Download Morten Bøås

2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
Morten Bøås
Centre for Development and the Environment – University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1116 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway
Tel. +47 22 858909; fax. +47 2 858920
E-mail: [email protected]
Paper for the 2nd MULTI-conference, Vettre Hotel, Asker, Norway, 18-19 January 2001.
Draft, for comments, not quotation
Ideas in the Multilateral System: Master or Servant?
Thinking About Studying the Role of Ideas in the
Multilateral System*
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all."
(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)
* Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 41 st Annual Convention of the International Studies
Association, Los Angles, CA, 14-18 March 2000 and at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Academic Council on the
United Nations System, Oslo, Norway, 16-18 June 2000. Comments from Michael Niemann, Timothy M. Shaw,
Sandra J. Maclean, Stephen D. Krasner, Keith Krause, Jan Aart Scholte and other particpants at these panels are
highly appreciated.
ABSTRACT:
The Role of Ideas in the Multilateral System: Toward an Interpretative Framework
Morten Bøås, Centre for the Development and the Environment - University of Oslo
e-mail: [email protected]
This paper seeks to spell out an interpretative framework that can be used to critically assess
the political processes around some of the ideas that have informed the current development
discourse, as evident in the prescriptions and policies of the major multilateral institutions.
The point of departure for such an elaboration is the observation that Robert Cox repeatedly
have drawn our attention to: "[T]heory is always for some and for some purpose," and the
same is true for ideas. Neither theory nor ideas can be separated completely from space, time
and self. This means that we can only enhance our understanding of how ideas contribute to
brining about new policies and institutional change in the multilateral system at large if we
also ask for whom and for whose purpose certain ideas are integrated in the multilateral
system. As such, what we are concerned with here is building critical theory - critical in the
sense that it questions the prevailing order of ideas in the multilateral system and asks how
that order came about. Thus, the perspective elaborated in this paper does not take the present
multilateral system and the ideas incorporated in it for granted, but is concerned with how it
came into being and whether they are changing.
Introduction – ideas & multilateral development institutions
Even though, the developmental impact of multilateral institutions is heatedly debated,
few doubt the power and influence of these institutions. Nonetheless, we know next to
nothing about why some particular ideas are taken up by the institutions in the multilateral
system; how they travel within the multilateral system; and how they are translated into
policy, modified, distorted or resisted. This paper seeks to redress this situation by thinking
through some perspectives that can be used to critically assess the political processes around
some of the ideas that have informed the current development discourse, as evident in the
prescriptions and policies of the major multilateral institutions.
The point of departure for such an elaboration is the observation that Robert Cox
(1996:87) repeatedly has drawn our attention to: "[T]heory is always for some and for some
purpose," and the same is true for ideas. Neither theory nor ideas can be separated completely
from space, time and self. This means that we can only enhance our understanding of how
ideas contribute to bringing about new policies and institutional change in the multilateral
system at large if we also ask for whom and for whose purpose certain ideas are integrated in
the multilateral system. As such, what I am occupied with here is the construction of a critical
approach – critical, in the sense that it questions the prevailing order of ideas in the
multilateral system and asks how that order came about. Thus, the approach elaborated in this
paper does not take the present multilateral system and the ideas incorporated in it for granted,
but is concerned with how it came into being and whether they are changing.1
New ideas can contribute both to bringing about new policies and institutional change,
but also to the emergence of new challenges within the multilateral system at large. Equally
important is the fact that for multilateral development institutions, it is important to achieve
consensus, both internally and externally, based on analysis and policies well grounded in
theoretical and empirical terms. Nevertheless, rivalry is also common, and institutions gain
international prestige (and funding) by having not only good ideas, but also novel ones.
Competition may be observed between the multilateral institutions themselves (e.g. the World
Bank-UNDP nexus); between multilateral and bilateral institutions or groups (e.g. like-
1
As such, my approach has some similarities with what Michel Foucault coined an archaeological approach. As
an analytical tool, archaeology is designed to dig out a site of knowledge in order to reach below the level of
epistemology, to identify the basic levels of meaning that guide scientific analyses within particular sites.
Archaeology is commonly seen as a tern that originated with Foucault, but the term actually stem from Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason. However, whereas Kant regarded a priori concepts as universal structures that are
relevant across space and time Foucault's emphasis on the historical and contingent nature of the conditions for
the possibilities of human sciences distinguishes his critic of limits from Kant's. See Foucault (1971:1).
minded donors); between groups of countries (e.g. North-South); between academics and
practitioners. The World Bank, in particular, has the reputation of the magpie: for rapidly
taking up/taking over novel ideas considered "good" in the field of development assistance.
An "idea" in the context of this research, is a concept, which powerfully influences
development policy. It is more than simply a slogan or "buzzword" because it has some
reputable intellectual basis, but it may nevertheless be found to be vulnerable on analytical or
empirical terms. What is special about it is that it is able to operate in both academia and in
policy domains. It arises and is developed in the interplay between these two, but it derives its
credibility for policy largely from its basis in the former.
Figure 1. The interface between academia and policy domains
Academia
Practitioners
Policymakers
Multilateral
institutions
Informal sector, sustainable development, local knowledge, governance and social
capital are all examples of such ideas.
This paper refers to all the major multilateral development institutions: the World
Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the regional development
banks: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and
African Development Bank (AfDB). Also included are the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO); because although not strictly development
institutions, they are increasingly playing a dominant role in the multilateral system, and also
because they too are actively participating in the arena of ideas - at least with regard to some
issues (e.g. governance in the IMF, sustainable development in WTO).
The theoretical underpinning of the interpretative framework to be elaborated on will
be influenced by two contemporary perspectives on international politics – constructivism and
neogramscianism – that emphasis ideas and identities in their analyses. However, because
material power relations of a more traditional variety are also very much a part of politics in
the multilateral system, the perspective of political realism should not be abandoned. Rather, a
major theoretical objective of this paper is to show that insight from the two first mentioned
perspectives can be utilised to give political realism a renewed sense of meaning and direction
in the 21st century.
The power of ideas in international relations: constructivist/neogramscianist/realist
perspectives
A perspective in the sense that the word is used here connotes a set of values, beliefs
and assumptions. Thus, when I am talking about the constructivist, neogramscianist and
realist perspective I am thinking about an intellectual framework rather than a specific theory.
The adherents to the three perspectives are therefore seen as linked by a common set of
assumptions concerning the objects of study and the methods to be employed in seeking
answers to the intellectual puzzles generated by the perspective. Below we will see how these
common sets of assumptions coin their approaches to the role of ideas, but before we turn to
that matter we need to define more specifically what we actually mean when we are talking
about ideas and the multilateral system.
Ideas are undoubtedly "materials for action" because they constitute the basis for
interest formation. However, even though ideas have real power in the political world, they do
not acquire political force independently of the constellation of institutions and interests
already present (Hall 1989). In fact, "the structure of any social system will contain three
elements: material conditions, interests and ideas" (Wendt 1999:139). In the sociological and
historical processes that led to the emergence and the continuation (so far) of the multilateral
system it was precisely these three categories of forces that interacted in the structuration of
the system, and its current institutions and ideas.
Material conditions can be understood as productive and destructive potentials. In their
dynamic form these exists as technological and organisational capabilities, and in their
accumulated forms as natural resources which technology can transform, stocks of equipment,
and the wealth which can command these. Whereas ideas in this respect can be seen both as
intersubjective meanings (e.g. some shared notions of social relations which shape habits and
expectations of behaviour),2 and as collective images of social order (held by different groups
2
Such notions, although durable over longer periods of time, are historically determined. The order of the
multilateral system has not always been represented in the same way as today, and may not be so in the future.
of people). This mean that collective images will differ as to both the nature and legitimacy of
prevailing power relations and structures, and with respect to the meanings of justice and
collective public goods. The difference between ideas as intersubjective meanings and as
collective images is thus that whereas the former sort of ideas are generally mutual throughout
a particular historic period and constitute the common framework for social discourse
(conflict included), the latter sort of ideas maybe several and opposed (Cox 1986).3
Thus, the actual meaning of material conditions is constituted by ideas, but also by
interests because interests are also constituted in part by ideas. Nonetheless, they are not the
same thing. This means that materialist explanations will give privilege to the material
condition, under the assumption that they generally determine interests. Whereas ideational
explanations will give privilege to ideas, under the assumption that they broadly determine
interests (Wendt 1999). The question is then whether these two different ways of explaining
outcomes can be bridged under a larger umbrella.
With respect to the establishment of the social order of the nexus between material
conditions, interests and ideas, institutionalisation is one way of stabilising and perpetuating
one particular order. Institutions reflect the power relations prevailing at their point of origin
and tend, at least initially, to facilitate the collective images in accordance with the power
relations. And this takes us back to the question of bridging material and ideational
explanations.
Whereas the basic logic of political realism is that outcomes cannot be studied in
disregard of the distribution of power, political realism also acknowledges that there are two
related, but different kinds of power involved in any situation. One is relational the other is
structural. Conceptually they are different, but an actor can exercise both simultaneously and
the use of them is dependent both upon material and ideational factors (Strange 1997).
Relational power does not have to be legitimate in any sense, but basically its use is still
dependent upon interplay between material conditions, interests and ideas. This is the case
because without ideas there will be no interests, and the wielding of relational power is built
on interests. Similarly, without interests there are no meaningful material conditions upon
which to enforce one's relational power, and finally without the material condition there is no
framework of reality in which to act at all.4 Structural power is then power over the "order of
As such it is possible to trace the origins of such ideas, and also to identify the turning points of weakening or
strengthening of them.
3
Thus, collective images are not aggregations of fragmented opinions of individuals such as those compiled
through surveys, but coherent mental types shaped by the longue durée (see Braudel 1969) and expressive of the
worldviews of specific groups.
4
See also Wendt (1999:139).
things" and the beliefs sustaining the "order of things." The structural power of the institutions
within the multilateral system is legitimised to the degree that states, firms, NGOs and people
accept the realities of their structural power (Strange 1997). This leads me to suggest that
there is within a refined understanding of the concept of power stemming from the tradition of
political realism that we find a potential bridge between material and ideational explanations.
If we then return to the question of the institutionalisation of the "order of things" as
manifested by the current multilateral system we can now state that the institutions within this
specific system are particular amalgams of ideas and material power which in turn influence
the development of ideas and material conditions. Thus, we see the multilateral system as a
social construction, and not as a pre-existing entity. We should therefore approach the
institutions within this system as institutions that take on a life of their own. Eventually, they
become battlefields for opposed ideas, or rival institutions may reflect different ideas or
variance of approaches to ideas. Thus, we need the constructivist line of reasoning due to our
assumption that the structures of the multilateral system to a larger degree is determined by
shared ideas than material conditions, and equally important, that the identities and interests
of the actors within this system are constructed by interaction around ideas rather than a fixed
set of ideas objectively determined. However, since the question of the role of ideas in the
multilateral system is not only a question of shared ideas, but also just as much a question
about opposed and contested ideas we must still adhere to the realities of power. Thus, any
framework for the understanding of the role of ideas in the multilateral system must address
what is the basic logic of political realism: that outcomes cannot be properly analysed in
disregard of the distribution of power. Moreover, since we here are talking about ideas both in
the sense of intersubjective meaning and as collective images we need to establish a clear
connection between ideas and institutionalisation, and this we find in the neogramscian
approach and Gramsci's understanding of hegemony.5 Whereas traditional IR/IPE scholars
like Charles Kindleberger (1973) and Robert Keohane (1984) uses the term hegemony in a
narrow sense, meaning dominance by one state over a group of other states, another
interpretation can be derived from Gramsci: hegemony as a structure of dominance. In the
5
Gramsci's main application of the concept of hegemony was to relations among social classes. Gramsci used
the term in order to explain the failure of the Italian industrial bourgeoisie to establish its hegemony after the
unification of Italy, and to analyse the prospects of the Italian industrial workers establishing their class
hegemony over peasantry and petty bourgeoisie; the creation of a new historic bloc. Thus, within Gramsci own
work the term is mainly related to debates in the international Communist movement over revolutionary
strategies and in particular its application to specific classes. The basic logic of the concept, however, is closely
related to Gramsci's interpretation of Machiavelli's ideas to his own "world." For Gramsci, as for Machiavelli,
and most of those in the contemporary debate that has put the concept to use once more (such as Robert Cox,
Timothy Sinclair, Stephen Gill and Craig Murphy), the general question involved in hegemony is the nature of
power. And power is an offspring of a combination of force and consent.
latter interpretation, the question of whether the dominant power is a state, a group of states or
some other combination of public and private power is left as an open question. What is of
larger importance is that whatever power that holds the hegemonic position it is sustained not
merely by force, but by broadly based consent through acceptance of an ideology and of
institutions consistent with this structure. In other words, a hegemonic structure of world
order is one in which power primarily takes a consensual form. In the neogramsician
interpretation of hegemony there can be dominance without hegemony because hegemony is
just one possible form dominance may take. The term hegemony should then be reserved for a
consensual order whereas dominance should refer to a preponderance of material power.
In such a consensual order institutions and an institutionalised multilateral system play
an important role because they provide ways of dealing with conflict so as to minimize the
use of force. There is of course enforcement potential in the power relations that lie under any
social structure, in the sense that the strong can "beat" the weak if they think it is necessary to
protect their interests. But also more nuanced mechanisms can be used for that purpose. Why
spend resources on the use of force when one can get the weak to accept the prevailing order
as legitimate. This the strong may achieve if they interprets their mission as hegemonic (e.g.
in the gramscian sense) and not only dominant. In other words, if the strong are willing to
make the concessions that will secure the weak's acquiescence in their leadership. This means
that strong powers must express their leadership in terms of a constructed "global good,"
rather than just serving their own particular interests. It is precisely here that the institutions in
the multilateral system become the anchor for such a hegemonic strategy because through the
ideas and policies they embody they lend themselves both to the representation of diverse
interests and to the universalisation of those ideas and policies. The current struggle over the
hegemonic interpretation of governance is but one example of such processes.
The point of departure for my thinking about the role of ideas in the multilateral
system is the constructivist underscoring of the social construction of human behaviour and
interaction. From this starting point, I will argue in accordance with Buzan (1996) and Cox
(1997) that in principle, there is no reason why much of the constructivist discourse cannot
be merged into realism: there are major traditions within realism that are receptive to the idea
of language as power, and discourse as a major key to politics (see, for instance, Carr 1939;
Manning 1962), and much of what is at stake in the constructivist debate is compatible with
the realist tradition. Constructivist approaches can, I suggest, find a comfortable place right at
the core of realist "theology." Because most methodologies can be applied to the realist
agenda, realism has an inbuilt methodological eclecticism that keeps it relatively secure from
epistemological attacks.
If we then accept the central premise that both ideas (shared & contested) and the
distribution of power (ideational & material/relational & structural) matter, the next logical
starting point is the issue of the relationship between ideas and hegemony in the multilateral
system. Thus, we now turn to the question of a neogramscian approach to the role of ideas in
the multilateral system.
A neogramscian approach to the role of ideas in the multilateral system?
Generally speaking, liberal theory in the social sciences has rejected a unified political
economy and created and maintained a separation of economies and politics. The dominant
liberal approach to the study of economics assumes that it is an objective value free, scientific
discourse. The economic system, it is argued, operates under natural laws and it is the task of
economic theory to discover these laws. Economic activity, it is argued, is socially and
politically neutral. Most liberal theorists recognise that in the real world political
considerations do impinge on the workings of markets, but on the whole, liberal theorists
believe that governmental intervention in economic activity should be kept to a minimum
(Williams 1993).
Partly as a consequence of this view and partly as a consequence of the dominant
position in the world political economy of the neoliberal paradigm, liberal approaches to ideas
such as governance and social capital is often promoted to the level of objective knowledge in
the multilateral system. This sometimes entails that other approaches and understandings are
not considered important, but that said it does not necessarily mean that the discourse on the
role of ideas in the multilateral system is without discord and conflict. What it does mean is
that the ideas (and the role of in the multilateral system) should be approached as what Pierre
Bourdieu (1977:164) entitles doxas: "[S]chmes of though and perception can produce the
objectivity that they produce only by producing misrecognition of the limits of the cognition
that they make possible, thereby founding immediate adherence in the doxic mode, to the
world of tradition experienced as a natural world and taken for granted." The question is
whether a neogramscian approach to the role of ideas in the multilateral system can help us to
deconstruct these doxas and give them their proper place within the larger political economy.
Basically it seems like the attraction of applying Gramsci to international politics lie
along two dimensions:6 First, Gramsci provides an ontological and epistemological
foundation for the construction of a non-deterministic yet structurally grounded interpretation
of social change. Thus, it constitute a counterpoint to approaches like the one's of Wallerstein
(1974) and Waltz (1979) who theorise the structural characteristics of world order, in terms of
either the international system of states or the world economic system. Due to its emphasis on
the transformation capacity of human beings a neogramscian approach can provide scholars
with a way of avoiding deterministic and ahistorical structuralism. It constitutes the possibility
of a path between the pre-given units of neorealism (states) and the unexplored domestic
foundations of world-systems theory.
Second, the attractiveness of this approach can also be found in the possibility of an
interpretative employment of its methodology: a flexible and ultimately historicist reading of
social class, institutions and the power of ideas. One such example is Gramsci's approach to
hegemony. Neogramscian inspired IPE literature provide insight into the social basis for
hegemony, its construction as a social artefact and its inherent points/moments of
contradiction. By considering how hegemony in itself is a product of leadership: the
consequence of individual and collective human action, a neogramscian reading of hegemony
can potentially draw our attention to both its contestability and the impossibility of reducing it
to a preponderance of material resources.
In short, therefore the neogramscian turn in IR/IPE provides a way to conceptualise
world order free of the constraints of state-centric approaches and the interstate relations they
focus upon, without abandoning altogether an explicit acknowledgement of their importance.
It is especially critical of the claims by both neorealists and world systems theorists that the
deep structural logic of world order remains unchanged over time and space. This takes us to
another important feature of the neogramscian literature, namely the issue of a dominant
transnational elite class.
Central to most neogramscian analysis is their observation that at the apex of an
emerging global class structure is the transnational managerial class. This class has its own
ideology (neoliberalism), strategy and institutions of collective action. It is a class both in
itself and for itself. Its focal points of organisation are multilateral institutions like the World
Bank and IMF. The neogramscianist argument is that through socialisation the neoliberal
paradigm is implanted upon these institutions.
6
Some such as Gill (1993) and Germain & Kenny (1998) talks about an Italian School to IR/IPE, where I here
chose to group most contemporary IR/IPE scholar who apply Gramsci's thoughts under the heading
neogramscians.
This argument has led to the considerable debate over the emergence or not of a
transnational class capable of fashioning a new historical bloc. The question, however, is
whether the Gramscian notion of hegemony can sustain its explanatory power outside of the
national social context within which it was developed. Unlike their fellow neogramscians in
social and political theory who have exhaustively debated the meanings and uses of Gramsci's
work, IR/IPE scholars have mostly been content to apply Gramsci, without putting much
emphasis on the question of how and under what conditions his methods and concepts shed
light on contemporary developments within their field of study (Germain & Kenny 1998).
One important, but unfortunately too often unaddressed question is, for instance, how the
strength of international hegemony should be measured?
Within a national social context, this question is quite easily answered: hegemony is
achieved within the sphere of civil society by consensual means, when a leading class sheds
its immediate economic-corporate consciousness and manage to convincingly universalises its
norms and values. Thus, an imagined political "harmony" is constructed between dominant
and subordinate groups. The dominant class rules, but not with coercion, but through a
legitimacy bestowed upon it. Thus, at the national level it is, at least theoretically, possible to
measure the degree and strength of hegemony by the existence or absence of social strife, and
by the degree of legitimation, which the ruling social order and body politic enjoy.
At the level of the multilateral system, however, this is much more difficult both
empirically and theoretically. The general approach by neogramscians has been to outline the
world order through their focus on the social, political and economic power of an assumed
emerging transnational managerial class. Their argument is that this class has affected its own
agenda within the context of the increasingly globalised world political economy. The main
problem with this argument is that it can be criticised both for totalising hegemony (its
everywhere, and if it is everywhere where does the actual power relationships that established
and maintain the hegemony actually rests) and thereby also for an inadequate understanding
of the nature of agency in policy-making and agenda setting.7 One example is the assumed
near total dominance of the neoliberal economic paradigm. Neogramscian approaches tend to
see the hegemonic position of this paradigm as the product of a transnational managerial elite
who are at the forefront of globalisation trends worldwide, and who have established a
convincing set of intellectual arguments to underpin their fortunate material position within a
globalised world political economy. By doing so, neogramscians perhaps unwillingly come to
understand hegemony as a one-directional power relationship: it is fashioned by this
7
See Randall D. Germain & Michael Kenny (1998).
transnational elite class on its own terms and then forced or imposed on subaltern
classes/masses/states. The consequence of this is that the actual discursive battles that take
place over ideas both as intersubjective meaning and as collective images vanish from the
forefront of the analysis. Everything can be explained by reference to the hegemonic position
of neoliberalism and the dominant position of the transnational managerial class. This tends to
make neogramscian analyses less relevant than they potentially could have been both in
empirical and theoretical terms.8
This means that my argument is that we need the neogramscian perspective because it
draws our attention to a few, but very important matters (among them the consensual aspect
of hegemony). However, for a framework that seeks to interpret the role of ideas in the
multilateral system it is but one part of the larger equation. In order to address that issue in a
more specific manner we need more clearly defined actor-oriented perspectives, which can
really help us, interpret the various power games around these material and ideational
struggles in the multilateral system at large.
Bringing political realism back in
"[W]hile acknowledging change in the role, function and authority of the state in the
global political economy, we must still cling to the realities of power, whether derived
from the imperatives of a market economy that is now worldwide, or from the statebased international system, from the authority of non-state actors and institutions of
from the authority of states" (Strange 1997:4).
Political realism understand all politics as power relations. To think like a political
realist is to understand the institutionalisation of the multilateral system, as resting upon
specific forms of power relations. However, very few realist scholars think that ideas does not
matter, and likewise few constructivists finds that political activity is all about ideas and
identities. Thus, the question is rather the relationship between power and ideas under specific
circumstances. Ideas give material power direction and cause by defining priorities, whereas
material capabilities may cause actors to change their ideas and priorities by giving them
more or less ability to control their external and internal affairs (see Wohlforth 2000:327).
One way of addressing the relationship between power and ideas in this case is to
argue that power relations in the multilateral system are used to promote some ideas and some
specific interpretations of ideas over other possible ideas and interpretation of ideas. The
world is still to a large degree a "realist universe," but not one constituted just by sovereign
8
To some degree, several neogramscians seems to have lost one of Gramsci's central messages that dominant
and subaltern classes engage in a number of material and ideational struggles which potentially change the whole
socio-economic fabric of their relationship.
states because, at least since the end of the cold war, the world has not settled back into the
familiar inside/outside pattern of international politics.9 Parts of the outside have considerably
more order and peace than parts of the inside ( e.g. Cambodia, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Somalia), and the erosion of state power and state sovereignty that in fact started already in
the late 1970s seems to have accelerated. This means that the boundaries between domestic
politics, international politics and nongovernmental politics have continued to erode. In other
words, if we accept these premises what we are in need of is a new version of realism: a
socially constructed post-positivist realism.10 One that both can embrace ideational as well as
material explanations of world politics, and take into account new reflective nonstate actors
within its framework. The question is if this is possible or just wishful thinking?
My answer is that there is no inbuilt values or mechanisms in political realism that
prohibits such a way of reasoning. The very essence of realism is the rather simple
acknowledgement that no actions/events/outcomes/relationships can be properly understood if
we disregard the distribution of power and the power games at play around our objects of
study. Following Buzan (1996) I therefore argue that there are no obvious reasons why
elements from neogramscian approaches and the constructivist discourse cannot be merged
with realism. E.H Carr, one of the arch-angels of realism, was very much concerned with
language as power and discourse as an important key to politics. Moreover, does the basic
realist insight really require a state-centred international system. My answer is no. Ideational
explanations can find a home in the hard core of realism but such an approach require that we
think through the agent-structure problem in international politics.
My main argument is therefore that in order to address the question of how to
understand the role of ideas in the multilateral system we have to address the agent-structure
relationship.
The point of departure is that agent and structure is inextricably linked. They cannot be
separated, because it is through interaction that they constitute each other. This kind of
structuration approach to international relations makes pragmatic attitudes and open-ended
eclectic approaches a necessity. Eclecticism is therefore necessary, but unfortunately all to
often eclecticism is used as an excuse to avoid difficult epistemological and methodological
questions. The consequence is approaches with small prospects for generalisation. My
argument is that this can be avoided if we think in Lakatosian terms of hard-core and
9
To a large extent the "war universe" assumption seems to be confirmed by major work conducted within
historical sociology. According to Buzan (1996), scholars such as Anderson (1974), Gellner (1988), Giddens
(1985), Hall & Ikenberry (1989) and Tilly (1990) have all come to conclusions remarkably similar to those one
could expect from classical realism.
10
For related arguments about the future of realism see Smith, Booth & Zalewski (1996) and Cox (1997).
protective belts (Lakatos 1974). A hard core – the basic assumptions of realism and a flexible
protective belt, constitutes the scientific research programme of political realism. The
negative heuristic forbids the direction of modus tollens toward the hard core. It cannot be
modified. However, a protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses towards which modus tollens is
redirected surrounds it. It is this protective belt, which is tested, adjusted, readjusted and
sometime completely replaced in order to defend the hard core. Subsequently, eclecticism is
directed not towards the hard core, but to the protective belts. By making every effort to stay
within the identified hard core of political realism we take care of the need for continuity
when we theorise international relations while we simultaneously strengthen the hard core by
allowing for eclecticism in the protective belt.
My pragmatic point of view is that we as students of international politics should make
use of the appropriate tools available, be it neogramscian logic, constructivism or classical
realism. There is no single tradition of political realism, "[...] but rather a knot of historically
constituted tensions and contradictions" (Walker 1987). This implies that the tradition of
political realism is not a line of continuity, but a social construction. This mean that it is
possible to reconstitute these tensions and contradictions in a more creative fashion more
suited to the challenges we as students of international politics are struggling with today.
Like older discourses, also the more recent one's display a hard core of continuity, but
simultaneously they express how contextual changes have placed its mark on the discipline.
The mid-war crisis and the Second World War framed the interpretation of realism's
protective belt as advocated by Carr (1939) and Morgenthau (1967). Likewise, decreased
superpower tension in the mid-seventies framed the challenges to realism put forward by
Keohane & Nye (1977), and the power of Waltz' (1979) answer should not be seen in
isolation from renewed superpower tension in the late 1970s/early 1980s. In accordance with
this kind of reasoning I will argue that just as earlier contextual changes has made their mark
on the adjustment and reinterpretation of realism's protective belt so will the latest changes –
the end of the cold war, the processes of globalisation and the fourth debate emerging from it
– make its own adjustments and reinterpretations of the protective belt without actually opting
out of the scientific research programme of political realism.
For instance, since the multilateral system is better viewed as a social construction
than as a pre-existing entity, the constructivist line of reasoning provides much needed insight
because it stress that a system is constructed by social interaction around ideas rather than a
fixed set of ideas objectively determined.
It therefore seems more fruitful to approach the discipline and its tradition as our tools
rather than as our straitjacket. Bearing the argument of taking into account our heritage of
both a hard core of continuity and repeated inflow of contextual change in mind, the next step
is to address the questions of establishing an interpretative framework for the role of ideas in
the multilateral system.
Towards an interpretative framework
At the heart of the agent-structure debate lies the question of whether we as human
beings are to be seen as free agents with the ability to maintain, transform or destroy the
social system in which we exist or are we caught within structures we did not create, have
little control over and which often are not even known to us.11
To be more specific, the question is whether the actors in the multilateral system at
large are free to shape, transform or destroy that particular social system or are their
behaviour severely constrained by structures (e.g. neoliberalism) they did not create, have
little control over and often are not even aware of?
The problem with the social sciences in general, and international relations in
particular is that they frequently operate at the extremes. For instance, the established
contemporary protective belt of the scientific research programme of realism, Waltzian
neorealism defines the structure of the international system in terms of the observable
characteristics of its assumed main members, the nation-state. As an outcome of this
distribution of capabilities, neorealism tend to see the explanatory role of these structures in
individualistic terms as constraints on the choices of pre-existing state actors. The problem
with neorealism's individualistic definition of the structure of the international system as
reducible to the properties if the assumed main actors – the distribution of capabilities – is that
it implies that structure is only constraining the agents of pre-existing states, and not
generating agents itself. Following Wendt (1999) my counter argument is that system
structures cannot generate agents if they are reduced to the properties of agents in the first
place.
The answer from Waltz to such critique is that there is no need to interpret the
development of explicit theories of the state and the development of systemic theories of
11
A social system in this respect may be the multilateral system, an intergovernmental organisation that inhabits
this system or any other group of individuals. Or in the words of Giddens (1984:377) a system, "[...] is the
patterning of social relations across time-space, understood as reproduced practice. Social systems should be
regarded as widely variable in terms of the degree of ‘systemness’ they display and rarely have the sort of
internal unity which may be found in physical and biological systems." Giddens' point is that the structural
properties of social systems exist only insofar as social conduct is reproduced chronically across time-space.
international politics as an integrated and closely connected theoretical project. For the sake
of parsimony they are best developed separately. On the contrary, I will emphasis that
theorising the state is a prerequisite if we are to build more wide-embracing theories of the
systemic structures (for instance the multilateral system) in international politics. The content
of the theorising of the state can alter systemic theorising and vice versa.
"Thus, to argue that the structure of the industrialised states' interaction with respect to
international trade is an n-person iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, and that free trade is
therefore always problematic, requires a certain understanding of those states and their
interests and powers. The issue, then, is not whether some understanding of the state is
necessary to build systemic theories (it is), but whether that understanding follows
from a theory, grounded in a coherent set of propositions with some correspondence to
reality, or simply from a set of pre-theoretical assumptions, grounded in intuition or
ideology" (Wendt 1987:343).
Concerning the object of study we are concerned with here – the role of ideas in the
multilateral system – the analogue is that without an explicit theory of the member states'
power, interests and preferences with respect to not only the role of the multilateral system at
large, but also more specifically the role of informal sector, sustainable development, local
knowledge, governance and social capital; without a theory of the rules of the game it is
impossible to determine what kind of game is going on; and finally without a supportive
compelling argument it is impossible to determine whether a failed prediction is caused by
errors in the chosen systemic theory or is stemming from the specification of the rules of the
game. Thus, the question is how to bypass (or solve) the agent-structure problem inherent in
realism in such a way that we are able to apply an interpretative framework and still keep in
line with realism's hard core of continuity?
The solution to this problem offered both by Wendt (1987 & 1999) and Buzan, Jones
and Little (1993) are to draw upon Giddens' (1979 & 1984) structuration theory.12 Their
argument is that we should apply elements of structuration theory as a relational solution to
the agent-structure problem because such an approach opens the way for conceptualising
agents and structures as mutually constituted or co-determined entities. In other words, there
is a dialectical relationship between agents and structure (Giddens 1979 & 1984).13 Social
12
Structuration theory is most commonly identified with the works of Anthony Giddens, but it is also sometimes
used as a generic label for a group of scholars who apply a similar approach to the agent-structure problem. See
Thrift (1983).
13
The methodological backbone of the theory is scientific realism. This is one side of a philosophical debate
concerned with the nature of science, which mainly have been conducted among philosophers from the natural
sciences. The other side of the table in the debate are labelled as empiricists. At stake are (1) the legitimacy of
ascribing ontological status to unobservable entities such as generative structures, and (2) the nature of causal
claims and scientific explanations. See, for instance, Putnam (1975), Wendt (1987), Sayer (1992) and Buzan,
Jones & Little (1993).
agents are interpreted as reflexive and able to gather and accumulate knowledge. They have
an advanced view of the world and how it is structured, and they are able to evaluate their
actions in light of their knowledge and experience. This leads Giddens to conclude that social
agents are constantly performing actions, often intentionally, but also sometimes
unintentionally, which ensure that social structures are reproduced. Subsequently, structure is
rules and resources, recursively implicated in the reproduction of social systems. Structure
exists as memory traces, the organic of human knowledgeability, and as instantiated in action.
Structuration therefore means the structuration of social relations across time and space, in
virtue of the duality of structure (Giddens 1984).
"So it follows that a structure constitutes a structure only because of the behaviour of
the agent, which in turn is intimately bound up with knowledge of the structure"
(Buzan, Jones & Little 1993:107).
The argument is therefore that there is a complex set of social structures (sometimes
unobservable) – for instance, an organisational principle of solidarity between recipient
countries in the multilateral system that informally, but effectively shape the behaviour of the
board members from recipient countries in the multilateral system. Such structural constraints
are observed, not because of the sanctions imposed on deviants (none) but because of the
reflexive capacity of the board members to see what would happen in a context of interaction
where such structures did not exist. It follows that structural constraints are just structural
constraints as long as they are reproduced by the action of agents, without such reproduction
the structural constraint in question would vanish. An important question is thus the nature of
the logical connection between action, agents, structure and power. According to Giddens
(1984), action depends upon the capacity of an agent to make a difference wit respect to a preexisting state of affairs. An agent ceases to be an agent it looses the capacity to make a
difference. In other words, an agent must be able to deploy a whole range of powers including
that of influencing those deployed by others. Nonetheless, circumstances of social constraint
where individuals have few or no alternative paths of action should not be equated with the
dissolution of action as such because social constraints are not operating like forces of nature.
In other words, to have no choice is not equivalent to be driven irresistibly and
uncomprehendingly by mechanical forces.14 Power is therefore expressed in the duality of
14
The point is that power within social systems creates regularised relations of autonomy and dependence
between agents in contexts of social interaction. Nevertheless, all forms of dependence offer some resources so
that those who are subordinate can influence the activities of their superiors. See Giddens (1984:14-16).
structure, where resources are structural properties of social systems, drawn upon and
reproduced by knowledgeable agents during the course of social interaction.15
The next step is then to outline this argument by exposing the actual features of an
interpretative approach to the role of ideas in the multilateral system where agents and
structure mutually constitute each other.
The starting point is the anarchic structure – the international system without any
formal relationship of supra- or subordination – or in the words of Waltz (1979:88):
"Formally, each is the equal of others. None is entitled to command, none is required to
obey." This structure and the constraints produced by it is a fact of human life as long as this
structure is reproduced by the behaviour of the agents; e.g. as long as the Westphalian world
order is reproduced by the behaviour of the agents the condition of the international system is
anarchic. As long as this reproduction takes place, the nation-state continues to constitute the
main organisation principle of the international system, as reflected in the entitlement to
membership to the multilateral system.16 The deep structure of the international system
produced by the Westphalian world order (reproduced by the behaviour of the nation-states) is
therefore anarchic. However, it is not a value-neutral anarchy, but rather one which logic is
heavily influenced by the current ideological dominance/hegemony of neoliberalism.
Adhering to this way of reasoning, this approach take as its point of departure the state level
(the main organisational principle), and investigates into the various member states'
preferences towards the role of ideas such as governance and social capital in the multilateral
system on the basis of the distribution of material conditions between the main units in the
system. For instance, it is vital for our understanding of the role of ideas in the multilateral
system to know whether hegemonic activities have led to increased emphasis on a neoliberal
approach to governance and social capital.
The information and understanding the state-level can provide us with in valuable, but
it is not sufficient if our goal is to understand the role of ideas in the institutions in the
multilateral system. As March & Olsen (1998), convincingly argued the history of the
international political order is written in terms of continuity and change not only in
international relations, but equally important in domestic politics. Thus, one step towards
deeper understanding of such continuity and change is by incorporating ideas also from an
institutional perspective into the analysis. My argument coined in rhetoric terms is therefore
15
This understanding of power is in accordance with Lukes' (1974) three-dimensional view of power spelled out
in the introduction to this paper.
16
I am here concerned with the issue of main organisational principle, and not by necessity with the actual power
of the state as a social unit. A social entity can constitute the main organisational principle of a system without
being the most powerful unit in the same system.
that a statist realist perspective can provide the framework for the house of the role of ideas in
the multilateral system, but it cannot provide us with roof and walls, or the decoration needed.
We need the organisational level to provide us with the roof and walls of our analytical house,
and the individual level to decorate it.
The point is that there is at least three different ways of looking at the institutions in
the multilateral system. First, they could be looked upon as rational instruments for the
achievement of one or several goals. Second, not only as rational instruments for the
achievement of goals, but also as the institution as an objective in itself. Third, as anarchic
processes, where it is unclear who is entitled to take part in the decision-making process, and
what the relevant problems and solutions are.
Concerning the first perspective, the institution is understood as an instrument for the
achievement of one or several goals, and it is the formal structure that governs institutional
change in the desired direction (for instance the promotion of a neoliberal agenda). It is a
consequence of a planned process (Egeberg 1984). Decision-making is therefore the making
of rational choices on the basis of expectations about the consequences of action for prior
objectives, and organisational forms constitute the instrument for making those choices. In
other words, the rational organisational perspective presume that choices are made
intentionally in the name of individual or collective purposes, and on the basis of expectations
about future consequences of current actions (March & Olsen 1984).
With regard to the second perspective, the natural perspective, the institutional form is
not seen as an outcome of deliberate decision-making and planning. Rather, on the contrary,
the development of an organisation is seen as equivalent to that of organisms: they are not
constructed, but grow and adapt according to the circumstances. The actual organisational
form is as such an outcome of a process of continuous adaptation to external and internal
forces, not of a process designed by rational forces.
Contrary to the rational and the natural perspective, if we interpret institutions as
organised anarchies the decision-making process within an organisation is like a garbage can,
where participants, problems and solutions are floating freely in and out of the agenda (March
& Olsen 1976).17
"Consider a round, sloped, multi-goal soccer field on which individuals play soccer.
Many different people (but not everyone) can join the game (or leave it) at different
times. Some people can throw balls into the game or remove them. Individuals while
17
The organised anarchies approach is the most recent of these three approaches. According to March & Olsen
(1984), it grew out of empirical studies of actual decision-making processes, which showed that the picture is
considerably more confusing that what the rational and the natural perspective assume. Such studies led to a set
of ideas emphasising the ambiguities of decision-making, the loose coupling within organisations and general
disorder. The garbage can model is an attempt to understand these phenomena within a temporal context.
they are in the game try to kick whatever ball comes near them in the direction of
goals they like and away from goals they wish to avoid" (March & Romelaer
1976:83).
In decision-making processes regarding new ideas and policies many things happens
simultaneously: alliances, preferences and outcomes are changing all the time, and solutions,
opportunities, ideas, people and outcomes are well stirred together in a way that make
interpretation difficult and connections unclear (Kingdon 1984). The formal organisational
structure is therefore not always very precise. It is unclear who is entitled to take part in the
decision-making process, and what the relevant problems and solutions are. The garbage can
model assumes that problems, solutions, decision-makers and choice opportunities are partly
independent of each other. They are like exogenous streams flowing through a system, linked
by their arrival and departure times and the structural constraints on the access of problems,
solutions and decision-makers to choice opportunities (March & Olsen 1984).
This means that we will have to ask questions concerned with what of these three
perspectives (if any) that suits the institutions in the multilateral system, in what way internal
organisational actors such as departments, units and offices have been able to take advantage
of their organisational environment in order to promote certain ideas and resist others, and
finally whether similar patterns are to be found across the institutions in the multilateral
system.
So far, we have mainly been concerned with intra-institutional matters, but we also
have to take into consideration another institutional, but nongovernmental actors, namely the
NGOs, and in particular the large international one's. The kind of NGOs with the strength and
capacity to influence the role of ideas in the multilateral system are NGOs such as the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF), Friends of the Earth International (FoE), National Resources Defence
Council (NRDC), the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF), the International Rivers Network
(IRN) and the Sierra Club. These kind of large international NGOs have undoubtedly carved
out a significant niche in multilateral diplomacy for themselves. However, here we have to
keep in mind Risse-Kappen's (1995) observation that domestic structures are likely to
determine both the availability of avenues for transnational actors in the political system and
their ability to change/influence ideas & policies. This implies that we do not expect NGO
influence to be similar across the multilateral system, nor do we expect that all transnational
actors occupy the same niche. This will vary in accordance with among other things, the
domestic structures. Nevertheless, the question is how they use their niche.
In several ways these NGOs that we are interested in here are quite similar to
transnational corporations. They have a home base, they have foreign affiliates and they often
enter into strategic alliances with domestic NGOs when they are operating abroad. In short,
they have the ability to link the various levels of world politics together: they have the ability
to be present both at the project site and in the boardrooms at the same time. This gives them
the power to make their cases heard both at the state level (for example in the U.S. Congress)
and within the walls of the headquarters of the multilateral institutions. We will therefore have
to concern ourselves with questions such as, to what degree have they been able to utilise their
power resources with respect to the promotion of specific interpretations of certain ideas in
the multilateral system. To what degree they have acted alone or teamed-up with other actors
(NGOs and /or states), and finally whether similar patterns are to be found across the
multilateral system.
After we have established the analytical house with walls and a solid roof, we are still
in need of more, of those little details that make our house a satisfying intellectual residence.
In order to accomplish this task we have to go down to the individual level because ideas stem
from individuals. And some key actors have undoubtedly been immensely important in bring
new ideas to the agenda of the multilateral system. Concerning all the ideas we are concerned
with here it is possible to identify key individuals who played the role of the midwife when
the idea was brought into the multilateral system.18 Thus, the questions are: to what degree
individuals have acted as entrepreneurial agents in the promotion or resistance of ideas, if so,
whether they have collaborated with (states, IGOs or NGOs), and finally if similar patterns of
individual entrepreneurial activity are to be found across the multilateral system.
The final task that we then have to turn to is to draw the various pieces together in a
more coherent fashion, to develop the "first cut" of an interpretative framework to the study of
ideas in the multilateral system.
18
Two examples of such activity is Keith Hart, Louis Emmerij & Richard Jolly with respect to informal sector
and Gro Harlem Brundtland with respect to sustainable development.
States, organisations and individuals: the "first cut"
The world is a world of our own making. It is socially constructed by the mutual
interaction between agents and structures, but this world of our making is still to a
considerable degree a "realist universe." The hard core, constituted by anarchic structures,
group conflict, and power and security as basic determinants for human motivation and
behaviour is therefore still a necessity. What can and must be modified in accordance with
social change is the protective belt. Political realism needs new protective belts that protect
the hard core. However, instead of thinking about scientific research programmes as one hard
core and one protective belt, I suggest that it is more suitable to think about it in terms of one
hard core and several protective belts. In the middle of the scientific research programme of
political realism we have the hard core of continuity (anarchic structures, group conflict, and
power and security). Around the hard core we have three rings of protective belts (or images,
if we prefer to stick to Waltzian cosmology). The main actors of the Westphalian world order,
namely the states, constitute the first. The one in the middle is constituted by organisations
and represents the undoing of the black boxing of the state and other social entities in the
international system. Whereas various "statesmen" constitute the one that is closest to the hard
core" e.g. by individuals that inhabit key-positions or have the capacity to play the role of
entrepreneurial agents.
Figure 2. Hard-core and protective belts
To argue that agent and structure mutually constitutes each other does not entail that
the basic assumption of political realism is not relevant any more, because as long as the
anarchic structure of the international system is reproduced by the agents - the states,
organisations and individuals - the logic of this reproduction is also constraining the
behaviour of these agents in the multilateral system. The anarchic structure, and the emphasis
on group conflict and the importance of power and security as the basic determinants for
human behaviour associated with it, therefore put their mark not only on the states (the first
filter), but also on organisations and individuals (the second and third filter). In other words,
as long as the various actors reproduce the structure of the "realist universe" this assumption
will be nonrefutable, and similarly the hard core of continuity in political realism is also
nonrefutable.
As a scientific research programme political realism needs a hard core of continuity,
but in addition, it need flexible protective belts that protects the hard core in accordance with
the logics at play in the world at large. The three proposed protective belts in the figure would
shield the nonrefutable hard core. At each of these belts hypotheses are developed, put under
scrutiny, and then kept intact or adjusted, readjusted or dropped in accordance with the
findings from the research process. There is also an interactive relationship between these
belts. Theorising at one belt will alter our theorising on the others and vice versa, and there
are no formal barriers to this as long as we keep in line with the "realist universe" assumption.
Such an approach therefore allows us to theorise in an integrative manner Moravcsik's (1993)
three theoretical building blocks: the international negotiating environment (anarchic deep
structure-filter), the specifications of internal/domestic policies (organisation-filter) and the
preferences of statesmen (statesmen-filter).
If we then apply this manner of reasoning on the case of ideas in the multilateral
system we arrive at a framework where at each level the "realist universe" assumption is an
integrated part of the hypotheses and the questions asked. As always in world politics we are
dealing with complex interaction between a multitude of actors on various levels of world
politics, and what we are interested in is how and in what way the three main groups of actors
states, organisations and individuals have contributed to the processes of creation, adaptation,
negation and distortion of ideas in the multilateral system. Why are these ideas the way they
are today, and what kind of impact has the various actors made on the process over time from
the early 1970s to the new millennium?
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