Harold Guetzkow writes that for the sound construction of theories, "the state should not be personified, although they behave like individual human beings." This is the most important aspect if some one wants to understands why a particular country behaves in an awful manner or in the approach it develops towards other countries suddenly changes. A state should be a mirror of its people beliefs and traditions not an instrument of the individuals governing it.
Guetzkow writes this essay when democracy was still in its early stages and cold war between America and Russia was in its early stages. At that stage, personal inclination of a head of state towards any of the member of the cold war would be of significant importance. This is the thing we need to eliminate from our systems and may be a solution of this problem is the distribution of power as manifested in the modern day democratic system, i.e., governments works as 3 separate units namely executive, legislative and judiciary. The main advantage of this system is the check they keep on each other. It is true that every system is made up of people. It is the people who made certain system good or bad and some systems have its own qualities and these qualities of a system should be manipulated to refrain individuals from using it.
This will take some time to develop an efficient system in individuals are bound to make decisions according to natural course but not to forget that it is the particular, "extraordinary" human nature which has always found the way when every other system fails. Of course, we cannot completely eliminate the involvement of human thoughts as it is the essence of every particular system but we can make use of it for better purposes then we will be able to make theories which would have practical implications in defining the course and nature of international events.
Guetzkow writes this essay when democracy was still in its early stages and cold war between America and Russia was in its early stages. At that stage, personal inclination of a head of state towards any of the member of the cold war would be of significant importance. This is the thing we need to eliminate from our systems and may be a solution of this problem is the distribution of power as manifested in the modern day democratic system, i.e., governments works as 3 separate units namely executive, legislative and judiciary. The main advantage of this system is the check they keep on each other. It is true that every system is made up of people. It is the people who made certain system good or bad and some systems have its own qualities and these qualities of a system should be manipulated to refrain individuals from using it.
This will take some time to develop an efficient system in individuals are bound to make decisions according to natural course but not to forget that it is the particular, "extraordinary" human nature which has always found the way when every other system fails. Of course, we cannot completely eliminate the involvement of human thoughts as it is the essence of every particular system but we can make use of it for better purposes then we will be able to make theories which would have practical implications in defining the course and nature of international events.
I like your argument for strengthening systems so as to reduce the adverse effects of human involvement. Having a separation of powers does indeed help this. However, strong systems sometimes lead to bad outcomes. For example, we have the military as an institution, which is systemically designed to fight wars. As it is designed to respond to things with force, non-military responses to crises are muted as compared to a military response. Hence by vesting so much into this institution, the state ends up with decisions that may not actually be the best policy choice available.
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