Understanding International Relations, Third Edition

Conclusion: the end of state-centric 
International Relations?
Over the last three chapters we have seen a number of cracks appear in the
edifice of state-centric International Relations theory. We have seen that theo-
rists of decision-making have undermined the idea that foreign policy is radi-
cally different from domestic politics; the notion that states follow the national
interest is difficult to support from these studies. Structural theories of inter-
national relations shift the emphasis away from foreign policy, but in turn are
unable to resolve the problem of agency – and their emphasis on the irrel-
evance of domestic factors is undermined somewhat by the phenomenon of the
‘democratic peace’. Power is a notion that seems clear and easy to understand,
but once the distinction between power-as-attribute and power-as-influence is
introduced many of the usual certainties about the operation of power disap-
pear. The balance of power, again, is an idea which has a degree of intuitive
plausibility, but, again, which crumbles once the logic of the notion is exposed.
The Balance of Power and War
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At one level, the weakness of the political conception of war is simply one
additional reason for suspicion about state-centricity, yet one more example
of a feature of international relations not behaving quite in the way it is
supposed to. In reality, the malaise here goes much deeper. A Clausewitzian
view of war is an essential requirement for the balance of power to operate;
the two institutions stand together, and if, as suggested here, they fall
together the whole state-centric edifice is in ruins – certainly this is so for any
variant of realism. The point is that war and the balance of power are not
simply additional extras that can be set aside if things do not work out. On
the contrary, they are at the heart of both Waltz’s anarchical system and Bull’s
anarchical society. They are the devices that permit the system or society to
operate, and if they are in difficulties, it is in difficulties.
And yet the logic of state-centricity remains compelling. If the initial
premises hold, that is, we live in an anarchical world, in which states are the
major actors, and if states are motivated by rational egoism, then a neore-
alist world seems inevitable – although if states are able to temper this ego-
ism with a concern for norms some kind of international society might
emerge. If, nonetheless, we live in a world which in many respects is not
characterized by this kind of international relations, which seems to be the
case, then it seems likely there is something wrong with these assumptions.
We have already seen that one of these assumptions, that of rational egoism,
can only be sustained by some quite heroic surgery. In the chapters to come,
the other assumptions will equally be put to the test. The most basic of these
assumptions is that of anarchy, and there are two ways in which the notion
of anarchy can be challenged.
In the first place, we need to take seriously some of the propositions about
the role of theory outlined in Chapter 1. In particular, we need to pay serious
attention to the implications of the view that knowledge is constructed, not
found, that it rests on social foundations and not upon some bedrock of
certainty. If we acknowledge the sense in which ‘international anarchy’ is
a construction by states – ‘Anarchy is What States Make of It’ – we will be less
surprised by its illogicalities, and more willing to ask whose interests it serves
(Wendt 1992, 1999). Partly this is a question of historicizing international
anarchy, of grasping the insubstantial nature of the timeless generalities of
(neo)realism and placing them in some kind of historical context. This task is
undertaken very ably by Rosenberg, although, unfortunately, the historical
narrative he wishes to employ to replace realism’s a-historicism is based on
a Marxism that seems equally problematic, given the political and intellectual
failings of that nineteenth-century doctrine (Rosenberg 1994). However, there
are also questions here about power and knowledge that need to be raised.
The anarchy problematic, to anglicize Richard Ashley’s phrase, does not
simply serve the interests of rich and powerful states by legitimizing certain
ways of exercising power, it also sets in place a particular conception of politics
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