Great theorists and international politics

The ultimate test of any theory is how well it explains the events in the real world. All social scientists make use of the theories to make predictions about the future and all these predictions are not based on evidence, as evidence comes later in future and theories are told in the past. Politics in different regions of the world is deeply influenced by what theorists have been writing, warning and predicting. There are four theorists that I want to quote to highlight the understanding of the international system and where it is heading.

The first is John J Mearsheimer who is a great believer and advocate of balance of power theory and believes in achieving security through balance of power. The author of the books The tragedy of great power politics and How states think: The rationality of foreign Policy, Mershimer believes international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and that is unlikely to change. The only difference will be in the intensity of the power competition, or else the great powers will continue to compete each other for power. He argues that the overriding goal of all powers is to maximise their share of the world power which translates into exploiting the opportunities within the international system to gain power at the expense of other powers. Great powers, Mershimer predicts, would not confine themselves only to compete and gain power at the expense of other powers but would keep doing that to strive to become the strongest of the great powers which in the international relations is considered as the desire of any power to become a hegemon. This is a great explanation of why the battle for being the world’s greatest and only hegemon will be an unending battle between the great powers. Hegemony means domination, usually interpreted as the domination of the whole world, but when the concept is applied narrowly it may be used to describe the hegemons of the regions like Israel today is in the Middle East. The term ‘great power’ is also a slippery term, at times used loosely in the context of international relations. A power can only be termed great when it can challenge another great power not only with its military but also in all other domains. One, however, also gets afraid of what, according to Mearsheimer, the future may hold for the world — the arrival of a multipolar system in a multipolar world featuring many powerful states, great powers and potential hegemons.

Another great scholar and theorist is Francis Fukuyama and his End of History theory. Fukuyama’s theory is filled with optimism and speaks of promotion of democracy and the ultimate homogenisation of the world under the banner of universalism. His theory’s basic structure stands on the implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality in any democratic setup. But as long as conflicts continue in the developed world, it is difficult to imagine that these principles can ever be implemented in the emerging and developing democracies in the world. Fukuyama’s End of History concept is actually not an end but a continuing process of history in which he imagines a world where nothing important will be left out to fight about. This is when the world will eventually come to the end of its ideological evolution and the entire world will democratise. He considers this global march towards the ideological evolution similar to the running of a strung-out wagon train towards its destination. He believes some of the wagons will be left out while others will make it to the destination but eventually all will reach the acclaimed destination. The trouble with his theory is that he considers the world a healthy place. Thus, the more conflicts in the world the less popular his theory becomes. A significant gap in his theory is that he doesn’t consider Islamic civilisation as a threat to the West. He believes that Islam has little appeal outside the areas that are already Islamic. Another gap in his theory is that he makes no mention of the threat of terrorism to the achievement of great universalism that he talks about. In fact, the word terrorism doesn’t even appear in the index of his book, The End of History and the Last Man.

In today’s world it is just not the application of liberty and equality that is likely to transform the world but also the quest for superiority, the spiritual aspect of human existence which continues to spark impulses to violence — the very thing which the Fukuyama theory was supposed to put to rest. Many scholars consider that the current American world order of liberal internationalism is structured on the End of History theory and any research work on the subject of changing world order cannot proceed forward without analysing the identified gaps in this theory.

Another theory relevant to the current world order is by Thomas PM Barnett who divides the world into two distinct parts: the core and the gap. In an outstanding piece of literary work, The Pentagon’s New Map — War and peace in 21^st Century, he sets the tone for the conditions and circumstances that would trigger the change in the world order. Basically, core is the developed world and the gap is the developing world. Core’s good life is what the gap wishes for and there are public protests, demonstrations and even coups against the governments that are not able to govern well and bridge the void between the core and the gap.

The last theorist to mention is Samuel P Huntington and his masterpiece, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington believes in the impact of globalisation and also that more than creating consensus, globalisation will create conflict. He also believes that power rests not with the states but with civilisations. He thinks that the West is on the decline and the rest are catching up with it. To him, the biggest competition in the world is between the West and the rest. Unlike Fukuyama, he thinks there are more trains than one and all are moving in different directions. The Western goal of global homogenisation is something that he compares with the ‘Davos Culture’ and believes that one per cent of the world’s population cannot drive the global agenda and the agenda of other civilisations.

The biggest challenge that Huntington’s theory leaves the world to handle is to find ways of how to prevent the clash of civilisations from growing into a war of civilisations — and in that the world seems to be so far failing.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2023.

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