Regional Peacemaking and Conflict Management: A Comparative Approach by Carmela Lutmar & Benjamin Miller

Author:Carmela Lutmar & Benjamin Miller [Lutmar, Carmela & Miller, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, General, Political Science, International Relations, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781138022126
Google: PHrmoQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 23412088
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-01-15T13:15:34+00:00

The concept of systemic culture

Culture, which is defined by Wendt (1999: 141, 253) as shared social knowledge (norms, laws, and institutions),1 is not identical to cooperation, which is a specific content of norms and rules; this claim is different from Waltz’s (1959: 232) and Bull’s (1977: 46–51), who both linked ideas to cooperation and material factors to competition. Wendt newly revealed the possibility that increasing shared knowledge may motivate not only more cooperation but also more competition, because being enemies requires shared knowledge precisely as much as being friends requires it. Furthermore, both friendship and enmity involve social roles, and as such, they depend on the existence of other actors. Therefore, Wendt concludes that a culture based on social roles is systemic and cannot be reduced to the level of agent (Wendt 1999: 257).

While neorealists (e.g. Waltz 1979) argue there is a single logic of anarchy – that of self-help, which produces military competition, balance of power, and war – Wendt sees anarchy as an empty vessel that can acquire various logics, each of which gives a different meaning to power and assigns a different content to interest. In addition, the structural realism of Buzan, Jones, and Little (1993, chap. 4) reveals that the logic of neorealist anarchy might have additional outcomes to those that Waltz foresaw; for example, a low interaction capacity would not produce an international system at all. Wendt’s argument is more comprehensive: He explains that the interaction between states produces three possible macro structures (culture in the Wendtian sense), each based on actors performing in one of three social roles: enemy, rival, or friend, corresponding metaphorically to a Hobbesian, Lockean, or Kantian logic of that same anarchy (Buzan et al., 1993: 247).

Each of these logics of anarchy may be internalized in society at three levels (Buzan et al., 1993: 302). The levels of internalization explain why states are receptive to a certain cultural imperative and to what extent the culture is resistant to change. Coercion, according to Wendt, is the lowest level of internalization and the easiest to change; the level of self-interest is the intermediate level; and the most profound is receptiveness to a given cultural imperative because it is accepted as legitimate (Buzan et al., 1993: 250, 266–268). At the deepest level, culture functions as a constitutive mechanism to establish social relations rather than merely to limit them (Buzan et al., 1993: 259). Hence, the relationship with enemies can be legitimate and perpetuated not solely because of coercion, while the relationship between friends may result from coercion, rather than from being accepted as legitimate. These latter cases are the most difficult. For the most part, the literature only allows for linear relationships: Hobbesianism and coercion; rivalry and self-interest; Kantianism and legitimacy.

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