Karen_A._Mingst,_Ivan_M._Arregu_n-Toft]_Essentia

Contending Perspectives on the International System 109

contending Perspectives on the International system

In the 1950s, the behavioral revolution in the social sciences and the growing ac cep­

tance of po liti cal realism in international relations led scholars to conceptualize inter­

national politics as a system, using the language of systems theory. Beginning with the

supposition that people act in regularized ways and that their patterns of interaction

with each other are largely habitual, both realists and behavioralists made the concep­

tual leap that international politics is a system whose major actors are individual states.^1

This notion of a system is embedded in ideas of the major theoretical schools of inter­

national relations. Of par tic u lar interest to theorists is this question: How and why do

conditions of periodic war and economic collapse turn into conditions of relative peace

and sustainable economic development?

the International system according to realists

Po liti cal realists have clear notions about the international system and its essential

characteristics. All realists characterize the international system as anarchic. Its key

feature is that states are all sovereign (meaning no other state may legitimately inter­

vene in any other state’s internal affairs) and, in this sense, equal. For realists, this

anarchic structure has critical implications for the possibility of enduring peace among

states. Realists argue that states should constantly seek power because, in an anarchic

system, the only true guarantee of security must come from self­ help. In addition, the

power to conquer is the most relevant power. In doing so, states will inevitably come

into conflict, whether their aim is simply self­ preservation or, alternatively, to conquer

others.

To characterize the possibilities of war and peace in the international system, real­

ists rely on the concept of polarity. System polarity simply describes the distribution of

capabilities among states in the international system by counting the number of “poles”

(states or groups of states) where material power is concentrated. For neorealists in par­

tic u lar, the possibility of peace in the system depends simply on the number of poles:

the fewer the poles, the more likely the system is to remain stable and peaceful (at least

insofar as by “peace,” we mean the absence of armed conflicts). There are only three

types of system polarity: multipolarity, bi polar ity, and unipolarity (see Figure 4.1).

A multipolar system is any system in which the distribution of the power to con­

quer is concentrated in more than two states. In the system preceding World War I,

five states, Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, France, and Austria­Hungary, comprised a

multipolar system that had evolved from the balance of power after the Napoleonic

wars.

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