The debate between realists and liberals has reemerged as an axis of contention in international relations theory.’ Revolving in the past around competing theories of human nature, the debate is more concerned today with the extent to which state action is influenced by ‘structure’ (anarchy and the distribution of power) versus ‘process’ (interaction and learning) and institutions. Does the absence of centralized political authority force states to play competitive power politics? Can international regimes overcome this logic, and under what conditions? What in anarchy is given and immutable, and what is amenable to change?

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Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics

Since the Cold War ended, Western policymakers have sought to create security arrangements in Europe, as well as in other regions of the globe, that are based on international institutions In doing so, they explicitly reject balance-of-power politics as an organizing concept for the post-Cold War world During the 1992 presidential campaign, for example, President Clinton declared that, “in a world where freedom, not tyranny, is on the march, the cynical calculus of pure power politics simply does not compute It is ill-suited to a new era” Before taking office, Anthony Lake, the president’s national security adviser, criticized the Bush administration for viewing the world through a “classic balance of power prism,” whereas he and Mr Clinton took a “more ‘neo-Wilsonian’ view”
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The False Promise of International Institutions

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Part I. Introduction: Developing a Regional Approach to Global Security: 1. Theories and histories about the structure of contemporary international security 2. Levels: distinguishing the regional from the global 3. Security complexes: a theory of regional security Part II. Asia: 4. South Asia: inching towards internal and external transformation 5. Northeast and southeast Asian security complexes during the Cold War 6. The 1990s and beyond: an emergent east Asian complex Conclusion Part III. The Middle East and Africa: Introduction 7. The Middle East: a perennial conflict formation 8. Sub-saharan Africa: security dynamics in a setting of weak and failed states Conclusions Part IV. The Americas: 9. North America: the sole superpower and its surroundings 10. South America: an under-conflictual anomaly? Conclusion: scenarios for the RSCs of the Americas Part V. The Europes: Introduction: 11. EU-Europe: the European Union and its 'near abroad' 12. The Balkans and Turkey 13. The post-Soviet space: a regional security complex around Russia Conclusion: scenarios for the European supercomplex Part VI. Conclusions: 14. Regions and powers: summing up and looking ahead 15. Reflections on conceptualising international security.

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/3437/1/75.pdf

Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security

The neorealist-neoliberal debate about the possibilities for collective action in international relations has been based on a shared commitment to Mancur Olson's rationalist definition of the problem as one of getting exogenously given egoists to cooperate. Treating this assumption as a de facto hypothesis about world politics, I articulate the rival claim that interaction at the systemic level changes state identities and interests. The causes of state egoism do not justify always treating it as given. Insights from critical international relations and integration theories suggest how collective identity among states could emerge endogenously at the systemic level. Such a process would generate cooperation that neither neorealists nor neoliberals expect and help transform systemic anarchy into an “international state”—a transnational structure of political authority that might undermine territorial democracy. I show how broadening systemic theory beyond rationalist concerns can help it to explain structural change in world politics.

Collective Identity Formation and the International State

Hegemons exercise power in the international system not only by manipulating material incentives but also by altering the substantive beliefs of elites in other nations. Socialization—the process through which leaders in these secondary states embrace a set of normative ideals articulated by the hegemon—plays an important role both in establishing an international order and in facilitating the functioning of that order. This article develops the notion of socialization in the international system and examines three hypotheses about the conditions under which it occurs and can function effectively as a source of power. The first hypothesis is that socialization occurs primarily after wars and political crises, periods marked by international turmoil and restructuring as well as by the fragmentation of ruling coalitions and legitimacy crises at the domestic level. The second is that elite (as opposed to mass) receptivity to the norms articulated by the hegemon is essential to the socialization process. The third hypothesis is that when socialization does occur, it comes about primarily in the wake of the coercive exercise of power. Material inducement triggers the socialization process, but socialization nevertheless leads to outcomes that are not explicable simply in terms of the manipulation of material incentives. These hypotheses are explored in the historical case studies of U.S. diplomacy after World Wars I and II and the British colonial experience in India and Egypt.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S002081830003530X

Socialization and hegemonic power

Europe’s strategic it or not, the architecture of the postwar order is outmoded. The Warsaw Pact has been disbanded. NATO is struggling to define a role for itself; the threat it was built to resist may soon be nonexistent. Profound and probably irreversible change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe means that we must confront the difficult task of erecting new security structures for a new era. A debate rages over how to respond to these changes in Europe’s landscape. Two broad schools of thought have emerged. The pessimists, pointing to the waning of the Cold War and the end of bipolarity, fear a return to a more fractious multipolar Europe.’ The optimists, on the other hand, welcome the end of the East-West struggle and do not fear a return to multipolarity. They argue that many of the causes of war that produced conflict during the first half of the twentieth century have either been eliminated or substantially moderated. While these optimists recognize that the political and economic future of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe remains uncertain, many argue that some form of collective security-a pan-European Charles A. Kupchan is Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University. Clifford A. Kupchan is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Columbia University.

Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe

An era of unprecedented peace and prosperity appears to be at hand at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The world’s major powers enjoy cooperative relations, democracy is taking root in many countries that long suffered under authoritarian rule, and the world economy is expanding as it becomes increasingly liberalized and integrated. Contrary to the dire predictions of a return to a Hobbesian world, the end of the Cold War has not been accompanied by the fragmentation of international order and the emergence of rivalry among atomistic national units.

After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity

The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century

Chapter 1 The Turn Chapter 2 The Rise of the West Chapter 3 The Last Turn: The West Beats the Rest Chapter 4 The Next Turn: The Rise of the Rest Chapter 5 Alternatives to the Western Way Chapter 6 Reviving the West Chapter 7 Managing No One's World

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Charles A. Kupchan

Papers

Socialization and hegemonic power

Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe

After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity

The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century

No One's World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn