range of more or less unusual policies. But structural realism is less ready to analyse
changes in statehood and their implications for international relations, as I have
argued in detail in this chapter. States are not ‘like units’ and anarchy does not always
mean self-help. A richer concept of structure which includes economic power,
political-military power, and international norms gives us a better take on the ways
in which international forces affect domestic structures of states. In particular, they
help us detect the weak states in the Third World, and the postmodern states in the
OECD world. International forces have helped create these states in combination
with local conditions. And changes in statehood have implications for international
relations. In weak states the classical security dilemma has been turned on its head:
instead of domestic order and international threat there is domestic threat and
international order. In postmodern states violent external threat has been dramat-
ically reduced because these states make up a security community.
I support the structural realist idea that ‘international’ and ‘domestic’ are inti-
mately connected, but I think that this insight requires a much more comprehensive
study of the development and change of sovereign statehood than has been offered
by structural realism. The modern state was fundamentally self-sustained. It was
expected to supply a series of core values for its citizens. In the pursuit of these values
the modern state faced a number of typical problems which have made up the
subject matter of IR theory: first and foremost the problem of survival and security
in an anarchic world where heavily armed states faced each other. Profound changes
in statehood have helped create qualitatively different security dilemmas. New
research questions concerning security as well as concerning the larger texture of
international relations emerge from these developments. It would appear that purely
systemic analysis (or purely domestic analysis) is not well suited for taking on the
analysis of such changes. Instead, the international–domestic interplay should be at
the centre of inquiry and we should ask questions, both about ‘outside-in’ and about
‘inside-out’ relationships.
In that sense, the development of a theory of the state that Kenneth Waltz called
for is most probably going to require some larger modifications of structural realist
theory. As part of this development, it seems to me, structural realism and the realist
tradition from which is springs, will no longer dominate the study of IR. Realist
theory helps us address some big questions in IR but is of little help in relation to a
number of other big questions. From a theoretical point of view, the study of IR
must be pluralist; the complex subject of international relations cannot be sufficiently
explored from the viewpoint of one single theory or even one single theoretical
tradition.^65
Notes
1 Thanks to Ken Booth and Barry Buzan for detailed comments on earlier versions of this
chapter.
2 Major analyses of world order include: Francis Fukuyama, ‘The end of history’, The
National Interest, 16, Summer 1989, pp. 3–18; Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and
the Last Man(New York: Avon Books, 1992); Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of120 Structural realism and changes in statehood