Under these conditions, such behavior will have been favored by natural selection and spread. When the stakes are high enough, individuals as well as states all too easily revert to egoism, dominance, and fear. Moreover, the very acquisition and exercise of power itself is known to inflate dominance behavior further.161. By contrast, as rational actor theorists would expect, hunter-gatherers are averse to the risk of fighting symmetric battles with roughly equivalent numbers on each side.82 Importantly, sustained instances of imbalances of power over evolutionary history would have led to the selection of contingent aggression. First, offensive realism fails to explain why costly wars sometimes occur against the interests of the states that initiate them. Of course, human behavior is not a direct extension of the behavior of other animals, but, as we have explained, the ecological setting in which our own species evolved made these same traits as or even more important for humans. Egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup distinctions have previously been attributed to variables such as culture, economics, or religion.148,149 For example, Karl Marx and his followers identified egoism as a result of capitalism and called for its suppression and the triumph of class consciousness. Mearsheimer, taking his geography argument further, asserts that stopping the power of w ater is precisely why no state can be a global hegemon. Looking at the environment in which our own species evolved, we find significant empirical evidence for, and a Darwinian logic favoring, intergroup aggression. Offensive realism, thucydides traps, and the tragedy of unforced errors All anarchy does is remove constraints on pursuing such behavior. Furthermore, cooperation is often itself a means to power maximization in the formation of military and security alliancesand thus, cooperation can be a prediction of, not a challenge to, offensive realism. for this article. As we would expect, this leads to sex differences in the desire for status. Some evidence suggests that the separation between common chimpanzees and bonobos was quite recent, occurring perhaps only 0.86 million to 0.89 million years ago, although it remains possible that the separation occurred much earlier, between 1.5 million to 2.5 million years ago.Reference Won and Hey166 Either way, humans separated from our common ancestor with both chimpanzee species long before, about 5 million to 6 million years ago. 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. The recent crises of the Euro and migration have shown in stark terms that individual states continue to exploit the opportunity to free-ride on others if they can, and even the most powerful states, such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, have been reluctant or unwilling to make sacrifices to protect other states. John Mearsheimer is one of these theorists. Evolutionary theory accounts for egoism and explains why cooperation can extend to the family or close kin group but remains difficult between unrelated individuals. An exceptional study of realism, and in some respects the fountainhead of offensive realism is Ashley Joachim Tellis, Gat 2006 and Azar Gat, So why do people fight? John Mearsheimer's Theory of Offensive Realism and the Rise of China Analysing Mearsheimers Critique Of Structural Realism Politics Essay China V Rise: Offensive or Defensive Realism Ghazala Yasmin Jalil - JSTOR The Yanomamo among whom I lived were constantly worried about attacks from their neighbors and constantly lived in fear of this possibility. However, an evolutionary perspective raises new doubts about the significance of such evidence. Evolution is sometimes argued to operate on groups rather than individuals (group selection). Many models of consumer behavior include fundamental assumptions which are rarely questioned. Heis the author of Darwin and International Relations: On the EvolutionaryOrigins of War and Ethnic Conflict (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). A comparison among alternative realist theories. Note that we do not intend to make the full case forthe role of evolution in human behavior. Efforts to make positive political change may be more effective if we view humans as offensive realists and intervene accordingly. Evolutionary theory also allows realist scholars to explain the intellectual foundations of offensive realism: Why individuals and state decision-makers are egoistic and strive to dominate others when circumstances permit, and why they make strong ingroup/outgroup distinctions. Few principles unite the discipline of international relations, but one exception is anarchythe absence of government in international politics. He was later a research fellow at the Brookings Institution (197980) and a research associate at Harvard University (198082). However, the persistence of these three traits across domains and over time casts doubt on arguments like these, and strongly counts in favor of an evolutionary explanation instead. Second, critics of offensive realism point to countering factors such as the democratic peace or international institutions. Indeed, the possibility of even more intense security competition in the Sino-American relationship, between India and Pakistan, and in the Middle East highlights the importance of making the theorys logic explicit and revealing and testing its foundations. Therefore, to advocate group selection over individual selection does nothing to reduce predictions regarding human conflict or aggression. Evolutionary theory would expect that intergroup conflict contributes to fitness in certain circumstances if successful defense and offense against outgroups yield resources and reduce competition in an environment defined by finite resources.60,61 A resource is any material substance that has the potential to increase the individuals ability to survive or reproduce, such as food, shelter, territory, coalition allies, and members of the opposite sex.Reference Low, Zimmerman and Jacobson62, What an evolutionary perspective allows us to understand is that the origins of warfare and the functions of warfare are interconnected. Where extensive international cooperation does occur, it is often only by virtue of a hegemon willing to sustain it, and cooperation quickly breaks down if core interests and security are put at risk. The international system is anarchic. According to Waltz, the need for security leads states to favour the status quo and to adopt a defensive position toward their competitors. For Waltz, anarchy provides the ultimate cause of state behavior, but he also uses a structuralist analysis in his argument. 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 we have been at pains to explain, much of this variation stems from contextual differences (behavioral ecology)that is, a given individuals behavior can change across circumstances. Will the outsider be a threat to oneself or to ones family? Examples of offensive realism include John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability inEurope after the Cold War,"International Security, Vol. Some decried the work as conspiratorial or factually weak, whereas others applauded its authors for having the courage to raise an important policy issue. Even if this strategy is never successful, it motivates individuals to achieve the maximum possible. We realize international cooperation is prevalent, but that does not mean such cooperation is easy to obtain. He received a D.Phil. However, there is, of course, considerable variation in egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias. Where these conditions are tempered, such as in the modern peaceful democracies of Western Europe, these cognitive and physiological mechanisms are likely to be more subdued. Mearsheimer's main innovation is his theory of 'offensive realism' that seeks to re-formulate Kenneth Waltz's structural realist theory to explain from a struc-tural point of departure the sheer amount of international aggression, which may be hard to reconcile with Waltz's more defensive realism. Our theory is also unlimited in domain, explaining behavior wherever there are human actors and weak external constraints on their actions, from ancestral human groups, ethnic conflict, and civil wars to domestic politics, free markets, and international relations. As such, an evolutionary account does not necessarily expect animals, humans, or states to act as offensive realists all the time and in all situations. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that states behave as offensive realists predict not just because of anarchy in the modern international system but also because of the legacy of our evolution. 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. 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. In short, you do not need group selection to explain altruism. These traits help to explain why humans (including political leaders) will behave, in the proper circumstances, as offensive realists expect them to behave. This recurrence of behavioral patterns across different taxonomic groups suggests that the behaviors characterized by offensive realism have broad and deep evolutionary roots. In short, our theory is one of behavioral ecologyhuman and animal behaviors are not constants, but are contingent strategies that become engaged or elevated in order to best seek payoffs depending on the particular circumstance or environment. 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. The strength of dominance hierarchies in humans is debated and varies empirically, but such hierarchies are always evident in some form or other. If our hypothesis is correct, then evolutionary theory offers the following: (1) a novel ultimate cause of offensive realist behavior; (2) an extension of offensive realism to any domain in which humans compete for power; and (3) an explanation for why individual leaders themselves, and not just states, seek power. A recurrent criticism of any theory of international relations based on the role of individuals is why we should expect individual behavior to tell us anything about state behavior. Moreover, theorists of offensive realism argue that states should behave this way because it is the best way to survive in the anarchy of the international system. Competition for resources results in situations where consumption by one individual or group diminishes the amount available for others, or where one individual or group controls the distribution of resources and thus can deny them to others.Reference Meggitt63,Reference Keeley64, In the Pleistocene era, any group facing a shortage of resources (or a need for more, as the group expands) could have adopted one or a combination of three basic strategies. The strategic allocation of resources to others often advances ones own Darwinian fitness. Because states operate with imperfect information in a complicated world, they sometimes make serious mistakes. Core Assumptions of Realism (5) 1. The evolution of offensive realism - Cambridge Core Updates? In Matt Ridleys words, to prefer group selection over individual selection is to prefer genocide over murder.Reference Ridley188 Group selection can promote cooperation and altruism, but only within the group. Chimpanzees do at least have some important ecological similarities to humans. Older versions of evolutionary theory sometimes presented strategies and behaviors as fixed or hard wired. Modern biology stresses the contingent, context-dependent nature of behavioral adaptations, which generates finer predictions for when we should expect to see different types of behavior.Reference Davies, Krebs and West155 This is an important point to which we will return. However, because anarchy is a problem both in nature and in international politics, it is no coincidence at all. See. Thus, the power of sexual selection can lead to the evolution of traits that actually damage survival in order to achieve superiority over other males.Reference Lincoln, Short and Balaban104,Reference Trivers and Campbell105 Reproduction trumps survival in evolution. Will an outsider compete for the current or future resources that the insiders need to survive or expand? With regard to phylogeny, most primates and all the great apes (the group to which humans belong) have strong social dominance hierarchies, and humans are no exceptiondominance hierarchies have been extensively documented among humans in a wide variety of settings and eras.Reference Wason96,Reference Mazur and Booth97,98 With regard to ecology, dominance hierarchies are a common form of social organization in the kind of ecological settings in which humans evolved (social groups with competing interests, variation in power, and finite resources). 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. Previous work has explored the implications of evolved human behaviors for specific aspects of politics and international relations, such as the causes of war or risk-taking.19 However, we ask a bigger-picture question, identifying whether core assumptions underlying international relations theory match scientific knowledge about human evolution and behavior. However, dominance hierarchies were in some sense a mechanism by which this anarchy could be suppressedat least within the groupto the benefit of all group members since they share at least some common interests (such as avoiding conflict). Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-spc8s The most enduring theories of international relations, therefore, will be ones that are able to incorporate (or at least do not run against the grain of) evolutionary theory. Mearsheimer's theory operates on five core assumptions. The very existence of these phenomena, not to mention the extreme efforts and expense they continually require to function, only supports the point that international politics needs very special and powerful arrangements to prevent people from acting as offensive realistspredisposed as they are to do so.
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