Text 2: Theories of IR

1.There are many ways of thinking in international relations theory, including Constructivism, Institutionalism, Marxism, Neo-Gramscianism, and others. However, two schools of thought are predominant: Realism and Liberalism.

2.The term Realism is often associated with the German term realpolitik. Realpolitik is a combination of two words: the German "real", meaning "real" or "substantive," as in the German "Realität" (meaning "reality"), and "politik" (meaning "politics" or "policy"). Bismarck used the term after following Metternich's lead in finding ways to balance the power of European empires. Balancing power meant keeping the peace, and careful realpolitik practioners tried to avoid arms races. However, during the early-20th Century, arms races (and alliances) occurred anyway, culminating in World War I.

3.Realism makes several key assumptions. It assumes that the international system is anarchic, in the sense that there is no authority above states capable of regulating their interactions; states must arrive at relations with other states on their own, rather than it being dictated to them by some higher controlling entity (that is, no true authoritative world government exists). It also assumes that sovereign states, rather than international institutions, non-governmental organizations, or multinational corporations, are the primary actors in international affairs. According to realism, each state is a rational actor that always acts towards its own self-interest, and the primary goal of each state is to ensure its own security. Realism holds that in pursuit of that security, states will attempt to amass resources, and that relations between states are determined by their relative level of power. That level of power is in turn determined by the state's capabilities, both military and economic. Moreover, Realists believe that States are inherently aggressive (“offensive realism”), and that territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing power(s). The principal Realist theorists are Carr, Morgenthau and Waltz.

4.There are two sub-schools of realism: maximal realism and minimal realism. The theory of maximal realism holds that the most desirable position to be in is that of the hegemon, the most powerful entity in the world, and that smaller entities will align themselves with the hegemon out of political self-interests. Under maximal realism, the position where there are simultaneously two equally powerful co-hegemons (such as was the case during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union) is an inherently unstable one and that situation will inevitably collapse into a more stable state where one nation is more powerful and one is less powerful.

5.The theory of minimal realism holds that non-hegemonic states will ally against the hegemon in order to prevent their own interests from being subsumed by the hegemon's interests. Under the minimal-realism theory it is possible to have two equally powerful co-hegemons with whom a smaller entity may ally in turn depending on which hegemon better fits with the smaller entity's policies at the moment (playing both sides against the middle).

6. Liberalism holds that state preferences, rather than state capabilities, are the primary determinant of state behavior. Preferences will vary from state to state, depending on their culture, economic system, or type of government. Many different strands of liberalism have emerged; some include commercial liberalism, liberal institutionalism, idealism, and regime theory.

7.Recently, realism and liberalism have evolved into neo-realism and neo-liberalism.

8. Other schools of thought, which cannot (yet) be counted to the established mainstream in the Study of International Relations, include postmodern, feminist and Neo-Marxist approaches, and Neo-Gramscianism. These perspectives differ from both Realism and Liberalism in their epistemological and ontological premises and are postpositivistic in nature.

9.Different schools of thought in international relations can predict the same events. The theories are differentiated by the assumptions they make in their reasoning toward predictions. For example, both realists and liberals claim that events as disparate as World War I, the Cold War, and the relatively conflict-free post-Cold War Europe were predicted by their theories. The theories differ in the fundamental assumptions they make in predicting state behavior. It is possible that one liberal theorist will predict war while another liberal theorist will predict peace; their disagreement arises from how they interpret events, but their fundamental assumptions are the same. Similarly, it is possible that a realist theorist and a liberal theorist could both predict peace, but their fundamental assumptions as to why that occurs would be different.

Text 3: Hands off the foreign service
With the international scene complex and uncertain, we need experienced career diplomats rather than political appointees
Patrick Wright (Friday June 17, 2005), the Observer

1. The news that the next American ambassador to Britain is a personal friend of President George Bush, rather than a career member of the US foreign service, hardly comes as a surprise. All inhabitants of Wingfield House within living memory have, with one distinguished exception, been either a presidential friend or party benefactor. It has long been an American tradition that about half of all ambassadorial appointments, and a large number of senior posts in the state department, have been drawn from outside the career foreign service

2. But Robert Tuttle's appointment raises the question of whether appointments within our own diplomatic service might be one more area in which Tony Blair may be tempted to follow American precedent. I make no comment - since I know neither of them personally - about the appropriateness or otherwise of the appointment of Paul Boateng or Helen Liddell to be high commissioners to South Africa and Australia respectively, though the latter follows a similar, and successful, appointment of a former Conservative politician, Sir Alastair Goodlad, to Canberra.

3. However, as a former head of the diplomatic service, I would be extremely concerned if appointments of this sort were to become the thin edge of a potentially serious wedge. In spite of some savage cuts at senior levels and the closure of a number of diplomatic posts, we still have the best professional diplomatic service in the world. Even a former French foreign minister, Couve de Murville, brought himself to pay the highest Gallic compliment possible by describing our diplomatic service as the second best diplomatic service in the world.

4. I am not, of course, arguing that political appointments in any diplomatic service are not occasionally more appropriate than professional appointments. I know from my own experience, having been private secretary in Washington for two years to David Ormsby-Gore (later Lord Harlech) in the early 1960s, that political appointments to diplomatic posts abroad are sometimes a necessary and effective exception to the rule.

5. Not only did Ormsby-Gore bring the advantage of a schoolboy friendship with the then US president to his mission; he also gained additional credibility with his American interlocutors by his family relationship with the prime minister, Harold Macmillan.

6. But I would hope that appointments of this sort could continue to be regarded as the exception. At a time when we are about to assume the presidency of both the EU and the G8, the need for experienced, professional and objective advice from our diplomatic missions and from the Foreign Office at home has never been greater. Combined with the Treasury-led decision to close several of our diplomatic posts, a number of early retirements must have led many younger members of the diplomatic service to question whether they have a secure career ahead of them.

7. Any extension of political appointments to head our remaining diplomatic missions not only risks diminishing the supply of professional expertise at a time when the international and European scene is as complex and uncertain as it has been since the end of the cold war. It could also undermine the morale and motivation for younger members of the service who see - as the state department has seen for years - their prospects of promotion to senior posts, both at home and abroad, seriously under threat.

8. The American precedent not only provides a worrying example of what happens when nearly half of all senior posts - both at headquarters and overseas - are given to outsiders; there is also the very dangerous situation which arises, as in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, where the professional diplomats are deliberately excluded from the consultation and planning process. I doubt if I am alone in thinking that one of the many things which went wrong with the invasion of Iraq was the determination of the Pentagon to keep all planning (such as there was) to itself, and to exclude the large number of professional American diplomats with first-hand experience of Iraq and the Arab world.

9. It used to be said that this country tends to imitate what has happened in the US five years earlier. The practice of American presidents of using their foreign service as a dumping ground for failed politicians, personal cronies or generous benefactors has been around for a very long time. Happily, the independence and professionalism of our diplomatic service has so far remained more or less untouched.

10. We should beware a situation where our internationally respected and professional diplomatic service is gradually sidelined in favour of political and other appointments - some of which, on the American model, may be motivated more by the need to reward people for political loyalty, or generosity to the ruling party, than by any appropriate qualifications or professional suitability for the job.

11. Tony Blair has shown, in the Iraq war, a tendency to follow the decisions of his friend George Bush. Let us hope that appointments in the foreign service are not yet another area in which he plans to follow American practice.

· Lord Wright of Richmond (formerly Sir Patrick Wright) was permanent under secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of the diplomatic service 1986-91

Unit 3:

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