Advantages and Disadvantages of the International System as a Level of Analy sis 125state systems; or contrast po liti cal systems with social or even biological systems. How
these vari ous systems interact is the focus of both the social and the natu ral sciences.
For all the sciences, three of the most significant advantages to this level of analy sis
lie in the comprehensiveness of systems theory. First, impor tant aspects of the whole
are more difficult to understand by reference to their parts. If systems interest you, try
ing to understand them entirely by reference to their parts will prove misleading.
Second, it enables scholars to or ga nize the seemingly disjointed parts into a whole; it
allows them to hypothesize about and then to test how the system’s vari ous parts, actors,
and rules are related and to show how change in one part of the system causes changes
in other parts. In this sense, the notion of a system is a significant research tool. Third,
it facilitates theorizing about change.
In short, while analy sis at the international systems level cannot explain events at
the micro level— why a par tic u lar individual acts a certain way—it does allow plausible
explanations at the more general level. For realists, generalizations derived from
systems theory provide the fodder for prediction, the ultimate goal of all behavioral
science. For liberals and radicals, these generalizations have definite normative impli
cations; in the former case, they affirm movement toward a positive system, and, in the
latter case, they confirm pessimistic assessments about the place of states in the eco
nom ically determined international system.
But systems theory also has some glaring weaknesses and inadequacies. The empha
sis at the international system level means that politics is often neglected. The general
izations are broad and sometimes obvious. Who disputes that most states seek to maintain
their relative capability or that most states prefer to negotiate rather than fight under all
but a few circumstances? Who doubts that some states occupy a preeminent economic
position that affects the status of all others?
International system theorists have always been hampered by the prob lem of bound
aries. If they use the notion of the international system, do they mean the interna
tional po liti cal system? What factors lie outside the system? In fact, much realist theory
systematically ignores this critical question by differentiating several diff er ent levels
within the system but only one international system level construct. Liberals do bet
ter, differentiating factors external to the system and even incorporating those factors
into their expanded notion of an interdependent international system. Yet, if we can
not clearly distinguish between what is inside and what is outside of the system, do we
in fact have a system? Even more impor tant, what shapes the system? What is the recip
rocal relationship between international system constraints and unit (state) be hav ior?
By way of contrast, constructivists do not acknowledge such bound aries. They argue
that no natu ral or necessary distinction exists between the international system and
the state or between international politics and domestic politics, and no distinction
exists between endogenous and exogenous sources of change.ESSIR7_CH04_106_131_11P.indd 125 6/14/16 10:04 AM