International Order And Foreign Policy

A Theoretical Sketch Of Post-war International Politics

Friedrich V. Kratochwil

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367020705
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429726132
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The author develops a new perspective for the study of problems of international order by drawing on and integrating insights from game theory, social psychology, hermeneutics, and language philosophy. His case study is the rise and demise of the Cold War. This newly developed approach not only allows a critical evaluation of the contending argumen

I
On Order, Symbols And Preferred Worlds

1. Introduction

Despite the considerable interest the problem of world order has generated, there seems to be a good deal of confusion about what this term actually designates. In order to clarify it, we could perhaps look at some programs of recently introduced “world order studies.” But these international-law-cum-international-relations-plus-some-esoteric-subject-agglomerations lack a proper organizing concept themselves. True, nowadays there is less talk about revamping the United Nations Charter, or about “legislating” war out of existence, but the decline of a utopianism that formerly clearly distinguished students of such problems has not enhanced their conceptual clarity or revealed a distinctive perspective on such issues. Concepts like world order and international order are sometimes used interchangeably; sometimes the latter is the means for the former or vice versa. Myres McDougal² essentially identifies them with the flow of authoritative and effective decision-making that constitutes international law. Some authors focus more narrowly on the conditions that prevent unauthorized violence, whereas others use a broader definition that tends to shade into mere description. Richard Falk, for example, maintains:

World order intends only to describe the characteristic forms of behavior by which security and change are pursued by states and other international actors. As such the study of world order is concerned with the structure of authority, types of conflict, the role of violence and methods of settlement that are relied upon by international actors in pursuit of their goals.³

A study by the World Order Studies Consortium, however, has more normative overtones; it refers to “efforts of creating a more dependable international environment which would lead to a significant reduction of international violence and to an improvement of the quality of life everywhere.”⁴ The last element in this definition shows how the narrow description of world order problems, as concerned with war and peace or with the strengthening of the authority structure of the international system, has lately been replaced by a more encompassing view of the world political process as an allocator not only of security but also of welfare, skills and other values.

To make sense out of this confusion we will have to ask some radical questions. First, what concretely do we mean by world order and what is the relationship between this concept and the term international order? Second, what does “order” in this context refer to? Third, as a result of one and two, is the study of world order a separate field, or is it coextensive with or even equivalent to the discipline of international relations? The key question is obviously the second one, as we can hope to answer the two others after sharpening the strategic concept of order.

But how shall we proceed? A strategy that seems quite useful for our purposes is to begin with a discussion of our common-sense notions of political order, which are grounded in particular traditions. This naturally does not guarantee analytical clarity, but it allows us to bring out, through subsequent conceptual refinement, those half-conscious assumptions which are a crucial part of conventional arguments and which are seldom properly reflected upon. A critical illumination of these silent assumptions can provide an invaluable guide for our discussion of world order problems.

The next section, therefore, opens with a short recapitulation of some conventional order conceptions. An attempt follows to identify the minimum requirements of any social order, and to distinguish international order from world order. Having answered some of our preliminary questions concerning the status of world order studies, and having pointed out that the main emphasis of this study will be on international order, we turn to a closer examination of some of the assumptions underlying international order.

The third section aims to deepen our understanding of international order by bringing to bear some aspects of the bargaining approach. Two thoughts are of special importance here. First is the idea that in iterative bargains precedents, customs and traditions can serve as guide posts for structuring expectations, thus making the coordination of choices possible. The Hobbesian dilemma, which originated from uncertainty as to the intentions of the other party in a bargaining situation, can therefore be avoided. Second, the availability of commonly shared symbols allows an assessment of the moves of the other party, and may therefore allow for the development of interactions without major disappointments.

But if the structure of expectations is usually the most decisive variable in the creation and maintenance of order, then force is only one of several ways to structure expectations. Another way to maintain order is to manipulate the symbolic universe and shape perceptions. It is exactly because of the importance of symbols for the creation of social order that the role of a “political entrepreneur” is decisive. Through the invocation of shared symbols, groups form: human action can be patterned, and a “public space” common to all is defined. The general and special conditions for social order can now be given more precision, and it becomes clear why the international system is sometimes called a “primitive” political system: on the most fundamental level, any order depends upon a structure of expectations, communicated and induced by shared symbols. But the process of structuring these expectations in the international arena is markedly different form what occurs domestically. Internationally, we said, the structure of expectations depends on historical experience and on norms that evolve out of iterative bargains. But such a structure is prone to periodic breakdowns, because no overarching loyalties or interests can be invoked. Domestic political systems, on the other hand, have political entrepreneurs or leaders who can manipulate diffuse symbols, which invoke loyalty and stress the symbiotic character of the social order.

Here the importance of overarching symbols, including a shift of attitudes from purely ethnocentric to more global concerns and their connection with the goals of the “reformist” school of world order studies, becomes obvious. Although this book has a narrower focus, these problems will be touched upon in the final chapter. For the moment such a cursory treatment must suffice, and we turn our attention now to three traditional order speculations.

2. International Order and World Order

Since social order among men is not a natural condition but an artifact, it has to be created and explained. Basically, we can distinguish three major traditions of order speculation according to their respective basis for social order. Thus, “classical” political theory from Plato to Thomas Aquinas derives social order not only from biological needs but mainly from man’s participation in (divine) reason, making the “insight” of the soul attuned to the “order of being” the fundamental source of human social order. Another school, identified with Hobbes and “realism” in general, maintains that order is the result of particular institutional arrangements. Order is therefore created by imposition and the threat of superior force. Finally, a third tradition which could be called the “Humean” perspective derives “order” from the growth of a common perception of mutual benefit and the growth of conventions which set limits to socially disruptive behavior. Naturally, these three explanations of order are not necessarily mutually exclusive and can be found in various “mixes” in actual theorizing. Nevertheless, the emphasis of one tradition over elements stemming from another has important repercussions upon a subsequent “theory of order.” Considering our special interest in developing an approach to the study of international order we are more than justified in asking which of the three “ideal types” of order speculation shows sufficient “isomorphism” with international reality so as to serve as a useful starting point for our investigation.

Starting with the classical conception of order, we notice that the scholastic definition of peace as ordinata quies is not very helpful for our purposes, as it presupposes some common knowledge about the natural order of things in a stable position. Modern experience cuts against this tenet in two ways. First, the decline of a metaphysically based human order, which dominated the Middle Ages, for example, and served as a meeting-ground for heretics as well as orthodox thinkers, led to a variety of rather exclusive idologies that have very little in common⁵ with each other. Second, the precarious elements of world order exemplified in the “regies du jeu” of international interaction do not grow out of a static conception of human order but are the results of man’s historical experience. For better or for worse, the concept of order in international relations seems to be heavily imbued with evolutionary overtones.

For the same reason a definition of order in terms of the “distribution of values’’⁶ seems to be deficient. Besides, world order, while it implies more than simply any “discernible arrangement” of values, cannot go so far as to specify the conditions for “the good life,”⁷ for the simple reason that international disorder results partly from competing attempts to impose one’s idea of the good life on others.

Furthermore, the classical political tradition, aside from some stoic speculations and medieval treatises on a universal monarchy, never developed a coherent theory of inter-societal affairs. Plato as well as Aristotle, concerned with the “best” order of a body politic, take war and disorder in inter-poleis relations as given. After all, Plato’s Republic⁸ is to a large extent determined in its make-up by the conviction that war is an ever latent possibility, resulting from the impossibility of imposing a rational order upon inter-poleis interactions.

It was exactly this image of constant belligerence between states that served centuries later as the starting point for another major order speculation. Thomas Hobbes justifies his emphasis on the peaceless “state of nature” as the natural human condition by pointing out in his Leviathan:

But though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of warre one against another; yet at all times, Kings and Persons of Soveraigne authority, because of their independency are in continuall jealousies and in the state and posture of Gladiators; having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuel Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of war.

… For Warre consisteth not in Battel onely or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time wherein the Will to contend by Battel is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time is to be considered in the nature of Warre. … So the nature of War consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace.

To this Warre of every man against every man this is also consequent: that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power there is not law: where no law no Injustice. … Justice and Injustice are none of the faculties neither of the Body not Mind. … They are Qualities that relate to men in Society, not in Solitude.⁹

Hobbes’ solution to this dilemma is well known. The absolute sovereign has to insure that compacts are kept at home, but states themselves do not create a Leviathan. Despite the fact that Hobbes seems to have understood the decisive difference between states and natural persons, which explains why he objected to a super-Leviathan,¹⁰ his perspective—that sanctions explain compliance and the establishment of justice—dominated the thinking of statemen as well as scholars up to the most recent times. This is borne out by their preoccupation with sanctions, international “police-force” plans, collective security arrangements,¹¹ and proposals to make the Covenant or the Charter “work,” as well as by the predominance of the “command theory”¹² of law up to the middle of this century.

Opposition to Hobbes’ conceptualization nevertheless eventually came to the fore as his emphasis on compelling force resulted from an extremely pessimistic view of human nature:

If a covenant be made wherein neither of the parties perform presently but trust one another it is the condition of meer Nature … upon any reasonable suspicion it is Voyd. But if there be a common Power to stay over them both with right and force sufficient to compell performance it is not Voyd. For he that performed first has no assurance the other will perform after, because the bonds of words are too weak to bridle mens’ ambition anger and other Passions without the fear of some coercive Power. … But in a civill estate where there is a power set up to constrain those that would otherwise violate their faith that fear is no more reasonable; and for that cause he which by the Covenant is to perform first is obliged to do so.¹³

This leads to the famous dilemma that, if in the state of nature contracts without sanctions are only words, no contract can come about in the first place. Apparently Hobbes’ exclusive reliance on force is logically untenable and, as modern research into primitive law shows, empirically inaccurate. Emphasis on the “legitimate” use of force, even on the part of convinced “command theorists,” also demonstrates that the instrumentalities of coercion cannot serve as the sole criterion of law. Norms, structuring expectations, operate even in cases where no need for reinforcement arises; as a matter of fact, we usually speak of “anomie”¹⁴ when enforcement action surpasses a limit considered normal. Norms work via socialization and ideally define certain alternatives in a given situation as “illegal,” thereby limiting the set of possible choices of an actor. Thus, in the search for an equivalent of force which would explain not only the continued existence of a political order but its very establishment, David Hume advances the argument that conventions arising out of interactions that prove mutually beneficial can structure expectations and thus allow the participants to overcome the posed dilemma.

This convention is not of the nature of a promise; for even promises themselves arise from human conventions. It is only a general sense of common interest. … When this common sense of interest is mutually expressed and known to both, it produces a suitable resolution and behavior. And this may properly enough be called a convention or agreement betwixt us though without the interposition of a promise, since the actions of each of us have a reference to those of the other and are performed upon the supposition that something is to be performed on the other part … this experience assures us … that the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows and gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct; and it is only on the expectation of this that our moderation and abstinence are founded. In like manner are languages gradually established by human convention, without any promise. In like manner do gold and silver become the common measure of exchange and are esteemed sufficient payment for ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. On Order, Symbols And Preferred Worlds
• 2. “Rules” and Conflict Resolution
• 3. The “Grammar” of Rules
• 4. Historical Analogies
• 5. Myths and Metaphors
• 6. Doctrines
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index