'Anarchy is what states make of it' (A Wendt) Do you agree?

Authors Avatar

‘Anarchy is what states make of it’ (A Wendt) Do you agree?

Anarchy is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘absence of government; the

state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political

disorder’. When Wendt made his point, he was not in fact referring to anarchy as a type

of political system or lack of, more about the general idea that in the arena of

international politics a condition of anarchy exists, and it is this point that he is debating.

Rather than meaning there is complete lawlessness, international politics takes place in an

arena where there is no overarching central authority above the collection of various

sovereign states. Wendt’s point is that of a Constructivist stance, as opposed to the

Realist view of international politics, and he is arguing that it is ideas and beliefs that

make the world and influence how states behave, rather than the Realist view of power

and how this and the desire for it affects the international structure of politics. Wendt is

also arguing that if these ideas change, which they can and will do as I will show later,

then so will the organization of international politics. To fully understand Wendt and

what he is arguing, one must first understand Constructivism, and also it’s opposite

theory, which Constructivists contrast their positions against, Realism or nowadays Neo-

Realism.  I will also outline the role in which states play in the system of international

relations and politics, and also how and what restrains them in these roles.

         According to varying international relations theories, the state plays various

different roles. Realists have traditionally believed that the state, which is always

identified as the key actor in international politics, must always pursue power, and it is

the main duty of the chief statesperson to rationally take the most appropriate steps to

perpetuate the life of the state for as long as possible. Realists believe that the survival of

the state can never be guaranteed, for they condone the use of war as an instrument of

statecraft in order to gain more power, to thus ensure the survival of your own state, even

if it is at the cost of another state. This logic and reasoning has been seen many times in

the past, more recently with Adolf Hitler invading Russia in order to gain the lebensraum 

that Germany so desperately needed for survival. This drive for power and the will to

dominate that states possess, is under Realism held to be a fundamental aspect of human

behavior. The behavior of the state in this self seeking egotistical manner is understood to

be merely a reflection of the people that comprise the state. It is only human nature to

want to win and to dominate, and it is this human nature that apparently explains why

international politics is necessarily power politics. Realists believe that although more

and more international institutions are bringing states closer and closer together, thus

Join now!

lessening the need to search for power as alliances are formed, this globalization of states

will never eclipse the true nation state, and nationalism will always remain a powerful

force behind world politics.                                                 

        Constructivism is a social theory and not truly a substantive theory of

international politics, and therefore does not really have much to say about the state itself

and what its role is, it tends to focus more on conceptualizing the relationships between

agents and structures, and explaining how shared ideas, rather simply material forces, ...

This is a preview of the whole essay