mearsheimer's 5 assumptions of realism

Sexual selection is typically responsible for the hierarchical nature of group-living animal species, including humans, as males fight for rank and the reproductive benefits in brings. 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. 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. Some decried the work as conspiratorial or factually weak, whereas others applauded its authors for having the courage to raise an important policy issue. [2] The five bed-rock assumptions of Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism are: Mearsheimer outlines five assumptions or premises comprising his theoretical . However, rapid advances in the life sciences offer increasing theoretical and empirical challenges to scholars in the social sciences in general and international relations in particular, who are therefore under increasing pressure to address and integrate this knowledge rather than to suppress or ignore it. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Mearsheimer, The University of Chicago - Biography of John J. Mearsheimer. In short, you do not need group selection to explain altruism. Evolutionary theory makes three major contributions to the offensive realist theory of international politics: (1) a novel ultimate cause of the primary traits of offensive realist behavior (self-help, power maximization, and fear); (2) an extension of offensive realism to any domain in which human actors compete for power (e.g., civil war, ethnic conflict, or domestic politics); and (3) an explanation for why individual leaders themselves, not just states, behave as they do. 2022. 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. Incorporating ideas from the life sciences into the social sciencesrich in the study of culture and institutions and other influences on political behaviorwill help scholars base their theories in rigorous scientific principles and subject their assumptions to empirical testing.Reference Wilson20,21 Our approach draws heavily on evolutionary anthropology, which recognizes that human behavior is in large part the result of evolved cognitive, physiological, and behavioral mechanisms designed to solve recurrent problems confronted by our ancestors in the environment in which we evolved. 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. Others are even older, such as the limbic system, hormones, and sexual dimorphism, which are shared by countless species extending across all mammals and beyond. Thus, if theories of international relations are to accurately account for human nature, they must acknowledge how human behavior has been shaped by the ancestral environment, rather than (or as well as) contemporary international politics. However, while the resulting behavior may have been adaptive in our ancestral environment, it may be maladaptive, or even disastrous, today. In environments where resources are highly contested, outgroup fear can become extreme. Fourth, group decision-making may actually amplify the influence of human dispositions; it is groups of men that are especially prone to behaviors associated with dominance, aggression, and coalitionary psychology.Reference Baumeister, Boden, Geen and Donnerstein203,Reference Janis204,205,206,Reference Wrangham and Wilson207. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Third, we illuminate offensive realisms new explanatory power when wedded to evolution. 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). That certainly may be, as he attempts to demonstrate. (Examples include the spread of Christianity or Islam at the expense of traditional religions over the last 2,000 years.) Table2 illustrates the range of domains to which an evolutionary theory of offensive realism applies. Although Mearsheimer recognized war as a legitimate instrument of statecraft, he did not believe that it was always justified. This match, in turn, should be no surprise because human behavior evolved under conditions of anarchy, which pervaded throughout our evolution as well as in international politics today. This parallels the primatologists argument that the efforts of chimpanzees to seek territorial expansion and as much power as possible represents an adaptive strategy to ensure survival and promote the success of future generations. "useRatesEcommerce": false Debate continues as to whether modern states actually do, or should, behave in this way, but we are struck by a different question. 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. 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. If women led them, or were better represented in legislative or executive branches of government, a logical prediction of our theory is that egoistic, dominant, and groupish tendenciesbeing primarily male traitswould be less likely to influence state behavior. We reiterate the point above, however, that it is the context of our own evolution as hunter-gatherers in the socio-ecological conditions of the Pleistocene era that offers the crucial evidence on human behavioral adaptations. The dark side of group selection is the unfettered conflict it presupposes and predicts between groups in competition with each other. We are positively biased toward our own groups and negatively biased toward other groups. PDF | Previous research has found emotion interpretation biases in individuals with social anxiety (SA) when emotions are ambiguous. Warfare might then be necessary for offensive purposes, to plunder resources from others. The abundance of intergroup threats, which cause the fear and uncertainty Mearsheimer identifies, are deeply rooted in human evolution under conditions of anarchy over millions of years, and not just in the anarchy of the modern state system in recent history. In the Pleistocene era, this strategy could have been an option with some resources but not others. Mearsheimers offensive realism argues that states gain power to ensure security. Because states operate with imperfect information in a complicated world, they sometimes make serious mistakes. Our approach also suggests that if offensive realism is a product of human nature, rather than merely a consequence of international anarchy, it can be broadened to explain human conflict at many levels, from tribal warfare, ethnic conflict, and civil wars to domestic politics, commercial competition, and international relations. Our theory advances offensive realist arguments without seeking an ultimate cause in the anarchic international state system. 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. The impact of these biological factors on social and political behavior will vary depending on context. The impressive design, by Tom Piper, comprises two very tall ladders, and . The theory might thus be extended to explain the behavior and actions of many phenomena: the Roman Empire, warfare among Papua New Guinean or Native American tribes, the European conquest of South America, the race for the American west and the failed Mormon and Confederate secessions, the imperialist scrambles over African colonies, institutions like the medieval Catholic Church, commercial organizations from the East India Company to Coca-Cola, the struggles of rival ethnic groups the world over, and the ruthlessness of electoral campaigns. Anarchy allows Waltz to argue that states must behave much the way Morgenthau expected, but for different reasons. What is the logic for risking life and limb in engaging in violent aggression against other groups? The first assumption is that there is anarchy in the international system, which means that there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can guarantee limits on the behavior of states (Mearsheimer 2001, 30). As evolutionary economist Robert Frank has explained, Evidence suggests that we come into the world equipped with a nervous system that worries about rank. First, the preferences of individual citizens are, at least to a degree, represented in those elected toor tolerated inoffice, and those preferences may also be seen in the goals of the state. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Chagnon, Wrangham and Glowacki and others have also shown that individuals, as well as the group, may gain significant reputational and reproductive advantages of participation in warfare. The most well-known advocate of this view in recent years has been John Mearsheimer, whose offensive realism is articulated in his book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: Mearsheimer explains that when following a realist policy . When the stakes are high, such as in 1914, 1939, 1941, or 1962, or today in the Middle East, Ukraine, or the East and South China Seas, offensive realism does not seem so foreign. Our ancestors not only lived in a state of anarchy for millions of years, but they also evolved in that state of anarchy and consequently developed cognitive and behavioral adaptations specifically to survive and reproduce effectively under conditions of anarchy. The anarchic state of the international system means that states cannot be certain of other states' intentions and their security, thus prompting them to . Second, the group might seek an alternative for the resource, perhaps through technological innovation or by substitution. Although we have stressed that evolved behavior is often contingent on circumstances, this matching is not perfect, especially when human decision-makers are faced with an evolutionarily novel environmentas witnessed today with mass societies, modern technologies, and interactions with distant peoplesfor which the human brain was not designed. After graduating from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1970, Mearsheimer served for five years as an officer in the air force, rising to the rank of captain. Many models of consumer behavior include fundamental assumptions which are rarely questioned. Mearsheimer does use his theory to predict the future of great power Due to the legacy of our evolutionary past, the anarchic state system is not required to obtain offensive realist behavioronly humans are. Rathbun, Brian C. 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. In human history and prehistory, other human groups were commonly the most dangerous threat in the environment, and the ingroup/outgroup bias is likely to have helped the ingroup remain cohesive, avoid and be wary of outgroups, solve the collective action problem in emergencies, and kill outsiders.136,137,Reference Tooby, Cosmides and Hgh-Olesen138, Second, the ingroup/outgroup bias offers a rapid heuristic to weigh the various threats when encountering other humans. Mearsheimer thus judged U.S. participation in World War II to have been entirely appropriate, since Nazi Germany and imperial Japan sought to dominate their respective regions. If anchored on evolutionary theory, offensive realism allows new insights to elucidate why individuals and substate groups are self-interested, vie for power, and fear each other, and it can explain political behavior and war that occurred long before the creation of the modern state system in 1648. Volume 1: Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Gorillas, Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Punish or perish? Anarchy is, ironically, the ordering principle of the global state system and the starting point for most major theories of international politics, such as neoliberalism and neorealism.42,Reference Keohane43,Reference Jervis44,Reference Nye45 Other theoretical approaches, such as constructivism, also acknowledge the impact of anarchy, even if only to consider why anarchy occurs and how it can be circumvented.Reference Wendt46,Reference Onuf47 Indeed, the anarchy concept is so profound that it defines and divides the discipline of political science into international politics (politics under conditions of anarchy) and domestic politics (politics under conditions of hierarchy, or government). However, even fellow realists have found problems and inconsistencies with Waltz's structural realism.
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