Session 9: A little bit of chapter 5 & 6

The purpose of chapter 5 of Kenneth Waltz's book, titled: Theory of International Politics, is to define the concept social structure and then apply this concept to understand national and international politics. 

Waltz writes that a system comprises of a 'structure and interacting units.' The structure of a system in turn describes the arrangement of parts of the system. He then goes on to talk about the domestic political unit which he explains has three characteristics: first, the national political structure is define based on the 'principle by which it is ordered' (this refers to the form of hierarchical structure which is in place), secondly, it is defined by the tasks that each unit has to fulfill (this refers to the presidential, parliamentary systems etc) and lastly, it is explained through the 'distribution of capabilities across units.' 

Waltz deliberately omits important variables such as culture, traditions, attitudes and personality of political actors and other factors and he chalks down this omission to the fact that through this exclusion he aims to decipher the effects of structure on process and of process on structure. 

Kenneth W. then goes on through the help of an analogy to apply these three characteristics to the international arena. As far as the first principle is concerned, he believes that where domestic systems are hierarchical and centralized, international systems on the other hand are decentralized and anarchic. He then elaborates on this principle and through the help of an analogy of classical microeconomics theory he explains how anarchy works in the international system.

It is something which Waltz mentions in his next chapter, however, that grasps my attention. He states that the international system constrains cooperation between states and one of the reasons for such a restriction is that a nation does not wish to become too dependent on other states and hence, cooperation is limited.

I find it interesting because in a globalized world like ours, comparative advantage seems to be the name of the game and countries prefer to trade with other countries, especially in goods in which they have a natural disadvantage in (that is, import the goods they cannot produce as efficiently themselves when compared to the other countries) However, it should also be noted that even though countries do trade on the basis of comparative advantage, they do side by side try to be as self-reliant as possible.

I found this piece intriguing (though slightly, sometimes- if I may dare say so- sleep-inducing) Kenneth Waltz’s neorealist theory provides yet another interesting perspective through which international relations can be viewed