Realists look for cycles and therefore have a tendency to expect observed changes to
reverse themselves, because, as Robert G. Gilpin said 30 years ago, ‘the fundamental
nature of international relations has not changed over the millennia. International rela
tions continue to be a recurring struggle for wealth and power among independent actors
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Pursuing this line of thought, John J. Mearsheimer famously, and wrongly, pre
dicted in 1990 that the collapse of the Soviet Union would take the world ‘back to the
future’ – to a world of power politics in Europe. The liberal ‘prediction of peace in a
multipolar Europe is flawed’.
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Waltz’s theory of balancing
would have led us to
believe that the dominance of the United States would generate a blocking coalition
against it. Neither of these scenarios occurred. But the broader claim of Realism is
embedded in balance of power theory: that power generates attempts to counter it. And
in this light 9/11 can be seen as supportive of the Realist worldview, which is pro
foundly cyclical and anti-progressive. Concentrated power does motivate efforts to
oppose it. American dominance has been challenged by al-Qaeda, by North Korea and
from Iran, and in a less radical but more enduring and fundamental sense there will be
a continuing challenge over the next few decades from China. The point is that there is
a counter-narrative to the progressive and pacific narrative of Institutional Liberalism.
The most striking change in fundamental global power structures during the last 20
years is the transformation of the economies of poor countries toward sustained and rapid
growth. During the Cold War, a few countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan and
Singapore, managed such a transition, but they were exceptions. Stagnation, or boom
and-bust cycles, were more common in poorer countries. However, it is now undeniable
that China, India, Brazil and other formerly very poor countries have passed through
Walt W. Rostow’s ‘take-off’ into economic growth.
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With growth at 6−8 percent com
pared to the 2 percent at best managed by rich countries, shifts in political power are easy
to anticipate. And in politics anticipation often brings policy forward, since political
actors are forward-looking.
Countries such as Brazil, China, and India have different interests from those of the
established industrialized democracies – with respect to trade, foreign investment, mon
etary arrangements and governing arrangements for limiting climate change. It is there
fore not surprising that the Doha Round trade talks seem permanently stalled, that China
and other exporting countries keep their exchange rate undervalued and build up enor
mous foreign currency reserves, that rivalry rather than cooperation characterizes oil
politics, or that the non-Annex I countries under the Kyoto Protocol, exempted from
rules for emissions controls when they were weak and small, refused until the Durban
meetings in December 2011 to agree to be governed by common emissions rules despite
being the major sources of increases in emissions.
As a generalization, it seems to me that what could have been seen in the mid-1990s
as a progressive extension of international regimes, with stronger rules and larger juris
dictions, has been halted if not reversed. The hopes of observers such as John Ikenberry
for a revival of liberal regimes under a more capacious form of American hegemony are
not, so far, being realized. And here again Realism remains relevant: to understand insti
tutions and international law, we need to peer through the veil of rhetoric and law, to
discern the power and interest structures that lie below. Those power and interest struc
tures moved strongly toward greater coherence and uniformity with the collapse of the
Soviet Union: when the WTO was formed, the West was at a historic high point of domi
nance. With the rise of China, India and other emerging economies, structures of power
and interest have become more diverse; and as Structural Realism would have antici
pated, the institutions that link major powers have been weakened, with more contention
Keohane
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over their proper arrangements. Liberal regimes with United States leadership may be
easy to join, as Ikenberry asserts; but they can also be rejected by states with sufficient
independent power.
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As institutional
theorists anticipated, many of these institutions
persist despite changes in patterns of power and interests; but as Realists claimed, it has
become increasingly difficult to construct strong new institutions.
We need to be careful, as E. H. Carr was, about the ways in which Realism remains
relevant. It is not a good guide to the future: Gilpin was wrong to see just endless cycles,
within a fundamentally unchanging reality, and Mearsheimer was wrong to forecast
‘back to the future’ in Europe. Progressive change, driven in part by new ideas both of
ethics and feasibility, does occur. Whatever conflicts occur in the twenty-first century, it
is very difficult to believe that the associated destruction would be accepted with the
equanimity with which human beings confronted organized violence for centuries.
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Realism is also in my view not a good moral guide: it dodges many issues of ethical
choice by unduly discounting how much choice leaders of great powers have. ‘Necessity’
is not a convincing justification for the very powerful. But a core lesson of Realism needs
to be learned and relearned:
Institutions rest on power and changes in power generate
changes in institutions
. Furthermore, dominance over institutions by one set of actors
generates opposition by those who do not have it. They may fear its impact on them or
they may just envy those with power and seek to replace them. In either case, they are
motivated to resist the extension of alien institutions even when they cannot replace them
with their own creations.
Yet the Realist story is not sufficient, since it leaves out domestic politics and learning.
Domestic politics in democracies helps to explain legalization, since it protects leaders in
democracies from protectionist and nationalist movements. Multilateral institutions are
hard to change and ‘lock in’ policies, along with cementing coalitions of support. Domestic
politics also helps to explain the difficulty that established powers have in trying to induce
rising powers to contribute to global public goods. Doing so is costly in the short term,
although it may be rewarding in the long term; and it runs against nationalist prejudices. So
although experts in the United States of the 1920s or Germany or China today may favor
policy changes that are conducive to global prosperity and peace, they may be blocked by
protectionists, self-righteous savers, or nationalists and other vested interests. Learning is
also possible, but by no means guaranteed, as the poisonous and anti-intellectual contem
porary politics of climate change in the United States illustrates. A scientific view that
human beings are generating global climate change, supported by overwhelming evidence,
is disbelieved by millions of Americans to the point that climate change denial has become
a tenet of faith among today’s Republican primary electorate. Aided by the continuing
economic distress, climate deniers may gain the upper hand politically, making the United
States the largest single obstacle to a coherent climate regime.
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It is hard to adapt to change. Adaptive policies are often costly in the short run and
their success may depend on reciprocity from others. Domestic publics are often poorly
equipped to understand these relationships and unwilling to pay short-term costs for
long-term gains that to them seem highly uncertain. As Martin Wolf of the
Financial
Times
has commented, ‘confronted with painful choices, human beings choose denial’.
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A realistic liberalism needs to recognize the realities of human psychology and the fre
quently problematic nature of democracies.
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