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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 Please do not cite or circulate without the express permission of the author 1 The morphogenesis of the world order of organized violence Giorgos Kentas Abstract/Summary of the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: 2 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. 3 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 4 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. 1 5 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 6 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). 2 7 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). 3 8 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, 9 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, 10 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. 4 11 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 12 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 13 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 14 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. 15 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: 16 (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. 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