The distinction between these three elements is analytical. International norms,
for example, affect and shape the exercise of political and economic power and are
themselves affected by these forces. The three elements are considered equally
important, that is, their relative influence must be identified in concrete, historical
analysis. This view is, of course, different from structural realism, which will subject
economics and norms to the logic of political and military power, and from
constructivism, which will attach extraordinary importance to norms and ideas. It
is also different from Marxist analysis, which will tend to subject political-military
power as well as norms to the logic of economic power.
The aim is now to identify the ways in which the international structure affects
the domestic structures of states and, in turn, to trace the effects of these domestic
structures on the international system. Where Waltz and others argue that social-
ization and competition leads to ‘like units’ compelled to behave in certain ways, I
argue that the international structure leads to unlike units, compelled to behave in
certain ways.
‘Unlike units’ in the international system
The notion of ‘unlike units’ suggests major differentiation among states in the
international system.^38 This needs to be captured without descending into pure
description where every state is unique. Weberian ideal types are a way forward. I
want to suggest three major modalities of state in the current international system;
they are the postmodern^39 states in the OECD world, which have developed due to
the changes that modern statehood has undergone since the end of the Second
World War; the weak postcolonial states, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, which
have emerged in context of decolonization; and the modernizing states, mainly in
Asia, Latin America, and parts of Eastern Europe (e.g. Russia). Modernizing states
combine features of modern, postmodern, and weak statehood in different mixtures.
The international forces identified above have helped create these states in
combination with local conditions. Take the weak states. The normative framework
concerning colonies changed dramatically in the post-Second World War period.
Before the war, the possession of colonies was considered legitimate and even
necessary, given the backward condition of the colonized areas. After the war,
colonialism came to be considered fundamentally wrong, even ‘a crime’.^40 The
political-military power element of the international structure probably also played
a role in decolonization; there was a new distribution of power in the world, where
the major colonial motherlands no longer controlled the agenda concerning the
Third World. Finally, economic processes in the capitalist world system were
unfavourable to weak states. Jackson believes that normative change was the decisive
element (‘colonialism ultimately proved defenceless at the level of ideas in a world
that was fundamentally different not materially, but normatively’)^41 but it was not
the only element.
Postmodern states emerged from the combined processes of economic global-
ization and political integration among the advanced states. According to Robert
Structural realism and changes in statehood 113