Division and conflict
This theme relates to the reality of a globally divided world characterised by continuous competition and conflict between smaller and bigger groups of people (societies or polities). Although humans are a social species, this does not imply that they always live in peace and harmony with each other. Rather, it seems that history is one long sequence of conflict and violence among groups of varying sizes, including clans, tribes, and states. This does not mean that people have always lived in a continuous (Hobbesian) state of “war of all against all.” Periods of relatively peaceful coexistence occurred throughout human history. States, and especially big (‘bully’) states, have often tried to impose order on international anarchy. Still, conflict and violence, cruelty, domination, oppression, and exploitation have been common phenomena around the world, within and between states, groups and societies. Although some may think that humanity can learn, or even has learned, how to better deal with this challenge, perhaps to the point of creating a situation of “perpetual peace”, this is highly debatable. There are good grounds for being sceptical and arguing that groups of people will always keep their ability or even inclination to be nasty to each other. This is not just rooted in human nature but also in the foundations on which groups and societies are built.
The foundations of polities
Throughout human history, people have lived in groups based on social, economic, and political foundations. Social foundations, such as kinship, shared culture, language, history, beliefs, mythology, race, and ethnicity, provide a basis for social identification, integration, and cohesion, as well as for differentiation between groups. Groups are also crucial for meeting the material (economic) needs of their members through cooperation and role differentiation, in which gender has traditionally played a significant role. Political foundations relate to the power structure of a group, which defines the status, roles, formal powers, and obligations of particular members and/or subgroups, as well as its boundaries (social and/or territorial). The combination of these three foundations gives groups a degree of durability that turns them into societies and polities, relatively enduring socio-political entities that enable people to live together in more or less orderly and stable ways. But they also create the conditions for enduring divisions and conflict.
Polities have taken a range of different forms, from kinship groups, villages, and regionally based communities, to tribes, city-states, nation-states, and empires. Although there has historically been a process toward the formation of larger polities, the different forms have continued to coexist, either alongside one another or in some form of nested configuration. Even in modern societies, kinship groups can still play a significant role, as reflected in the phenomenon of nepotism. At the same time, cities and regions, as political authorities, continue to exist within nation-state polities. Ethnic and tribal affiliations continue to play a significant role in many parts of the world, particularly in regions where states were established relatively recently during decolonisation.
As humans are a social species, dependent on others for their survival and well-being from birth, groups form the essential economic basis for meeting their material and non-material needs. Biological differences between men and women have long been used to justify distinct roles in providing for group members’ needs, not only in raising children but also in other economic activities, such as hunting and food gathering. However, the nature and degree of economic specialisation within societies evolved with (more or less gradual) changes in modes of production, which also generated differences and shifts in power among the sexes, within groups, and between groups, creating inequalities and altering political structures. Polities differ significantly in their social, economic, and political dimensions. Differences between cultures, languages, beliefs, and other social features produce a great diversity of polities, often even within a small geographical area. While dealing with social diversity within modern polities (states) has become a growing challenge to social integration, issues related to the allocation, distribution, accumulation, concentration, and exercise of power (including abuse, exploitation, oppression, and the need for legitimacy) have affected societies throughout the ages.
Bully states
Polities vary significantly in how power (institutional, physical, economic, social, cognitive) is allocated, distributed, accumulated and concentrated. For various reasons, throughout history, some polities have utilised their greater power and resources to expand and impose their rule over others, creating kingdoms or empires often by forcibly subjugating and integrating other polities. Such tendencies, tensions, and conflicts constitute another recurring theme in human history. This challenge is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, even if a world government (polity) were to be created.
Some of the main issues in this context are the emergence of very powerful states (“super states” or “bully states”) that use their accumulated and disproportionate power to impose their will, views, and interests on many other states (acting like “bully states”), exploiting them for their own purposes; the rivalry between major powers for access to resources and regional or even global supremacy; the management of inter-state conflict and the advancement of (international) security; and the extent to which states have become interdependent and this has eroded or strengthened their capacity to deal effectively with problems.
Throughout history, some polities (states) have amassed disproportionate power, providing a basis for imposing their will and interests on other polities, through direct and/or indirect means, thereby creating kingdoms and empires that led to the further accumulation and concentration of power. Much has been written about the rise and fall of major (colonial) powers and empires, seeking explanations for these processes. There has been considerable debate about whether the United States qualifies as an empire and whether its global dominance and hegemony are waning. Realism and International Political Economy have much to offer in this search for explanations, albeit that both schools of thought sketch a rather depressing (but realistic) picture of the practices of dominant states and the reasons behind these.
How to manage anarchy?
Although some may argue that dominant and hegemonic states, colonialism and imperialism have also brought benefits to other states and/or to the world as a whole, it is questionable whether, for most people, these benefits outweigh the costs and have created a better, let alone a sustainable, world.
Many of these costs arise from interstate competition. Although competition and rivalry between states is not confined to big states (powers) but exist (and have always existed) also between small polities (like tribes), the “collateral damage” caused by conflict between major powers, as demonstrated by the two world wars and many other wars, tends to be on a far larger scale than that between small polities. The human and environmental costs of military conflict and war are immeasurable and often irreversible. Even the environmental costs of building and maintaining the armed forces of the major powers are enormous, but commonly ignored. The question arises, even if the emergence of major powers is inevitable, whether and how (the sources of) conflict between them can be managed and contained more effectively. With the development of increasingly powerful and devastating weapons systems, this question has become crucial to the survival of societies and humanity.
This raises the question of whether the major powers of the world will be willing and capable of creating and maintaining a negotiated global order that is congruent with their interests and that is globally (environmentally) sustainable as well as desirable or at least acceptable for the majority of the world’s people, especially in societies that play little if any part in the making of such a global order. History teaches that, in the long term, such negotiated international orders are unstable and vulnerable to disintegration as power shifts, creating new hegemons and constellations of power.
Many views exist on how this ongoing challenge should be managed by states and internationally. Not surprisingly, these differences are influenced by the relative position of states in the international and global order, as well as by ideological perspectives. Whether and how the power of states can or should be contained, and what kind of global polity can or should be created, are subjects of debate and disagreement among states and experts in this field. Among the main schools of thought on this matter are Realism, Institutionalism, International Political Economy, and Cosmopolitanism. While these schools of thought, with variations, present different perspectives on the international and global (dis-)order of politics, they are not necessarily incompatible. They can be seen to emphasise different aspects of reality.
Are states fading away?
Perhaps the most significant question that has arisen around this theme concerns the future of the state and the global state system. On the one hand, some argue that states have become redundant and dysfunctional, and therefore must be replaced by a new system of global governance or government. This argument seems plausible given the increasing economic interdependence among states. If the capacity to meet a group’s material needs is a crucial foundation, the erosion of state capacity in this respect undermines the rationale for its existence. On the other hand, a strong case can be made for the continued relevance and importance of states to meet the material and non-material needs of their members. As most people no longer have control over the means of production essential to meeting their material needs, states are expected to play a key economic role in ensuring that these needs are met. States also continue to serve as foci of social identification and cooperation, as well as institutions for legitimate and democratic collective decision-making.
Although globalisation is not an autonomous process, the interactions between states and societies have increased in ways that raise the question of whether this has eroded or strengthened the capacity of societies and the world as a whole to address the problems they face. According to some, greater international interdependence provides the basis for more effective cooperation, thereby enhancing the capacity of states and the international system to address problems. From this point of view, the threat of devastating international conflict, the erosion of state capacity, and the ineffectiveness of international, let alone global, governance, implies that sovereign states need to make place for a form of world government, or at least the creation of global institutions that have the power to overrule large states and to enforce measures that are considered to be in the collective interest of humanity, including international security and global environmental protection.
Others, however, think it highly unlikely that the major powers will agree to this infringement on their sovereignty, and that maintaining national security and dominance and control over parts of the world (and their resources) that are seen as crucial to the major power(s) will remain top priorities. As a result, the international “order” will continue to be dominated by major powers and unstable coalitions. The relative power and status of the major players are likely to change over time, leading to the rise and fall of hegemons. This view appears to be supported by historical evidence and by current claims about the rise of China and the decline of the United States as the global hegemon. However, the United States appears determined to do everything to maintain its dominant position.
As yet, there is no indication that states are about to abolish themselves, and it is hard to see what other polity or polities could take their place and meet their functions more effectively. Nonetheless, how the world as a whole can and should address global issues, including the environmental challenge, remains a crucial question that affects the future of societies and humanity. At this stage, it appears that this challenge is too vast to be addressed effectively by humanity.
Thus, it seems that humanity remains trapped in an unstable global anarchy in which bully states continue to have their way, and efforts to create international and global order are tentative and provisional at best, depending foremost on ever-changing configurations of power.