Star Trek and IR

After our discussion in class about power and how it is created and vested in people, I was watching TV Thursday afternoon and saw an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. If you never watched the show the characters won’t mean anything to you but the quote is still important. Gul Dukat and Weyoun are talking about what to do after the Dominion conquers Earth. Weyoun wants to kill all the humans so that they can not rebel, but Gul Dukat sees it differently. He says that the only way to ever truly defeat your enemy is to make them realize that they were wrong to oppose you in the first place.

This has a lot to do with power in my opinion. Weyoun’s understanding of power is a very literal one. The only way to prove that you have more power than someone else is to kill them. Until that happens they are still ultimately free to do as they want (see my previous post on anarchy for more about this). But Gul Dukat sees it differently; he sees power as being able to persuade others to see things your way. This raises the question of what is power, both in the international system and in our classroom that seems to serve as an example of the world at large.

In the international system power is more than just armies and economies. Kofi Annon has neither at his disposal yet he sometimes manages to get states to act the way that he wants. He somehow or another has some kind of power. The same could be said of the Pope. Recently the Catholic Church hasn’t invaded anyone, yet it still has some ability to sway events in the world. There must be something more to power than just the ability to kill the other actor. Professor Jackson could fail us but Jesse can’t, and yet we still listen to him. If Jesse told us to read something for class we would do it, or at least as many of us as if Professor Jackson had told us to. Jesse has no way of “killing” us yet he still has power.

I’m not sure that I have an answer as to how these sources of power are created when the actor can’t really back up their threat. The good realist in me says that they don’t actually have any power and that we are just to lazy to stand up to them or that they have strong allies that have some actual power, but another part of me says that maybe power can be created through repeated interactions and norms. Maybe power can be vested in someone merely by our understanding of the relationship between us. *shudder* I can’t believe that I might actually be thinking that. Well before I turn all constructivist or something I think I need to stop this entry and go freshen up on my Machiavelli.

Matt Bank

Reality, are you there?

After having read about constructivism and critical theory it is very obvious that they are completely different than realism or liberalism. Realism and liberalism are trying to explain the world of international relations and the way that it all functions. There is an external reality that they are attempting to reveal. But on the other hand constructivism and critical theory and attempting to understand how reality was created and how it might be changed. For constructivist and critical theorists the world is at our hands and we are able to reach out at any point and attempt to change it. Thus comparing the two becomes difficult because they are doing such different things. But when looking at all four of these theories together the question of whether reality exists independent of us humans is immediately raised.
I would like to propose that reality was created by humans, obviously there was no inevitability about the current condition of the world that forced it to look like this, yet this reality is now so firmly entrenched that it become very difficult to change. The creation has taken over the creator. We can talk about norm construction or legitimacy and morals, but really all we are doing is talking. The world is still just an anarchaic place driven by self-interests, and no amount of scholarly writing is going to change that.

Matt Bank

rights and wrongs

I would like to start out with a quote from the article by Marc Lynch.

“Critical theory insists that legitimacy is only possible where actors enter in to an open-ended dialogue in which the outcome is neither predetermined nor restricted in terms of whose interests are open to debate.”

This sounds good and well but do you think that Mr. Lynch is truly committed to an open dialogue that does not discriminate against one actor’s interest? How about if we sit George Bush and Osama Bin Laden down together and let them give their points of view. Would Mr. Lynch really give Osama a chance to present his interests with out having already decided that his interests are non-legitimate? In Osama’s view he has g-d on his side, and America is the great Satan, and how are we to say that he is incorrect if we do not come to the negotiating table with some restrictions on who has legitimate goals? There is no way to come to a conclusion about who is right and who is wrong unless some predetermined ideas of morality are established.

This is where it gets messy. Every culture has different ideas of what is morally acceptable. Female genital mutilation is completely acceptable in some cultures but we would be quick to condemn it. Like we mentioned in class genocide and slavery were once completely normal and ok. Abortion is another good example, is it murder or a woman’s right? Are women wearing bikinis a sign moral decadence, or are women in burkas a repression of human rights? There is no way to answer these questions without a predetermined idea of what is right and what is wrong. So while critical theorists might want to think that they can come into a situation and somehow be above it and dictate what is right and what is wrong, it is impossible.

There is no universal morality, and the only way one could be found was if one culture imposed their system of morality on everyone else. And even then we wouldn’t know if that was the correct system of morality. All we can do is take the sense of right and wrong that we have been given, use it, and when we are standing at the gates of heaven hope that we picked the right one.

Matt Bank