Session 9: Comparing Economic and Political structures on Micro-level

Well! Waltz has produced a reasonable comparison between the micro-level economic and political structures. The argument presented is easily conceivable of some value, because he regards the states, individuals, and firms as units that consist of self-interests and pursue them in interaction with each other; regardless of the fact that both assume outcomes that do not completely correspond to their interests and goals.

However, one limitation one finds is the how connection between the two models works realistically. The reason is that the economic realm is quite distinctive from the political realm, because the former is related to monetary transactions and the latter relates to ideology, manifestos, commitments etc. What is meant is that the political realm constitutes both materialization and idealization. Waltz's comparison of economic and political realms does not explain how certain ideas induce people to vote for some party or another, even rationally speaking their interests are not been maximized.

For instance, in general elections of 2013 in Pakistan, people voted for PPP in Sindh despite the fact that they were extremely disgruntled by their performance, and even their needs were not fulfilled by the government. Others would say that PPP rigged the polls. Whatever the reason might be behind the electoral success of PPP, one thing is sure that people did not find their interests maximized.  

Lastly, it is pertinent to acknowledge that Waltz's argument of the political structures is impressive, because he refines the system-theory model that assumes only interaction between the political actors and their own interests and not the system-wide ordering of the parts of the structure.