maintain that it is unwise for states to try to maximise their share of world
power, because the system will punish them if they attempt to get too much power.
Offensive realists take the opposite view that it makes good strategic sense for states to gain
as much power as possible and, if the circumstances are right, pursue hegemony. They
argue that having overwhelming power is the best way to ensure one’s own survival.
Power is based on the material capabilities that a state controls. However, states have a
second kind of power, latent power, which refers to the socioeconomic ingredients that go
into building military power. Latent power is based on a state’s wealth and the size of its
overall population. Great powers need money, technology and personnel to build military
forces and to fight wars, and a state’s latent power refers to the raw potential it can draw
on when competing with rival states.
Why do states want power?
Structural realists have 5 assumptions about the international system.
1. Great powers are the main actors in world politics and they operate in an anarchic
system. Anarchy is an ordering principle; it simply means that there is no centralised
authority or ultimate arbiter that stands above states. This is not to say that the
system is not characterised by chaos or disorder.
2. All states possess some offensive military capability. Each state, in other words, has
the power to inflict some harm on its neighbours. Of course, that capability varies
among states and for any state it can change over time.
, 3. States can never be certain about the intentions of other states. States ultimately
want to know whether other states are determined to use force to alter the balance
of power(revisionist states) or whether they are satisfied enough with it that they
have no interest in using force to change it (status quo states). The problem is that it
is almost impossible to discern another state’s intentions with a high degree of
certainty. Unlike military capabilities, intentions cannot be empirically verified.
Intentions are in the minds of decision-makers and they are especially difficult to
discern.
4. Is that the main goals of states is to survive. States seek to maintain their territorial
integrity and the autonomy of domestic political order. They can pursue other goals
like prosperity and protecting human rights, but those aims must always take a back
seat to survival, because if a state does not survive, it cannot pursue those other
goals.
5. Is that states are rational actors which is to say they are capable of coming up with
sound strategies that maximize their prospects for survival. This is not to deny that
they miscalculate from time to time. Because states operate with imperfect
information in a complicated world, they sometimes make serious mistakes.
None of these assumptions by themselves says that states will or should compete with each
other for power. It is only when all the assumptions are combined that circumstances arise
where states not only become preoccupied with the balance of power, but acquire powerful
incentives to gain power at each other’s expense.
To begin with, great powers fear each other. There is little trust among them. They worry
about the intentions of other states, in large part because they are so hard to divine. Their
greatest fear is that another state might have the capability, as well as the motive, to attack
them. This danger is compounded by the fact that states operate in an anarchic system. The
level of fear between states changes from case to case, but it will never be reduced to an
inconsequential level. The stakes are simply too great to allow that to happen. International
politics is a potentially deadly business where there is an ever-present possibility of war,
which often means killing on and off the battlefield and which might even lead to s state’s
destruction. Great powers are aware they operate in a self-help world where they only have
themselves to rely on to ensure their survival because other states are potential threats and
there is no other higher authority to turn to. Fearful of other states, states try to become
more powerful as this will reduce the likelihood of being attacked. This simple logic drives
great powers to look for opportunities to shift the balance of power in their favour. The
system then causes every great power – event those who would otherwise be satisfied with
the status-quo- thinking and acting as if they were a revolutionist state. States have little
choice but to assume the worst intentions from other states and therefore to compete with
them for power. This is the tragedy of great power politics.
The structural imperatives described above are reflected by the famous concept of the
security dilemma. The essence of this dilemma is that most steps a great power takes to
enhance its own security decrease the security of other states.
How much power is enough?
Offensive realists argue that states should always be looking for opportunities to gain more
power and should do so whenever it seems feasible. States should maximise power and
their ultimate goal should be hegemony because it is the best way to guarantee survival.
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