Security in Anarchy

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Security in Anarchy: Utopian Realism in Theory and Practice Author(s): Ken Booth Reviewed work(s): Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 67, No. 3 (Jul., 1991), pp. 527-545 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2621950 . Accessed: 13/06/2012 20:27 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and Royal Institute of International Affairs are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-). http://www.jstor.org

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Transcript of Security in Anarchy

Page 1: Security in Anarchy

Security in Anarchy: Utopian Realism in Theory and PracticeAuthor(s): Ken BoothReviewed work(s):Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 67, No. 3(Jul., 1991), pp. 527-545Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Institute of International AffairsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2621950 .Accessed: 13/06/2012 20:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Blackwell Publishing and Royal Institute of International Affairs are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-).

http://www.jstor.org

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Security in anarchy: utopian

realism in theory and practice

KEN BOOTH

Realism-the view that war is inescapable in a system where sovereign states compete for power and advantage to one another's detriment-still dominates thinking about international relations. Ken Booth argues that, as world politics continue to surprise us, a worldview in which war is seen as a rational policy choice is unacceptable. It is too soon in history to conclude that the international system is necessarily a 'war system'. As states become less important in what has been called the 'new medievalism', he arguesfor decentralizing power evenfurther towards a global civil society and a global community of communities. He quotes Oscar Wilde: 'A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at.'

An inaugural lecture is supposed to mark a beginning. This is not easy in the humanities, since when it comes to studying people there is little new under the sun. Consequently, I offer a reinaugural rather than a beginning. I will argue a case for restoring the role and reputation of 'utopianism' in the theory and practice of international politics.'

In the I940s, the study of international politics was knocked off its then utopian trajectory by an intellectual Patriot missile called E. H. Carr. Carr ran the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth from the mid-I930s to the mid-I940s, and in that time wrote what is still regarded as the definitive critique of utopian thinking on the subject. Brian Porter has recently written that The twenty years' crisis, 1919-39, published in I939, 'sounded the death knell of utopianism as a respectable intellectual tradition. 2 This is a widely held view, but when did truth or understanding or progressive change have anything to do with being respectable? Respectability is not self-evidently an intellectual virtue.

David Davies had founded the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth in I9I9, and in so doing he became the midwife for the subject

This is an edited version of an inaugural lecture given at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, on 20 March I99I.

2 Brian Porter, 'David Davies: a hunter after peace', Review of International Studies I5: I, Jan. I989, p. 32. Later comments on Davies are based on this article.

International Affairs 67, 3 (I99I) 527-545 527

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everywhere. The University College of Wales is rightly proud of having been the home of the first department of its kind. Davies's initiative was inspired by a spirit of liberal humanitarianism and had been provoked by the horrors of the Great War.3 With the study and strengthening of international organizations and international law, he hoped that the world would never again have to undergo what had been witnessed between I9I4 and I9I8.

The world, and perhaps even more hurtfully for Davies, his Department, did not conform to his utopian hopes. In the I930s, instead of international cooperation, 'power politics' became dominant, and their academic offshoot came to be called 'realism'. This was all an understandable reaction to the events of the time, and intellectually Carr's writing was decisive. Davies became very unhappy about the shift from utopianism to realism, and later wrote, 'I wish to God I had never initiated this proposal' (establishing the Woodrow Wilson Chair).

Realism took over the study of international politics almost entirely from this point, and it still largely sets the agenda. It stresses the tragic and conflictual side of relations between states, and sees foreign policy in terms of the pursuit of the national interest, defined as power. One of the most familiar sentences in the whole subject is that of Hans J. Morgenthau: 'International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power.4

But despite its insights and pre-eminence, realism has deep problems as the lens through which students and practitioners look at world politics. I hope to do something to restore the balance in favour of utopianism, so that by the end of these pages David Davies will be able to rest somewhat more easily (though it is not his particular brand of utopianism that I will advocate). As it happens the much criticized Davies has had a good year so far: one of his central ideas has recently come to fruition. In the interwar years Davies was a strong supporter of an international police force based on air power. A global posse hunting down the bad guys with hi-tech lethality, as has recently been seen in the Gulf, is exactly what he was advocating; and for 6o years his ideas were scorned. International politics can always be relied upon to surprise its students.

I

International politics can also be relied upon to provide its students with a subject absolutely like no other. It stands uniquely at the nexus of the great issues of peace and war, 'theories of the good life' and 'theories of survival ','

An account of the origins and growth of the Department is given by Ieuan John, Moorhead Wright and John Garnett, 'International politics at Aberystwyth I9I9-I969', in Brian Porter, ed., The Aberystwyth papers: international politics 1919-1969 (London: Oxford University Press, I972), pp.

86-I02.

Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among nations: the struggle for power and peace (3rd edn, New York: Knopf, I965; first published I948), p. 28.

5 Martin Wight's distinction was: political theory is concerned with the good life, international theory with survival. See Martin Wight, 'Why is there no international theory?', in H. Butterfield and M. Wight, Diplomatic investigations: essays in the theory of international politics (London: Allen & Unwin, I966), p. i8.

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'ethics of responsibility' and 'ethics of conviction',6 and political theory and governmental practice. The subject-matter straddles history, contemporary affairs and the future.

The subject conjures up many images. For some the image is of diplomats hurrying out of cars into conference halls, but for me the most persistent is that of the lifeless rubble of Hiroshima. The destruction of that city by a single bomb symbolizes what can happen when traditional thinking about the games nations play is kitted out with modern military technology. Hiroshima I945 can be seen as the culmination of a 300-year span of history dominated by sovereign states with realist outlooks, Machiavellian ethics and a Clausewitzian philosophy of war. The image of Hiroshima, or the photograph published in The Observer on 3 March I99I of a dead Iraqi solider, body intact but burnt to charcoal, is a fitting starting-point for our study. These images should be the starting-point, not because they represent the height of human irrationality and the triumph of evil, but because they can be said to represent the height of rationality and the triumph of good. When this is the bottom line, it is difficult not to conclude that the theory and practice of international politics have become symptoms of the disease of which they should be the cure.7

The 'disease', to use the word loosely, has been the inability of the human collectivity to organize its affairs in such a way that basic needs are universally met, injustice is reduced, and power is harnessed. War has always been seen as the central problem in international politics, but there are also silent destroyers of lives. In the mid-ig8os, for example, the British complained when our average incomes rose by only 5 per cent, or /?400 a year. Countless millions in the Third World have to live, or die, on an annual income far less than that.8

At the root of such problems, according to mainstream international theory, is thought to be the structure of the states system. It is usually described, in a technical sense, as 'anarchical', that is, 'without government'. This means that above the level of states there is no supreme law-maker or law-enforcer to keep order, as a government is supposed to do within states. But this anarchy between states does not necessarily produce chaos, the non-technical, everyday meaning of 'anarchy'. States form a primitive society, with rules, norms and values (such as international law, diplomacy and sovereignty). This element of society usually cushions states from each other (like the rules, norms and values in a typical Western family, which is another 'anarchical' relationship). Hidemi Suganami and John Vincent likened international society to an egg-box, which mostly prevents the contents from knocking too destructively against each other.9 So we have anarchy between states, but also society. This led Hedley

6 An introduction to Weber's important distinction is given by Michael Joseph Smith, 'Max Weber and the modern discourse of realism', pp. 23-53 in Smith, Realist thought from Weber to Kissinger (Baton Rouge LA: Louisiana State University Press, I986). This is an application to international politics, conceived in the traditional way, of the remark made by Herbert Feigel of the Vienna Circle about philosophy as traditionally practised.

8 Peter Donaldson, Worlds apart: the development gap and what it means (Harmondsworth: Pelican, I986); see especially part one, 'Worlds drifting apart'.

9 R. J. Vincent, Human rights and international relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I986), pp. I23-5.

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Bull, famously, to describe the interstate system by an insightful oxymoron as 'the anarchical society'.10

By the I98os, the academic study of international politics had itself become an anarchical society. Students had to decide between those professors for whom the state was the core of the subject, and those for whom it was at the periphery. They had to understand neo-Hobbesians, for whom international life is 'nasty, brutish and (only if you are powerful) long', Y and neo-Kantians, who believe there is an emergent world community. They had to struggle with post- modernists and positivists, peace researchers and strategists, quantifiers and historians, functionalists (old and new), and on and on. The programmes of the annual conferences of the British International Studies Association and the International Studies Association tell it all: they list pieces of a mosaic searching for a pattern.

But the basic outlines of the study of international politics remain established by the outlook of political realism.12 This, without doubt, is related to the centrality that realism has always given to war, a preoccupation that surely needs no justification. War and the threat of war shape lives across the world in all manner of direct and indirect ways-more or less, depending upon where one was lucky or unlucky enough to be born. Michael Walzer expressed the universal pervasiveness of war by neatly paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic. 'You may not be interested in war', Walzer wrote, 'but war is interested in you.'13 Somerset Maugham once expressed the same thought. Asked about his views on nuclear weapons, he said: 'Nuclear weapons are not in my line; unfortunately I'm in theirs.'

An important feature of realism's intellectual attraction has always been that it offered a plausible explanation of war and power politics in general, and seemed to generate strategies for coping with the problem of survival amid interstate anarchy. Carr's The twenty years' crisis was a milestone in realist thought.14 It is without doubt a brilliant work. But it is also flawed, has been misunderstood, and has had an unhelpful influence on the development of the subject.

The twenty years' crisis is flawed because the text shows Carr to have been confused as to where he stood in relation to utopianism and realism. What is now remembered is his logical dissection of utopianism and the message that 'utopia' and 'reality' are irreconcilable. In a well-known section he wrote:

Here, then, is the complexity, the fascination and the tragedy of all political life. Politics are made up of two elements-utopia and reality-belonging to two different planes which can never meet.15

10 Hedley Bull, The anarchical society: a study of order in world politics (London: Macmillan, I977). " This is a variation on a theme of Phil Williams's, following Thomas Hobbes. 12 See K. J. Holsti, The dividing discipline: hegemony and diversity in international theory (Boston MA: Allen

& Unwin, I987), passim. 13 Michael Walzer, Just and unjust wars (Harmondsworth: Pelican, I980), p. 29. 1 E. H. Carr, The twenty years' crisis, 1919-1939: an introduction to the study of international relations

(London: Macmillan, I966; first published I939). 15 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. 93.

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This is a persistent theme. Elsewhere he talks about 'a fundamental antithesis' between utopia and reality, a 'fatal dualism' between power and morality, and the 'mutually incompatible' elements of utopia and reality, morality and power.'6 Yet in other places Carr is more guarded, talking about the 'apparently opposite poles' of utopian feelings of right and realist conceptions of force, the need for a 'combination' of utopia and reality, the 'coordination' or 'uneasy compromise' of power and morality, the importance of basing thought on 'elements' of both utopia and reality, and he describes politics and law as a 'meeting place' for ethics and power.'7 His changing language and uncertainty about how to describe the relationship reflect significant confusion in Carr's own mind. This appears to me to be an intellectual rather than a moral dilemma; it is ambiguity rather than 'anguish'.

The ambiguity in Carr's language points to the conclusion that his book has been misunderstood. His readers, overwhelmingly realists, have pounced upon his attack on utopianism but generally have failed to note his uncertainty, his criticism of realism and his positive comments about utopianism. For example, Carr defined political science as 'the science not only of what is, but of what ought to be '.18 Later, he described 'sound political thought and sound political life' as synonymous with finding a place for both utopianism and realism.19 He criticized 'pure realism' or 'consistent realism' for failing to provide the 'essential ingredients of all effective political thinking'.2O He argued that international order could not be based on power alone, and that it was an 'unreal kind of realism' which ignored the element of morality in any world order. Finally, the very last page of the book contains an appeal to the idea of spreading community beyond national frontiers, an expression of the desirability of broadening our view of international policy, and the suggestion that people might respond to an appeal to sacrifice for it.2" This side of Carr is normally ignored by realists. It was inconvenient that one of realism's chief gurus had some decidedly utopian leanings.

The misunderstood Carr-Carr the single-minded critic of utopians rather than Carr the potential utopian realist-also exerted a baleful influence on the status of Kant in the study of international politics. Carr's attack on what he called the 'infantile' utopianism22 of the I920S and I930S was so devastating that the 'utopian' label became a professional kiss of death. As a result one of the world's greatest philosophers, Immanuel Kant, who made important arguments about international government and the relationship between 'republicanism' and peace, became a virtual non-person in the discipline, or at best a straw man for a non-respectable 'revolutionist' tradition, to use Martin Wight's term for the Kantian approach. It is unlikely that Kant would have been offered a job as

16 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, pp. II, 236 and 9. 17 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, pp. 223, I3, 97, 220, 93 and I72. Emphasis added. 18 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. 5. 9 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. Io. 20 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. 89. The 'essential ingredients' were 'a finite goal, an emotional appeal,

a right of moral judgement and a ground for action'. It is hoped that all these ingredients are found in the approach to be elaborated in these pages. 21 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. 239.

22 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. 5.

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a university teacher of international politics in the main centres of the subject between the I940S and I970S.

Later, Carr acknowledged that he had exaggerated the role of power.23 Significantly, he was not alone among realism's founding figures of the I940S in later moving away from what had become the basic tenets of the approach (though, like Carr, most are still remembered for what they said first, not last). Hans Morgenthau, the father of the subject of power politics, later warned of the cosmic dangers of realism and advocated world government.24 George Kennan, the creator of containment, became relaxed about the Soviet threat and decidely anti-nuclear.25 Bernard Brodie, the inventor of deterrence, came to see the historical obsolescence of war and argued that war is a moral arena.26 William T. R. Fox, the coiner of the term 'superpower', asked (in the first Carr memorial lecture) who were the 'real realists' these days, and he made it clear that he did not mean those he called the 'doctrinal realists' who had come to dominate the subject.27

In both theory and practice, realism has never been as simple as it seems. In the I960s, for example, there was an interesting split between some of the grand old men of realism and the middle-aged successor generation they had trained. Morgenthau, Kennan, Niebuhr and Brodie all opposed the war in Vietnam; Kissinger and his generation of realists largely supported it.28 This episode, like others, exposes the myth that realism is a clear guide to action in terms of the national interest expressed as power. Realist explanations of international politics do not work as guidebooks for action in all circumstances, any more than volumes on the philosophy of ethics. The practicality of 'realism' is more in the title than in the text.

Thus although realism explained some elements of politics among nations, by the I970S it had become clear to a growing number of students of the subject that it did not account for all the complexities of politics on a global scale.29 This was when I began to move away, and my position now is that of an ex-, anti- and post-realist. It is ex-realist in the sense that that is where I come from; few students trained in the subject between the I940S and I970S could have started elsewhere. It is anti-realist in the sense that I disagree with those important founding figures like Niebuhr who belonged to a tradition of Christian pessimism and who therefore saw a fallen human nature at the root of war and

23 In the preface to the second edition, dated I5 Nov. I945. Carr, The twenty years' crisis, pp. vii-viii. 24 Smith, Realist thought from Weber to Kissinger, p. 244, gives a list of the main works by and about

Morgenthau. For a personal account of Morgenthau's volte-face on power politics, see Francis A. Boyle, World politics and international law (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, I985), pp. 70-4.

25 See, for example, George F. Kennan, The nuclear delusion: Soviet-American relations in the atomic age (London: Hamish Hamilton, I984).

26 See Ken Booth, 'Bernard Brodie: the absolute strategist', in John Baylis and John Garnett, eds., The makers of nuclear strategy (London: Pinter, I99i).

27 W. T. R. Fox, 'E. H. Carr and political realism: vision and revision', Review of International Studies II: I (I985), pp. i-i6.

28 See Smith, Realist thought from Weber to Kissinger, pp. 23I-2; and on the views of individuals, pp. I27-8, I57-8, I85-8, 2I3-I6.

29 See, for example, the contributors to Margot Light and A. R. Groom, eds., International relations: a handbook of current theory (London: Pinter, I985), passim.

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other international problems.30 This might have represented sound Christianity, but it was weak anthropology. The study of aboriginal societies shows that non-violent social relations are possible; it shows that war is not in our genes, or in what some would call our souls, but in our culture, and cultures can be changed.3" (For this reason the preservation of aboriginal peoples can be regarded as the moral equivalent in civilizational terms of the ecological need to preserve the rain forest. Conveniently, if one is saved, there is a good chance of saving the other.)

Finally, my position is post-realist in the sense that I recognize the insights of Kenneth Waltz's version of realism, but think that it is necessary to go beyond it. Waltz's 'neo-realism'32 explains war and other international phenomena not in terms of a fallen human nature, like some of the founding figures, but in terms of the anarchical structure of the states system. This determining structure is said to impose a 'self-help' logic on states. From this perspective, wars occur because there is nothing to stop them when a state believes it must defend or further a 'vital interest' by force. Brecht, in Mother Courage, put the neo-realist attitude to war in a nutshell: 'War is like love, it always finds a way.'

It

But is there only one logic to anarchy? It was questioning the logic of anarchy, which grew out of my study of ethnocentrism in the mid-197os,33 that led me to an approach which I call 'utopian realism'. 3 Like similar labels, this raises at least as many questions as it settles, but what appeals is the way it provocatively couples the two 'planes' that Carr had said could never meet. Others, in their own ways, have pursued the same goal of trying to reconcile 'utopia 'and ' reality', 'power' and 'morality', and the interests of both the particular and the universal. Of special importance in international politics have been the writings of John Herz, who has been struggling for nearly 50 years with versions of his 'realist liberalism'. In the I980s, manifestations of the

30 A useful introduction to and bibliography of Niebuhr's works, and criticisms of them, is given by Smith, Realist thoughtfrom Weber to Kissinger, pp. 99-I33, 242-4. Smith describes Niebuhr as 'without question the most profound thinker of the modern realist school'.

31 See inter alia David Fabbro, 'Peaceful societies: an introduction', Journal of Peace Research, Vol. I5 (I978), pp. 67-83; R. D. Givens and M. A. Nettleship, Discussions on war and human aggression (The Hague: Mouton, I975); A. Montague, The nature of human aggression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976) and Learning non-aggression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I978); and M. A. Nettleship, R. D. Givens and A. Nettleship, War, its causes and correlates (The Hague: Mouton, I975).

32 The book that brought his developing ideas together was Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of international politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, I979). The origins were evident in his classic Man, the state and war (New York: Columbia University Press, I959). An important survey of neo-realism is Robert 0. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and its critics (New York: Columbia University Press, I986).

33 Ken Booth, Strategy and ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm, I979). 34 Ken Booth, 'Steps towards stable peace in Europe: a theory and practice of coexistence', paper

presented to 5Ist Pugwash Symposium (2I-4 Apr. I988, Bochum, Germany), International Politics Research Papers No. 4 (Dept of International Politics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth). A later version was published in International Affairs 66: I, Jan. I990, pp. I7-45.

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challenge were Richard Ashley's notion of' emancipatory realism' and Radmila Nakarada's 'responsible utopianism'. In the field of sociology, Anthony Giddens has also been drawn to the phrase 'utopian realism'.35

Utopian realism as I am using it here is more an attitude of mind than a 'theory' with powers of explanation and prediction. But it is based upon both normative (' utopian') and empirical ('realistic') theories. The normative element is made up of a universal appeal, based on reason, to various world order principles thought to represent the appropriate standpoint for academics. The empirical element seeks to make the world of politics more intelligible by seeking to go beyond realism to a set of ideas which offer a fuller understanding of the forces shaping 'Who gets what, when and how', to use Harold Lasswell's phrase. A utopian realist approach will lead to a distinctive practice of politics, and such a practice grows, in a way Carr would have approved, from 'reality' (as is evident from the 'alternative security' ideas which evolved in the early I980s in response to the predicaments of the Second Cold War).36 Stanley Hoffmann, whose humane and sophisticated writings over the years are a model for students of the subject, has described such an approach as 'uplifting politics', as distinct from 'applied ethics'.37

The brief explanation of the theory and practice of utopian realism that follows can only sketch the main outlines; many philosophical and practical questions must remain open for further discussion.

First, a counter-attack must be organized on behalf of' utopian' thinking. An obvious place to begin is by pointing out that some of the attacks on utopianism over the years have been ill founded. Much general criticism, for example, has simply been tautologous. If 'utopia' is understood in an absolute sense as a 'good but unachievable society ', then by definition it is not ' realistic ', that is,

practical, politics. But realism has often been blinkered about what actually is 'practical', as in its definition of politics as 'the art of the possible'. Being unambitious about defining what is 'practical' or 'possible' can be dramatically unrealistic, since, as was mentioned earlier, international politics is full of surprises. What reader of a century ago at the high tide of imperialism would have expected the end of colonialism within an (admittedly long) lifetime? What second-year student sitting here two years ago would have expected the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe before sitting Finals?

Another important and generally overlooked question concerns the motives of those critics who use 'utopian' as a negative label. In a sense, this amounts

The development of Herz's ideas can be traced in his Political realism and political idealism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 195I), International politics in the atomic age (New York: Columbia University Press, I959), The nation-state and the crisis of world politics (New York: David McKay, I976) and 'Political realism revisited', International Studies Quarterly 25: 2, June I98I, pp. I82-97. See also Richard Ashley, 'Political realism and human interests', International Studies Quarterly 25: 2, June I98I, pp. 204-36; Radmila Nakarada, 'The democratic potential of the new detente', pp. 39I-408 in Mary Kaldor, Gerald Holden and Richard Falk, eds., The new detente (London: Verso, I989); and Anthony Giddens, 'Modernity and utopia', pp. 20-2 in New Statesman & Society, 2 Nov. I990.

36 See, for example, Ken Booth, ed., New thinking about strategy and international security (London: Harper Collins, 1991), passim.

3 Stanley Hoffmann, Duties beyond borders: on the limits and possibilities of ethical international politics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, I98I), p. 2.

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to an attempt by one group to control thinking by the control of language.3" This is similar to the linguistic politics of patriarchy that tie women to washing- machines. Girl babies are not born with a washing-powder gene; women's souls do not come with a five-year warranty manufactured by Hotpoint. The answer to the question 'Who does the washing?', like that to the question 'What is war?', is primarily cultural. In the linguistic politics of international politics, utopianism has been ghettoized by negative labelling. It has been made non-respectable in order to reinforce the claim that there is no alternative to the status quo. For the most part the critics who do this probably do not recognize what they are doing; their naturalizing of the status quo is at the level of the subconscious, and it is a sign of realism's lack of self-awareness. It is also a sign of its conservatism. Leonard Woolf, 20 years before Carr's Twenty years crisis, argued that the designation 'utopian' was a device to discredit any new idea or proposal. 3

The sense in which I and others in the fields of political theory and sociology want to use the term 'utopia' these days is neither pejorative nor absolute. It crystallizes into the idea that the world does not have to look like the one we are familiar with: Utopian thinking is 'the Great Refusal', and it can be justified on a number of different grounds.40

In the first place, academically, utopian thinking can be used as the basis for a critical re-evaluation of what is believed to exist, what is believed to be 'reality'. What 'is' is politically, semantically and philosophically contestable. What, for example, is the 'reality' of an egg? Is it an oval reproductive body or one's next breakfast? Should it be regarded as a thing-in-itself or a potential chicken? Realism assumes too big a distinction between the subject and object, fact and value, is and ought, image and reality.

Second, in the practice of politics, utopian thinking sets goals and can be a catalyst to action. Destinations are an integral part of politics, as will be discussed below. Finally, since utopian thinking is a significant part of human culture, as Carr himself recognized, it has a role in general education in what William Morris called 'the education of desire': in this case, the desire for a better way of being and living.4" This is a perfectly proper activity, since it is not only human 'reason' that requires 'educating', as so much of what passes for 'thought' is the reasoning of the 'emotions '42

If the meaning of utopia is freed from the definitional trap of having to appear immediately possible, utopian thinking and the analyses of utopians can

38 David Forgacs, ed., A Gramsci reader: selected writings 1916-1935 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, I988), pp. I95, 301-II, 323-62, 422-4.

39 Quoted by Peter Wilson, 'Leonard Woolf and international government as a path to peace', paper presented to the British International Studies Association conference, Newcastle, Dec. I990, p. 8.

40 Ruth Levitas, The concept of utopia (New York: Philip Allan, I990), p. ix. I have greatly benefited from this book, and also from Barbara Goodwin and Keith Taylor, The politics of utopia: a study in theory and practice (London: Hutchinson, i982).

41 Levitas, The concept of utopia, ch. 6, 'The education of desire: the rediscovery of William Morris'. 42 Recent theories in cognitive psychology show the importance of the emotions in the management of

goals and actions; they allow us to understand that emotions are not particularly 'irrational'. See Keith Oakley, 'The importance of being emotional', New Scientist, No. I678, I9 Aug. I989, pp. 33-6.

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perform an invaluable function in educating people about international politics and politics in general. This conception of political education immediately confronts Michael Oakeshott's, whose inaugural lecture on the subject 40 years ago became one of the intellectual building-blocks of the conservative approach which was so congenial to realism:

In political activity [he said in a much quoted passage] men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.43

Oscar Wilde once used a similar analogy, but showed a deeper understanding of the mainsprings of social life. He wrote that 'A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at.'44 Nobody sails just to keep afloat.45 Noah was probably the only sailor who set out without a harbour or anchorage, but he certainly had a destination. A desired physical goal is implicit in sailing, though all sailors know that on a given voyage they might not actually reach the destination they originally planned. They also know that if they survive there is always the possibility of a next time. Of course it is essential to keep afloat, and so there is a need for 'theories of survival', but there is also a need for destinations, and thus 'theories of the good life'.

Without a destination, the world political community would float aimlessly and realists would plot an aimless log. This would be a study of seamanship without navigation. To set political sail in such circumstances would mean that groups would merely be the object of historical forces, never the subject. At this particular crossroads of history, at the end of the twentieth century, such an approach would be irrational. The human collectivity is more than ever in need of conscious cultural development. If world politics simply continue to be driven by the major forces of the last I50 years-the apparently unstoppable juggernauts of industrialization, capitalism, growth, and population expan- sion-the outcome in the second half of the next century could be very bleak indeed.

When thinking about the future, a useful distinction can be made between 'end-point utopias ' and ' process utopias .46 Most utopian thinking looks towards a future blueprint, Usuch as world government, when history virtually comes to a stop. But such end-point utopias are only attainable, if at all, over a very distant time-scale. It is not profitable to spend much time contemplating structures which, if they are ever built, will be in conditions radically different from today. It is futile to try to over-manage the long-term future.

Process utopias, on the other hand, are benign and reformist steps calculated to make a better world somewhat more probable for future generations.

4 Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in politics (London: Methuen, I962), p. I27. The inaugural lecture, 'Political education', was delivered at the London School of Economics, 6 Mar. I95I.

44 Quoted in Levitas, The concept of utopia, p. 5. 45 This line of questioning the famous metaphor follows Bernard Crick's obituary of Oakeshott, 'Ideal

scourge of the idealists', The Guardian 22 Dec. I990.

46 The distinction is Joseph Nye's; see his 'The long-term future of deterrence', pp. 245-7 in Roman Kolkowicz, ed., The logic of nuclear terror (Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin, I987).

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Trying to reduce the risk of war each year, improving human rights and spreading economic justice are examples of such policies. Generalized images of a preferred future world can be offered, but the details can only be settled when the future problems and prospects are clearer. Process utopianism is thus practical utopianism. It is not a 'revolutionary' agenda in which the end justifies the means, but rather an approach to politics in which in a real sense the means are the ends. So, if we look after the processes, the structures should look after themselves; and as Camus said in the early I950s, the means one uses today shapes the ends one might perhaps reach tomorrow.47

The adjective 'utopian' in 'utopian realism' is therefore more practical than is usually implied. In parallel with this, the 'realism' element is more realistic than the 'doctrinal' approach Fox identified in I984 as having dominated the subject. Doctrinal realism fails to make world politics fully intelligible. In the Waltzian version, for example, it makes interstate relations a 'domain of its own, and leaves out a great deal of what is most pertinent to explain events and trends. The state-centred perspective notably provided no handle for understanding the fascinating evolution of Europe in the I98os from the birth of Solidarity to the coming to power in much of Eastern Europe of civil society.48 During this period much of the European agenda on political, economic, defence and environmental issues was set by popular social movements, not governments. In addition, the globalization of so much of politically relevant life demands a different framework for understanding.49 Consequently, making the political world intelligible these days requires a global and eclectic approach, and the borrowing of insights from a range of perspectives-the world society school, international political economy, comparative politics and critical theory-as well as other disciplines. Failure to make more of other approaches has been a characteristic feature of the realist hegemony. For realism, the study of international politics itself is treated as a domain of its own.

Not only is realism increasingly unrealistic; it lacks self-awareness, as was suggested earlier. It is less epistemologically valid than the utopianism it derides. This is brought out in Richard Ashley's criticism of Waltz as standard-bearer for a statist ideology and value-system masquerading as the supposedly objective laws of international relations.50 Put bluntly, realism is ethnocentric self-interest writ large.

But is utopianism no more than optimism writ large, as has been implied by Inis Claude and Ian Clark ?51 I think not. Utopians-who think that the world

4 Hoffmann, Duties beyond borders, p. I97. 48 The problem was not confined to academics, of course. See Vladimir Tismaneanu, 'Eastern Europe:

the story the media missed', Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 46: 2, Mar. I990, pp. I7-2I. 49 Evan Luard, The globalization of politics: the changed focus of political action in the modern world

(Basingstoke: Macmillan, I990). 50 Richard K. Ashley, 'The poverty of neorealism', p. 258 in Keohane, ed., Neo-realism and its critics. 5 As between realism and idealism, Inis Claude argued that the crucial question was 'optimism': see his

'comment' on Herz, 'Political realism revisited', pp. I98-200. In his excellent The hierarchy of states (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I989), Ian Clark identifies Kant with 'the tradition of optimism' and Rousseau with 'the tradition of despair', chs. 3 and 4.

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could and should be changed-are often the most pessimistic about the nuclear and ecological long-term future. Realists, by contrast-who pride themselves on understanding the gloomy path of human history-are optimistic in believing that nuclear deterrence can continue, without breaking down, for the rest of history. Philosophically, optimism is identified with Leibniz, who thought this 'the best of all possible worlds'. But that belief happens to be a characteristic assumption of political realism. Clearly, using optimism and pessimism as a basis for distinguishing between utopians and realists is confusing.

Time-frame might be a more helpful guide in clarifying the difference. For utopians, today's problems are not the main ones; whereas for realists, problem-solving means attending to the agendas of policy-makers. As a result, those academics who seek the ears of princes necessarily have their horizons foreshortened. Giving a privileged position to the short term, however, easily leads to what has been called the 'boiled frog syndrome'. When frogs are placed in a pan of water which is gently heated, they do not detect the gradual increase in temperature until their very existence is threatened.52 The analogy is obvious-realist Nero fiddling while weapons of mass destruction proliferate and the rain forest burns.

One serious criticism of utopian thinking is that it is a matter of personal preference, one value system pitched against another. This is a fundamental and difficult issue, but it is possible to argue for a universal ethical standpoint from a rational point of view. The argument is based on the belief that ethics are an invention53 and the generally accepted view that value-free 'social science' is impossible.54 The idea of a universal rational ethical standpoint was clarified by John Rawls with his thought-provoking and controversial notion of a 'veil of ignorance' (based upon the idea, implicit in Kant, of 'justice as fairness'). In The theory ofjustice, first published in I97I, Rawls asked his readers to suppose a 'veil of ignorance' drawn across social reality.55 They are then invited to imagine a society in which they would be willing to live regardless of their position in it. This is a logical place to start thinking about justice, since it is only the roll of the cosmic genetic dice that determines whether as individuals we are born healthy and among the prosperous or among the wretched of the wretched. From behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance, the global status quo becomes a severely chastening prospect. After this, an ethical test that appeals to rationality, who would not emerge in support of universalist values relating to non-violence, human rights, economic justice and environmental protection? Who, except for those fatalists who cannot conceive of choice, would not espouse liberty, equality and fraternity (not to mention sorority) ? 52 Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich, New world, new mind (London: Methuen, I989), p. 74. sa See, for example, J. L. Mackie, Ethics: inventing right and wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin, I977). 54 As magisterially pronounced, for example, by David Easton in The political system: an enquiry into the

state of political science (New York: Knopf, I964), p. 225.

5 John Rawls, A theory of justice (London: Oxford University Press, I972), pp. I7-22, I36-42.

Hoffmann's criticism of Rawls (in Hoffmann, Duties beyond borders, pp. 2-5) is weakened in Hoffmann's own terms if it is accepted that one of the major 'political realities' is that human beings are more 'fundamental and primordial' than states.

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Viewed in this light, utopian thinking cannot be exclusionist; it must speak for the community of humankind. This is particularly appropriate for academics, who by virtue of their calling should adopt a holistic perspective on world politics. After all, 'universus', from which the word 'university' comes, means 'whole'. Consequently, a nationalist university is a contradiction in terms. Grey is the colour of truth, not red, white and blue. The states system is obviously an important part of the framework for thought and action. But what this implies for those who study military strategy, for example, is that the guiding principle should not be to increase the power of one's own state in the contention of nations. Rather, the study and writing of academics is most appropriately guided by the idea of seeing their own states, in Hedley Bull's brilliant phrase, as 'local agents of the world common good'.56

III

What does all this say about security in anarchy? What are the end-points, the guiding principles and the relevant processes from a utopian realist perspective?

To begin with, the key concept in thinking about security in this approach is 'emancipation 9. Emancipation should be given precedence in security thinking over the traditional realist themes of power and order. The trouble with giving a privileged position to power and order is that they are at somebody else's expense, which means that they are potentially unstable. The absolute power and therefore security of one state implies the absolute impotence and therefore insecurity of all others. Likewise, absolute order implies no change; and where there is no allowance for change there is unlikely to be justice, and without justice there is the potential for conflict. True security can only be achieved by people and groups if they do not deprive others of it.

Emancipation means freeing people from those constraints that stop them carrying out what freely they would choose to do, of which war, poverty, oppression and poor education are a few. Security and emancipation are in fact two sides of the same coin. It is emancipation, not power and order, in both theory and practice, that leads to stable security. Liberal democracies, committed to a level of social justice and relatively prosperous-though still with a long way to go before achieving full emancipation-do not seem inclined to fight each other.

Implicit in the idea of emancipation is the Kantian idea that people should be treated as ends and not means (which automatically rules out 'totalitarian utopias' as a contradiction in terms). States, by contrast, should be treated as means and not ends. States are unreliable, illogical and too varied in their nature

56 H. Bull, 'Order and justice in international relations', Hagey Lectures, University of Waterloo, I983, pp. II-I2 and I4; quoted by Andrew Linklater, Beyond realism and marxism: critical theory and international relations (Basingstoke: Macmillan, I990), p. 20. This and related matters are also well discussed in Linklater, 'The problem of community in international relations', Alternatives I5: 2,

Spring I990, pp. I35-53.

57 This is elaborated in Ken Booth, 'Security and emancipation', Review of International Studies I7: 4, Oct. I991.

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to be thought of as the primary referents for a satisfactory theory of security on a world scale. People should be the primary referent, not states. As Bull put it,

World order is more fundamental and primordial than international order because the ultimate units of the great society of all mankind are not states ... but individual human beings, which are permanent and indestructible in a sense in which groupings of them of this or that sort are not.58

The focus on individuals is not as radical as it might sound. Bull himself went on to point out that through the promotion of human rights and the transfer of resources, even states in the UN are committed to more than the preservation of the egg-box.59

If emancipation is the guiding principle for security, the key concepts for anarchy are 'community' and the awful Euroword 'subsidiarity'. In community building, we are concerned with breaking down distinctions between in-groups and out-groups, 'us' and 'them', and creating positive relationships based not only on reciprocal obligations and mutual self-interest (Gesellschaft) but also on a sense of loyalty and moral obligation (Gemeinschaft).60 In subsidiarity, we have the idea that decisions will be taken at the lowest appropriate level.

With these two guiding principles in mind, the 'anarchy' or absence of government in the states system becomes less of a problem than the 'statism'-the concentration of all power and loyalty on the state-that has typified much of the twentieth century. To achieve security in anarchy, it is necessary to go beyond Bull's 'anarchical society' of states to an anarchical global 'community of communities'. Anarchy thus becomes the framework for thinking about the solution to global problems, not the essence of the problem to be overcome.61 This would be a much messier political world than the states system, but it should offer better prospects for the emancipation of individuals and groups, and it should therefore ultimately be more secure.

Unlike many of the utopian arguments of the I920S and I940s, this one does not seek to deal with the problem of sovereign states by centralizing power in the ultimate sovereign state: a world government. No central government deserves much trust. Some governments fail to maintain order; many succeed only by being oppressive. Even relatively decent governments are not necessarily mindful of the interests and diversity of all their citizens. The idea of centralizing all power on a world scale is a fearful prospect, and not likely to work. A multicultural world with a bundle of both local and global problems logically requires a multifaceted approach.

Richard Falk (who, like Kant, has invariably been defined out of the international relations field by realists) has been conspicuous over the last

58 Bull, The anarchical society, p. 22. 5 Bull, The anarchical society, p. 87. 60 Ferdinand Tonnies, 'Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft', pp. 7-I2 in Colin Bell and Howard Newby,

eds., The sociology of community (London: Frank Cass, I974). 61 This argument owes much to Barry Buzan's idea of 'mature anarchy' in People, states andfear

(Brighton: Wheatsheaf, I983) and 'Is international security possible?', pp. 3I-55 in Booth, New thinking about strategy and international security.

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20 years by arguing that modern states are too large to satisfy human needs and too small to cope with the requirements of guidance for an increasingly interdependent planet.62 The logical conclusion of this argument is that power should be diffused. It is desirable to take it away from states to more local communities for the satisfaction of some human needs (to cater for cultural diversity, for example), while wider problems, such as economic and environmental issues, could be dealt with more effectively by designated regional or global functional organizations.

The result of such a diffusion of power above and below the state level would be a dense global mesh of norms, rules, decision-making structures, complex economic interdependence, non-territorial as well as territorial communities, and overlapping identity patterns.

States in such a world would wither, but not disappear. Even permeable boundaries, as in the European Community, have their uses. In particular, states will continue to be necessary as frameworks for the control of armaments, as long as the threat of war exists. But interstate war is in historical decline as an instrument of politics, as the costs go up and the benefits go down. The war in the Gulf, devastating as the military victory was, does not contradict this conclusion. On the cost side, what should be borne in mind is the enormous effort mobilized and expended by the United States and its 37 allies in order to defeat a state with a GDP about I20 times less than the United States and a population less than California. This effort should also be compared, in historical perspective, with the relatively effortless 'successes ' of Britain against Iraq in the past, 30 and 70 years ago. On the benefit side, it is too soon to calculate the balance; but the immediate signs suggest that victory and success are not synonymous.

The historical trends suggest that 'defence' will remain an important function for states, but that the institution of war will decline in utility. Consequently, the traditional security dilemma-the way one state's search for security through military power tends to increase the insecurity of those it threatens-will become a less pressing feature of international relations. States will decreasingly be collectivities whose primary obligation is to deter and conduct external violence. More important will be their function as agencies for internal order and the control of armaments.

A dense global mesh of communities, as just described, is sometimes conceived of as a new medievalism. Medieval Europe was characterized by decentralized political authority and a tangle of 'overlapping feudal juris- dictions, plural allegiances and asymmetrical suzerainties'.63 Medieval Europe provides an illustrative model, but there are reasons for thinking that a new medievalism would not be as violent or disorderly, given that the instruments of violence would not be as decentralized and that attitudes towards, and the 62 See, inter alia, Richard A. Falk, A study offuture worlds (New York: Free Press, I975), The end of world

order (New York: Holmes & Meier, I985), and The promise of world order (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, I987).

63 J. L. Holzgrefe, 'The origins of modern international relations theory', Review of International Studies I5: i (I989), pp. II-26.

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costs of, violence have changed. The textbook states system with which international theory deals is not eternal; it is historically novel. The Westphalian system of independent sovereign states has only been in existence for about 350 years, and there is no reason to suppose that it will dominate world politics for the rest of time. Indeed, historical change in the international system is already apparent.

As more and more of the actions that sustain world politics cease to involve states, we are living in what James N. Rosenau has called a 'post-international politics '.64 Sovereignty is disintegrating. States are less able to perform their traditional functions. Global factors increasingly impinge on all decisions made by governments. Identity patterns are becoming more complex, as people assert local loyalties but want to share in global values and lifestyles. The traditional distinction between 'foreign' and 'domestic' policy is less tenable than ever. And there is growing awareness that we are sharing a common world history. As a result, it is opportune to reverse Morgenthau's famous sentence, quoted earlier. The late-twentieth-century version should read: 'The struggle for power, like all politics, is world politics.'

IV

The international system which is now developing, remembering the earlier Suganami-Vincent metaphor, is of an egg-box containing the shells of sovereignty; but alongside it a global community omelette is cooking. If this trend is thought desirable, the problem becomes the practical political one of how to get there from here. Can world society make an omelette without breaking eggs? A few words about practice are appropriate, since I identify with those, from Aristotle to Althusser, who have argued that we do not philosophize simply in order to pass the time.

Space permits me to give only a flavour of the praxis of emancipation and community-building, since what is appropriate obviously depends upon the situation and power of different individuals and groups. For a nuclear superpower, for example, a process-utopian policy would be to move from doctrines involving nuclear pre-emption, launch-on-warning, decapitation strikes and 'prevailing ', towards doctrines where retaliation is a last not a first step, is gradual rather than massive, and is based on minimum deterrent levels rather than war-fighting levels of capability. A sounder policy still would be to reject the ayatollahs of nuclearism altogether and, even if it ultimately proves impossible, to seek the goal of global denuclearization.65 To do otherwise is to perpetuate a belief that there is ultimately no stronger basis for human coexistence then genocidal fear. Over a long period, such minimalist thinking may be a recipe for disaster.

Between states in a spiral of suspicion, common security policies seeking 64 James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in world politics: a theory of change and continuity (New York: Harvester

Wheatsheaf, I990), especially ch. i. 65 This is argued in Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, 'Beyond nuclearism' in Regina Cowen Karp,

ed., Security without nuclear weapons (Oxford: Oxford University Press for SIPRI, I99I).

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greater mutual transparency and a shift from offensive to defensive military postures can bring reassurance and change attitudes. Such thinking has characterized Gorbachev's strategy since I985, and helped to revolutionize threat perceptions and political relations across Europe. For both Gorbachev and 'alternative security' proponents in the West, 'new thinking' about security derived from the 'reality' of the breakdown of detente and the start of the new Cold War. In this respect as in others, the new utopianism is more realistic than that criticized by Carr when he complained about the way 'intellectuals' characteristically attempted to make practice conform to theory.66

Sometimes the clash of interests between particular states will be such that containment will be necessary. Such a posture should be firm, but non- provocative, and leave open the door for detente. What game theorists call 'tit-for-tat strategies' can cope with defections and build up long-term cooperation.67 The benefits of a relaxation of tension should not be snubbed because of the underlying mistrust. The acorns of detente can sometimes yield impressive oaks, as with the CSCE process and the growth of civil society in Eastern Europe.

Occasionally, when an aggressive regime seems beyond both deterrence and reassurance, it may be necessary to face up to the prospect of war. In such cases violence must be the last resort, in fact and not only in rhetoric. It should be limited to what is necessary to achieve clearly articulated aims; it should be proportional to the challenge; and it should be discriminating in the targets selected. The Gulf War left something to be desired on all these counts. If victory is achieved, the appropriate response, as Churchill said, is 'mag- nanimity '.68 It is to be hoped that the White House has learned even more from its failed postwar relations with Vietnam than it learned about fighting and information-management from its failed war against it; but there is reason to doubt that this is so.

Sometimes there is a real chance for community-building between nations, as between historical foes like France and Germany. What student at the time of Carr's inaugural in I936, the year the Rhineland was remilitarized, would have predicted that by the time they were middle-aged, war between France and Germany would have become unthinkable? Such an outcome was accelerated by three wars between the two in 70 years and then the outbreak of the Cold War, but there is more to the Franco-German relationship than that. The French and German people have become a moral community, not simply a self-interested partnership. This coming together of hitherto intractable enemies was the result of the actions of visionaries like Monnet and Schuman-' bureaucrats', in Carr's scheme of things, who should have been committed to empiricism69-the symbolic gestures of Adenauer and de Gaulle,

66 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, p. I4. 67 See Robert Axelrod, The evolution of cooperation (New York: Basic Books, I984). 68 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: I, the gathering storm (London: Cassell, I964),

frontispiece, 'The moral of the work'. 69 Carr, The twenty years' crisis, pp. I3-I9.

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the institutionalization of high-level contacts, growing economic inter- dependence and intensive social interaction at all levels. Compare this 'security community' of predictable peace with the relationship that continues, to take just one example, between Greece and Turkey. Here there is little institutionalization, and instead of history books that attempt to eliminate chauvinism there is only the singing of old patriotic songs.70 Between Greece and Turkey, or in the Arab-Israeli dispute, utopian-inspired activists are needed to create the necessary psychological and political breakthroughs. Statesmanship as demonstrated by a Sadat or a Brandt is required. Till then, significant community-building probably awaits a further disaster.

The broad approaches just suggested are for governments. But today there is significant scope for action for individuals acting through global civil society. As global communications become easier, we increasingly live in what might be called a post-foreign policy world, one in which significant international transactions do not depend on foreign ministries. In this regard there are numerous organizations concerned with promoting human rights or economic welfare, and working for environmental protection, which are 'local agents of the world common good'. Some actions can be taken on an individual basis in a capacity of consumers or parents. To adapt a feminist slogan, the international is personal and the personal is international.7" Many looming problems which will affect everybody will obviously be exacerbated by severe overpopulation. Carr jokingly said in his inaugural that advice on birth control was not a matter for a professor of international politics ;72 today it increasingly is. The international is now very personal indeed.

Security in anarchy is possible. The traditionally warring countries of Western Europe offer some proof. The question what kind of proof raises the interesting problem of confirming evidence in the philosophy of science. Realism proposes that war is inevitable in an anarchical international system; each war that occurs, in the Gulf or elsewhere, appears to confirm the idea. But consider the case of the 99-foot man.73 The hypothesis is, 'All men are less than IOO feet tall.' So each sighting of a man less than IOO feet surely confirms the hypothesis. Then someone meets a 99-foot man. Strictly speaking, this confirms the hypothesis, but in a stronger way it disconfirms it, because there is now good reason to believe that men can grow to IOO feet. The West European security community, which grew in the historical cockpit of realism and in the home of the textbook states system, is the international politics version of the 99-foot man. It gives good reason to believe that predictable peace is possible in an interdependent world of liberal-democratic states.

70 See Peter Mangold, National security and international relations (London: Routledge, I990), ch. 5, 'Breaking out'. The concept of 'security community' was developed by Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political community and the North Atlantic area (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, I957).

71 This formulation resulted from a lecture by Margot Light, 'Women in international relations', 25 Feb. I99I, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.

72 E. H. Carr, 'Public opinion as a safeguard of peace', International Affairs I5: 6, Nov.-Dec. I936, pp. 846-62.

7 Martin Gardner, review of William Poundstone, Labyrinths of reason: paradox, puzzles and thefrailty of knowledge, p. 27, in New York Review of Books, i6 Mar. I989.

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V

Nothing in this argument is based on the idea that humans are perfectible. The same struggles can be expected to be repeated in our heads between the pirate and the bank-clerk in all of us. But the approach to international politics described here is based on the belief that politics are open-ended, and are rooted in ethics, and that institutions can grow wiser and can positively shape human behaviour. Viewed in this light, some of the 'conventional convictions' of mainstream international theory are opened up to different emphases.74 While accepting that politics will, in a sense, always be 'power politics', it does not follow that power politics must translate into 'might is right'. While anarchy will persist, it could also be the framework for a solution to the problems of the human collectivity, rather than being seen as the crux of the problem. While self- interest will continue to guide individuals and groups, self-interest need not be synonymous with selfishness. And finally, while we will continue for the foreseeable future to live in a system of states, it is too soon in history to conclude that the international system is necessarily a 'war system'.

Bernard Brodie used to have sleepless nights when he thought about world politics because he believed that the rigidity was in the situation.75 Students of international politics, not to mention the world community in general, will never really know to what extent this is true until we confront the rigidity that is in our own minds. It is the failure to do so which gives me sleepless nights. 74 These conclusions (and indeed the lecture as a whole) owe a great deal to the influence of Barry

Buzan, People, states and fear; Hoffmann, Duties beyond borders; and Richard A. Falk and Samuel S. Kim, eds., The war system: an interdisciplinary approach (Boulder, CO: Westview, I980).

75 Booth, 'Bernard Brodie'.

545