Wendt's Violation of the Constructivist Project: Agency and Why a world State is Not Inevitable

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Wendt’s Violation of the Constructivist Project: Agency and Why a World State is Not Inevitable Vaughn P. Shannon European Journal of International Relations 2005; 11; 581 DOI: 10.1177/1354066105057903 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ejt.sagepub.com

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Wendt’s Violation of the Constructivist Project: Agency and Why a World State is Not Inevitable VAUGHN P. SHANNON University of Northern Iowa

There is a saying in the US that ‘In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.’ The certitude of death remains something beyond the power of human free will and social construction, but very little else does. But Alexander Wendt would add a third inevitability of life — the coming world state. Wendt’s article, ‘Why a World State is Inevitable’ in EJIR 9(4), argues for a teleological theory that the ‘logic of anarchy’ and the ‘struggle for recognition’ push humanity inexorably toward a single global state with a monopoly on legitimate force. I contend that Wendt’s argument suffers from irreconcilable neglect and reliance on agency. Below, I am not addressing the philosophy of teleology per se, nor am I taking on Hegel’s writings about the ‘struggle for recognition’. My focus is on three points related to the need to retain agency in Wendt’s, or any, theorizing: (a) Agency conceptually is denied by the logic of inevitable, progressive change, but internal to his logic Wendt is forced to rely on agency and the choices of actors, a paradox he does not reconcile. (b) Wendt’s agents are reduced to a new motivational monocausality of a kind; the struggle for recognition becomes virtually the sole force of politics in his model. (c) By focusing on the inevitable World State, Wendt detracts from debate about agency and conditionality that could make a world state possible. The first of these points critiques the internal logic of Wendt’s theory, the second addresses both internal logical flaws and the premises of the theory European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 11(4): 581–587 [DOI: 10.1177/1354066105057903]

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European Journal of International Relations 11(4) itself, and the third addresses the extent to which Wendt’s intellectual experiment is also an advocacy piece on world state formation.

Wither agency? Wendt’s teleology goes through five stages — (1) from a Hobbesian ‘system of states’; (2) to a Lockean ‘society of states’ who ‘live and let live’; (3) to a ‘world society’, marked by non-violent dispute resolution of a universal pluralistic security community ‘no longer free to make war’; (4) to a ‘collective security’ system of one for all and all for one; and finally (5) to a world state — whereby the authority to use force and recognize peoples resides with a world government alone. In arguing for an inevitable world state (WS), Wendt, one of the founding fathers of constructivist International Relations in the 1980s, abandons the spirit of the constructivist project in favor of a top-heavy structuralism. With teleology comes the concomitant withering of agency and the core constructivist insight that nothing is inevitable — human history may move forward or backward. To a constructivist, a world state is possible but by no means inevitable. Constructivism’s promise relates to the role of both agent and structure in explaining world politics. Structures constrain and shape actor identity and behavior, while the possibility of free will permits structural change, not mere reproduction. Wendt, though, argues for unintentional change through material forces of recognition, anarchy and increasingly destructive weapons technology. Constructivist or not, how does Wendt’s argument fare on its merits? Though Wendt insists that ‘human agency matters’ (p. 491), he does not reconcile this conceptually. Wendt provides agency only with a ‘reduced role’ in the process of reaching the inevitable outcome — a World State via the ‘multiple realizability’ of agency (p. 501). But if agency is granted a free hand in crafting the future, that future must be contingent and open-ended. Wendt’s argument is ultimately structural determinism, premised on materialist forces. Furthermore, his stories of the movement from one stage to the next belie his own claims of teleology, as he is forced to confront the choice of states to progress from one level to the next. Rather than grapple with the complex options the multitude of states can take (not to mention the actions historically, empirically taken at junctures of world history),1 he is forced into assuming that all actors would behave in a certain way. Consider the following: From Stage 2 to Stage 3, it is assumed that the public will make states ‘learn to desist from war altogether’ (p. 519) — a classic liberalist aspiration that rational war-averse people will force elites to adapt ‘non violent 582

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Shannon: Wendt’s Violation of the Constructivist Project alternatives’ to conflict resolution. Those studying the monadic democratic peace have learned that claims about the ‘obsolescence of war’ in the public mind is premature. From Stage 4 to Stage 5, Wendt suggests that states will forfeit sovereignty to a WS due to the ‘painful memories’ of life under anarchy (p. 523). This implies that life and history so far have been widely accepted to be awful and traumatic with no redeeming aspects. But states and people may not share the author’s woeful view of life under anarchy. Surely many have suffered from war and insufficient ‘recognition’, but enough to compel all humanity into submission to a global government? Wendt asserts that Stage 5 will come because a ‘move back is less attractive than a move forward’ (p. 523). This is taking objectivist liberties of ‘knowing’ what is desired or attractive to states, rather than asking states themselves. Wendt does acknowledge that the ‘greatest hurdle to WS formation’ is the Great Powers (p. 524). This introduces a paradox Wendt does not resolve in a convincing fashion — Those most suffering and pained by anarchy and nonrecognition are those least capable of forcing systemic change; those most capable of pushing a world state in terms of power have the least incentive to forfeit sovereignty, influence and autonomy. Wendt’s answer is simply: If the choice is between a world of increasing threats as a result of refusing to fully recognize Others . . . versus a world in which their desires for recognition are satisfied, it seems clear which decision rational Great Powers should make. (p. 525)

This quote introduces contingency, agency and choice, violating the notion of inevitability, since ‘choice’ and ‘if’ and ‘should’ are markers of agency and, thus, indeterminate outcomes. If states have choice, Wendt must concede that such states may choose not to create a WS. He cannot have it both ways and sustain his argument. From Stage 3 to Stage 4, Wendt merely asserts that ‘the desire to reproduce world society will induce it to develop even farther’. It does not follow that reproducing a favored system should lead to something new, much less ‘inevitably’. Wendt allows for ‘degeneration’ to previous stages, but that ‘there are good reasons to move forward’ (p. 521) and thus he presumes that states will ‘advance’ to his next level. Wendt does not permit the possibility that human history is cycles of nonlinear change, caught between the tug of change, the pull of sovereignty and the myriad other forces of politics that make ‘inevitability’ problematic. There is no reason why such cycles of advancement and degeneration do not go on for ever. Consider the following path of Wendt’s teleological trajectory. In five stages, the system evolves as such: 12345

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European Journal of International Relations 11(4) Or, allowing for occasional historical ‘degeneration’, perhaps it looks like this: 121232345

Either way, Stage 5 is the inexorable conclusion. But what if, due to contingencies related to the rise and fall of different actors with different conceptions of order, preferences and identity, history instead reflects numerous steps forward and back, with nothing pregiven and the outcome unknowable? History may look like this: 1212321232143. . .ad infinitum

Leaving aside empirical assessments of history to date, the point here is that agency is both necessary and neglected in Wendt’s formulation. There is enough agency to allow his conception to unfold plausibly, but not enough agency to allow actors to choose other plausible futures.

Motivational Monocausality One reason why Wendt can elide serious treatment of agency is that he reduces all politics, history and war to ‘struggles for recognition’ (p. 528), which is never clarified beyond the search for ‘full subjectivity’. While this is an interesting motivation that deserves attention and study, Wendt’s oversimplification of all international relations to the pursuit of subjectivity under anarchy is a new example of ‘motivational monocausality’, simplicity and immutability (Cottam, 1977: 16). All inexorable forces moving history along toward a WS are about finding the ‘solution to the struggle for recognition’. This presumes (1) that the struggle for recognition matters to all actors to the degree and breadth that Wendt claims; and (2) that it alone matters or is paramount to other interests, preferences and motivations. While I am sympathetic to the politics of identity — a hallmark of agentic studies — the primacy of the struggle for recognition granted in this conceptualization is undefended. Wendt mentions a catalog of ‘other things to struggle over’, but somehow these (and numerous other motivations) do not introduce contingency in the inexorable quest for recognition via WS formation. Internal to his argument, recognition struggles work against the very forces of world unification he argues to be inevitable. Wendt’s reference to nationalism acknowledges both the influence of non-state agents and the potential for system disintegration, yet he tries to reconcile this with his teleology by claiming that such a ‘step back’ is a ‘precondition for moving forward’ (p. 529). In fact, Wendt says a WS is ‘only possible if it embraces nationalism’, which seems contradictory since nationalism is about self-rule and statehood. So fragmentation is rewritten as evidence of consolidation, 584

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Shannon: Wendt’s Violation of the Constructivist Project raising falsifiability problems as well as the logical conundrum of why new nationalist groups achieving independence from tyranny would turn and submit to another superstate. On this last point of submission to a world state, Wendt faces unresolved problems related to Kant’s skepticism regarding a world state — the potential that states will not want to give up sovereignty, and that a world state would be despotic. Sovereignty, Wendt reports, is the right to decide unilaterally to revoke an actor’s recognized status and kill them. Two problems arise here — the one-sided view of sovereignty as bad, and the presumed benign nature of a world state. But sovereignty is also the right to guarantee your own recognized status against others. And why would a world state not be equally capable of unilateral right to de-recognize and kill subgroups? The WS has the power to ‘enforce recognition’ but also to deny it. One wonders if Israeli Jews, given their history of oppression, are comfortable with such forfeiture of autonomy, placing trust in the benign nature of an overarching superstate to uphold their identity. Wendt does not help his cause to point out that, once a world state is formed, ‘individuals and groups continue to evolve and might decide that what satisfied their desires for recognition in the past no longer do so’. This reminds us that what motivates identity groups varies spatially and temporally. If such dynamics operate after the creation of a WS, why do they also not inhibit the formation of the WS in the first place? If not all seek a WS, they will have to be forced into submission by somebody to accomplish it. That requires power, particularly if the resistance is from a China or United States or similar large power. In sum, while the search for recognition is one motivation, it is clearly not the only or the most important one to all actors. To assume such is the same objectivist fallacy taken by rationalists — that situations can be characterized ‘objectively’ by the analyst rather than presented ‘as it appears subjectively to the actor’ (Simon, 1985: 298; see also Monroe, 1995). Agentic theories remind us that agents are capable of reflection, forethought and the processing of environmental pressures in ways that cannot be predicted deterministically (Jervis, 1976; Bandura, 2001). Wendt acknowledges intentionality of agency, but does not allow the implications to lead to their logical conclusion — a WS is contingent at best.

The Possibility of a World State A world state is a possible future, but it is a Herculean task given the primacy of sovereignty today. To understand its prospects, one must embrace agency and the complex motivations of actors — state and non-state. Wendt does not do this. Instead, he claims that a WS ‘will emerge whether or not anyone 585

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European Journal of International Relations 11(4) intends to bring this about’ (p.529). He suggests a non-intentional, materialist argument that the logic of anarchy creates violence and military destructiveness that breaks the notion of self-sufficient state identity, ‘enabling development of supranational we-feeling’ (p. 516). Enabling such a development, however, does not determine its inevitable outcome. He argues that the ‘inevitability’ may inspire supporters to work toward it, but if it is inevitable why need anybody worry? The fact that he references those actors ‘globally oriented’ and who ‘believe in the inevitability of a’ WS (emphasis mine), shows that WS-building is in the hands of those whose identities and beliefs are so inclined, suggesting many others who are not so. Only if one recognizes it as contingent do proponents get motivated to work to persuade others of the virtues and form of a viable WS. It will require persuasion and power to construct such a wildly new world order, and teleology forecloses the discussion on the conditions for a world state — requirements of change brought about by willful agents. Such studies exist, the World Order Models Project (WOMP) being just one. Wendt’s article is commendable on at least three grounds. It reintroduces teleology as a plausible path for theorizing that, while I am not persuaded here, could be useful in other applications. It focuses on the ‘struggle for recognition’. Identity politics is important and underexamined outside some constructivism and political psychology. Wendt’s problem is that he reduces all world politics virtually to this one factor, belying the multiple motivations that define actors and their behaviors. Finally, it revisits the possibilities of a world state and reminds us that anarchy is not itself inevitable. But he commits the reverse error, for a world state is by no means inevitable either. If ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, that must allow for states to make it anything they want. Agent-based IR theorizing has been swept under the carpet of structuralism since at least Waltz’s Theory of International Politics. While solely focusing on agents is ‘reductionist’, to deny them their subjectivity — as perceivers with multiple interests, identities and motivations — does no justice to IR theorizing or the task of building a world state. World political systems are dynamic arenas of power and identity. The continued diversity of ideas and identities ensures that agency matters and that the future is up for grabs. A world state, however potentially desirable, is far from inevitable. To the extent that it is possible, it is through making agents believe what Wendt has argued. That is the task, and it is no small feat. Notes Thanks for the comments of Ted Hopf and anonymous reviewers in improving this manuscript. Thanks also to Vasbjlt Banerjee for assistance in gathering materials for

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Shannon: Wendt’s Violation of the Constructivist Project this project, and to Leah Strifling for pointing me to various world order projects referenced in the article. 1. Though Wendt’s analysis is ‘conceptual, not historical’ (p. 516), history has shown cycles and ‘backward’ tendencies. The Concert of Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars looked like regional ‘Stage 3’, but the Crimean and Franco– Prussian wars, and World War I push the system back to Stage 2 or 1. From the ashes of World War I comes the League of Nations experiment, a´ la Stage 2 or 3, but the 1930s beggar-thy-neighbor competition and the carnage of World War II revert us to Stage 1 or 2. The post-war headiness of the UN system represents Stage 3 logic, only to be undermined in a Cold War rivalry akin to Stage 2. At the same time, parts of the world arguably approach Stages 3 and 4 in terms of community and collective security — notably the EU and NATO. The end of the Cold War and the rise of unipolarity have left the trends ambiguous, as some ‘friends’ fear and compete with the US, and instability spreads throughout the world. Teleology is easy; historical reality is much messier and nonlinear.

References Bandura, Albert (2001) ‘Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective’, Annual Review of Psychology 52: 1–26. Cottam, Richard (1977) Foreign Policy Motivation: A General Theory and a Case Study. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Jervis, Robert (1976) Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Monroe, Kristen Renwick (1995) ‘Psychology and Rational Actor Theory’, Political Psychology 16(1): 1–21. Simon, Herbert (1985) ‘Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science’, American Political Science Review 79: 293–304. Waltz, Kenneth N. (1979) Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House. Wendt, Alexander (2003) ‘Why a World State is Inevitable’, European Journal of International Relations 9(4): 491–542.

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