Iapss world Congress Possibilities of Assessing the Changing Nature of International Politics in the Coming Multi-Order World -introduction -systems and Orders -the Changing Nature of International Politics

Author: Mladen Lišanin

Research associate, Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade

PhD candidate, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Sciences

Email: mladen.lisanin@yahoo.com

Postal address: Dimitrija Tucovica 152/35, 11120 Belgrade 35, Serbia

Budapest, April 3-8, 2017
Abstract
In her recent, praised and prized paper, “The coming multi-order world”, Trine Flockhart has argued that the current international system is moving towards one consisting of several different orders “nested within an overall international system”. When he claimed something similar in his book “World Order”, Henry Kissinger has been labeled as a constructivist by some commentators. In Kissinger’s case, these changes are particularly consequential, given that they bring about the unprecedented danger of simultaneous breakup, within and across, the many orders of today’s world.

The author’s intention here is twofold: on the one hand, to examine what are the changes in the very notion of international politics, given the transformation of classical concepts such as interests, identities, sovereignty, legitimacy, conflict and cooperation. On the other hand, and this is the central issue, to look for suitable theoretical frameworks to successfully grasp the changing nature of international politics and the realities of the coming multi-order world.

The presumed answer is that the nature of the incoming changes produces the need for more subtle and complex, cross-over theories of international relations. As it is obvious from Kissinger’s example, traditional realist theory and social constructivism seem to converge irresistibly. In that sense, “hybrid” theories such as Barkin’s realist constructivism and “liberal realism” of the English school seem to be gaining on traditional grand theories, in regard to their relevance and research potential.

Key words: constructivism, international politics, international system, multipolarity, English school, realism, world order.

Cold War’s end as a particularly turbulent moment in the modern history of international politics, was no exception in this regard. On the contrary, the 1980s brought about increasing interest in problems of what was correctly perceived as a dramatically changing global order. Hyper-production of articles, books and various comments on the nature of coming transformations or the positions of the world’s two superpowers ensued, in academic and wider social circles alike. Famous debate on America’s position and supposed imminent decline in the context of imperial overstretching (Kennedy 1987; Nye 1990) at the onset of the fall of Berlin wall, set the stage for further disputes about perspectives of international order, the one between Fukuyama’s “end of history” and Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” being perhaps the most intensive and far-reaching (Fukuyama 1992; Huntington 1996). President G. H. W. Bush has announced the New World Order in 1990 and for almost a decade thereafter, the “unipolar moment” seemed as a stable condition of global politics. American primacy was regularly perceived as an almost unquestionable perspective and, by many U.S. authors, as an absolute strategic priority (Brzezinski 1997).

As international history has condensed at the turn of the centuries, with far ranging events occurring with increased dynamics, global academic and policy community struggled to follow. Role of the United States of America was constantly being reassessed - given its position as the still dominant but gradually waning power (Kupchan 2002; Mandelbaum 2005), but especially in the context of the post-9/11 global war on terror, as well as in the context of power shift to the East and elsewhere (Khanna 2008) and what Fareed Zakaria identified as “the rise of the rest” (Zakaria 2009).

The second decade of the twenty-first century brought about not only further and more serious transformations in the nature of international order, but also a significant change of discourse: what was previously claimed to be turbulence or re-composition of the order, has increasingly been viewed as a crisis, breakdown, collapse, or “disarray” (Ikenberry 2011; Brzezinski 2012; Mandelbaum 2016; Bremmer 2016; Emmott 2017; Kirchick 2017; Haass 2017). This was, no doubt, predominantly in relation to the notion of the post-World War 2 “liberal order”, although it may very well be discussed whether such an order has ever been truly global (Kissinger 2014). In 2016, the outcomes of the British EU membership referendum and the U.S. presidential election marked the triumph of radical re-conceptualization of international politics, including issues such as value of globalization, role of international political, economic and security regimes, or the importance of identity politics. A distinctive direction assumed by some authors was based on the thesis that the global order, even before it collapsed, was dramatically changed by becoming ungoverned, or unadministered: rather than G-7 or G-20, it was “G-Zero” that now managed “no one’s world” (Bremmer 2012; Kupchan 2012).

It is evident that IR literature has aspired to follow, as closely as possible, the transformations of international system, as well as those within it. Current state of affairs, regarding the changing world order, is grasping many authors’ research attention, especially as it becomes clear that as the order is changing, the instruments of its explanation and understanding must change also. What were before two irreconcilable approaches to the study of world politics – realism and constructivism – now seem to converge as international practices become too complex to be analyzed one-sidedly. This paper draws upon Trine Flockhart’s notion of the “coming multi-order world” (Flockhart 2016) in the endeavor to outline the emergence – or re-emergence – of hybrid theoretical frameworks, particularly suitable for the analysis of this phenomenon.

After the introductory section, the paper is divided into three main parts. In the first one, some basic concepts of international systems and orders are outlined. The second part deals with the supposed collapse of international order, arguing that rather than breakdown, the system is undergoing a radical transformation. The third and final part explores some specific details concerning the changing nature of international politics and attempts at explaining how theoretical approaches and concepts converge in order to effectively assess the recognized changes.

To be a success, such a theory² has to show how international politics can be conceived of as a domain distinct from the economic, social, and other international domains that one may conceive of. To mark international-political systems off from other international systems, and to distinguish systems-level from unit-level forces, requires showing how political structures are generated and how they affect, and are affected by, the units of the system.

In Waltz’s structural realist theory, the notion of international system corresponds to one of structure, which is, along with system’s units, its constitutive element. Waltz defines structure as a “system wide component”, which “makes it possible to think of system as a whole” (Ibid.). Structure is “defined by the arrangement of its parts and comprised of three constitutive elements: ordering principle (which, in international politics, is anarchy), the character of the units (states) and distribution of capabilities (Waltz 1979: 88-101).

Distribution of capabilities is nothing else than differentiation of states according to their power and possibilities to project it. The outcome of such a differentiation is that some units are relatively easily defined as great powers and these are the core elements of a system’s polarity. When changes at the systemic level of international politics are discussed, it is by definition an issue of changes in the system’s polarity (from multipolar, to bipolar, to unipolar). Or, as Waltz (1979: 97) puts it:

The structure of a system changes with changes in the distribution of capabilities across the system's units. And changes in structure change expectations about how the units of the system will behave and about the outcomes their interactions will produce.

This means that polarity is not studied as one of random properties of international system, rather, it directly affects the states’ behavior and their strategies (Lišanin 2016: 531-532). In other words, it would be a mistake to assume that great power status provides a state with possibilities of completely unconstrained action; rather, it very much limits their maneuvering space (Braumoeller 2013). According to Mearsheimer, great power status even represents a sort of curse, given that great powers are almost never satisfied with the amount of power they have, which urges them to engage in perpetual, often brutal competition, thus fulfilling the prophecy of “tragedy of great power politics” (Mearsheimer 2001). Incentives for such behavior come from the level of international system, and specifically, its three main properties:

1) the absence of a central authority that sits above states and can protect them from each other, 2) the fact that states always have some offensive military capability, and 3) the fact that states can never be certain about other states' intentions (Mearsheimer 2001: 3).

There is no doubt that international system produces consequences observable at the unit level; behavior or characteristics of units may, in turn, affect the nature of the system. But when and how does a system become an order? Traditional English School concept, put forth by Hedley Bull (2002: 9) and utilized also by Trine Flockhart (2016: 12), stipulates that

A system of states (or international system) is formed when two or more states have sufficient contact between them, and have sufficient impact on one another’s decisions, to cause them to behave – at least in some measure – as parts of a whole.

In order to form a society, however, being in regular contact and including the other in one’s own strategic calculations is not sufficient; the element of common sense of adherence to values is necessary. It is worth quoting Bull’s passage on international society in toto:

A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions. If states today form an international society (...), this is because, recognising certain common interests and perhaps some common values, they regard themselves as bound by certain rules in dealings with one another, such as that they should respect one another’s claims to independence, that they should honour agreements into which they enter, and that they should be subject to certain limitations in exercising force against one another. At the same time they cooperate in the working of institutions such as the forms of procedures of international law, the machinery of diplomacy and general international organization, and the customs and conventions of war.

According to Bull, order can be sustained at the level of international system, international society and world society (which, aside from being “morally prior”, is deeper and wider than international society and remains out of the scope of our analysis for this purpose). His definition of order in any social life is “a pattern of human activity that sustains elementary, primary or universal goals of social life”, those goals being physical security of life, adherence to promises made, and stability of property (“possession of things”) (Bull 2002: 4). An international order can thus be defined as “a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary goals of the society of states, or the international society” (Bull 2002: 8).

Trine Flockhart emphasizes an additional and very important distinction, i. e. the one

between order as a condition characterized by the achievement of three fundamental goals related to life, truth and property and order as an object constituted through a set of activities and practices linked to a specific set of values and institutions. The latter is what is often described as ‘the international order’, but confusingly it is also functionally equivalent to Bull’s key concept – ‘international society’. The problem is that the concepts of ‘order’, ‘international order’ and ‘international society’ are difficult to separate, and the focus on the current debate on ‘the international order’ appears to actually be about changes in the ‘international system’ - albeit without a clear distinction being offered between system, society and order.

Although it is stated that there three different levels upon which order can be traced, “it is clear that Bull thought that order would most likely be produced at the international society level” (Flockhart 2016: 13). Being founded upon a sense of common interests, order needs rules and institutions to come to life. In sustaining the three primary goals of social life, order is predominantly (re)produced through five “primary institutions” of international society (Bull 2002: 62-71, 97-222): the balance of power, international law, the diplomatic mechanism, the managerial system of the great powers, and war. Instead of representing formal institutions, such as international organizations (those would be “secondary institutions”), these are “an expression of the element of collaboration among states in discharging their political functions – and at the same time a means of sustaining this collaboration” (Bull 2002: 71). Also, Bull’s identification of institutions that sustain the international order is a good illustration of the reason English School is sometimes being called ‘liberal realism’: some important concepts from both liberal and realist theory are represented.

It is clear that Bull’s notion of international society is very much corresponding to the phenomenon of ‘liberal international order’. Flockhart resolves the tension between order as a condition and order as an object by stating that “the condition of order as the achievement of the three fundamental goals is to be found through the object as in the international order” (Flockhart 2016: 13). As it was mentioned earlier, whether such an order is sometimes deservedly rendered “global liberal order”, or “world liberal order”, even in the era and context of the Washington Consensus, is, of course, highly debatable. It is not an issue of a binary model – either presence or absence of order, as Lake (2014: 61) stipulates when he argues that

Order is a fundamental feature of world politics, but it is not a constant. It waxes and wanes with corresponding ebbs and flows, yet not in any predictable lunar cycle.

Rather, the issue is a possibility of simultaneous existence of multiplicity of international orders, regardless of whether or not they constitute a more general world order (Kissinger 2014). This enables us to make a distinction not only between system breakdown and transformation, but also between system-based and order-based inquiries and analyses of world politics.

This is important because, having the distinction in mind, it is easier to estimate whether there is a crisis or breakdown of international order, or it is all about the ill-perceived transformation of international system (i.e. its polarity). After all, in spite of all the turbulence in contemporary world politics, it can hardly be disputed that the world is safer and richer today than it has ever been. The trends, negative developments – the potential for actual breakdown is what actually incites premature declarations of an actual collapse (Haass 2017).

Whether perceived as a crisis of international liberal order’s legitimacy, or the crisis of power of its main proponents (most notably, the USA), the current global turbulence can be viewed through the inability of the order’s mechanisms to deal with challenges that hamper its survival. Almost every major crisis since the onset of the twenty first century, from the global war on terror, to global financial crisis, to the Arab Spring, can be used as a showcase in this context. It has also been wrongly claimed, within the academia as well as policy community, that the main concepts of liberal order are in fact, or soon will be, global in scope: one such example is Iraq since 2003, as “a war of liberal hubris”, waged on the “false premise of universal desirability of liberal values” (Kitchen and Cox 2011: 82).

All of this, along with the rise of populism and the return of identity politics (Brexit and Mr. Trump’s election win being symbols of the trend), strengthens Kissinger’s bluntly put claim that “no truly global ‘world order’ has ever existed” (Kissinger 2014: 2). Thus, ‘liberal world order’ has not broken down – but significant changes within particular international orders, as well as transformation of the overall structure of international system are undoubtedly present.

Such turbulences produce, and are themselves in turn produced by, some very specific changes in the main concepts of international social life. The aforementioned re-emergence of identity politics has fortified the position of nation state as an actor: to speak in a Wendtian manner, identities and interests of actors are being (re)constructed under systemic-level influences (Wendt 1999). This, in turn, reinvigorates the issue of Westphalian type state sovereignty, thus exposing liberalism’s inherent ambivalence towards the issue of sovereignty (Ikenberry 2011: 289-290); or, to summon another classical author, regarding issues of state sovereignty, in the environment of international system, purpose beats rules and “the logics of consequences dominate the logics of appropriateness” (Krasner 1999: 6).

At the system level, it is clear that the role of previously hegemonic actor is diminishing – whether by choice or by external forces of the environment. In that context, and bearing in mind clearly re-emerging significance of a number of units, almost all actors of significance become, to some extent, revisionist (Schweller 1994; Lišanin 2014: 452-454) – their interests are systemically shaped that way. That is why system units seem, and often in fact are, more conflict-prone than they have been in the recent past. In addition, the crisis of order legitimacy influences the framework of international cooperation: multilateral political, economic and security regimes seem to retrench in importance, and give way to traditional bilateral diplomacy or great-power-concert-like arrangements.

In addition to deep political changes in the USA, and perhaps even deeper crisis in the EU, Chinese economic and Russian military assertiveness, as well as the Middle Eastern collapse, seem to perfectly encapsulate all the presented changes. Different orders are produced and sustained on basis of systemically shaped identities and interests. According to Kissinger, four distinct, competing notions of order, traceable in historical perspective: European-Westphalian, Chinese, Islamic and American (Kissinger 2014) now exist simultaneously. This means that, apart from rival states, the world also contains rival, culture-historically founded orders. Even though Huntington’s bleak predictions regarding relations of such civilizational clusters have not fulfilled, it is obvious that the world is in flux. Does this produce adequate flux in the field of international theory?
Converging Theories
According to Flockhart (2016: 14),

In its most basic form an international society – or an international order – may be understood as a cluster (or club) of sovereign states or nations with shared values, norms and interests, expressed through a number of institutions both primary ones that are informal and evolved (rather than designed) and performed through fundamental and durable shared practices and secondary ones that are formal and designed and which perform specific administrative and regulative functions.

Flockhart also argues that “it is difficult to imagine an international system that is not characterized by at least a minimum degree of social relations and that an international system therefore is likely to have some social attributes that are likely to be similar to those in an international society” (Flockhart 2016: 17). She then proceeds to present some previous types of international systems, before pointing out that the latest transformation has brought about an essentially novel system: a system of orders, or a multi-order world (Figure 2). The main issue regarding prospects of world politics is thus a possibility of coexistence of orders within such a system, given that “the primary dynamics are likely to be within and between different orders, rather than between multiple sovereign states” (Flockhart 2016: 23). So, the states remain primary actors of international politics, but their interest are mediated through an international, sub-global order they belong to.