Hedley Bull

OK, a few questions:

1) What is the analytical advantage to ignoring the notions of justice?

2) Is his analysis a-historical, does it claim to be trans-historical?

3) What is the analytical weakness of focusing on Europe? Does this cause short comings similar to Duetch's?

4) Is he forced to face the same problem that Kant did, negation or society of states?

Duetch and Negation

A common theme of this blog has been IR scholars and the question of, conversion or negation.

This question is alive and well in Duetch's book. Though Duetch speaks about the option of "pluralism" I think a close reading of his book "Political Community and the North Atlantic Area" reveals that, like Kant, Duetch--and his empirical method--is unable to imagine a world with out war without first conversion or negation. Like all blog posts, this would be better as a 20 page well fleshed out essay. However, I will try to briefly outline my arguments below.

Duetch finds that peace can be achieved though integration of two kinds, amalgamated and pluralistic.

Duetch provides two essential pre-conditions for both.

1) Compatibility of Major Values
2) Mutual responsiveness.

This presents the policy maker with the same problem that the student of Kant is presented with, if a compatibility of major values and mural responsiveness are necessary for peace, then what is the peace minded policy maker to do with those whose values do not comply and those who will not respond in solidarity?

Duetch and The Fallacy of Composition

In the sprit of Kant. Duetch is an intergrationalist. I question weather Duetch faces the same theoretical short comings that Kant does.

I found it particularly interesting that to illustrate peasant opposition to integration(Duetche's study finds that peasants’ tend to appose integration) he points out that the abolitionist movement was stronger in rural upstate new york then in new york city. So what is the solution then, less peasents and rural folk? Again, although a longer explanation is necessary, Duetch like Kant finds that for integration elimination of difference in necessary. Then the question is, what difference, at what cost...

I think it is interesting that he abstracts from concentrated regional conflicts, civil wars ect, to larger regional conflict. (integration was the solution for civil wars, it will be the solution for regional conflicts) Waltz makes this same theoretical leap when he draws on Hobbe and Machiavelli as examples of political philosophers who were interested in eliminating wars. (see my last blog)

Econometricians must be weary of a logical problem called "the fallacy of composition." Just because something is true for its parts, even if it is true for all of its parts, it does not necessarily mean it is true for the whole. Think--Malthus' inadequate demand or Keynesian Microeconomics, in both cases, though thrift is good for the individual it can lead to under consumption and depression which is for bad for the group. So even if his findings are correct, I
question their applicability to the whole of Europe.

Waltz II

In this post I would like to make a few observations about Waltz's project, its limitations given the current construction of the world, and place it in a context that recognizes the historical use life his the analysis.

Waltz's project

Waltz narrowly defines his project, and in turn our discipline, as, "...to explain how peace can be more easily achieved requires an understanding of the causes of war."(2) or more straight forwardly on page 12, "Where are the major causes of war to be found?" This project is limited by Waltz's limited definition of war that is implicit throughout his writings. Waltz understands war as the world conflict between the great powers (think WWI and WWII)

The limitations to this definition are obvious, if IR scholars are only concerned with large military conflicts between great powers, like the first and second world war, then a great deal of human suffering, related to relations between states, is defined off of our radars. As subcomendante Marcos pointed out in 1997

"Since the end of the Second World War until 1992, there have been 149 wars in all the world. The results are 23 million dead, and therefore there is no doubt about the intensity of this Third World War [the so called "cold war"] (Statistical source: UNICEF)... from the sands of Playa Giron, in Cuba, to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam; from the unbridled nuclear arms war to the savage blows of the State in the tormented Latin America; from the ominous maneuvers of the armies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the CIA agents in the Bolivia which oversaw the assassination of Che Guevara..."*

Contextualizing Waltz

Waltz points out that "Peace as it is often said, is a problem of the 20th Century"(12) Waltz then goes on to point out the that moral philosophers, not of the 20th century, have dealt with the question of peace for generations. I think he is too quick to dismiss the relevance of the 20th century to his own writing.

Waltz's peace, the absence of war between the great powers, is distinct from the peace of the political philosophers that he cites, Hobbes(absence of civil war), Bowin (also rebellion and civil war, see p.81), St. Augustine(absence of internal strife, see p.31), Machiavelli (absence of civil strife) and Luther (absents of "Murderous, thieving hordes of peasants").

Waltz's peace comes at the end of two world wars, at a time when nuclear weapons were possessed by the two world powers and it seemed likely that the next 'war,' in the Waltzian sense, would mean the destruction of Humanity and that a Waltzian ‘peace’ would allow for the continuation of the species.

In this context, his narrow definition of the field seems like a great idea. IR is the science of preserving humanity.

A brief reflection on method

I found it interesting, as PTJ pointed out, there are no regression models here. Further, Waltz does not limit his study of war and peace to empiricism, and finds empirical tools of limited use. "The correlation of events means nothing or at least should not be taken to mean anything, apart from the analysis that accompanies it...Prescription is logically impossible without analysis."(13-14)

Perhaps contemporary IR scholars who seem obsessed with using the tools of econometrics to explain IR, could learn a thing or two from Waltz's emphasis on analysis.

*http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

Waltz I: Reflection on Man, the State and War

OK, I know this has little to do with IR, but like reading Hobbes informs our ability to read later works, understanding the arguments of the great economic thinkers helps us understand the arguments of the IR scolars, especially post the hegemony of economics as a discipline.

So, I want to talk about the 2 pages in which Waltz talks about one of my favorite economists/ advocates of class war, (Landlord v. Capitalist) David Ricardo.
His reference to Ricardo gave me a bit of jolt, b/c he argued that Ricardo just takes smith's argument about the capitalist(basically that they conspire against the public) and transformed it into an argument about landlords.

Arguments about Smith are always tough because the wealth of nations is 900 pages long and contradicts itself. But, Smith also sees the landlords as parasites who waist their income on unproductive consumption like servants.

Thus the labour of the manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of the master’s profit. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary adds to the value of nothing, (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 330)