state-of-war anarchy into a first state-of-nature anarchy on a global scale. Because
there was no longer any geographical periphery providing space for the replication
of a state-of-war anarchy on a larger scale, however, this transformation would entail
only consolidation and not expansion of the state-system, and world government
would not find itself with the need to navigate the perils of a yet larger interstate
system.
Waltz on violence interdependence
Having established the central role of violence interdependence in realist and proto-
realist thought before Waltz, we are now prepared to examine what Waltz says about
violence interdependence, focusing on three bodies of theoretical argument: (1) his
‘three images’ schema in Man, the State and War;(2) his neorealist argument in Theory
of International Politics; and (3) his writings on nuclear weapons. The simple story is
that violence interdependence largely disappears and material context more generally
becomes attenuated to only ‘balance of power’ phenomena.
Waltz’s three-image schema of human nature (first image), domestic structure
(second image), and system structure (third image) omits violence interdepen-
dence.^39 Waltz takes states as given and advances claims about the effects of anarchy
itself on outcomes, and does not in any way register that the implications of anarchy
are plausibly vastly different with different levels of violence interdependence.
Although his third image theory is derived from Rousseau and Hobbes, he makes
no mention of the important role Rousseau assigned to topographical fragmentation
in determining that Europe was a plural and thus potentially anarchic system.^40 It is
this move to refine earlier arguments about anarchy and balance, but not division
and violence interdependence, that the anarchy-interdependence problématique
narrows into the anarchy problématique.^41
Waltz’s formulation of neorealism then develops into a social scientific theory
the ideas on anarchy unearthed in the exegesis and sorting accomplished in Man, the
State, and War. In the three-tiered conceptual apparatus of his neorealism (ordering
principle, extent of functional differentiation, and distribution), material factors
register only as distribution. Waltz’s claims about interdependence address economic
interdependence, which he holds has been exaggerated and which he holds states
should and will seek to minimize.^42 Violence interdependence vanishes in Waltz’s
claim that there has only been one significant system-level shift in the modern state-
system, the shift from the multi-polarity of the classical European state-system to the
bipolarity emerging from the world wars of the middle twentieth century. In doing
so he does not seem interested in registering the arguably even more momentous
shift from a global system configuration of loosely coupled regional systems to one
in which there was a state-system of global scope marked by levels of interaction
and violence interdependence previously found only within regional subsystems
such as Europe.
Waltz’s treatment of violence interdependence is indicative of a great narrowing
of material variables generally. He largely disregards geography, saying nothing
Anarchy and violence interdependence 29