Coping and Conformity in World Politics

Hugh C. Dyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415483629
• eBook ISBN: 9781135182298
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Conformity is a common coping strategy for dealing with stresses in political situations, as well a strategy for dealing with the lack of agreed foundations. This work introduces the conceptual frameworks of coping and conformity to provide a new analysis of the ethical and political demands of international life.

The volume argues that coping through conformity is the only means available for dealing with uncertainty and the absence of shared foundations, and while conformity may be a largely practical issue it also reflects a consensus on values. Dyer draws on recent critical theoretical perspectives as well as engaging with dominant 'liberal' assumptions in the global context providing a critical study of the impact of norms and values in world politics.

The book also addresses wider issues of freedom and necessity, individualism and communitarianism and cosmopolitanism, agency and structure, and the legitimacy of governance and institutions. The theoretical arguments are illuminated within the ecological context and such recent concerns as climate and energy security are examined as forceful illustrations of current political challenges as well as a potential source of insights into the alternatives.

Providing a fresh theoretical perspective on world politics, this work will be of great interest to all scholars of global politics, international relations and globalization studies.

Part I
Conditions and situations

1
The stability of otherworlds

Chaos and anarchy are endemic – but not definitional – features of world politics, and the familiarity should breed strategies for coping rather than contempt or despair. Conformity in its various forms is a common coping strategy for dealing with political stress, as well as with uncertainties about ontological or epistemological foundations which lie at the heart of disciplinary debates in the study of world politics. Stability per se seems a forlorn hope in a troublesome world, but could we possibly find it in some other (or some Other’s) world? The discussion here rests on a characterization of the relationship between coping and conformity, for which consideration of the stability of other worlds is a useful pedagogic or heuristic tool. The notion of order, as representing conformity in the international domain, is critically examined in the traditional context of Realism. This allows some insight into the underlying values at work in, but not always admitted to, discussions of order. The aspiration underlying conformity (relative order, in this case) is the search for stable consensus or ‘common ground’, yet this reflects both an assumption of (necessarily stable) foundations and an expectation that there is some other world which is more stable than the one currently being experienced. The connection between ontology, epistemology, and politics is thus profound and direct.

The existing set of international systems and structures provides an illustration of both the artefacts of previous political settlements and designs, and the range of possible general political patterns to which actors might conform in order to cope with their particular challenges, while at the same time being a static representation of political possibilities heavily burdened with specific sets of values and open to both abuse and contestation in political practice. While this may argue for fragmented and technically anarchical global politics, that would leave unattended all the difficulties that international systems and structures were devised to address; not least the aspiration for stability, often articulated as international peace and security but equally desired in respect of economic and social relations.

The possibility of stability, even if ‘elsewhere’ for the moment, thus rests on the reality (and possible stability) of other worlds. The logical alternatives are examined here in the context of modal logic and ‘other worlds’. Lewis points to the reality of other worlds, all connected and all part of our own (including fragments of our own related to the whole of it). However, the argument could proceed simply on the possibility of changing circumstances within a current world. Here Elster is instructive in addressing the relativization of the notion of possible worlds (Elster 1978) and the relationship of collective action to both stability and change. Without access to secure foundations, we must look to inter-subjective foundations, and here the need for the Other becomes a focus of attention, even when others don’t enjoy a world any more stable than our own, and conformity is challenged by difference. It is, moreover, our responsibility to others that is at issue (Bauman 1993).

The prospects for coping with possible alternatives are examined through Taylor’s account of antifoundationalism and the problem of Cartesian foundations. The relationship to the other may be based on recognition of ‘suffering’, perhaps of a ‘wrong’. Hence the aspiration to justice, yet as Devetak and Higgott (1999) point out this presupposes stable political society, stable identities, and a stable social bond when these are all at risk under globalization. Equally, the dangers of conformity or ‘sameness’ (especially if enforced) are obvious in this context. This points to the need to examine the relationship of the universal/total with the particular/fragmented, as well as a coexisting fear of universals/totals and hope for universal values, and to examine the ethical possibilities inherent in these tensions even in the recognition that any ethical approach may tend towards universalist perspectives.

This in turn leads to a discussion of the anti-theory position in ethics, as a way to approach our need to cope with the Other. The postmodern/post-structuralist literature engages with these issues, though there has been a tendency to emphasize difference which naturally undermines notions of intersubjectivity, let alone the universal. Levinas (and Buber, Bakhtin) offer a dialogical escape from this impasse, though of course it remains problematic. In relation to the (de)construction of knowledge, the problems and promises of conformity may also be usefully viewed from the perspective of coping – that is, attempting to reduce some of the burdens or discomforts of destabilized knowledge, without necessarily resolving the problems.

According to Patomäki, the fifth and final, and most significant, lesson to be drawn from the inspirational work of Hayward Alker is ‘The Importance of Possible Futures’ (2008: 78). He notes that positivists ‘have often been preoccupied with prediction, whereas post-positivists have thrown out the baby – (that is, future-orientation) – with the bathwater of precise, scientific predictions’ (2008: 79). He then goes on to say that the ‘bleak state of IR involves the condition of some scholars failing to learn from their failure to predict anything precise, while others have “learnt” that the future is something that cannot be talked about at all’ (2008: 79). While ‘the study of counterfactual past possibilities and possible futures is inevitably ambigious’, judgements can be made, and even made falsifiable as appropriate, and a ‘critically reflective future-oriented perspective’ offers further advantages, and here Patomäki cites Alker and Mushakoji’s view (to be picked up later in our discussion) that: ‘institutional histories can similarly be seen in quasi-evolutionary terms as evolving grammars of alternative possible trajectories’ (Patomäki 2008: 80).

Some consideration of systems and structures will provide points of reference in the shape of contemporary world politics, while indicating possibilities for evolving organizational forms that may allow escape from inherited categories of thought and practice. In short, examining the nature of conformity in existing systems and structures will help identify the prospects for change and for political alternatives.

The conclusion to this exploration comes back to coping, since it may be that a thorough understanding of how we cope, and what we are coping with, will suggest that potential solutions to the problem of stability and conformity reside not in some distant world but rather in our sense of the possibilities in our own world.

Conformity as order– the realist tradition

Some views from the realist tradition are suggestive of the prevailing aspect of conformity in international relations: a concern with order, presented in the context of the disordered alternative of the state of nature. Merle’s study of the sociology of international relations suggests conflict is resolved in state-of-nature theory by (a) a balance of power, (b) world government, or (c) historical dialectic, but questions whether the radical opposition between internal order and international chaos was ever well established.

It is of course true that resort to force is legitimate between states, while it is under state control and monopoly within states. However, this is a partial and over-formal view, introducing a difference in kind when there is only, nowadays at least, a difference in degree between the two kinds of society.

(1987: 49–50)

Over-emphasis of the supposed distinction between power realities and sociopolitical values can be seen when Kennan argues that foreign policy is a means to an end, and that the sovereign state embodies this end, ‘some purpose to which the total of its political life was supposed to be dedicated and by which its existence as a separate political entity was supposed to be justified’, while at the same time the state is ‘not conceived as being an end in itself’ (1954: 5–7). He also says, ‘let us not assume that the purposes of states, as distinct from the methods, are fit subjects for measurement in moral terms’ (1954: 47; emphasis original), but is unable to hold this line when he counsels cosmopolitanism with regard to the world environment (political and natural) and the expansion of national life, and calls for a greater sense of purpose in the development of national life – indeed he acknowledges that he is here ‘at odds’ with the justificatory purposes of the state (1954: 106–10).

Given the sometimes awkward distinctions made in world politics scholarship, due in part to the many cross-cutting categories that have been proposed, it is difficult if not inappropriate to label thinkers as attaching to one category or the other. A useful example is Bull, who speaks of ‘a common epistemology’ and ‘common values’ in international societies in his discussion of the concept of order in world politics (1977: 16), however, he is quick to point out that such common points of reference are not entirely characteristic of the modern (twentieth-century) international society, which ‘is weighted in favour of the dominant culture of the West’ (1977: 317). While sensitive to normative considerations, Bull’s focus is on the goals of the states system (preservation of the system; maintenance of sovereign independence of states; peace, or at least principled conduct of war) (1977: 16). He views the states system as the inevitable point of reference even as he entertains the possibility of its obsolescence (1977: 295–96). Of course we must begin from where we are, but Bull fails to identify the reifying consequences of defining the possibilities in terms of existing realist assumptions. The possibility that even primary goals (such as order) might be construed differently does not enter into the realist paradigm, and Bull reiterates the realist state-centric conception of managing human affairs through the exercise of power. While self-consciously defending the states system, he claims this is not at the expense of the human community, and asserts the moral priority of world order (a wider concept) over the states system (1977: 318–20). Bull is unable to tackle international relations from a broader perspective, and in resting on realist assumptions his good intentions can’t easily lead to progressive outcomes. On the other hand, Bull fits into the reflectivist ‘classical’ tradition by virtue of his notable attack on the scientific approach in his ‘International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach’ (1966) which puts him at odds with some later revised versions of realism. So, while Hoffmann says that for Bull ‘international society has a moral basis’ (1990: 19), those moral foundations were not set out – if they had been no doubt it would have been apparent that naturalistic assumptions give rise to absolute foundations, which are no more appropriate to the understanding of a varied and changing society than the static foundations of positivism. While Bull recognizes that order is ‘necessarily a relative concept’, and ‘exists only in relation to given goals’, he nevertheless insists that certain goals are universal conditions of social life (1977: 4). He supports this by reference to the ‘good sense’ of the ‘simple truisms’ of natural law, but this suggests a case of ‘the naturalistic fallacy’ if it amounts to a claim that such universal conditions are a natural (observable/provable) social ‘good’. Using a definition of order as ‘a pattern of human activity that sustains elementary, primary or universal goals of social life’ does not allow Bull to evade the issue of purpose (what goals?). Suggesting some sort of ‘practical association’, a term used by Oakeshott (1975) and Nardin (1983), which does not require or pursue a common vision of the good life (Kratochwil 1989: 256), he offers no reason why any such order should be pursued. Wight’s distinction between classical political theory as being ‘theory of the good life’ and international theory as being ‘theory of survival’ (1966: 33) may help to explain this difficulty around purpose, since Bull sees order as instrumental to survival. However, Jackson (1990) argues that international theory is also a theory of the good life, because it is concerned with conditions under which the good life can be pursued within states. As Vincent indicates, Bull’s notion of order is ambivalent with respect to it being an empirical generalization or a logical requirement: an ambivalence with respect to the is/ought question (Vincent 1990: 48). Perhaps this ambivalence undermines the critical potential of Bull’s position, even if it does not close the argument in the way that ‘scientific’ forms of realism do, and the reluctance to prescribe or recommend condones the status quo (Bull 1977: 318–20). Oddly, realists like Bull, and also Morgenthau, preoccupied with states systems and state behaviour, claim not to defend the status quo (and were often critical of state practice): Bull states that it would be an oversight ‘to derive from this [defence of the states system] an endorsement of the existing society of states’ (1977: 319), and Morgenthau states that ‘international relations is not something to be taken for granted but something to be understood and to be changed and, more particularly, to be changed beyond the present limits of its political structure and organization’ (1970b: 261). Yet, while Bull emphasized ‘society’ over ‘system’, his concern with order reindorses the states system even though he says the states system is ‘only part’ (‘the most important part’) of world politics (1972: 255). Vincent is able to describe a passage on the moral priority of world society over state-society as ‘tantalizingly brief’ (1990: 43). Bull must have recognized the problems inherent in the relationship between justice and order, and determining which of these has priority. In the end he says that order is not a commanding value, but the difficulty arises in making a distinction between order and justice as conflicting political goals: justice supports and depends on some kind of orderliness, though the question of how politics is to be ordered always remains.

Morgenthau offers another perspective on distinctions in realist theory, as a realist himself declaring the central concept of politics to be power, and as a critic of the rationalistic quantitative approach saying ‘if I want to know how much power this politician or that government has, I must leave the adding machine and the computer for historical and necessarily qualitative judgment’ (1970a: 245). He notes differences in ‘intellectual mode’: ‘The Greek and medieval mode was predominantly ethical and deductive; that of Machiavelli and those who followed him was empirical and inductive’ (1970a: 242). Morgenthau thus makes a distinction between historical and rational-scientific modes of theorizing; between an aspect of political philosophy or philosophy of history, and theories whose aim is ‘the rational manipulation of international relations … in the interest of predictable and controlled results’ (1970b: 251). This distinction does not, however, address the gap in Morgenthau’s own thinking between his view that the most noble task of international relations theory is to ‘prepare the ground for a new international order radically different from that which preceded it’ (1970b: 259–60), and on the other hand his universalization of the characteristics of existing power politics.

The advent of institutional perspectives has offered some mitigation of power politics (Keohane and Nye 1977), though typically retaining a defining role for interests and power. If existing systems and structures of world politics reflect earlier political designs, the intended conformity in pursuit of stability also remains encoded in such practices. When political agreement is set into formal institutions, like the U.N. Security Council, this may amount to an acknowledgement of ‘power realities’ at a given juncture. However, such institutions also contain the seeds of their own reform or demise when, like the U.N. Security Council and the Bretton Woods financial institutions, they are unable to provide stability or the initial agreement is outgrown by changing circumstances – and not just shifts of power, but also of participation in the project of conformity. A wider understanding of institutions as social practices helps to capture this sense of intent or purpose in conforming in a way which has meaning for the various participants, of which particular cases of formal institutions or organizations are simply temporal, practical manifestations. Nevertheless, prior arrangements set precedents, and help to demonstrate possibilities, or general patterns of political association, to which actors might conform in order to cope with challenges. As with any kind of conformity, the entrenchment of particular values and purposes in institutions may limit their lifetime, or relevance, if this amounts to a static representation of political possibilities. As relevance fades, and values shift, it is likely that the institutions and organizations themselves will become contested and challenged by demands for a ‘new world order’. In the extreme, conflict rather than conformity may result if the institutional mechanisms are seen to be tools of particular powers and interests, and the coping value of the exercise is thus undermined. This does not necessarily argue for political fragmentation or a distancing anarchy in world politics, though it does argue for an open set of possibilities for conformity that would help cope with changing values and the political interests they inform. If stability remains the rationale for the systems and structures of world politics, it also remains that there are no given foundations on which to settle.

So,...

Table of contents

• Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Conditions and situations
• Part II Actions and reactions
• Part III Trends and transformations
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index