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A critical analysis of Realism, Liberalism, Marxism and Constructivism in the

post-cold war era. (1000 report)

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 POST COLD WAR WORLD ORDER REPORT

The end of the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union signified an
unexpected and dramatic shift in the analysis of international relations. Hobsbawm
(1994:559) noted, “For the first time in two centuries, the world of the 1990s entirely lacked
any international system or structure”. Unbridled bloody ethnic conflicts; the pursuance of
nuclear weapons programmes by rogue states; and the harrowing global realities revealed in
a 1994 UN Human Security report—generated feelings of a post Cold War disorder. Enough
so, that US President Bill Clinton famously asserted “Gosh! I miss the Cold War” (White
1998:256). Building on this, the report will critically evaluate Realism, Liberalism, Marxism
and Constructivism through a lens of power; concluding neorealism possesses a pragmatic
approach under which the varying concepts of power can be related back to.

All politics is a struggle for power that is “inseparable from social life itself” thus,
international politics is synonymous with power politics (Morgenthau 1948:18). In realist
terms, power can be both material and latent, the former based on money, technology and
military and the latter based on the size of the population and its share of global wealth
(Mearsheimer 2006:73). States are the key actors in a zero-sum, self-help anarchical system
and can never be sure about other states’ intentions, so seek to maximise their power to best
ensure survival. Neorealists explanations for the end of the Cold War is weak, the
abandonment of power and sovereignty far exceeded their theoretical predictions, as few
scholars of ‘realpolitik’ would believe states to willingly abandon and dismantle their
territories (Sylvester 2000:7). Despite this, Waltz (2000:36) reinforces that unipolarity is the
least durable system and “eventually, power will check power” restoring the system back to a
stable balance. This is evidenced by the body of literature on the rise of China and its
eventual surpassing of the US economy in 2030.

Liberalism attributes the end of the Cold War to the triumph of neoliberal policies over
authoritarianism and command economy; individuals’ calls for freedom and aspiration; and
superpower cooperation which led to peaceful relations. Despite Fukuyama’s (1989:1) “end
of history” claim that western liberal ideas were the end of mankind’s ideological evolution”
the 1990s saw conflicts fuelled by nationalism, tribalism and today, there are arguments of a
latent “illiberal order” (Boyle 2016:39). The “democratic peace thesis” according to Owen
(1994:88) tends to “prod liberal states into war with illiberal states” and Freedman
(2005:99) illustrates “liberal wars” are usually framed under narratives of “just wars”
legitimised on ‘humanitarian grounds' masking “liberal imperialism”. This supports realist
claims that states will ultimately pursue national interests, regardless of regime type noting
the “internal excellence of states is a brittle basis for peace” and there is “no guarantee that
today’s friend will not be tomorrow’s enemy” (Waltz 2000:13). Liberal institutionalist’s posit
that world politics and the relations between states have been transformed through a rise of
“sovereignty-free” collectivities, non state actors, global corporations and
transgovernmentalism (Haass 2008, Slaughter 1997, Rosenau 1993, Nye 1994). Neorealists
refute such claims, stating there has been changes in the system, not transformations of the
system, reinforcing that states remain the key actors. Haass (2008) himself reinforces this,
when comparing the possible rise of the EU in relation to the US’s decline, he asserts that it
is not politically fashioned like a nation-state and will therefore not surpass it. Moreover,
neorealists argue liberal institutions give the “illusion of inclusion” but are really “vehicles
for the application of state power”(Pfaff 2004, Strange 1996:14,Waltz 2000). Rosecrance
(1999) and Ohmae (1990,1995) claim ‘globalisation’ has weakened state power, crumbled
sovereign borders, and diminished territorial conquests. Yet, politico-military geopolitics
remains, evidenced by the South China sea disputes, Crimeas annexation, the US INF
withdrawal, and exacerbating spending of state defence. Reinforcing that the traditional
power politics of states remains significant, even today.

Marxism, similar to neorealism can be applied to structurally view state competition and the
maximisation of power. The difference is, instead of the ontological nature of realism,
marxism takes a more epistemological and historical approach suggesting the state is
constituted by intersubjective ideas, which in turn, forms a “social material framework in
which historical action takes place” (Cox 1996:52). It views the state as functioning to protect
the power of the bourgeoisie, by preserving the exploitation of the proletariat (Melkonian
1996). Marxist analysis uses a Gramscian approach to evaluate the “order” of the post Cold
War global economic system in international politics, which Wallerstein (1993:4) argued,
revealed the “exploitative” economic inequalities between the ‘neoliberal hegemonic bloc’ of
the developed cores and the underdeveloped peripheries. This is evidenced in IMF voting
shares, where Bangladesh hold 0.24% of votes despite its population of 164.7 million and
Ireland, which holds a population of 4.7 million possesses 0.71% of the votes. This supports
realist claims that neoliberal institutions are merely tools for the application of state power
to increase shares of global wealth (Strange 1996, Mearsheimer 2006:73). As long as
globalisation continues to widen the gap between the rich and poor, Marxism will remain an
important theory of IR in the post Cold War world, as its historical roots in economic
inequality serve to efficiently explain the perpetual dependency of the global South upon the
global North to maintain state power.

Unlike neoliberalism and neorealism, constructivism was able to explain the end of the Cold
War. Constructivists claim both states reinvented their identities to no longer perceive each
other as enemies. Gorbachev’s ‘Perestroika’ allowed the reconstruction of state identity.
Constructivism rejects the rationalist idea of neorealism, and instead argues that the world
system is constituted by ideas, not material forces, emphasising the primacy of normative
over material structures. Wendt (1994:396-400) demonstrated that 500 British nukes were
less threatening than 5 North Korean nukes, illustrating the importance of ideational
meanings given to material structures. Nevertheless, neorealists claim ‘communitarian
norms’ fail to address the uncertainty and distrust in state relations which, combined with
anarchy and offensive capabilities leave little choice but to compete aggressively
(Mearsheimer 1995:367). Although realism is critiqued for its “black box” analysis,
constructivism is too broad-church and “cannot subscribe to mechanical positivist
conceptions of causality”(Checkel 1998:325). Resulting in constructivism being labelled as “a
method” a “meta-theory” or “more of a worldview than a theory” (Blair and Curtis
2009:147).

Even if we peel back the black boxes of states, the focus is always power. One of neorealism’s
biggest critiques is its ontological nature, yet it is also the reason as to why it has heralded
such dominance in IR purely because positivists do not probe the intersubjective content of
events. Neorealism, thus serves as the most appropriate theory for explaining state relations
and the continual pursuit of power in a globalised post cold war era.

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