Download The morphogenesis of the world order of organized violence

The morphogenesis of the world order of
organized violence
Giorgos Kentas
[email protected]
Intercollege
Paper presented at the NISA Conference, 23-25 May 2007c
Draft-Comments are welcome. Please do not cite or circulate without the express
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The morphogenesis of the world order of organized
violence
Giorgos Kentas
Abstract/Summary of the argument
This paper draws a critique of state-centric scholarship on international order
and sets up a new framework of thinking about the emergence and elaboration of
order in an open world society. This year marks thirty years of the first
publication of Hedley Bull’s Anarchical Society; an influential study of order in
world politics. Bull defined international order as a pattern of behavior that
sustains elementary or primary goals of the society of states (restricting violence,
protecting property rights, and ensuring that agreements are kept). Alexander
Wendt enhanced our understanding of international order. He contended that
there are two problems of order in social life: A political one (how to get states to
work together toward mutually beneficial ends) and a sociological one (how
stable patterns of behavior are created, whether cooperative or conflictual). He
elaborated on the sociological problem. The Wendtian account of international
order bifurcates into two levels. At the macro-level, order refers to three variants
of anarchy (Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian), and to three degrees of
internalization (self-interest, coercion, legitimacy). At the micro-level, order
refers to stable, still contingent, patterns of interaction between state actors,
whether cooperative or conflictual. Although I am sympathetic to Wendt’s Social
Theory, I raise three objections to his overall approach to international politics:
The first one concerns his ontological thesis that agents and structures are
mutually constituted; the second concerns the state-centric character of his
theory or international politics; the third concerns the elimination of material
forces from the conceptualization of social relations. After clarifying my point of
view, I develop an alternative account of world order which special emphasis on
the organization of violence. My argument could be summed-up as follows:
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1. In the open world system social agents find themselves embroiled in certain
structures and cultures of violence which are not of their making. Structures of
violence are defined by the distribution of means of destruction across the system.
Cultures of violence are defined by the organization of ideational relations
between conflict (state and nonstate) agents.
2. Social orders of organized violence emerge in pre-existing settings of material
and ideational relations and they are elaborated by the interactions of state and
nonstate agents.
3. In world politics, more than one organizing principle of means of destruction
and more than one culture of violence exist. This fact enjoins multiple realms of
organized violence, legitimate and illegitimate; national, private and collective.
4. The emergence of differentiated interest groups yields challenge of the status
of organized violence and erodes the predominance of the prior corporate agents,
namely the predominance of states in regulating violence.
Finally, I discuss some implication of this approach to the organization of
violence in the post-cold war era.
Introduction
In this paper I discuss the emergence and elaboration of world order. I take
‘world’ to mean all types of social relations that promote either conflict or
cooperation across the globe (Cf. Buzan, 2004: 87). ‘Order’ denotes the
organizational mode of these relations at the micro and macro levels (Wendt,
1999: 145-157). My account of world order is not confined to the artificial closed
states system but it expands on the real open system of state and nonstate agents.
It is obvious that the view of the world as open and the view of the world as closed
lead to totally different conceptions of scientific inquiry (Bhaskar, 1978: 117). The
scope of my paper, however, is limited to the analysis of the minimum world
order, namely the regulation of violence in world politics (Cf. Bull, [1977] 1995:
272). The argument that I will develop is that the states system cannot sustain
absolute authority over that minimum world order, since the regulation of
violence is susceptible to nonstate agency as well.
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State-centric approaches to order
The quest for order is one of the most vexatious problems in world politics. In
general, order refers to the organizational mode of a system or a society and to
the arrangement of a system’s or a society’s parts. In the literature of
International Relations (IR), order is taken to mean a stable pattern of relations
among state actors that sustains a set of common interests or purposes. Realists,
such as E.H. Carr, H. Morgenthau and R. Gilpin, contend that international order
is constituted by the power structure of the anarchical international system and it
is maintained through primary institutions, such as balance of power, diplomacy
and the formation of alliances. Neoliberal institutionalists, such as R. Axelrod, J.
Nye and R. Keohane, endow international organizations and regimes with the
capacity to develop and sustain mutually accepted norms and rules that erode
anarchy and downgrade the importance of power politics. Critical theorists, such
as R. Ashley, R. Cox and T. Sinclair, consider the states system’s order as little
more that institutionalized injustice that serves the interest of the rich North at
the expense of the interest of the underprivileged South. Social constructivist,
such as A. Wendt, J.G. Ruggie and P.J. Katzenstein, contend that international
order is socially constructed by interactions amongst state (and nonstate) actors
and is sustained by intersubjective ideas and understandings on social life which
are not reducible to them. There is much to contest about the substance of
international order; however, our survey shall begin with a succinct conceptual
analysis.
Bull and the order problematic
In his seminal study on The Anarchical Society, Hedley Bull ([1977] 1995)
defined order as a pattern of behavior that sustains three elementary or primary
goals of the society of states (or international society), the restriction of arbitrary
violence, the respect for other states’ sovereignty, and states’ abidance by
agreements. In other words, order is maintained by states’ common interest in
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restricting violence, ensuring that agreements are kept and stabilizing possession
(Ibid: 64).
Bull made a significant distinction between an international system and a society
of states. The former lacks any sense of common interest among its constituting
parts and their relationship is characterized by a Hobbesian culture of anarchy
(Cf. Wendt, 1999: 259-278). This sort of system is compatible with the realist
movement (Gilpin 1996). The latter, a society of states, is characterized by a
consensus among states that they are sovereign entities and that peace and
stability is the normal condition of their coexistence and interaction. This
approach is peculiar to the so-called English School (Buzan, 2004: Ch. 1-2).
An international society is maintained by certain rules which prescribe the
normal pattern of states’ behavior and by institutions which make these rules
effective (Bull, 1995: 5). Although there is no superior authority in world politics,
states are capable of developing stable patterns of behavior (‘sets of habits and
practices shaped toward the realization of common goals’) that medicates the
conditionality of anarchy. According to Bull, these sets of habits define the
‘primary institutions’1 of the international society (balance of power,
international law, diplomacy, war, and managerial functions performed by great
powers) thorough which the common goals of states are sustained.
The contribution of these primary institutions to international order is
problematic, since they are under constant debate among states. Order is
sustainable for so long as the members of international society have the same
habits or have a vested interest in following the same path of interaction. It is
Bull never used the term ‘primary institutions’. It was Buzan’s idea (Buzan, 2004: Ch. 6; 2006:
365-6) to make a distinction between primary and secondary institutions. Primary institutions
are those studied by the English School and ‘comprising deeper, more organic, evolved social
practices that constitute both the actors and the “game” of the international society; secondary
institutions are those studied by regime theorists and ‘institutionalists’ and comprising designed,
instrumental arrangements (such as the Breton Woods) and organizations (such as the European
Union). There are, of course, some differences between Bull’s and Buzan’s line of thought, which I
will not discuss here.
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evident that Bull reduces international order to the attributes and the practices of
states. His argument focuses around the manner in which states order the
anarchical world and make it manageable. There is no discussion about the way
that anarchy is produced and sustained in world politics or about the social
meaning of anarchy per se. In Bull’s view, the international society is inherently
anarchic and this is a fact that states can only deal with (Bull, 1995: Part 3). States
system, so the argument goes, is the only credible political organization that
could provide some order in world politics.
The reduction of world order into states system order
The fact that the world society is multilayered, Bull admits, is equally critical for
the development of a stable order. The layer of international society, which
enjoins order in world politics, conjoins with the layer of international system (a
Hobbesian state of war) and the layer of transnational activity (a complex site of
interaction amongst nonstate actors and between state and nonstate actors).
These three layers are governed by different micro-structural logics which
interact and produce ambivalent tendencies that perplex students of world
politics (see below). Moreover, the internal sovereignty of states (i.e. their
autonomy in ordering domestic affairs) constitutes another source of potential
disorder. In Bull’s words:
Government, involving as it does a legal monopoly of the use of force,
provides a means of maintaining [domestic] order, but it is also a source of
dissension among conflicting groups in society which compete for its
control. (Bull, 1995: 276)
In the state-centric paradigm, international order is a product of strong state
authority. In principle, states may have a common interest in restricting violence,
implementing agreements and respecting others’ sovereignty. In practice,
however, in a world of weak or failed states there is a potential mismatch between
the demand for order and the ability of states to implement it (Cf. Fukuyama
2004: 117). The idea that in the post-cold war era ‘weak or failing states have
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arguably become the single most important problem for international order’ is at
the center of ‘revolutionary thought’2 and pro-interventionist scholarship (Cooper
2003, Fukuyama 2004). This line of analysis considers international intervention
and nation-building as promising remedies for international order and advocates
a novel interpretation of international law (Arend and Beck, 1993). This radical or
neo-imperial conception of international order effects a crisis of legitimacy in
world politics (special volume of the Review of International Studies 31, 2005).
What is more, the movement of neo-imperialism draws a dividing line within the
Liberal tradition of IR regarding the freedom of states (Sørensen, 2006a). On the
one hand, based on the principle of states’ liberty to decide their own path in
domestic affairs, Liberalism of Restraint calls for non-intervention. On the other
hand, Liberalism of Imposition sanctions intervention in case the liberty and the
rights of a state’s inhabitants are violated or/and when that state’s domestic
situation constitutes o potential threat to regional peace and stability. The
‘liberal’ doctrine of imposition corresponds to the post-9/11 US conception of
international order and to the Bush administration’s notion of urgency to take
action in order to avoid international instability (US National Security Strategy,
2002). Fukuyama summarized this line of thought about international order as
follows:
Weak or failing states commit human rights abuses, provoke humanitarian
disasters, drive massive waves of immigration, and attack their neighbors.
Since September 11, it also has been clear that they shelter international
terrorists who can do significant damage to the United States and other
developed countries (Fukuyama, 2004: 92-93)
These weak states have posted threats to international order because they
are the source of conflict and grave abuse of human rights and because
they have become potential breeding grounds for a new kind of terrorism
that can reach into the developed world. Strengthening these states
through various forms of nation-building is a task that has become vital to
I use this term in the way M. Wight used it in his original International Theory, Three
Traditions (Wight, 1991).
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international security but is one that few developed countries have
mastered. Learning to do state-building better is thus central to the future
of world order” (Ibid: 120)
In the final analysis, the association of international order with the quality of
other states’ domestic affairs and/or potential foreign policy orientation vitiates
the institution of sovereignty and relativizes or Americanizes international norms
(Cox, 2002, Aysha, 2005). According to the US National Security Strategy (2002),
the United States ‘must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients
before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction’. Bearing in
mind that ‘traditional concept of deterrence will not work against a terrorist
enemy or a rogue state…whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the
targeting of innocents’, the United States ‘must be prepared to stop rogue states
and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass
destruction.’ However, the US government’s new doctrine of ‘preventive use of
force for self-defense’3 should not be conflated with the (emerging) international
order. Such a conflation would have equated international order with the US
national interest and render the interests of others irrelevant.
Under the same state-centric rubric, international order is possible only when the
society of states itself is preserved. Although this statement may sound
tautological, the preservation of the society of states is considered the first
constitutive element of international order (Bull, 1995: 16). Modern states are
united in the belief that they are ‘the principal actors in world politics’ and ‘the
chief bearers of rights and duties within it’. According to Buzan, state ‘remains
special because of its central role in the process of law, organized violence,
There is an important nuance of meaning between the concept of “preventive use of force” and
the concept of “preemptive use of force”. The former refers to a state’s eagerness to resort to
violence in order to prevent a threat from develop. The latter refers to a state’s decision to use
force against a “visible threat” posted by an aggressor. As I understand international law, the UN
Charter implies that a state may use force as self-defense against an imminent threat. In this
sense, the preemptive use of force may lie under the UN Chapters (under certain constitutions
that the UNSC is capable of determining). Preventive use of force, however, lies outside of the UN
Chapter (Cf. Shaw, 1997, Ch. 19).
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taxation, political legitimacy, territoriality and in some ways social identity’
(Buzan, 2004: 91). Regardless of their meta-theoretical or substantive
dissidences, all state-centric IR theories (realism, liberalism and some versions of
constructivism) share the thesis that IR accounts should be premised on the
assumption that states are the primary agents of international order. Challenges
to the continued existence of the society of states have sometimes come from
acting and aspirant empires, international institutions (McCormick, 1999), and
nonstate actors (Josselin and Wallace, 2001). All these challenges, however, are
subsumed under the general problematic of international (states system) order.
The sociological dimension of international order
In my view, Alexander Wendt rectified a typical fallacy in the field of
international politics regarding the conceptualization of order. Students of
international politics tend to associate the practice of cooperation with the notion
of shared ideas. When states share ideas, so the argument goes, they are prone to
cooperation. In this sense, conflict emerges out of the lack of mutual
understanding or shared knowledge. Bull, for instance, ‘associated highly
conflictual anarchies (“systems”) with a state of nature, in which no shared ideas
exist, and more cooperative anarchies (“societies”) with the presence of shared
ideas’ (Wendt, 1999: 253; italics in original). This line of thought, which is
commonplace in both realist and liberal theories as well, enjoins an artificial
differentiation between material and ideational elements of world politics in the
sense that ideas must always be related to potential cooperation and material
forces must always be related to potential conflict. Wendt’s distinction between
‘political’ and ‘sociological’ elements of international politics calls for analytical
neutrality over ideas and material forces, and issues a new look to the problem of
international order. In his words:
There are two problems of order in social life. One is getting people to
work together toward mutually beneficial ends like reducing violence or
increasing trade, and for this reason it is sometimes known as the
“cooperation problem”…. There is another problem of order, however,
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what might be called “sociological” as opposed to political problem, which
is creating a stable pattern of behavior, whether cooperative or conflictual.
(Wendt, 1999: 251; italics in original)
Regarding international order, the political question is ‘How cooperation is
achieved or impeded (under anarchy)?’; the sociological question is ‘How stable
patterns of behavior are established (in a society of states)?’ These questions are
related, since the cooperation problématique is meaningful only when its
relationship with the system’s general pattern of behavior is established and vice
versa. For example, in order to explain ‘Why is there a problem to achieve
cooperation in international politics?’ someone needs to establish a relationship
between states’ concern with cooperation and their environment. Neorealists and
Institutionalists, for instance, would offer different answers, since they endow
international institutions with different causal logics on states situations (Cf.
Mearsheimer 1994/5; Keohane and Martin, 1995). Their disagreement emerges
from their different conceptions of anarchy’s effects on state perceptions. In
general, ‘neorealists see anarchy as placing more severe constraints on state
behavior than do neoliberals’ (Baldwin, 1993: 5). Paradoxically, however, both
accounts define anarchy in terms of the asymmetrical distribution of material
forces across the system’s units. At the same time, these two IR theories take
state interests and identities as externally given: States are self-regarded actors
and they would cooperate only if that would server their national interest. On the
other hand, constructivists focus on the role of ideas in the construction of the
interests and identities of states (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001). In this sense, state
agency and international structures are malleable social constructions as opposed
to the neo-utilitarian movement’s (neorealist and neoliberal) argument that they
are endurable firm construction (Ruggie, 2002: 9-11). Following the
constructivist line of thought, anarchy (the shared knowledge of the absence of
centralized authority in international politics) is what states make of it (Wendt,
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1992) and, subsequently, state identities and interests are, ‘to some extent’4,
constructed by the international system’s anarchic structure. In short, states’
concern with cooperation (identity/interest) and their environment (anarchy) are
mutually constitutive.
One of Wendt’s (1999) goals was to make explicit the variant meanings or logics
of anarchy in order to pinpoint its fluctuant conditionality on the organization of
international politics. He contended that the international system’s structure
should be conceptualized in terms of collectively held intersubjective ideas as
opposed to Waltz’s notion of an international-political structure defined in terms
of material forces (Waltz, 1979: Ch. 5 and 6). He concluded that when anarchy is
defined as culture (i.e. as shared knowledge) it could be used as an apparatus for
achieving analytical purchase on states’ pattern of behavior.
Wendt proposed that anarchy can have at least three distinct cultures, Hobbesian,
Lockean, and Kantian, ‘which are based on different role relationships, enemy,
rival, and friend’ (Wendt, 1999: Ch. 6). The instantiation of these structures (and
roles) are susceptible to the degree of their internalization. Wendt suggested that
anarchies could be realized in three degrees, coercion, self-interest, and
legitimacy, which generate three pathways. It is an empirical question, however,
how deeply an anarchical structure is internalized. The crux of the Wendtian
notion of social order at the system/macro-level, is that ‘the question of how
deeply a culture is internalized is unrelated to how conflictual it is’. More shared
ideas do not necessarily equal more cooperation, for ‘the concept of culture is
analytically neutral’. ‘A Hobbesian war of all against all’, Wendt claimed, ‘can be
as much a cultural form as Kantian collective security’ (Wendt, 1999: 310). The
stability of any cultural form of anarchy depends of the degree of internalization,
and for this reason we take cultural forms reproduced by coercion to be less
Wendt claimed that state ‘identities and interests are in important part determined by domestic
politics rather than the international system’ (Wendt, 1999: 246). Bearing in mind that state
identities and interests are also a product of the international system, we end up with an account
of ‘dual constructivism’, a domestic and a systemic. Considering state identities and interests as
the product of two mechanisms operating simultaneously is a great idea, but it does rather beg the
question of which mechanism works more, when and how.
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stable by those reproduced by legitimacy (Ibid.). It follows, that a Hobbesian
structure internalized at the third degree (legitimacy) would be more stable than
a Kantian structure internalized at the first or the second degree.
Drawing on the same constructivist account, at the micro-level the question of
order is ‘How states deal with the so-called “cooperation problem” when operate
under a relevant culture of anarchy?’ This issue could be approached in two ways.
If the emphasis is put on the “how question” the problem of micr0-level order
could be approached from a sociological point of view. If, on the other hand, the
emphasis is put on the “cooperation problem” as such, that question could be
approached as a political one. Here we are interested in the sociological
dimension of the problem.
Macro-level explanations about the creation of stable patterns of behavior (or
roles) do not suffice to explain how a group of states could work together toward
mutually beneficial ends or fail to sustain a sense of common interest. The effects
of anarchical structures are not reducible to state interactions, albeit they are
reproduced (or transformed) by these interactions. This is to say that the culture
of anarchy is not inculcated into states but it is mediated by their interactions.
According to Wendt, the process of international politics constitutes an
independent level of analysis, defined as the micro-level (Wendt, 1999: 147-150).
Micro-structures denote the context of state interaction and depict the world
from agents’ point of view. In the states system, there are as many microstructures as there are interaction complexes among states.
Micro-structures produce the so-called interaction order (Goffman, 1983). The
interaction order is a situation whereby ‘two or more individuals are physically in
one another’s response’ (Ibid: 2). In other words, a micro-level order is the
outcome of face-to-face encounters, when intentional actors “take each other into
account” in making their choices. Relationships amongst states are structured by
their situations and, hence, a relationship between micro and macro structures is
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established. Goffman contented that there is interface between structures and
interaction orders. In his words:
One can point… to obvious ways in which social structures are dependent
on, and vulnerable to, what occurs in face-to-face contacts (Ibid: 8).
Wendt raised a similar point when he suggested that ‘macro structures need
micro-structural foundations, and those foundations should be part of systemic
foundations’ (Wendt, 1999: 150). Wendt, however, did not mean to draw a direct
link between structure and process but to draw attention to the mutually
constitutive character of structures and agents. Moreover, Wendt seems to be
attracted by methodological individualism, the view that social explanations must
be reducible to the attributes and/or interactions of independently existing
agents. In his words:
Unlike unit-level (or atomist) explanations, individualist explanations
allow for attributes and interaction, which makes them a useful tool for
analyzing many of the unintended, emergent outcomes of social life.
Holists can claim a distinctive insight into interaction insofar as they can
show that agents are mutually constituted, but macro explanations favored
by some holists [like Waltz] leave out the interaction level altogether (Ibid,
italics in original).
To recapitulate Wendt’s argument, the ‘cooperation problem’ is not reducible to
the attributes of the states but it emerges as a structured relationship of states’
peculiar characteristics and desires at the micro-level. Whether that relationship
refers to cooperation or conflict is an empirical (or political) question. Wendt
claims that students of international politics could not be indifferent to the
attributes, the desires, beliefs, strategies and capabilities of states, since the
interaction order is structured by their configuration. If these elements change,
the (micro)structure of their relationship changes to.
The Wendtian account of international order bifurcates into two levels. At the
macro-level, order refers to the culture of anarchy. The stability of a systemic
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order is susceptible to the degree of its internalization. We may expect that an
order is stable (states maintain stable roles) when a certain culture of anarchy is
legitimized. At the micro-level, order refers to a stable pattern of relationships
among a group of state actors, whether cooperative or conflictual. A conflictual
micro-structure/interaction order (which is frequently called disorder) indicates
lack of a sense of common among a group of states. A cooperative interaction
order, on the other hand, exhibits a stable pattern of relations among state actors
that sustains a set of common interests or purposes. This differentiation between
macro and micro patterns of order is artificial, since there is a constant interplay
between the two levels of analysis. Shared ideas determine the meaning and the
content of capabilities, desires and strategies by which states pursue their
interests, and interests themselves (Wendt, 1999: 309). At the same time,
collectively held intersubjective ideas are socially constructed and reproduced (or
transformed) by states’ interactions. It is also important to note that Wendt’s
conceptualization of micro-structures offers as a novel perspective to the
formation of micro-orders across the international system (e.g. the formation of
European Union). That methodological device transcends atomist approaches to
international order (e.g. Sørensen, 2006), which reduce order to the internal
structures and the attributes of the states.
Three objections
Having illustrated Wendt’s account of international order, I think it is time to
raise three objections. The first one concerns his ontological thesis that agents
and structures are mutually constituted. I will argue that structures pre-exist
social interaction and post-date social elaboration. In this sense, social reality
flows in phases which are not necessarily in synch (Bhaskar, 1993: 160). The
second objection concerns the state-centric character of his overall theory of
international politics. That approach confines our discussion about the order
problématique to the states system and renders nonstate activity extraneous to it.
Like all sates system theories, Wendt’s Social Theory evokes a closed system
ontology. The third objection concerns the elimination of material forces from the
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conceptualization of social relationships. Wendt reduces material forces to their
cultural configuration(s). Structures and cultures, however, should not be
confused as synonyms. While structure refers to organizing principles of
material relations (e.g. class, distribution of power) culture refers to the
organization of ideational relations (e.g. student-teacher, slave-muster) (Archer,
1988). These objections will be discussed in the next section in relation to the
emergence of international orders of organized violence.
The morphogenetic approach to organized violence
Forms of organized violence
In the international system, war is the form of organized violence between state
actors and “the art of war” is, according to the famous aphorism of Clausewitz,
the continuation of politics by other means. In a society of states, the restriction
of interstate violence is considered to be the minimum order. Such a minimum
order is sustained when states maintain a sense of common interest in restricting
interstate violence and in pursuing settlement of disputes by peaceful means.
Rules, which prescribe the pattern of behavior that sustain these norms (i.e.
states must refrain from using violence and states must use peaceful means to
settle their disputes), and institutions (such as multilateralism, collective security,
and diplomacy) which make rules effective, consist in constituent elements of an
international order of organized violence in a society of states. At the macro-level,
such an order could be conditioned by either a Lockean or a Kantian culture of
anarchy. In the former case, states acquire sovereignty rights, namely states
recognize to other states the right to exist and operate as independent agents,
albeit they do not refrain from resorting to violence when their survival or a vital
national interest is at stake. In the latter case, states are emancipated from
violence and depend upon primary and secondary institutions to assure their
survival and national interest. At the micro-level, the construction of interaction
orders of “constrained interstate violence” is contingent, since such orders are
susceptible to face-to-face interactions, foreign policies, and leadership.
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The restriction or absence of interstate violence, however, does not induce a
global order of organized violence. In world politics, there are many forms of
organized violence which are equally and, sometimes, more fatal than interstate
war. For example, even if the threat of nuclear war or of large-scale interstate war
has abated in the post-cold war epoch, millions have died in civil wars in Eastern
Europe, Asia, and Africa and millions more have become refugees in war-torn
region across the globe. In the context of globalization interstate war is, according
to Mary Kaldor, becoming anachronism, since new types of organized violence,
which she called “new wars”, such as crime, massive violations of human rights
and terrorism, constitute the most serious threats to international peace and
security (Kaldor, 1999). By the same token, the conceptualization of order in
terms of interstate relationships is pointless. Instead of discussing the
organization of international violence as if it was a states system problem, I will
suggest to discuss it as it is a global issue. In order to reach that point, it is
necessary to reveal the logical fallacies or inherent pathologies of the state-centric
approach to the organization of violence and to reconsider the critical theorists’
dictum that orders serves the interest(s) of an agent or group of agents at the
expense of others (Cf. Cox, 1981).
Closed system ontology
The possibility of a states system order of organized violence is peculiar to a
closed system ontology (Bhaskar 1978, 1979, 1986). A system is closed when it is
considered to be separate from the environment or immune to external
influences. Closed system approaches invoke ceteris paribus closures in order to
account for regularities and/or stable patterns of behavior. In contrast to closed
systems, open systems are dependent or influenced by the environment.
According to Bhaskar:
The impossibility of artificially procuring, and the nonexistence of
spontaneously occurring, epistemically significant empirical invariances, and
hence of closed systems in the human sciences, means that social phenomena
always only happen in open systems. And it follows directly from this that:
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(i)
Criteria for assessment and development of theory in the human
sciences cannot be predictive, and so must be exclusively
explanatory; and
(ii)
Social phenomena must be seen, in general, as the product of
multiplicity of causes, i.e. social events as ‘conjunctures’ and social
things as (metaphysically) ‘compounds’” (Bhaskar, 1986: 107, italics
in original).
Treating the states system as if it was independent of its environment would lead
to wide misperceptions of the driving factors behind change. The world is an
open system and within that system the interactions between social (intentional)
agents are complex. Cooperative or conflictual orders of organized violence
pertain to the distribution and regulation of “means of destruction” (Cf. Wendt,
1989) across the international system.
The observation that ‘the state is a structure of political authority with a
monopoly on the legitimate use of organized violence’ and that the state can be
seen as ‘an on-going political program designed to produce and reproduce a
monopoly of the potential for organized violence’ (Wendt, 1999: 8-9) constitutes
the starting point of the state-centric research tradition. Although this tradition
comprises of contending theories of international politics, such as (neo)Realism,
(neo)Liberalism, and (certain forms of) Constructivism, the thesis that the
regulation of violence in states systems constitutes a particular realm, which
exists independently of other social/political realms, premises a common
ontological principle to all state-centric theories. State-centric scholars do
develop theories on the conviction that there are only state actors; they
acknowledge the existence and agency of other actors as well. They also
acknowledge that there are many more social structures in world politics than the
states system structures. Last but not least, they acknowledge that world politics
are intelligible through the study of all social systems, so long as each realm is
studied in its own merits. The inherent pathology of the state-centric tradition is
embedded in a methodological bias about the regulation of violence which
17
prioritizes states. That bias in favor of states derives from the observation that
‘the potential of organized violence has been highly concentrated in the hands of
states for some time, a fact that states have helped bring about by recognizing
each other as the sole legitimate bearers of organized violence potential, in effect
colluding to sustain oligopoly’ (Ibid: 9). In international politics, so the argument
goes, there is a conditions of formal equality of state actors to engage in practices
of militarization, ‘regardless of their size or material endowments’ (Wendt, 1989:
173). This “formal equality” is peculiar to states’ “right to sovereignty” and their
straggle to eliminate all other nonstate actors from acquiring organizing, and
legitimizing means of destruction. The notion of “states’ legitimized monopoly on
the use of violence” is an epiphenomenon of all states’ vested interest in
preserving the privileges that derive from the “right to sovereignty”. This
historical phenomenon, however, is a social product of modern times that is
underpinned by certain mechanisms and, hence, it is a mistake to think of it as an
empirical invariance.
Static vs. dynamic models
To my knowledge, Alexander Wendt was among the first scholars to acknowledge
the social character of organized violence and, subsequently, its transient nature.
By adopting a closed system ontology, however, namely by developing a domainspecific social theory of the states system, he (unintentionally) distorted the
understanding of the totality of the realm of world politics (Cf. Wight, 2006: 256).
Wight noted that the development of domain-specific theories could be ‘a
necessary consequence of all social theorizing’ (ibid.). This epistemological thesis,
however, should not be used as an excuse to give up effort in the search of an
open system ontology.
In a Lakatosian account (Lakatos, 1970), research traditions and their theories
are evaluated by the fruitfulness of their research programs (Cf. Elman and
Elman, 2003). On the other hand, in a Laudanian account (Laudan, 1977)
research traditions and their theories are evaluated by their capacity to settle
18
practical and conceptual puzzles without producing new ones. In my view, the
former philosophical account provides us with better tools to evaluate scientific
progress. Wendt’s Social Theory settled many ontological and epistemological
problems of previous state-centric theories of international politics but it
produced some new problems (Cf. Guzzini and Leader, 2006, Patomäki, 2002,
Wight, 2006), the understanding of the nature of organized violence in an open
system being the one I am dealing with in this paper.
In Wendt’s state-centric account, the “morphogenesis”5 of organized violence
refers to the change of one form of anarchical structure to another or from one
degree of internalization to another (at the macro level) and to variances of
interaction orders amongst states (at the micro level). Morphostasis, on the other
hand, refers to the reproduction of the same anarchical culture or interaction
order. Paradoxically, although this approach to the regulation of violence
presents us with a dynamic states system model it, at the same time, presents us
with a static model of the organization of violence at the global level. The
Wendtian model of organized violence is valid on the proviso that all other
factors or things remain the same. Social Theory presupposes a state-centric
methodological bias and an array of auxiliary closures that come with that bias,
such as that states are, or should be considered as, persons, since ‘states bring
order, and yes, even justice to the world, and if we want to have states then it is
better the take the form of persons rather than something more amorphous,
because this will help their effects more politically accountable’ (Wendt, 2004:
316).
According to Buckley, morphostasis “refers to those processes in complex system-environment
exchanges that tend to preserve or maintain a system’s given form, organization or state.
Morphogenesis [refers] to those processes which tend to elaborate or change a system’s given
form, structure of state”. (Buckley, 1967: 58-9). Here I use these two metaphors (morphogenesis
and morphostasis) to denote the reproduction and the transformation of the realm(s) of
organized violence.
5
19
Wendt’s model of organized violence exemplifies the fashion in which the
“international problematic”6 is reproduced or transformed by state actors (Cf.
Patomäki, 2002: 87). In this sense, Wendt reifies the problem of order by arguing
that the state and states system cultures are the necessary or the sufficient
conditions for the emergence and elaboration of a world order (Cf. Wendt, 2003).
He also suggested that the emergence of a Kantian culture of anarchy would
transform the roles of states and galvanize collective security (Wendt, 1999: 310312). Patomäki raised an interesting point when he associated himself with Karl
Deutsch’s historical and empirical claim to argue ‘that the existence of the state is
not a necessary or a sufficient condition for peace, nor is the non-existence of the
state a necessary or sufficient condition for the prevalence of the acute threat of
political violent.” (Patomäki, 2002: 15, italics in original). Patomäki’s purpose
was to draw an account of a global security community that transcends the states
system order of violence; mine to discuss the organization of violence in an open
system.
Structures and cultures of violence
In the open world system, social agents find themselves embroiled in certain
structures and cultures of violence which are not of their making. Structures of
violence are defined by the distribution of means of destruction across the system.
Cultures of violence are defined by the organization of ideational relations
between conflict (state and nonstate) agents. Although structures (material
relations) and cultures (ideational relations) are intertwined, they should be kept
separate for they maintain different kinds of emergent properties which are not
reducible to one another. Although this separation cannot be sustained in real life,
it is useful for analytical purposes in order to pinpoint the results of their
interplay. For example, the distribution of means of destruction across the
international system does not determine the manner in which these means could
or will be used. A TNT device, for instance, exists independently of who holds or
According to Patomäki, ‘the international problematic is constituted by a simple argument,
according to which the lack of a world state implies that international relations are “anarchic”’
(Patomäki, 2002: 15).
6
20
uses it, being a soldier, a rebels, a mercenary or a terrorist. By the same token, an
ideational relation between social agents defines possible role models not
particular courses of action. For example, we know that troublemakers make
troubles and terrorists terrorize others, but we don’t know whether a particular
troublemaker will make trouble or a terrorist will terrorize others or when s/he
will attempt that and how. Cultures define roles but they do not say who is going
to personify them and under what conditions. Defining structural relations
independently from cultural relations is important for they position social agents
according to their might and potentiality; defining ideational relations
independently from structural relations helps to understand the agents’ whole
gamut of roles and the possible courses of their action.
Social orders of organized violence emerge in pre-existing settings of material
and ideational relations. Structures and cultures must pre-exist agency, for the
moment we say that a person is a soldier or a terrorist, fought a war or crashed a
civil airplane into a skyscraper, we presuppose the existence of two ‘armed
institutions’ (a national army and a terrorist group/network) which maintain
some potentiality in preserving or disturbing an order of organized violence, and
the existence of two cultures of violence (interstate war and terrorism) (Cf.
Manicas 1998: 317). Without the pre-distribution of means of destruction to
states and terrorist networks neither a soldier nor a terrorist could exist. By the
same token, without the pre-existence of the “art of war” and the “art of
terrorism” neither a war could be fought nor an act of terrorism could take place.
The crux of this critical realist argument (Cf. Archer et al, 1998) is that social
activity exists because of the heritage of antecedent interactions which have
produced certain situational logics for future agential interaction. This thesis
does not aim at eliminating human creativity but to set up the standards for
social science. Social structures/cultures represent the intransient stratum of the
society; social praxes the transient moments. In Bhaskar’s words critical realists
see society to be ‘differentiated into analytically discrete moments’ which are
‘rhythmically processual and phasic to the core…a feature which distinguishes
[their approach] from structuration, or more generally from ‘central conflation’
21
theory’ (Bhaskar, 1993: 160). In other words, social reality flows in phases which
are not necessarily in synch, albeit they are praxes-dependent. These phases
become discernible when the society is analytically layered into, at least, two
strata7, the stratum of structures/cultures and the stratum of complex social
interaction.
The interplay between multiple realms of organized violence
In world politics, more than one organizing principles of means of destruction
and more than one cultures of violence exist. This fact enjoins multiple realms of
organized violence; legitimate and illegitimate; national, private, and collective.
State actors, for instance, endeavor to maintain a monopoly on the organization
of international violence; nonstate actors (such as revolutionary movements,
criminals, and terrorist networks) ‘devote much attention to undermining the
government’s right, in the eyes of population, to use force, as to combating that
force of their own’ (Bull, 1995: 55). Both state and nonstate actors are
international corporate agents who act in pursuit of their aims. Structural and
cultural conditionalities would not tell us which kind of organized violence will
prevail. The emergence and elaboration of order pertains to the constant
negotiation between “corporate agents”, namely those agents who are capable of
making strategic decisions and taking the relevant actions that shape the context
for others. At the beginning of a course of interaction, corporate agents are those
who are endowed with material and/or cultural superiority over other (primary)
agents. Corporate agents have a vested interest in reproducing the status quo in
order to maintain their superiority. These vested interests involve not only the
maintenance of their (material and cultural) power position but also the
containment of the power position of their (potential) competitors. In short,
corporate agency has two tasks ‘the pursuit of its self-declared goals, as defined in
a prior social context, and their continued pursuit in an environment modified by
the responses of primary agency to the context which they comfort’ (Archer, 1995:
260).
The stratification of a society is much complex than this, though I will not elaborate on this issue
here.
7
22
The emergence of a differentiated interest group (e.g. a terrorist group) yields
challenge of the status quo and erodes the predominance of the prior corporate
agents (e.g. states’ authority in regulating violence). Primary agents are those
who are denied an effective say in the decision making process and lack the
capacity to be “strategically involved in the modeling or remodeling of structure
or culture, but they are still social agents’ (Ibid: 259, italics in original). They can
still have demands and strive for them; however, they are devoid of the power to
realize their ultimate goals. Primary agents’ objective is to accumulate the
necessary (cultural and/or material) resources in order to transform the social
setting and upgrade themselves into the status of corporate agents. It should be
evident by now that these two categories of agents are defined vis-à-vis their
internal and necessary relations pertinent to the relevant cultural and structural
settings. The evolution of their life chances, however, is not determined by the
given socio-cultural conditionality. Interaction amongst primary and corporate
agents may result in either morphogenesis or morphostasis of their socio-cultural
settings.
Some implications for post-cold war politics
This analysis around the struggle between corporate and primary agents may
illustrate the contemporary negotiation of a world order of organized violence
between states (corporate agents) and nonstate (primary agents, such as alQaida). The actual form of such an order of violence, however, must be
established empirically. A discussion about the contemporary world order of
organized violence, however, must be conducted from an open-system point of
view as opposed to a state-centric point of view. Terrorist organizations, as well
as other nonstate agents, are not intervening variables in the states system. They
are primary agents aiming at acquiring the necessary means in order to
transform the setting of organized violence. In some regions, like Africa, rebel
groups succeeded in acquiring the status of a corporate agent and, thus, the
23
regulation of violence is defined in terms of a state-nonstate relationship (Cf.
Kaldor, 1999).
Even if we accept Brown’s thesis (Brown, 2002) that Al-Queda and Bin Laden do
not propose a new world order –but rather they aim at disordering the Western
civilization– we cannot accept his argument that US bombs can sustain the
Western order. The so-called US-led war on terror vitiates rules and norms which
constitute the elementary cornerstones for the international society of states (Cf.
Hurrell, 2002). Brown’s thesis is becoming even weaker when we consider the
fact that in the “US-al-Qaida struggle”, the US’ overwhelming power is becoming
less and less fungible and al-Qaida’s “cheap power” is becoming more and more
effective (Cf. Nye, 2002, Smith, 2002, Cox, 2002). This paradox of power(in)effectiveness must indicate something about the regulation of organized
violence in world politics. The on-going strive of terrorist networks to become
corporate agents and the response of states against that threat, has transformed
(morphogenized) the notion of military might in world politics. Since 2003, the
situation in Iraq could be regarded as a litmus test of the future of this struggle.
This is to say that, in my view, the world order of organized violence is under
construction.
Conclusion
This paper proposed a new way of thinking about the emergence and elaboration
of world order, and set up a new research agenda. Some elements of the
argument advanced here are still only rudimentary and more effort is needed in
order to fortify an open system approach to international politics. The case for
such an approach is, I think, made clear. World orders (i.e. the way that world
society’s relations are organized) are transient/historical creatures premised on
pre-existing socio-cultural settings, and elaborated by the interaction of
corporate agents. Organized violence is a form of world order; but, as I have
suggested, in the open world society there are many realms of organized violence.
If someone’s objective is to understand the manner in which violence is organized,
24
then s/he needs to address its sociological dimension. If, on the other hand,
someone’s objective is to recommend strategies for the amelioration of the
manner in which violence should be organized, then s/he needs to design a
political project. There are many ways of tackling the problem of organized
violence. An analysis of the sociological dimension of that problem is the best
open gambit, since the practical implications of a phenomenon could be
explained and political recommendations could be offered only after the
underpinning mechanisms that make the emergence and elaboration of
organized violence possible are understood.
25
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