Power, Realism and Constructivism

Stefano Guzzini

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415640466
• eBook ISBN: 9781135096618
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Framed by a new and substantial introductory chapter, this book collects Stefano Guzzini's reference articles and some less well-known publications on power, realism and constructivism. By analysing theories and their assumptions, but also theorists following their intellectual paths, his analysis explores the diversity of different schools, and moves beyond simple definitions to explore their intrinsic tensions and fallacies. Guzzini's approach to the analysis of power – within and outside International Relations – provides the common theme of the book through which the theoretical state of the art in IR is reassessed.

A novel analysis of power and the potential limits of realism and constructivism in International Relations, Power, Realism and Constructivism will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, international political economy, social and political theory, and the study of power.

PART I

Power

1

STRUCTURAL POWER

The limits of neorealist power analysis

The origin of this conceptual analysis lies in a basic puzzle. How did power analysis increasingly turn from a defense to a critique of realism? I shall argue that the turn from realism to neorealism, with its consequent reliance on economic methodology, in fact diminished the substantial range of the original concept of power. This chapter will contend that taking power analysis seriously leads beyond neorealism.

Some recent studies by authors dissatisfied with neorealism have attempted to widen the power concept to include what has been called structural power. Their common claim is that the focus on strategic interaction or the bargaining level of analysis does not capture important power phenomena. I shall argue that these notions of structural power involve three distinct meanings, of which only one can be shown to be compatible with the interactionist choice-theoretical power concept that underlies the neorealist approach.

Finally, this chapter claims that none of the structural power concepts is able to provide both a comprehensive and a coherent power analysis, either because it still omits particular power phenomena or because it overloads the concept of power. Instead of pursuing the track of continuously widening the concept, this chapter will propose a pair or dyad of concepts. The word “power” will be reserved as an agent concept, and the term “governance” will represent effects not due to a particular agent, whether individual or collective. More generally, I shall use the term “power analysis” to encompass both concepts and to deal with the link between power and international governance.

By approaching power from the methodological level, this chapter presents a more systematic analysis than those that either take the form of reviews or enumerations of different approaches or else do not consider the literature beyond David Baldwin’s work.¹

A last preliminary remark concerns the underlying definition of neorealism in the argument pursued here. The contribution of neorealism has been the systematic use of an economic mode of explanation in international relations (IR). This implies both (1) the Waltzian use of market theory and (2) the rational-actor model used in the game-theoretical approach and most prominently by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Jr.‘s later research program. It is on this ground that insights from the traditional realist and liberal traditions recently have been integrated.² The thorny question of whether Waltzian (so-called structural) neorealism is indeed linked to a rational-choice (individualist) model has spurred a major debate.³ The position followed here is in essence closer to that of Alexander Wendt and Richard Ashley. Martin Hollis and Steve Smith are right that neoclassical economic theory allows, indeed requires, a double causation at the individual and market levels. Ashley and Wendt are also right to argue that the structural explanation presupposes the existence and the constancy of the actor’s preferences. Indeed, only by presupposing homo economicus (Kenneth Waltz’s like-unit), a being who wants to survive in his environment (basic preference) and manages to do so by rationally calculating the costs and benefits of alternate actions, can market (anarchy) constraints be understood. Economic theory is very powerful because it conceals and inextricably links these two levels. At the market level, dynamics are the result of individual utilitarian valuemaximizing behavior. At the individual level, the static market constraints are the permanent background against which the strategic behavior of individuals is articulated. To allow for the explanatory articulation of the two levels of neoclassical theory, both individual preferences (in the macroanalysis) and the so-called invisible working of the market (in the microanalysis) must be taken for granted theoretically and held constant in the analysis. Without them, marginal economics could not work. In other words, rational choice and a Waltzian analysis are merely the two different levels of the same economic (utilitarian and interactionist) approach.

The argument will be pursued in three steps. A first part will introduce the methodology of this conceptual analysis and the power concept underlying neorealism. Next, I will analyze three meanings of structural power. Finally, I shall propose a more coherent power analysis characterized by a dyad of concepts.

A conceptual critique of power in neorealism

The particular analysis and criticisms of recent conceptualizations of power proposed here call for a short justification of why at this particular moment a new conceptual analysis of power is required. After some major methodological assumptions regarding conceptual analyses in general have been outlined, an appraisal of the previous power debates in IR will introduce the underlying concept of power in neorealism.

Aims and limits of a conceptual analysis

The present analysis is not concerned with the empirical assessment of power; rather, it proposes a conceptual analysis of power and does so in the particular situation of a discipline in crisis. Currently, the discipline of IR is recovering from a state of disarray exemplified by the creation of a new discipline — namely, international political economy (IPE) — and the establishment of new and legitimate research areas on the fringes of mainstream research, such as critical theory, feminist theory, and poststructuralist approaches. At times like this, reconceptualizations are unavoidable: they constitute the first stage in theory reconstruction. Conceptual analyses serve to clarify and systematize the meaning of the very tools that different theories can then use to formulate explanations. In this respect, it is essential to recall that concepts are the basis for explanations and are not explanations as such. There might be theories involving power that can be checked empirically, but there are no concepts that can be checked in this way. Theories explain, concepts do not. Thus, this conceptual analysis falls short of claiming to provide the theory of power. The aim of this conceptual analysis is to provide a pretheoretical check of the coherence with which the concept of power is used in explanations and extended in recent writings for and against neorealism. It represents a logical control of theories before they are applied to empirical material.⁴

The theory dependence of the concept of power entails that there is no single concept of power applicable to every type of explanation. This implies that a limited range of views about power can be held that are both reasonable and yet different, possibly even incompatible (Connolly 1974: ch. 1). At least three different reasons have been put forward to argue for the concept of power as being “essentially contested.”

First, power always implies an element of counterfactual reasoning; that is, the judgment of the significance of a given set of abilities (power) presupposes an implicit statement about the unaffected state of affairs. Power implies potential change, which in turn implies a counterfactual situation of potential continuity. Since counterfactual situations are difficult to assess empirically, so this argument runs, no decisive proof can be brought in favor of one approach.

Second, it has been argued that the concept of power (as related to personal autonomy or interests) cannot be disentangled from normative discourse (see esp. Lukes 1974). Derived from this idea is the view in IR that “incommensurable” paradigms or ideologies meet in an “interparadigm debate.”⁵ Thomas Kuhn’s concepts provided a welcome explanation for the discipline’s difficulties in accumulating knowledge at a time when realism had lost its hegemony. The interparadigm debate argued for the establishment and recognition of rival schools of thought that cannot be subsumed under any form of revised realism. Once accepted, however, Kuhn’s concepts became a welcome protective shield used by realists (and others) against attacks from other schools. Now, the concept of incommensurability legitimizes business as usual at the price of a predefined pluralism.⁶ A specific historical stage of the debate in IR has become reified into rigid categories. These categories are inherently heterogeneous and are becoming increasingly confused with the (Anglo-American) ideological triad of conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism without any theoretical discussion of why specific ideologies would require particular theories and methodologies.⁷

Therefore, I shall not develop a so-called realist as opposed to a so-called liberal/pluralist or so-called critical/Marxist concept of power, assuming such things exist. Given that concepts of power are widely used as central explanatory variables, I find the underlying metatheoretical differences that characterize modes of explanation to be a more fundamental level at which those concepts can be distinguished. This third reason for essential contestability is a constructivist approach that is arguably more Kuhnian than the interparadigm debate. By mode of explanation, I mean the particular cluster of ontologies (agent/structure) and epistemologies (naturalist/interpretivist) that underlie theories and their reconstruction of reality.⁸ Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall have written: “Although social ontologies do not directly dictate the content of substantive theories, they do have conceptual and methodological consequences for how theorists approach those phenomena they seek to explain, and thus for the development of their theories” (Wendt and Duvall 1989: 55). Concepts are not selfsufficient. They derive their meaning more generally from their modes of explanation and particularly from the theories (e.g., realism) in which they are embedded.⁹ As will be shown, power is significantly different if conceived in an interactionist, dispositional, or intersubjective/structuralist approach.¹⁰ This insight, which informs the whole of the following conceptual analysis, could be called explanatory perspectivism. It implies that concepts can be checked on the basis of their coherence within their respective theoretical frameworks.¹¹ It furthermore entails that, for the purpose of this study, it makes no significant difference who is the particular reference for power, provided the theory using power is constructed in the same mode of explanation. For instance, interactionist rational-choice approaches and the power concept they include remain basically the same in the analysis of nuclear brinkmanship, organizational agendasetting, or personal threats. They also remain alike across the different spheres to which they are applied, whether economic, social, financial, or others. Power is distinguished through its role in explanatory frameworks, not through the fields to which it is applied.

In this way, I make two major claims. First, I try to show that concepts of structural power rightly identify the basic paradox of recent developments in realism. The neorealist move to an economic model will be shown to reduce the explanatory value of the concept of power.

The second claim is a theoretical argument against what Michael Banks once called “realism-plus-grafted-on-components,” that is, the tendency of common wisdom in IR to incorporate reasonable insights without keeping track of whether doing so leads to an internal inconsistency (Banks 1984: 18). By criticizing already developed power schemes in political theory, I attempt to show that the concept of power cannot be extended indefinitely without becoming inconsistent with the underlying framework of analysis. This applies, of course, to both neorealist concepts and their challengers alike.¹²

The twist of the argument presented here is to make a paradox work. Realists generally believe that whatever one can say about their story, it is a story on power writ large. My contention is that by turning neorealist, they are in fact restricting themselves to a limited view of power. Some realists will not care, and the paradox will not work. Some realists might, however, hesitate and become curious about the wisdom of sticking to or moving to a choice-theoretical mode of explanation and its assumptions in which their central concept is underrated. Taking power seriously might lead realists beyond neorealism.

The neorealist concept of power

Concepts of structural power are but the latest in a series of attacks on realism through conceptual critiques of power. The neorealist concept of power itself reflects this long-standing debate.

According to traditional realism, the workings of the international system can be explained through the underlying distribution of power. This type of analysis typically identifies the contenders, their diverging interests and intentions, the open or tacit clash of wills, and the prevailing outcome. It shows which of the means that have been employed have proved most efficient. This allows the power of actors to be assessed not only for the power confrontation in question but also for future ones. One can deduce the relative power positions of actors by measuring the share of the most effective means they have under their control and can then derive guidance for future policy. This mix of explanatory and policy-planning characteristics has made the national interest as expressed in power such a “parsimonious” and ubiquitous tool in traditional IR.

However, this conception of power has often been held to conceal an essentially circular argument both for the assessment of the outcome and for the amount of power. On the one hand, it claims that (the distribution of ) power is the main criterion for the explanation of outcomes. On the other, in some cases the outcomes are the main criterion for the assessment of power(s). Among other critiques, this essential circularity spurred the first major criticisms of the concept (Haas 1953, Claude 1962). As a reaction to this criticism, researchers in IR have either carefully avoided the concept of power¹³ or tried to state specific power links and measure the means more rigorously. It is in this context that we must see two prominent reconceptualizations of power in IR, which both use a choice-theoretical approach. This is done not by Waltz, who leaves the concept unchanged, but by Baldwin and by Keohane and Nye.¹⁴ Baldwin attempts systematically to apply insights from the pluralist literature in political theory to IR.¹⁵ Keohane and Nye explore the limits of traditional power analysis in the context of transnationalization. Even though Baldwin criticizes their use of the concept of interdependence, these two influential reworkings of the concept have many crucial points in common. Both approaches take a choice-theoretical model as their underlying methodological starting point. Both are aware of the above-mentioned tautology, which derives from defining power in terms of resources. Both stress the importance of apprehending power resources only after a careful contextual analysis that Keohane and Nye subsume under “asymmetrical interdependency.” F...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Power and the study of politics
• Part I Power
• Part II Realism
• Part III Constructivism
• Bibliography
• Index