mearsheimer's 5 assumptions of realism mearsheimer's 5 assumptions of realism

Given the considerable cooperation evident in the natural world, one might think that evolution provides a foundation for cooperative behavior rather than selfish, power-maximizing behavior. Like egoism, the desire to dominate is a trait of human nature (which, as with egoism, we stress does not necessarily apply to every individual or situation but is a statistical tendency underlying behavior). Variations of Realism Working from these core assumptions realists have developed three major explanatory frameworks: l Classical or Human Nature Realists (Hans Morgenthau) l Structural or Defensive (a. k. a. neo-realists) Realists (Kenneth Waltz) l Offensive Realists (John Mearsheimer) l 3 First, group selection is a controversial hypothesis, which has been rejected by many prominent evolutionary biologists.186 While selection at the level of groups is possible in principle, it requires special conditions to overcome what are generally agreed to be the much more powerful forces of competition and selection acting on individuals, and these forces are always in play whether groups are in competition with each other or not. Mearsheimer based his theory on five core assumptions: (1) the international system is anarchic (there is no authority that exists above the states to arbitrate their conflicts), (2) all states have some military capability (however limited), (3) states can never fully ascertain the intentions of other states, (4) states value survival above all else, and (5) states are rational actors that seek to promote their own interests. Theories purporting to explain human behavior make explicit or implicit assumptions about preferences and motivations, and mainstream theories in international politics are no exception. Third, critics point to international cooperation among states as evidence against offensive realism. This idea is important because, if individuals are working for the good of the group rather than only for themselves, then groups composed of more-cooperative individuals may do better than less-cooperative groups, meaning that genuinely altruistic traits (sacrificing ones own interests for the good of others) can spread in the population.Reference Wilson184,Reference Wilson and Sober185 However, there are several reasons why this possibility does not affect our argument. The most enduring theories of international relations, therefore, will be ones that are able to incorporate (or at least do not run against the grain of) evolutionary theory. Has data issue: false Analysing Mearsheimers Critique Of Structural Realism Politics Essay First, to whatever extent anarchy deserves its place among realist presumptions, the evolution of human groups interacting in conditions of anarchy deserves study within realism. Again, the political world mirrors nature: Not everyone can be the alpha male. For example, Wrangham recounts that among the Inuit of the Arctic, unfamiliar men would normally be killed even before questions were asked.139, Such wariness of individuals from other groups is paralleled among animals. Structuralism is a method of study that focuses on the interaction of the parts, or units of a system, seeing them as more useful to study than the individual units themselves.27 Waltz uses structuralism to demonstrate how the distribution of power in international politics is critical for understanding whether war is more or less likely.28 By wedding anarchy as an ultimate cause and structuralism as a method of analysis, Waltzs neorealism improves upon Morgenthaus realism in two ways. The imperative for survival in a hostile environment also requires that an individual organism places its survival, especially in a time of danger or stress, above the survival of others. By contrast, as rational actor theorists would expect, hunter-gatherers are averse to the risk of fighting symmetric battles with roughly equivalent numbers on each side.82 Importantly, sustained instances of imbalances of power over evolutionary history would have led to the selection of contingent aggression. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Humans may pursue self-interest and power by many means, including, for example, patience and reciprocity as well as coercion and violence. Mearsheimer and Fear | SpringerLink Third, state leaders are the actors who make important strategic decisions from a set of options, and they are potentially affected by their human dispositions and those of their advisers, even if their actions are tempered by checks and balances. Indeed, Wrangham and Glowacki find evidence that after warriors killed members of a neighboring society, the killers group benefited as a whole via territorial expansion83precisely as has been shown for intergroup killings by chimpanzees. In fact, he was highly critical of the Iraq War (200311) and what he saw as an attempt by the United States to police the world. A caveat to this prediction is that women in power may tend to act like men, either because selection effects trump stereotypical sex differences (female leaders may have personalities similar to male leaders), or because egoism and dominance are necessary traits in order to survive in the system of international anarchy (or on Capitol Hill).Reference Fukuyama197,Reference Clift and Brazaitis198. Classical realists (such as Thucydides, E.H. Carr, Arnold Wolfers, and Hans Morgenthau) and offensive realists share the assumption that states seek to maximize power - that states are relentless seekers of power and influence.Specifically, for classical realists "nations expand their political interests abroad when their relative power increases . As well as being the key behavioral traits identified by Mearsheimer, self-interest, social stratification, and groupish behavior are three of the most prominent behavioral features of social animals. Mearsheimer outlines five assumptions or premises comprising his theoretical . Strikingly, therefore, behavioral dispositions that enhanced success in the small-scale intergroup anarchy of humans evolutionary past may have endowed us with behaviors that also enhance success in the anarchy of the international system. In general, humans cooperate where we can (e.g., within groups or within alliances deriving mutual benefit), but the anarchy of international relations is a hostile environment that, like the one in which humans evolved, tends to trigger our egoism, dominance, and group bias. Indeed, part of the beauty of evolutionary approaches is their ability to predict sources of variationthe socio-ecological conditions under which we should expect to see humans acting (in this case) more fearful and more self-interested, and pursuing more power maximization, rather than less. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Northwestern University) and has written numerous articles Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Note that the table captures key patterns, not universal behavior. 4 (December 1997), pp. Gat, 2006, p. 427; see also Elizabeth Knowles, ed.. See, for example, the recent articles and responses here: Steven Pinker, The false allure of group selection. However, an evolutionary perspective is particularly useful here because it predicts that behavior is contingent, not fixed. Mearsheimers other works included Conventional Deterrence (1983), Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988), Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (2011), The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (2018), and scores of articles published in academic journals. Deriving a theory of structural realism that he has famously branded "offensive realism," Mearsheimer speaks with admirable clarity: "China cannot rise . Mearsheimer's theory is a spin-off of Kenneth Waltz's neorealism, also known as structural or defensive realism. He also frequently participated in public debates by contributing op-ed articles to the The New York Times and other national newspapers. Major realist theories and their predictions,154 plus predictions from human evolution. We do not propose a nave transplant of nature red in tooth and claw (to quote Tennyson) into international politics. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. In fact, interactions with people from other groupsunrelated others that may not have shared interestsmay be especially costly or lethal compared to within-group interactions. The Stratford scenes play out before a large, A-shaped wooden structure that represents Shakespeare's childhood home. Additionally,. John Mearsheimer's Theory and its Major Assumptions|Realism While this may be true in western, industrialized . Self-help, power maximization, and fear are strategies to survive nature, not just contemporary international politics. and Who wants power? 2018. We recognize that a challenge to the theory of offensive realism is the empirical mix of cooperation and conflict in the real world. Studies from an evolutionary perspective of the fundamental assumptions of neoliberalism, constructivism, poststructural approaches, Marxist and dependency theories, and other theories of international relations would be welcomed for four reasons. Our theory is also unlimited in domain, explaining behavior wherever there are human actors and weak external constraints on their actions, from ancestral human groups, ethnic conflict, and civil wars to domestic politics, free markets, and international relations. The core idea of offensive realism is that a state most reliably ensures its security by maximizing its power. The strategic allocation of resources to others often advances ones own Darwinian fitness. However, the persistence of these three traits across domains and over time casts doubt on arguments like these, and strongly counts in favor of an evolutionary explanation instead. This is not to deny that they miscalculate from time to time. Realism, under Mearsheimer's perception, suggests states are rational since they ought to think strategically about their survival (Shadunts, 2016). Like most international relations scholars of his generation, Mearsheimer was deeply influenced by Kenneth Waltz, the founder of the school of international relations known as neorealism. Hunter gatherers have recurrent tendencies, including hostility toward members of different societies, and for killing to be carried out in relative safetythat is, only when there is a strong asymmetry in power between subgroups, such as in a raid or ambush (the imbalance of power hypothesis). His new book, God is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines the role of religion in the evolution of cooperation and how cross-culturally ubiquitous and ancient beliefs in supernatural punishment have helped human society overcome major challenges of collective action. Biology, politics, and the emerging science of human nature, Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers, Behavior, Culture, and Conflict in World Politics, Blood Is Their Argument: Warfare Among the Mae Enga Tribesmen of the New Guinea Highland, War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory, Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Human aggression in evolutionary psychological perspective, The evolution of war: theory and controversy, Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population, Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism, Intergroup aggression in chimpanzees and war in nomadic hunter-gatherers: Evaluating the chimpanzee model, Warfare and reproductive success in a tribal population, The genetical evolution of social behavior. In international politics, the bigger problem may be aspiring hegemonsstates that do not need to cooperate to obtain what they want. Core Assumptions of Realism (5) 1. Email: Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 2016, For an analysis of offensive realism and defensive realism, see. The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. Instead, the best strategy is a constant effort to maximize power to stay ahead of rivals. First, ambitious leaders self-select themselves into seeking high-profile roles in the first place.Reference Ehrenhalt191 Second, strong leaders are selected into power over weak-willed or hesitant candidates.Reference Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren and Hall192,Reference Van Vugt and Ahuja193 Third, leaders rise to the top of their respective hierarchies through an intensively competitive process that compels them to be increasingly attentive to self-interest and self-preservation.Reference Shenkman194 Fourth, once in power, decision-makers tend to heed hawkish rather than dovish advice.Reference Kahneman and Renshon195 Fifth, the experience of power itself is well known to corrupt, precisely because being a leader elevates ones sense of worth and power.196 Taking these phenomena together, a skeptic of our argument that humans are generally egoistic, dominance-seeking and groupish may nevertheless concede that the small subset of humans that become political leaders tend to express these traits. As we have stressed, the human traits of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias are adaptations to the ecological conditions prevalent in human evolution. 2022. The result was that the theory lacked, and still lacks, a scientifically describable ultimate cause. 15, No. The role of war in the evolution of political systems and the functional priority of defense,, For an excellent review of the logic for, and evidence of, adaptations for war, see, Inclusive fitness has recently been the subject of a heated debate in the biological literature; see M. A. Nowak, Corina E. Tarnita, and Edward O. Wilson, The evolution of eusociality,, There is copious evidence from historical and contemporary times that such nepotism is a significant influence in politics. Whether or not humans and chimpanzees inherited warlike propensities from a common ancestor, there was nevertheless a strong selection pressure in both species to develop them. Thus far, we have emphasized a state of anarchy in evolutionary history, in which there was no overarching power to provide protection from predators, rivals, or other threats. Is John Mearsheimer right that his five assumptions make it We see several reasons why human behavior is an important predictor of state behavior in the context of this article. Genes obviously do not want or try to spread, but the machinery of natural selection means that self-serving alleles will generally increase in relative frequency in the population over time, at the expense of alleles that are neutral or self-sacrificing for no return benefit. Some decried the work as conspiratorial or factually weak, whereas others applauded its authors for having the courage to raise an important policy issue. Due to the legacy of our evolutionary past, the anarchic state system is not required to obtain offensive realist behavioronly humans are. hasContentIssue false, Human evolution under anarchy: predation, resource competition, and intergroup conflict, The evolution of adaptive behavioral strategies: Egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias, Evolution and offensive realism: New insights, Criticisms and extensions of an evolutionary approach. The fact that there is no world government compels the leaders of states to take steps to ensure their security, such as striving to have a powerful military, forging and maintaining alliances, and acting aggressively when necessary. Offensive Realism and Maximizing Power. Second, even if group selection does occur, it can only increase altruism within groups. He uses and adapts on Waltz's theory to paint a much more pessimistic and altogether darker picture of International relations theory. In either case, it is females rather than males that are the limiting factor in sexual competition, making male competition for available females intense. This recurrence of behavioral patterns across different taxonomic groups suggests that the behaviors characterized by offensive realism have broad and deep evolutionary roots. John Mearsheimer also sees a looming tragedy, one that (he argues) is inevitable. However, we need to see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. He was later a research fellow at the Brookings Institution (197980) and a research associate at Harvard University (198082). | Find, read and cite all the research you . However, while the resulting behavior may have been adaptive in our ancestral environment, it may be maladaptive, or even disastrous, today. Table2 illustrates the range of domains to which an evolutionary theory of offensive realism applies. With regard to U.S. foreign policy, he advocated a strategy of global balancing rather than global hegemony. A superpower such as the United States, he argued, should not try to impose its rule on all continents but should intervene only when another major power threatens to rule a region of strategic importance. Recently, a 10-year conflict in the Kibale Mountains of Uganda came to an end. An article adapted from the book had previously been published by Foreign Affairs. That natural selection should have drawn out the same three traits as Mearsheimer may seem a remarkable coincidence. Mearsheimers contrasting view, which he called offensive realism, holds that the need for security, and ultimately for survival, makes states aggressive power maximizers. Natural selection has led to a variety of contingent, context-dependent adaptations for maximizing survival and reproduction that include cooperation and alliances as well as self-help and aggression. As we have noted, offensive realism contains explicit assumptions about how states behave in international politicsgiven the hostile environment, states are (and ought to be if they are to survive) self-interested, power maximizing, and fearful of others. Structural Realism/Offensive and Defensive Realism This story might have come from any number of bloody human conflicts around the world. Third, it is important to remember that the empirical observation of altruism in nature does not imply or demand group selection. and The fact that the five assumptions are instrumental to the theory of Mearsheimer is undeniable. Defensive realism - Wikipedia Note that we do not intend to make the full case forthe role of evolution in human behavior. Of course, cooperation and helping behaviors are common in nature, but such behaviors persist only where they help the genes causing that behavior to spread. The international order, in other words, is determined by the balance of power between states. When grounded in evolutionary theory, offensive realism need not simplify structure to interpret behavior and can parsimoniously develop and test corollaries over the entire span of human history. As we have been at pains to explain, much of this variation stems from contextual differences (behavioral ecology)that is, a given individuals behavior can change across circumstances. It is therefore no surprise, as psychologists have argued, that evolution has favored a bias to be fearful of strangers to avoid the costlier error.Reference Haselton and Nettle146,Reference Rozin and Royzman147. Table4. 21 June 2016. In Waltzs model the absence of an authority above states (the condition of anarchy) forces them to make alliances in order to contain the threats posed by rival powers. Of the many features of hunter-gatherer society and organization, we focus on intergroup relations, since these are most relevant to the behaviors associated with international relations. Second, the group might seek an alternative for the resource, perhaps through technological innovation or by substitution. (PDF) John J. Mearsheimer: An offensive realist between - ResearchGate Mearsheimer's 5 Assumptions 1) International System is Anarchic 2) Great Powers possess military capability 3) States can't be certain about other state intentions 4) Survival is the primary goal of great powers 5) Great powers are rational actors Mearsheimer's 3 Functions of State Behavior 1) States fear each other Third, the group could acquire more of the resource from outside of their territory through migration to uninhabited areas, trade, theft, or warfare.65,77,Reference Guilaine and Zammit67,Reference LeBlanc and Register68,Reference Wrangham and Peterson69,70, Although warfare is certainly costly to any member of a group who is killed or wounded, as well as in terms of the resources and time expended, it can become the sole (or least bad) choice for a group if migration is risky due to factors such as inhospitable or unproductive terrain or hostile neighboring groups, and where trade is difficult or impossible. (Examples include the spread of Christianity or Islam at the expense of traditional religions over the last 2,000 years.) Even where dominance hierarchies are actively suppressed, such as in more egalitarian small-scale societies, suppression itself is evidence of the competition for status that simmers beneath the surface.Reference Boehm99 In historical and contemporary societies, competition for power is all too obvious, and the quest for status, dominance, and leadership is ancient and ever present.Reference Mazur100,101,Reference Ludwig102,Reference King, Johnson and Van Vugt103. Neorealism points to international anarchy, a phenomenon we can evaluate, as the ultimate cause of state behavior. The origins of warfare are rooted in the imperative to gain and defend resources necessary for survival and reproduction in dangerous and competitive conditions. Unsatisfied with military life, he decided to pursue graduate studies rather than become a career officer. An individuals Darwinian fitness therefore includes the success of related others (hence the phrase inclusive fitness). As with all things in nature, dominance hierarchies vary considerably. In fact, however, anarchy has been a constant feature of the entire multimillion year history of the human lineage (and indeed the 3.5 billionyear history of the evolution of all life on Earth before that). However, if unconstrained from having to fit evolutionary insights into any particular existing school of thought, evolutionary theory may offer its own, unique theory of international relations that shares features of offensive realism (and perhaps other theories too) but is distinct from them all. Neorealism or structural realism is a theory of international relations that emphasizes the role of power politics in international relations, sees competition and conflict as enduring features and sees limited potential for cooperation. A key debate in evolutionary anthropology has revolved around the origins and extent of intergroup conflict among hunter-gatherers, and the emerging consensus is that such conflict is (and has long been) significant and widespread, and that it serves adaptive functions.59, Let us first consider these functional advantages. The cognitive mechanisms underpinning the three traits were established in an environment very different from the one in which humans now live, but they persist because our brains, biochemistry and nervous systems, which evolved over many millions of years, have remained the same despite the rapid sociological and technological advances of the last few centuries. To the extent that cultural group selection extends back into our evolutionary past, cultural traits have not been consistently or powerfully contrary to the evolved traits of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias. Second, the evolutionary approach helps make a given theorys assumptions about human nature explicit, exposing them to empirical validation. Behavior under anarchy in different domains. However, our contention is that significant aspects of political behavior could be given a stronger foundation if we acknowledge the powerful and basic biological principles that are chronically ignored in the political science literature, as well as the conditions under which they become exacerbated or suppressed. We argue that evolution under conditions of anarchy has predisposed human nature toward the behaviors predicted by offensive realism: Humans, particularly men, are strongly self-interested, often fear other groups, and seek more resources, more power, and more influence (as we explain in full later). 5-57; Eric J.Labs, "Beyond Victory: Offensive Realism and the Expansion of War Aims,"Security Studies,Vol.