On "The End of History"

In his article "The End of History," written on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Francis Fukuyama declares an "unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism" and that the "total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism" spell the "end of history." That is, we have arrived to the "end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

Agreeing with Alexandre Kojeve’s vindication of Hegelian idealism, he criticizes materialist interpretations from the left as well as the right. Marxism, which regards religion and culture as "superstructural" expressions of an economic base, is to be rejected as surely as the "Wall Street Journal school of deterministic materialism," which reduces human beings to little more than "profit-maximizing" entities. Western liberal ideology, he argues, has triumphed not because of the economic superiority of the countries who profess it, but because of the near-universal appeal of the liberal idea itself.

Fukuyama goes on to address the twentieth century’s most fundamental challenges to liberalism–fascism and communism–and demonstrates how both ultimately failed to generate sufficient popular support to defeat the liberal democratic opposition. At the time Fukuyama’s article was written, fascism had long since been eradicated by the Allies in World War II, while communism was in its death throes with the pending collapse of the Soviet Union. In the contemporary world, there do, however, remain two ideological challengers to liberalism: nationalism and religion. Fukuyama dismisses the former as a phenomenon which is now confined to the "Third World" and which will presumably be eliminated as the developing countries are welcomed, one by one, into the embrace of global capitalism.

A similarly limited amount of space is devoted to the challenge presented by religion, but Fukuyama at least does appear willing to admit that religion’s appeal is enhanced by addressing one of the "contradictions" of liberalism–the "spiritual vacuity" of what could be described as liberalism’s essential aim: creating the circumstances for material well-being. Indeed, Fukuyama concludes his essay with some wistful observations (e.g., "in the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy") that suggest that the triumph of liberalism, no matter how inevitable and welcome, represents a kind of spiritual death for the human race.

Nevertheless, optimism is of course the essence of Fukuyama’s famous essay. While "the end of history" does not spell the end of war and violence, it does mean the diminishing of international conflict.

Charles Krauthammer, writing only a year after the publication of Fukuyama’s essay, challenged this optimism by describing the new "unipolar" world order that emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as one of increased, not diminished, conflict. For Krauthammer, "international stability is never a given," not even with the defeat of an ideological enemy. Indeed, far from passing into a utopian "post-history" with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have entered what Krauthammer calls the "era of weapons of mass destruction."

The post-Cold War era is increasingly populated by "Weapon States"–typically authoritarian regimes funded by oil revenues–which constitute a new "strategic environment," and require a new strategic response. In this essay we see early intimations of neoconservative unilateralism–the fellowship of liberal democratic states do not provide a network of collective security on the basis of which to mount effective multilateral action. The United States–with its power in the new unipolar dispensation so dramatically out of proportion to its allies and enemies alike–must act unilaterally to achieve its security aims.

Even if the relatively uneventful 1990s were a "vacation from history" that would seem to vindicate Fukuyama’s thesis, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the subsequent American response rendered such thinking untenable. It is in this context that Krauthammer augmented his thesis in writings that including "The Unipolar Moment Revisited" and "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World." The events of September 11th have shown that the threat of "Weapon States," with their increasing access to weapons of mass destruction, has been exacerbated by the emergence of an enemy that is both "undeterrable" (in the sense that Islamic fundamentalist terrorists have demonstrated not only a willingness to die for their cause but a veritable zeal for it) and "undetectable" (given the frequently clandestine modus operandi of terrorism).

In the latter of the two articles Krauthammer outlines what he identifies as the major schools of American foreign policy–isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism, and democratic globalism–and finds each of them lacking in some way. Isolationism is defunct in a world of airliners, electronic communications technologies, and ICBMs. Liberal internationalism, "the foreign policy of the Democratic Party and the religion of the foreign policy elite," is naive, inappropriate in the context of the overwhelming superiority of American power, and is incapable of providing necessary "deterrents" to rogue states. Realism gets it right in terms of correctly describing the motives of states, but fails to provide a "vision" adequate to the US’s fundamental democratic idealism. Democratic globalism, which defines the spread of democracy as "both the ends and the means of foreign policy" and is advocated by George W. Bush and Tony Blair–is very nearly Krauthammer’s position, but is overambitious. To achieve strategic objectives and avoid overextension, Krauthammer proposes a "democratic realism" which aims to spread democracy "where it counts," in strategically significant locations. "Democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests," and it needs to be used appropriately as a tool of strategy. In the historical context of the article, it can be read essentially as a neoconservative justification of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In a response to Krauthammer’s "Democratic Realism" article published in The National Interest, Fukuyama takes the author to task for exaggerating both the threat to the United States posed by Islamic fundamenalism and the US’s ability to intervene on the scale suggested by Krauthammer’s recommendations. Iraq did not pose an "existential threat" to the United States prior to the invasion, and undertaking to force democratic institutions on Iraq represent a kind of "social engineering" that’s doomed to fail. Furthermore, in the disdain for global opinion inherent in its unilateral action, the U.S. incurs a "legitimacy problem" which will surely hamper its efforts to promote democracy abroad.

Krauthammer’s rejoinder in "In Defense of Democratic Realism," is simultaneously dismissive and persuasive, but doesn’t add much to the debate.

For all their disagreements, the two authors share a belief in liberal democracy as a positive determinant of the structure of international relations–while neither author identifies himself as such, their positions have much in common with "democratic peace theory." Thus we can expect one of the most important representatives of the realist tradition, Kenneth Waltz, to offer a different perspective on the impact of the United States emerging as a unipolar power. In his article "Structural Realism after the Cold War," the notion that the spread of democracy can transform or is transforming the structure of international relations is one of the ideas that is challenged.

Writing in 2000, before the ascent of George W. Bush to the American presidency, Waltz sees "liberal inverventionism … again on the march" with the Clinton administration, and sees the containment strategy that was in effect during the Cold War being replaced by a new strategy of actively promoting democracy abroad. Presciently, he worries that democratic fervor will lead to excessive military intervention, and subsequently, overextension. Indeed one can project from Waltz’s line of reasoning that the seeds of the Bush administration invasion of Iraq were planted during the Clinton administration, that Bush’s Republican administration represents a greater continuity with Clinton’s Democratic administration than one might have suspected.

For Waltz, the logic of the liberal interventionism is governed by the realist principle of power politics, not by any common recognition of democracy as the most excellent form of government. Even if all the states of the world were in fact characterized by democratic institutions, a powerful state wishing to wage war for the usual realist reasons would find a way to redefine its enemy as something other than a liberal democracy: "A liberal democracy at war with another country is unlikely to call it a liberal democracy." Whatever the merits of democracy as a form of government, its observance inside states does not change the anarchic, self-help structure of international relations.

Waltz goes onto to debunk the notions that economic interdependence or international institutions have either reduced the power of states or changed the structure of international relations in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Interdependence continues to be essentially an "ideology used by Americans to camouflage the great leverage the United States enjoys in international politics," while Waltz’s examination of NATO shows that such international institutions are "instrument[s] for maintaining America’s domination of the foreign and military policies of [other] states."

Waltz concludes by examining the shift–inevitable according to realist logic–from a unipolar to multipolar world, identifying the likely candidates for balancing against the US’s disproportionate power. Asia, and particularly China, given its nuclear capabilities and spectacular economic growth, is the locus for such a balancing process. Writing before September 11th, 2001, Waltz is not as convinced as Krauthammer about the significance of "Weapon States" or the Muslim world in general for international relations, but does worry about the implication of the East/West confrontation that the rise of China implies, as such encounters have historically "often ended in tragedy."

This sort of cultural confrontation is the subject of Samuel Huntington’s essay "The Clash of Civilizations," and Huntington too is skeptical about the spread of democracy forming a basis for lasting peace. For Huntington, with the failure of communist ideology made manifest by the collapse of the Soviet Union, global conflict has been redefined along civilizational lines. The differences between civilizations–differences of language, culture, tradition, religion, and history–are far more fundamental than the ideological differences that formed the basis for bipolar conflict during the Cold War, and are difficult to eradicate. Economic modernization and subsequent social changes have threatened "longstanding local identities," provoking often violent reactions and a resurgence of fundamentalist religion, and the increased contact between far-flung places via modern communications and transportation technologies have increased opportunities for conflict. (It’s worth noting the perspective evident here that these features of "interdependence" can actually increase conflict rather than diminish it.)

While several "civilizations" can be identified, the most significant civilizational "fault line" is "the eastern boundary of Western Christianity in the year 1500"–the line which separates Russia from Finland, Poland, etc. and cuts through the Balkans. Huntington claims that we can expect the major conflicts of our time to be between "the West and the Rest." For Huntington, such conflicts are immnue to efforts to spread democracy. Speaking specifically of democratic developments in the Arab world, he writes: "The principal beneficiaries of these openings have been Islamist movements. In the Arab world, in short, Western democracy strengthens anti-Western political forces." Pace Fukuyama and Krauthammer, the appeal of democracy and other Western ideals (including "individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, … free markets, the separation of church and state") is far from universal.

Huntington adopts an essentially realist perspective on both the motives of states and the impact that the clash of civilizations will have on the structure of international relations. Rhetoric about democracy and liberalism, claims to their universality ("the world community"), and enshrining these values in international institutions are strategies to further the economic and security interests of the United States and its great-power allies "to the exclusion of lesser and largely non-Western countries." In the context of this conflict, again along realist lines, we can expect to see the emergence of a balancing coalition (versus isolationism or "bandwagoning") to counter the dominance of the West under U.S. leadership. In the military sphere, Huntington sees a flow of arms from East Asia to the Middle East, implying a "Confucian-Islamic military connection" which can be taken as evidence of such a balancing coalition.

On "The End of History": Conclusion

Fukuyama’s "end of history" thesis, of course, seems absurdly utopian from today’s vantage, an era characterized in large measure by a siege mentality in the wake of attacks by Islamic fundamentalist enemies. Whether this threat is ultimately just a bump on the road to global democracy remains to be seen, but recent events have served to render Fukuyama’s argument unconvincing at least for the present moment in history. In my view, Krauthammer does not overstate the threat posed by Weapon States and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. The instability that has resulted from the collapse of the Cold War bipolar order has contributed to the ability of such actors to acquire weapons of mass destruction–most troublesomely, nuclear weapons. And I believe that Krauthammer is correct to suggest that Islamic fundamentalist extremists who seek to acquire these weapons are in fact "undeterrable." (Even Waltz, in a recent interview, admits that such extremist non-state actors are not deterrable, though he doesn’t say the same about rogue states, and though downplays the ablility of terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons.)

But even if Krauthammer has correctly gauged the magnitude of the threat, and even if he has made a convincing argument for the necessity of strong American leadership in the new strategic environment, he does not make a convincing case for the use of force unilaterally, preemptively, without regard for the international legitimacy of such action, and without regard for historical evidence of the failure of statebuilding efforts in certain regions. Fukuyama is correct to challenge Krauthammer on these points. Both authors observe that the majority of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims have not yet declared themselves sworn enemies of the United States. But the unwarranted, unlegitimated use of force is only likely to swell the ranks of "undeterrables" and worsen the terrorist threat.

Waltz’s article, written before the September 11th terrorist attacks, doesn’t address the problem of "undeterrables," and in fact regards nuclear weapons as a stabilizing factor in the coming power struggle between an Asian coalition led by China, and the U.S. and its allies–the end of the unipolar era. Waltz’s realist perspective does not provide much insight regarding the impact of terrorism on international relations, and is perhaps most useful for the long-term view, pointing ahead to what we can expect with the rise of new great powers.

As I’ve noted, Huntington’s point of view is similarly realist in many respects, but has the advantage of offering a framework for understanding more precisely the form that interstate power struggles are likely to take. That is, Huntington goes beyond the broad strokes of realism in defining in terms of the relative capabilities of states, and incorporates insights that might be regarded as social constructivist: the cultural characteristics of civilizations and the differences between those civilizations are ultimately the defining parameters of international conflict. Huntington provides a conceptual framework for understanding both the US’s current conflicts in the Muslim world and the rise of China as a competing superpower.

In its eclecticism and predictive power, Huntington’s argument is perhaps the most compelling of those reviewed for this unit.

On Change in International Relations

Late in the first chapter of "War and Change in World Politics," Robert Gilpin identifies three types of change in international politics: "systems" change, by which he means change in the nature of the actors who make up the system, or change of the system itself (e.g., the rise and decline of the Greek city-state syste); "systemic" change, by which he means he changes in the governance of an international system (i.e., which actors in the system are in control); and "interaction" change, by which he means changes in the processes by which states relate to one another. Because he believes there is no reason to assume that the current system of nation-states will expire anytime soon, and because "interaction" changes have been treated in detail by other scholars, he chooses to focus on the second type of change, "systemic" change.

In keeping with realist theory, Gilpin explains that the current system of nation-states is a result of states pursuing selfish interests, and therefore its structure "tends to reflect the relative powers of the actors involved." During times of peace the arrangement observes a status quo that is held to be basically legitimate by the members of the system, which limits the scope of conflict; minor conflicts can be resolved through negotiations. However, the dynamism of international relations ensures that "differential growth in power" gradually redistributes power in the system (in accordance with "the law of uneven growth"), resulting in a situation of disequilibrium where the structure no longer reflects the relative capabilities of the units in the system. Incentives are created for newly powerful states to change the system, and conflict emerges. This situation is in fact the basic precondition for change in international relations, according to Gilpin.

While peaceful adjustment of the structure is possible, the primary means of systemic change throughout history has been "hegemonic war," characterized by struggle for dominance in the international system. Just as within domestic political structures, change is a process of "redefining and redistributing property rights," so in international relations change is a matter of "redistributing territory among groups or states following the great wars of history." Examples of peaceful change on the international level include Great Britain’s accommodation of its rivals in at the end of the 19th century as well as OPEC’s "forced redistribution of wealth" in the 1970s, but if history is any guide, the world is essentially condemned to a constant cycle power redistribution, subsequent disequilibrium, and hegemonic conflict (usually war).

For Gilpin there is no reason to assume that the essential nature of international relations has changed or will change in the foreseeable future. Gilpin identifies three major arguments made by those who disagree with him. The first argument is that the change in the technology of warfare–specifically the advent of nuclear weapons–has made the cost of warfare so burdensome as to reduce dramatically the likelihood of violent conflict. Gilpin acknowledges that nuclear weapons have changed the rules of the game dramatically, but insists that it is too early to make a judgment about nuclear weapons’ ability to effect peaceful change. Additionally he suggests that nuclear weapons can exacerbate conflict by making stalemates more likely. The second argument is that increasing economic interdependence between states has redcued the scope for conflict. Gilpin argues that such interdependence in fact aggravates interstate tensions as it causes states to fear the loss of autonomy. A further negative side effect of economic interdependence has been an increased awareness of the gap between rich and poor, which has created new scope for conflict. The final argument which Gilpin refutes is that the advent of a "global society" brought about by science and technological achievement has created a new global consciousness and awareness of common interests. But in fact, Gilpin argues, scientific advancement has intensified the struggle for possession of scarce resources between states, and, as a primarily Western phenomenon, has clashed with non-Western cultures and encouraged the rise of phenomena like Islamic fundamentalism.

So Gilpin finds none of these arguments convincing, and he concludes by declaring his allegiance to realism (which "assumes the continuity of statecraft") and observing that the concept of the nation-state has lost no ground at all in the modern age.

The social constructivist Alexander Wendt, in Social Theory of International Politics offers a perspective that contrasts sharply with Gilpin’s. While Wendt does accept the realist proposition that the structure of international relations is characterized by anarchy, he objects to the realist notion that state interests are fixed by that structure. For Wendt, those interests are closely related to identity formation, and ideas about identity constitute those interests as much as any material considerations. Furthermore, the anarchy of the international system is not always characerized by self-help. Wendt identifies three kinds of international structures, which roughly correspond to historical periods. Hobbesian anarchy characterized the pre-Westphalia period of international relations, which was indeed a self-help system. This period was furthermore defined by the "Self" of one state conceiving the "Other" as an "enemy," not recognizing the Other’s right to exist as an autonomous being. With the Peace of Westphalia, the international system passed to a "Lockean" system in which the Self characterizes the Other as a "rival," which is to say, it recognizes the Other’s right to exist, but does not rule out violence as a means of resolving conflicts. And, according to Wendt, we are now moving into a "Kantian" system in which states conceive one another as "friends" in a regime of collective security.

Structural change in international relations is thus animated by a process of collective identity formation that emerges from interaction between states, and not restricted by a timeless, immutable structure. In his conception of "cultural time", Wendt suggests that just as a regression from a Lockean to a Hobbesian structure is unlikely (as demonstrated by the "historical trajectory of the franchise in democratic societies"), once a shift to a Kantian society takes, place, regression is unlikely.

This progressivist conception of international change is further elaborated in "Why a World State is Inevitable." Indeed in this essay Wendt goes one step further by suggesting that the world will ultimately progress beyond the Kantian society to a Weberian world state. The motor for this outcome is what Hegel described as the "struggle for recognition," whose effect "is precisely to transform egoistic identity into collective identity, and eventually a state." Because states, like their constituent individuals, seek recognition as surely as they seek security, the logic of anarchy points toward a "fixed-point attractor" which is a world state in which mutual recognition can be ultimately fulfilled.

Clearly Wendt’s linear conception of international structural change has little in common with realist models which predict cyclical patterns of conflict likely to be repeated throughout history.

Robert Cox, too, in his "Social Forces, State and World Orders" criticizes the realist failure to admit the possibility of structural change. Cox distinguishes "problem solving theory," which "takes the world as it finds it" from "critical theory," which interrogates the order of institutions and power relations itself, and therefore is more approriate framework for evaluating the possibilities for historical change. Realism is an example of "problem solving theory," and can thus have practical utility, but its "assumption of fixity" and an unchanging human nature can be an "ideological bias" which implicitly accepts and perpetuates the status quo. Realism then is therefore in some respects an unreliable model for conceiving international relations.

Critical theory, on the other hand, is useful in determining the possible range of alternatives to the existing order of international relations. The kind of critical theory that Cox espouses is "historical materialism," which he insists must be distinguished from deterministic structural Marxism. Historical materialism, rather than assuming fixity and a single human nature as realism does, "sees in conflict he process of a continual remaking of human nature and the creation of new patterns of social relations which change the rules of the game…." This approach furthermore has an interest in imperialism, which allows it to consider how states on the periphery of the structure of power relations impact that structure, as well as an interest in the "state/society complexes" the constitute the world order and determine the form of production processes. It thus overcomes some other limitations of realism, which focusses only on the great powers within the international system, and largely disregards domestic factors within states.

In a practical application of historical materialism, Cox reflects upon the significance of the decline of American hegemony in international relations, and explores what opportunities are created by the resulting changes in the "relations of production," and suggests a few possible directions for structural change: the retrenchment of American hegemony on the international level through the consolidation of international capital and "the continuing internationalizatio of the state," a nonhegemonic structure brought about by "neomercantilist" backlash against the excesses of international capital, and finally the emergence of a Third-World counterhegemonic coalition. For Cox, structural change is thus always within the realm of possibility.

On Change: Conclusion

At the heart of the change-versus-continuity debate in international relations is something akin to the classic question of whether history can be described as cyclical or as possessing a linear trajectory. Making a judgment as to whether the historical data supports realist claims to be able to describe how political units will behave under virtually any historical circumstances (because history is essentially unchanging) would require a greater familiarity with the historical record than I have. At the very least, recent events–from the American response to the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks to the recent setbacks suffered by the European Union–do seem to support the more limited realist claim that the self-interested nation-state continues to play the most important role in international relations.

Nonetheless, particularly given the radical technological and social changes witnessed by the 20th century, common sense would dictate the emergence of unforeseen forms of international interaction, suggesting new possibilities for change. Even Gilpin hesitates to apply a realist interpretation to developments like the advent of nuclear weapons–how they will be used outside the context of the Cold War is still a matter for speculation. Profound change could be in the offing on this particular issue.

In spite of their insistence on the possibility for international structural change, neither Cox nor Wendt dismiss realism out of hand–both concede that realism can offer important insights in particular situations. Concluding his chapter on "Process and structural change" in Social Theory of International Politics Wendt suggests a "temporal division of labor" between his brand of constructivism and "rationalist" approaches like realism. The latter approach, he writes, "would be most useful when it is plausible to expect that identities and interests will not change over the course of an interaction" while constructivism would be more appropriate "when we have reason to think they will change." So realism is best applied for the short term, and constructivism for the long term. Cox, too, asserting in the postscript to his article that realism can’t account for the transition from medieval to modern structures, suggests that realism’s usefulness as a "problem solving" approach might be best confined to more limited historical time frames. But the question of whether realism offers the best explanatory model for events in the 21st century–or whether we’re in "one of those historical breaking points between world-order structures," as Cox puts it–remains unanswered. Time will tell.