Session 9: The Deception of Structure

Using a though-provoking style, in Chapter 5 Kenneth Waltz challenges and redefines basic concepts like structure and systems by introducing the fundamental "ordering principle" to enable the conceptualization of power and politics in the realm of 'Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power'. Perhaps the most important concept to elicit from both the Chapters respectively is that Waltz rectifies the overindulgence in meta-theory to define words like structures and systems and recognizes its shortcoming in the complete abstraction of the purpose of structure insofar as it is incorrectly seen to be interchangeable with the idea of 'systems'; the identification of structure as an organizational system is successful in its application to various national and international systems only if it is understood in isolation from political, economic and societal systems.

In Chapter 5 what initially seemed to be a more deterministic take on the separation of structure from relations, attributes and interaction within systems, later conforms to a realist structuralist approach to define structures as intangible but constant foundations upon which national and international systems are constructed. However, what Waltz does not address is that if structures are not politically, economically or socially determined, are they not historically determined?

An effective example used to correct preconceived notions concerning power in the Presidential vs. Parliamentary systems is the “deception of structure”. The threat of defection from within the political parties and loss of patronage discourages Prime Ministers to take “the onus of systematic change” due to the structural constraints and responsibility which, interestingly put, renders “a responsible man to be a slave”.  Looking through a historical and global lens, the application of Waltz’s dissertation regarding structural deception is that while ‘responsibility’ within states serves to be an effective check on power, in the international arena it has not and does not in the very least seem to enslave or even check a hegemon, for instance the United States - this serves to be a further complication, but ties in perfectly which the anarchic orders and Waltz’s ‘Balance of Power theory’ where the superpowers only thrive on the exploitation of lesser developed states. It would be interesting to know what Waltz’s take would be on the failure of Structural Adjustment programs implemented by the Planners, U.N. and the World Bank, to help lesser developed states to ameliorate poverty.

Waltz's dissertation delves into the idea that the International system is driven by political and economic competition, contingent on market and hierarchical structures, which essentially determines the juxtaposition of states in the realm of anarchy.  However, what seems to be rather contentious is when Waltz categorizes the national system to be “hierarchic, vertical, centralized and heterogeneous” in contrast to International systems which are predominantly “anarchic, homogenous, decentralized, undirected and mutually adaptive”; this in particular, seems to be presumptuous especially since the world order today is dominated by the United States where there is a visible hierarchy. Charles Kindleberger, who was the first to appropriate the “Hegemonic Stability Theory”, further addresses the power organizations in the world.