IR 210 Final Essay Questions Question 1 The five fundamental flaws are State centrism Presentism Anarchophilia Ahistoricism and Eurocentrism Euro centrism assumes that what happened in Europe and the broader West is a good representation of what happened everywhere It fails to recognize how non European actors understood international relations as in the Afro Eurasian system that existed long before the European system It is also important to know that the West might not always be the world power Anarchophilia assumes that anarchy is natural and at root eternal In other words natural and unavoidable Anarchophilia is a consequence of Ahistoric and Eurocentric perceptions Ahistoricism is studying the past but only to discover general laws that apply to all times and places Presentism assumes or insists that what prevails today also prevailed in every other time and place As a consequence modern Europe gets a disproportionate amount of attention Greece for example State centrism assumes that states are and always will be the dominant actors in international relations This has not always been the case though as our studies of hunter gatherer bands show It is exceedingly clear that Realism is most vulnerable to all five of these short comings this is true according to Buzan and Little Realism since the time of Thucydides has been about power politics as a law of human behavior In other words it is in human nature to seek power and domination and a state seeking power is seen only as a representation of the people of the state In the case of Euro centrism theorists such as Rostow for example have made developmental models for developing countries that have failed because of this problem His stages of growth model assumed that any country can develop if it follows the examples of the developed Western states He failed to recognize that developing states have different belief systems cultures and ways of life that are much different than Europe and the broader West He failed to recognize how they interpret international relations His model failed because of this problem In Anarchophilia realists assume that because it is in human nature to seek power the international system will always be anarchic because states will always be competing with one another The prisoner s dilemma and the security dilemma will take effect Euro centric views fuel this thought But this is not the case 40 thousand years ago hunter gatherer bands worked together peacefully and mutually Today the existence of the UN shows that an international non anarchic structure can exist In the case of Ahistoricism which is closely linked to State centrism and Presentism and the reason why I will not talk about each of them separately it is unwise to think that what happened in the past is a good way to create general laws that apply to all times and places To compare the conflict between Greece and Athens and the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union for example is a mistake It distorts beyond recognition the underlying social structures that form the Greek city states We can t assume these social structures are the same everywhere We can t assume as realists do that these different states acted on the same natural instincts of gaining power and domination The theoretical approach least susceptible is Critical Theory Knowledge cannot be objective and timeless like realists like to claim Instead ideas and values are a reflection of a particular set of social relations In the case of Ahistoricism which again is closely tied to Presentism and State centrism Critical theorists understand there are no laws applicable to all times and places In the conflict between Athens and Sparta and the United States and the Soviet Union Critical theorists realize the social structures of these two conflicts are very different Critical theorists concern themselves not only with the past they also deal with a continuing process of change That is the key In the case of Euro centrism Critical theorists try to understand world orders that grasp both the sources of stability in a given system and also the dynamics of processes of transformation In other words they don t assume what happened in Europe happened everywhere Instead they analyze world hegemons and in Cox case come to the conclusion that dominant powers have shaped a world order that best suit their needs American free trade is a good example because it hurts many developing countries but it is considered a norm because that is what the powers have ensured In the case of Anarchophilia Cox suggests developing a theoretical understanding of world orders that grasps both the sources of stability in a given system and also the dynamics of processes of transformation So instead of accepting things will always be anarchic Cox tries to understand why so he can fix the problem In the end it is the fact that Critical Theory tries to develop understandings and solutions to world problems instead of using the old bench marks of Europe and realist thinking Question 2 Modern states have made some developments in most sectors Interaction Capacity increases has driven developments in social and physical technologies and has been very important to modern states Process has developed in that a post modern security community of powerful democracies and international relations in this community no longer operate under realist rules States do not expect or prepare for war against each other and since this community contains most of the powerful democracies this is a significant development for the international system Economies and societies are highly open and interdependent transnational players are numerous and strong and international society is well developed Units have developed in that hard boundaries and strong sovereignty has been replaced by permeable boundaries layered sovereignty and common international and transnational spaces Structure has developed in that the shoving and shaping forces of socialization and competition become less driven by military considerations and more driven by economic and societal ones This shifts domination away from military capability to economic prowess societal dynamism and the diplomatic skill to build a strong international society of states Modern state relations with other actors have also developed There are now Transnational Companies TNC s in 138 countries Because of this it is no longer possible for each country to have its own