In Defence of Inelegance: IR Theory and Transatlantic Practice
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| Author | John Peterson |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117806060925 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Relations Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol 20(1): 5–25
[DOI: 10.1177/0047117806060925]
In Defence of Inelegance: IR Theory and
Transatlantic Practice
John Peterson, University of Edinburgh, UK
Abstract
We should theorize about international relations (IR) exclusively on the basis of systemic
variables because the whole cannot be known ‘through the study of its parts’. This
injunction is familiar and pervasive across our discipline. Yet, IR theorists who seek to
explain international outcomes by focusing exclusively on systemic variables are
increasingly engaging in a sort of unilateral disarmament. Despite all its shortcomings,
foreign policy analysis (FPA) gets us much further than systemic IR theory in
understanding the real world of international politics. While much depends on precisely
what ‘slice’ of international political life we are seeking to explain, FPA captures how
international outcomes are increasingly determined by factors that are sourced at the level
of domestic politics. The argument here draws on close empirical investigation of
US–European relations, as well as contributions to this journal by Mearsheimer and
Gilpin, and other recent works in the research literature.
Keywords: European Union, foreign policy analysis, IR theory, US–European relations
Recently, in these pages, John Mearsheimer and Robert Gilpin have offered
analyses that are worth close examination. Each could be taken as an exemplar of
how a leading mind in our discipline thinks we should approach international
relations (IR) in the early twenty-first century.1Mearsheimer bemoans the ubiquity
of ‘idealism’ and the dearth of traditional realists in the contemporary generation of
IR scholars, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK). Gilpin offers a devastating
critique of the current United States (US) administration’s decision to launch a pre-
emptive war against Iraq. Imbedded in each, at least implicitly, are cues about how
we should study our subject.
As essential as the works of these two theorists are, Kenneth N. Waltz still
probably deserves the title of ‘father’ of modern IR theory. Waltz’s insistence that
we should theorize about international politics exclusively on the basis of systemic
variables – specifically, the distribution of power in the international system – is
familiar and pervasive across the discipline. For Waltz (and, presumably, Gilpin or
Mearsheimer), reductionist theories are undermined by their assumption ‘that the
whole shall be known through the study of its parts’.2Even a leading anti-realist
(liberal) theorist grants that all theories of IR are ‘systemic theories in the strict
Waltzian sense’.3
This article, like those of Mearsheimer and Gilpin, is based on a lecture. It
qualifies as the proverbial thought piece that raises far more questions than it
answers. However, it seeks to be clear in its central contention: that is, our under-
r
i
standing of IR in the twenty-first century is now severely compromised by the
nature of our theories. IR theorists who seek to explain international outcomes by
focusing exclusively on systemic or ‘structural’ variables are increasingly engaging
in a sort of unilateral disarmament. Despite all its shortcomings, including its lack
of parsimony, foreign policy analysis (FPA) – the study of what determines foreign
policy – gets us much further than systemic IR theory in understanding the real
world of international politics.4While much depends, always and inevitably, on
precisely what ‘slice’ of international political life we are seeking to explain, FPA
captures how international outcomes are increasingly determined by factors that are
‘sourced’ at the level of domestic politics. IR theory, for the most part, does not.
The claim is based on close, empirical study of transatlantic relations and US and
European foreign policy-making.5US and European foreign policies, and thus
US–European relations, are now determined in powerful ways by domestic factors
– including party political competition, bureaucratic politics and public opinion –
that frequently cannot be linked, even tenuously, to the distribution of power in the
international system.6The internal characteristics of the US and EU states do not
‘drop out’: they are important in practice. It has become increasingly untenable to
insist they are unimportant theoretically.
A logical starting point for this analysis is to consider (below) the claims of
systemic theories against recent findings in the IR research literature as well as
actual outcomes and trends in US–European relations. The rest of the analysis then
seeks to demonstrate that US and European foreign policies, and thus transatlantic
relations, are determined in powerful ways by three factors that are heavily (or
entirely) discounted by IR theory.
IR theory and practice: the case of US–EU relations
If our first purpose is to examine the main claims of systemic theories, we could do
worse than to consider Mearsheimer’s and Gilpin’s frames for understanding IR.
Despite their differences, both are clearly systemic in nature.7To simplify consid-
erably (hopefully not brutally), states are the main actors in Mearsheimer’s
‘offensive realism’. They are deeply (not exclusively) committed to pursuing power
at each other’s expense. For Mearsheimer, as for E. H. Carr, Gilpin, Waltz and
realists of all stripes, power is the essential element of IR.8Idealists are thus deluded
by their ‘almost total neglect of power’. The international world is dominated by
states who are (mostly) unconstrained – by international norms, law or organiza-
tions – in their hunger for power. All of this remains so, ‘globalization and al Qaeda
notwithstanding’.9
Gilpin offers a different variety of ‘neomercantilist realism’, in which power is
measured, above all, in wealth. He is concerned with the dynamics of power and
how it changes in nature over time, leading to the rise and decline of powerful
states, and provision (or not) of public goods such as a liberal international order by
a hegemonic state. To some extent, Gilpin is concerned with what is ‘inside’ the
6INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 20(1)
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