The Internet Encyclopedia of International Relations
ANARCHY
James C. Roberts
Towson University
Hedley Bull, a British scholar of international relations,
stated that anarchy was "the central fact of the international system and
the starting place for theorizing about it." (Bull
1966: 35) No international legislature makes laws to regulate
the relations between states and no supreme executive stands ready to inhibit
the actions of a single state when those actions oppose the common will.
No authority exists to which one state can turn for justice in its affairs
with its neighbors. It is due to this absence of a central governing
body that the international system is often described as an anarchical
system. Anarchy is, therefore, simply the absence of a higher governing
authority. Sovereign states are autonomous
and independent. Because of this autonomy there is no world government.
1/
The roots of of the word anarchy literally mean "without
a leader." The word combines the Greek prefix "an-" which means without,
with the Indo-European root "arkh" which means "begin" or "take the lead."
Historically, being without a leader signified the absence of a political
ruler (Shipley 1984, 18-19).
In common usage anarchy has come to signify both the absence of a ruler
and the disorder that is bound up with the absence of a ruler. The
Oxford English Dictionary gives its first definition of anarchy as "absence
of government; the state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency
of the supreme power; political disorder." (Oxford
University Press 1971, 301). Although wars and conflict
dominate the image of international relations, anarchy does not mean disorder.
It simply means that among sovereigns, there is no ruler, no superior authority,
and thus no world government. In fact, recent theory of international
relations attempts to understand why so much of international relations
is well ordered and peaceful in the absence of a supreme ruler. 2/
Literally, anarchy refers to the absence of a ruler.
More generally, political anarchy is the condition of any polity that is
lacking in formal institutions of government at the system level, that
is highly decentralized with respect to the distribution of authority and
power. Defined in this way, anarchy is by no means synonymous with
disorder or chaos. There is no a priori reason to conclude that the
emergence of effective systems of rights and rules is infeasible in polities
characterized by a high degree of decentralization with respect to the
distribution of authority and power.
(Young 1978, 272)
Hedley Bull's claim about the importance of anarchy is derived from neorealist
theories of international relations. Neorealism asserts that the
nation-state is the primary actor in international relations and that each
sovereign state has national interests which drive its foreign policy and
often stand in opposition to other nation states. Kenneth Waltz,
an American political scientist, described the nature of neorealist international
relations as a "self-help" system.
"With many sovereign states, with no system of law enforceable
among them, with each state judging its grievances and ambitions according
to the dictates of its own reason or desire - conflict, sometimes leading
to war, is bound to occur. To achieve a favorable outcome from such
a conflict, a state has to rely on its own devices, the relative efficiency
of which must be its constant concern." (Waltz
1959: 159)
From this view, anarchy means that nation-states must be constantly aware
of the motives and capabilities of their neighbors. Power is measured
in relative terms. That is, states need not be the most powerful,
merely more powerful than their potential enemies. Cooperation
with others should be done cautiously to avoid dependency. Orderly
international relations emerge from the uneasy standoff of a balance-of-power
where equally powerful states avoid conflict out of uncertainty and fear
of the outcome.
There are many critics of this view. Neoliberal
critics see the anarchy of international relations much like the anarchy
of the marketplace. That is, sovereign nation-states are like the
independent, autonomous consumer in a free market system. In such
a system, self-interest drives the actors to cooperate and create system
wide institutions. Order in the system is the result more of cooperation
than of a conflictual standoff.
Constructivist theory recently
has questioned the significance of anarchy in defining the conditions of
international relations. Constructivists, such as Nicholas
Onuf (1989) and Alexander Wendt (1992),
claim that anarchy is what we make of it. That is, it does not exist
separate from the activities of the nation-states. It is not some
externally created constraint. It is created by the commonly accepted
rules of practice in international affairs. Constructivists also
note that the nation-state itself is a product of the social and legal
systems that permit sovereignty to exist. Constructivism is based on an
idea that social institutions are not external objects handed down by some
unknown power. These institutions, like the state or the international
system, are socially constructed by the rules and practices of human life.
They are the result of a historical process that is constantly in flux.
Thus, the state and the international system are not constant and theories
and understandings of international relations must also be contextual.
Feminist critics such as
J. Ann Tickner (1988), or V.
Spike Peterson (1992) claim that these socially constructed institutions
have been too heavily influenced by masculine ideals of power, control,
and independence. While they do not deny that anarchy exists, they
question the meaning of the nation state and sovereignty in everyday life.
They also point out that defining anarchy using these masculine ideals
focuses policy too much on conflictual and military solutions and excludes
cooperative alternatives.
The study of anarchy is not unique to international
relations. Social contract theorists of domestic government have
explored the theoretical importance of anarchy in creating and justifying
government.. Thomas Hobbes, a British political philosopher of the
17th century, posited that in the absence of government, humans existed
in a "state of nature" where
. . . if one plant, sow, build, or
possesse a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared
with forces united, to dispossesse and deprive him, not only of the fruit
of his labour, but also of his life or liberty. And the invader again
is in the like danger of another.
And from this diffidence of one another, there is
no way for any man to secure himselfe, so reasonable, as Anticipation;
that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so
long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him. (Hobbes,
1964:83)
Hobbes posited that because of this anarchical state of nature, humans
naturally and inevitably devise government to mediate the disorder.
Without government, there can be no commerce, no property, and no order.
Sovereign individuals willingly surrender some of their autonomy to obtain
these benefits. So, why does the anarchy of the international system
not generate a world government in the same manner? Hedley Bull called
this question the domestic analogy. He claimed
that there are characteristics of the nation-state that preclude a similar
process at the international level. Among these characteristics are
the state's self-sufficiency and the ability of individuals in a state
to bond together for common defense.
This, then, establishes the uniqueness of international
relations among the social sciences. Where political science is concerned
with social relationships within a government, international relations
studies social relationships in the absence of government. Anarchy,
derived from the formal autonomy of sovereign states, defines the essence
of international relations. Critics may correctly question the nature
of that anarchy or its long-lived importance in a world where states themselves
are in flux, but in a world of sovereign states, international relations
occur in the absence of world government and thus occur in anarchy.
FOOTNOTES
-
Although the UN represents a major step forward
in collaborative international relations, it is not to be confused with
a world government. The UN can only pursue those issues which its
collective membership agrees to and has little enforcement powers. Return
to the Text
-
Hedley Bull recognized this when he stated "The
salient fact is taken to be not that of conflict among states within the
international anarchy . . . but cooperation among states in a society without
government." (Bull 1966, 38) Return
to the Text