Theories in IR: Radicalism — lecture #7

Central topics.
Radical theories are often concerned with the role of states in the international economy. Being based on the works of Marx, they also tend to focus in the preeminence of the economic structure over other spheres of society, both as an object of analysis and as a driving force behind social change. Furthermore, Radicals seek to explain economic inequalities and exploitation between states. Radicals often separate between the proletariat (the owners of labor) and the capital owners/capitalists (owners of the means of production), claiming that a class struggle is taking place between these two groups.

Radicalism’s theoretical antagonists.
In many ways, the Radical theories can be said to represent opposing perspectives to those presented by the Neo-Neo synthesis. Where Neo-Neo focuses on conserving the status quo, Radicalism attempts to establish a scientific basis for social change and improvement. However, Radicalism isn’t entirely different from Liberalism and Realism. With Liberalism it shares a belief in improvement, although they differ on the means. Where Liberalists wish to trust the markets and democracy, Radicals want to bring politics back into the models, and look at the distribution of e.g. wealth among states. Realists, on the other hand, have a conflict perspective in common with the Radicals; they both see the international system as characterized by conflict, but they differn on what the causes of these conflicts are.

Radicalism was first developed by Karl Marx, before Lenin evolved it by introducing the concept of “imperialism“. Lenin moved Capitalism out into the international system, by claiming that the exploitation of colonies secured the welfare level in the developed states. This helped neutralize the proletariat, and moderate class struggle. Because of this, Lenin didn’t expect the revolution to begin in the highly developed countries, as Marx had claimed. Lenin’s hopes went towards a revolution in Russia, a state that was at the same time modern and backwards. [In fact, it has been claimed that Lenin's theories about imperialism in reality was nothing but an attempt at legitimizing a revolution in Russia in spite of Marx' theories. This claim is strengthened by the fact that the imperialist states of the 19th and 20th century hardly made any money off their colonies.] According to Marx, Russia had to enter a Capitalist phase before a communist revolution could be attempted. Lenin, on the other hand, asserted that if they could start a successful revolution in Russia, then this revolution would spread to the industrialized countries as well. And certainly, there were some rebellions in Germany after the Russian Revolution, but they were easily destroyed. However, Lenin also had another theory. He held that if several poorly developed countries went through with their revolutions, and then combined forces against the Capitalist states, then the revolution could prevail. This was supposedly one of the thoughts that supported the establishment of the Soviet Union.

Core elements of Marxist IR theories.
The primary goal of Radical IR theories, is to expose the true importance and influence of Capitalism on IP. To accomplish this, Radicals believe that it is neccessary to utilize every possibility the social sciences can offer: The world needs to be studied as a whole, meaning that it is counter-productive to divide it into narrow areas.
However, the perhaps most central concept of Radicalism, is historical materialism, which very short can be said to be that political change is a result of tensions in the economic development of society. In other words, all history is preceived as the history of class struggles, and all historical change is a result of changes in the distribution of power between the social classes.
Finally, Radicalism has an activist agenda. It seeks revolution and social change.

Basic and superior structures in the capitalist model of production.
“The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life prosess in general.” – Karl Marx.

In Marxist theory, it is held that every aspect of society is determined by the relation between the means of production (such as labor, resources, machines, producion, profit) and the relations of production (i.e. the structures that organize and govern the productive forces and the end procucts, such as private property, wage labour, and so on). Between these two factors, a constant dynamic tension exists. This tension is called “class struggle”, and works as a motor for social change.

The means and relations of production combine into what is called “the base”. From these factors, the “superstructure”, or “ideology” can be deduced. The ideology reflects and strengthens the basis, through legal, political and cultural institutions. As an example, Liberalism (the political ideology) is seen by Marxists as being a concept to legitimize the exploitation of the workers, while at the same time being a result of this exploitation. (Ideology has a somewhat different meaning within Marxist theory than in mundane use: for clearification, read this, as it is a much better explanation than the one I’ve written above.)

Early criticism.
First of all, Marxism has been criticised of being materialistically deterministic. This means that in Marxist theories, everything is determined by the materialistic conditions, i.e. the economy, something many critics have problems accepting. Furthermore, Marxism represents a teleological perception of the direction of historical development/evolution: The world moves towards the classless society. Especially postmodernists, who reject all meta-narratives, oppose this thought. Finally, it is hard to find empirical evidence of exploitation.

From the 1970s, Radical theorists have tried to take these and other kinds of criticisms into account when develpoing new theories.

Various kinds of Radicalism/Marxism.
1. World systems theories, developed from older dependency theories (Prebisch, Frank, Cardoso (dependency school), Wallerstein).
2. Gramscianism (Cox).
3. Critical theory (Habmermas, Linklater).
4. Neomarxism (Warren, Rosenberg).

World systems theory.
World systems theories trace their roots back to the dependency theories of the 1950s. This school held that all politics take place within the framework of a capitalist world economy, and that classes are as important as states as actors. The historical causes of this system is to be found in the Industrial Revolution, when the West gained a definite lead on the rest of the world, and began it’s policy of imperialism/neocolonialism. These policies helped make the capitalist exploitation global. World systems theory was originally developed as an opposing theory to various modernization theories that held that industry and science will help eliminate all poverty, all ethnic conflicts, and so on. The premises of world systems theory is that poor countries provide the rich countries with both cheap resources and a market for their their industrial products. Additionally, first world countries actively (if not neccessarily consciously) seek to maintin this system, and if a poor country tries to break free, it will be met with sactions, both economic and military.

Thus the localization of states and classes within the capitalist world economy places limitations on foreign policy, and determines patterns of domination. This development of economic centres and peripheries entails a collapse of the solidarity of the proletariate, as the proletariates of the centre and the periphery are played against each other. Furthermore, the erosion of trade guidelines is one of the main mechanisms of the global exploitation.

According to Immanuel Wallerstein, who developed this theory in the 1970s, claimed that the world system was the dominant form of social structures, as it was this structure that determined the distribution of resources. He divided this system into two different historical forms. The oldest form of world system, was the world empires. World empires included the Roman Empire, and designates a system where the structure of resource distribution was decided centrally. A central authority decided who got what; in the Roman Empire this was managed through the patron-client relationship, where Rome, as patron, decided which client states should receive what kind of resource/benefit. Wallerstein’s more recent world system is the world economy, in which the distribution of resoures are more decentralized, i.e. it’s been delegated to the markets. The result of this system is, however, the same, no matter which form it takes. The transfering of resources from the periphery to the centres through the “neverending accumulation of capital” (the rich states buy cheap resources from the poor states, refines them, and sells industrial products back to the poor states) results in the poor getting poorer and the rich richer.

The terms “periphery” and “centre” may require some explanation. Wallerstein refused the popular division of the world into first, second and thrid world, choosing instead to say that the world is one, but it consists of a centre, semiperiphery, and periphery. The centre is made out of democratic states with high wage levels. These states import unrefined resources, and export refined goods. They have a high level of investments and welfare services. The periphery on the other hand, isn’t democratic. Its states import refined goods, and wages are low. Welfare services are non-existant. The semiperiphery is something in between these other states. (This system is basically based on a division of labour, although not in the positive way of the Liberalists.)

The flow of capital goes from periphery to semiperiphery and the centre, and from the semiperiphery to the centre. Some capital goes the other way as well, but that amount is dwarfed compared to the amounts of capital flowing from the periphery and semiperiphery to the centre.

We’ve now seen at the geographical characteristics of the world system theory, but it has a temporal dimension as well, a dimension that can be compared to the crisises Marx claimed would hit Capitalism. First of all, the world system has a cyclic rythm; there are repeated periods of expansion and regression. This means that in certain periods, the centre grows slower than in other periods.
In spite of this, the second facet of the temporal dimension is that in the long term, the centre always experiences economic growth. Even though there may be occasional periods of regression, the growth continues over time.
Finally, there’s the facet related to the paradox of the “crisis of underconsumption”. This represents a conflict between long and short term evaluations within the center, e.g. in relation to wages: In the short term, it may be beneficial to cut wages in order to reduce costs, but in the long term, this doesn’t neccessaily pay off, as proper wages secure an equally proper level of consumption.

Gramscianism.
During his Mussolini-imposed exile, the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci contemplated the difficulties of starting a revolution in Western Europe. During his contemplation, he arrived at the conclusion that there are two primary kinds of hegemonic power, that can be used by the authorities to subdue the people.

First, there’s the hegemony where the state acts like a deterring force, scaring its citizens from revolt. However, this form of hegemonic power is more important in less developed countries. In the modern states of the West, power based on accept is more relevant. This kind of power is established when the lower social classes to a large degree accept the values of the state’s leading groups. This is often refered to as the establishment of dominant ideologies as common sense.

This has several implications. First, it implies that traditional Marxist theory has neglected the civil society and its superstructure, focusing almost exclusively on the base. Second, it increases the importance of examining the relation between base and superstructure in order to demask attempts at using ideology as an instrument of social reproduction or repression. Thrid, Gramscians assert that social change is depends upon a counter-hegemonic struggle in the civil society; revolution isn’t going to come all on itself, or as a result of only the material realities.

The theorist Robert Cox has tried to discover the role of theory in defining reality and determining what should be counted as “common sense”. He claims that “theory is always for some one and for some purpose”, and that ideas and values because of this are reflections of a particular set of social relations. It follows from this that knowledge simply cannot be objective and timeless, and setting a simple division between values and facts is impossible. But when there can be no such thing as objective or valueless knowledge, what function can theory serve then?

Cox answers this by introducing a separation between two different kinds of theory, both of which have been mentioned before here. [Although I then didn't understand or explain them too well.] First, he claims, there are problem solving theories, that accepts the parameters of the existsing world order, contributing to the legitimation of its existence. An example of such a theory can be the Neo-Neo theories. Second, there are critical theories, theories that question the existing world order and analyses the processes that can contribute to liberation or more general social change.

Critical theory.
To make the confusion complete, there is also a different Marxist school which is called “critical theory“. This critical theory can, luckily, be included in Cox’ term “critical theory”, as it is a theory centered around social change. Critical theory focuses exclusively on the superstructure, and on liberation. It’s adherents hold that class consciousness has been lost in mass culture and consumer ideology, and that because of this, class struggle is no longer a safe instrument for social change. Rather than seeking liberation through fighting nature, liberation should happen in union with nature. This, they claimed, would be done by trying to get rid of the dominant set of thoughts. [God, how I hate German philosophers and sociologi(s)ts!] According to Jürgen Habermas, one of this school’s most famous members, liberation can be accomplished through radical democratization. This is a process that includes the demolition of social mechanisms that barricades participation, a demolition Habermas claimed could be done through the use of new means of communication, such as the Internet.

In international relations, liberation implies that the borders of sovereign states lose their ethical and moral significance; our feeling of duty and responsibility will be expanded from the national to the international sphere.

Neomarxism.
The conclusions of the Neomarxists are quite similar to those of the economic Liberalists, but they are based on different premises. Neomarxists stress the dynamic and the progressive character of capitalist society, rather than its inhumanity. Colonialism has brought with it an increase in welfare (health, education, consumption) that is essential for the long term development of the forces required for socialism to rise. Neomarxists hold that we shouldn’t be opposing capitalism in cases where capitalism increases the level of production This will lead to a transition to capitalism, which in turn will lead to a transition to socialism or communism or whatever.

The relevance of Radical theories.
Many have claimed that Radical theories ceased to have any relevance when the Soviet Union collapsed. However, Radicalism focuses on problems, questions and cases that the other perspectives say little about. Also, it is a fallacy to claim that the fall of the Soviet Union represented a rejection of Marx’ social theories. It may have represented a rejection of Marxist-Leninism, but Marx is still relevant. Finally, Radicalism presents us with many alternative point of view on the process of globalization.

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[Phew. Four bloody hours, this motherfucker took me. I'm so dizzy I can hardly sit straight.. Interesting material, though, excepting the nonsense of the Frankfurter School. ]