Session 10 - It all come down to legitimacy

Helen Milner in her essay "the assumption of anarchy in international relations" talks about the various concepts of anarchy that authors have put forward in their examination of international relations. Furthermore, she criticizes the fact that there is a difference between domestic and international politics and also proposes that a better way to understand international politics and the international system is to combine anarchy as well as political and economic independence.

what I like about Milner's essay is the fact that she looks at several authors and their views on anarchy and then questions their assumptions through questions that all the authors seem to conveniently avoid to prove their point.

For example Milner after looking at the authors decides that there are two meaning of anarchy: The first meaning is lack of order which means chaos and disorder. She then goes on to talk about how there exists rules and institutions which mean there is some order in the international system. So this meaning is not what most authors can claim in their view and explanation of anarchy in the international system. The second meaning is lack of government: there is no one ruler or state that controls the action of all other state which leads to anarchy in the international system. Milner then questions what exactly is meant by government by asking "how much monopoly force does a government must have to exist" because most government do not have the right to force its citizens to fight, "the legitimacy of using force". Mainly government comes down to institutions and rules.

But these institutions and rules do exist in the international society so this cannot be the case. And so it seems that it all comes down to the how much the states actually believe in the legitimacy on the international institutions and rules and depending on that can explain to a great extent whether there shall be anarchy or peace.