CENTRAL THESIS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM
Structural realism as its name suggest seeks to study the structure of the international system and its effects on the behavior of States. The two main characteristics of the international system are Anarchy and Relative Capacity (Power). Waltz adopts three principles from the domestic political structure in his analysis namely; the principle by which the system is ordered, the function each unit fulfills and each unit capacity or ability to act. He concluded that the fundamental goal of every state in the International System is to survive or security. The end of the cold war left the United States as the only great power in the international system. The victory gained during the cold war has seen the …show more content…
He asserts that the system of great powers always find a way of balancing in that if there are two or overriding powers, the other states will balance against them since the ultimate aim of States is their own security at a maximum and less of universal domination. They usually do this through two mechanisms: internal balancing and external balancing. By internal balancing, Waltz meant that states increase their economic and military strength to match that of the rising power and external balancing is when states seek alliances with other great powers. This is as oppose to bandwagon when smaller states ally with great powers “because power is a means not an end, states prefer to join the weaker of two coalitions." According to Gilpin, when the international system is in disequilibrium, there is always going to be a chance to bring it back to equilibrium status by the undermining of a hegemon through differential growth rates among other states . There are empirical evidence of cases of balancing spread throughout history e.g. Great Britain seeing the rise of Hitler’s Germany sought to balance against it by allying with France during the World War 2, France-Russia alliance in 1894, the cold war era that saw balancing on both sides as well as the U.S and the Soviet Union. There is, however, criticism of the concept of balance of power to the effect that the condition for balancing is lost and unclear when that condition does not hold any longer. According to Waltz Anarchy encourages states to behave defensively by balancing the system to maintain the status quo by not upsetting the balance of power as opposed to Mearsheimer and other offensive realists’ position that argues the other way round. For them, anarchy makes states take offensive postures by seeking to extend their sphere of dominance whereas human nature is the deep cause of security competition in Morgenthau's theory. The first concern of
Structural realism as its name suggest seeks to study the structure of the international system and its effects on the behavior of States. The two main characteristics of the international system are Anarchy and Relative Capacity (Power). Waltz adopts three principles from the domestic political structure in his analysis namely; the principle by which the system is ordered, the function each unit fulfills and each unit capacity or ability to act. He concluded that the fundamental goal of every state in the International System is to survive or security. The end of the cold war left the United States as the only great power in the international system. The victory gained during the cold war has seen the …show more content…
He asserts that the system of great powers always find a way of balancing in that if there are two or overriding powers, the other states will balance against them since the ultimate aim of States is their own security at a maximum and less of universal domination. They usually do this through two mechanisms: internal balancing and external balancing. By internal balancing, Waltz meant that states increase their economic and military strength to match that of the rising power and external balancing is when states seek alliances with other great powers. This is as oppose to bandwagon when smaller states ally with great powers “because power is a means not an end, states prefer to join the weaker of two coalitions." According to Gilpin, when the international system is in disequilibrium, there is always going to be a chance to bring it back to equilibrium status by the undermining of a hegemon through differential growth rates among other states . There are empirical evidence of cases of balancing spread throughout history e.g. Great Britain seeing the rise of Hitler’s Germany sought to balance against it by allying with France during the World War 2, France-Russia alliance in 1894, the cold war era that saw balancing on both sides as well as the U.S and the Soviet Union. There is, however, criticism of the concept of balance of power to the effect that the condition for balancing is lost and unclear when that condition does not hold any longer. According to Waltz Anarchy encourages states to behave defensively by balancing the system to maintain the status quo by not upsetting the balance of power as opposed to Mearsheimer and other offensive realists’ position that argues the other way round. For them, anarchy makes states take offensive postures by seeking to extend their sphere of dominance whereas human nature is the deep cause of security competition in Morgenthau's theory. The first concern of