Ecology and International Relations
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207302800101 |
| Date | 01 March 1973 |
| Author | Walter C. Clemens |
| Published date | 01 March 1973 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
WALTER
C.
CLEMENS
JR
Ecology
and
international
relations
Ecological
science
and
the
study
of
international
relations
have
much
to
contribute
to
each
other.
Their
scientific
objectives,
sub-
ject
matter,
and
methods
are
complementary.
The
human
values
with
which
both
are
concerned
are
also
similar.
The
strengths
of
each
field
could
be
usefully
absorbed
by
the
other
to
overcome
its
particular
weaknesses.'
The
affirmation
of
a
positive
symbiosis
be-
tween
ecology
and
international
studies
is
not
likely
to
be
a
passing
fad,
but
a
long-term
development
with
important
consequences
for
life
and
social
sciences
generally.
Recognition
of
the
interface
between
ecology
and
international
studies
may
help
to
transcend,
if
not
resolve,
long-standing debates
regarding
the
proper
boundaries
and
approaches
to
the
analysis
of
international
relations.
Should
it
attempt
to
include
all
international
and
transnational phenomena,
such
as
trade
and
tourism,
or
should
it
focus
only
on the
purely
political
aspects of
international
affairs?
An
ecological
perspective
could help
to
integrate
the
various
traditional
and modernist
approaches
to
international
studies
that
have
evolved
in
recent
decades.
The
study
of
living
organisms
inter-
acting with
their
environment
adds
a
dynamic
quality that
is
miss-
ing
in the
greyer conceptions
of
geopolitics
or
economics.
2
Ecology
Professor
of
Political
Science,
Boston
University;
Associate,
Harvard
University
Russian
Research
Center.
Adapted
from
a
paper
delivered
at
the
annual
meeting
of
the
International
Studies
Association,
Dallas,
Texas,
16
March
1972.
The
author
wishes
particularly
to
thank
Walter
Corson
and
Harold
Sprout
for
their
useful
comments
on
the
paper.
i
Recognition
of
these
links
is
implicit
in
such recent
books
as
Richard
A.
Falk,
This
Endangered
Planet:
Prospects
and
Proposals
for
Human
Survival
(New
York
1971).
2
See,
eg,
Harold
and
Margaret
Sprout,
Toward a
Politics
of
the
Planet
Earth
(New
York
1971).
2
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
provides
a
common
perspective
from
which
to
view
the
contribu-
tions
of
diverse
behavioural
sciences.
It
may
seem
furthest
removed
from
diplomatic
history
and
legal
conceptions
of
international
re-
lations,
but
the
political
scientist
can
surely
broaden
the
scope
of
ecology
to
fit
his own
needs:
the
study
of
political
bodies
and
forces
interacting
in their
common
habitat
-
now
called
'spaceship
earth.'
The
epigram
of
naturalist
John
Muir
stands
as
an
admonition
to
the
student
of
international
relations:
'When
you
try to touch
one
thing
by
itself,
you
find
it
hitched
to
everything
else
in the
uni-
verse.'
The
interdependency
of
global politics
with
everything
else
in
the
universe
has
been
explicitly
recognized
by
the
efforts
of
Quincy
Wright
and
others
to
develop
a
field
theory
of
international
relations.
3
Our
capacities to
understand
the
entire
field
of
inter-
national
relations
may
have
advanced
only
a
small
distance
to-
wards
a
comprehensive
and
adequate
theory,
but
this
does
not
justify
attempts
to
limit
artificially
the
scope
and
methods
of
the
discipline.
Ecology,
we
may
say,
'brings
it
all
together'
again.
Ecological values,
it
turns out,
are
similar
to
those
that
inspire
many
studies of
international
relations.
Peace
and
prosperity
rank
high
among
the
requisite
conditions
for
both
the
well-being
of
the
biosphere
and
the
body
politic
of
the
world.
As
the
Sprouts
put
it,
there
are
elemental,
existential
values
that
underlie
all
operational
objectives,
including
those
specifically
associated
with
power,
in-
fluence,
and political
action.
The
most
elemental
values
of
all
are
those associated
with
biological
existence:
level
of
health and
length
of
life.
In
more
specifically ecologi-
cal
terms,
but
still
in
the
context
of
a
world
community,
or
ecosystem,
these
values
can
be
summed
up
as
the
need
to
make
the
earth
a
reason-
ably
safe
and
salubrious
place
to
live,
not
only
for
ourselves
but
also
for
our
descendants,
and
not
only
for
one
or
a
few
nations
but
for
all.
4
3
For
a
comparison
of
Wright's approach
and
the
Sprouts',
see
Raymond
Tanter
and
James
N.
Rosenau,
'Field
and
Environmental
Approaches
to
World
Politics:
Implications
for
Data
Archives,'
Journal
of
Conflict
Resolution,
xiv
(December
1970),
513-26.
4
Sprout,
Toward
a
Politics
of
the
Planet
Earth,
p
28.
See
also
the
Sprouts'
The
Ecological
Perspective
on
Human
Affairs,
with
Special
Reference
to
International
Politics
(Princeton,
NJ,
1965)
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