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Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism

Author(s): Mohammed Ayoob


Source: International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 27-48
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The International Studies Association
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Inequality and
in

The

Case

Theorizing

International Relations:
for

Subaltern

Realism

Mohammed Ayoob

ow does the impactof inequalityin international


relationsaffecttheorizing in InternationalRelations (IR)?' I use "internationalrelations"
to refer to the subject of our analysis and "InternationalRelations" to
describe the discipline that aspires to study the subject. InternationalRelations
reflects and reproduces the inequality present in the disposition of material
capabilities in the internationalsystem. Power translatesinto dominationin the
sphereof the manufacturingand reproductionof knowledge. Dominationin the
arena of knowledge further legitimizes inequality in the internationalsystem
because it augments the capabilities at the command of dominant states and
societies by adding "soft"power to "hard"power. Breaking the monopoly that
controls knowledge demands that we seriously attempt to present conceptual
alternatives to the dominant theories in IR. Leading academic institutions in
powerful countrieshave producedthese theories and thus caterto the perceived
requirementsof the policymaking communities in major capitals. I attemptto
provide an alternative,or at least a supplement,to make a dent, however modest, into the inequality that pervades the field of IR.
This essay makes several pleas and presents a perspective, but it does not
claim to furnish a paradigmcapable of explaining the entirety of international
relations to the exclusion of all other perspectives. It pleads for greaterinclusivity in terms of the phenomenathat are observed for the purpose of drawing
generalizationsin InternationalRelations. In social science terms, it argues for
broadening the universe from which data are selected to generate theoretical
propositions.At the same time, it is a plea for less "theory"(especially in the
attheInternational
StudiesAssociation
1An earlierdraftof thispaperwaspresented
conventionin Chicagoin February2001 as one of the featuredpresentationson the
key themeof the convention.
? 2002 InternationalStudies Association
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF,UK.

28

MohammedAyoob

singular) and more perspectives. It is, finally, a plea against mindless "scientism," which attemptsto find law-like generalizationson the model of the physical sciences, and for more explicit reliance on the exercise of judgment and,
therefore,greatermodesty in our claims for our favored perspective. This does
not mean that scholars should eschew rigorousand carefultesting of alternative
explanations. All it denotes is that we must desist from making claims about
finding timeless universal laws divorced from historical context.
Simultaneously,I attemptto put forwarda perspective that is inadequately
emphasized and barely discussed in IR theoreticalliterature.As I shall explain
below, such a perspective has enormous capacity to explain two of the most
importantissues that any IR theory must satisfactorilyexplain to be credible:
(1) the origins of the majorityof currentconflicts in the internationalsystem,
and (2) the variables determining the domestic and external behavior of the
majorityof members of the internationalsociety regardingconflict and order,
as well as mattersof war and peace. The two issues are inextricablyintertwined
with each other.
A perspective by definition does not exclude other perspectives because
unlike "theory,"it does not claim to be the sole repositoryof "truth.""Perspective" thrives by building upon earlier insights, while modifying and adapting
earlier perspectives to fit contemporarysituations. It is historically shaped and
does not lay claim to universality across time. Yet it does argue that it is relevant to a particularepoch because it can provide meaningfulexplanationsabout
importantissues that are relevant to that epoch. My perspective, which I call
"subalternrealism,"sets out to do exactly this.2 It does not claim to be timeless,
nor does it profess to supplantother perspectives in IR. It does maintainthat it
has the capacity to fill importantgaps in the IR conceptual literaturethat currently dominanttheories, especially neorealism and neoliberalism, are unable
or unwilling to fill.
I shall build upon three scholarlytraditionsand then attemptto integratethe
insights gleaned from them with the internationaland domestic contexts within
which the majorityof states operate currently.First, I build on the insights of
classical realist thinkers, like Thomas Hobbes, who were primarily domestic
order theorists, writing in a context of domestic as well as internationalanarchy. Second, I build on the insights of the historical sociological literaturethat
relate to state formationin modernEuropefrom the sixteenth to the nineteenth
centuries and have contemporaryrelevance. Third, I build on the normative
insights of the English School aboutproviding orderto an internationalsociety

2For an early iterationof subalternrealism,see MohammedAyoob, "Subaltern


Realism:International
RelationsTheoryMeetstheThirdWorld,"in StephanieG. Neuman, ed., InternationalRelations Theoryand the ThirdWorld(New York:St. Martin's

Press, 1998),pp. 31-54.

The Case for SubalternRealism

29

based on a fragile consensus among its members. In this context, I especially


engage Hedley Bull's attempts in his later years to reconcile the norms derived from a Europeaninternationalorder with the expansion of international
society after World War II, an expansion that had its roots in what Bull characterized as "the revolt against the West."3 Finally, I attempt to marry the
cumulative insights of these scholarly traditions to conclusions deduced by
observing the behavior of the majority of states in the contemporarysystem
and by decipheringthe causes of most of the currentand recurrentconflicts in
the internationalsystem.
To achieve these multiple objectives, we must begin by grapplingwith the
issue I first stated. Put simply, we can sum up this issue as follows: not only is
knowledge power, but power is knowledge as well. In IR theory, dominatedas
it is by American scholarship, the production and reproduction,construction
and reconstructionof conceptual assumptions, as well as theoretical conclusions that have now come close to being accepted as "truths"(even if competing "truths")worldwide,depictthis phenomenonmost clearly.4These theoretical
assumptions and conclusions may diverge from each other, some marginally
and others more dramatically.Yet all of the contesting truth claims have one
thing in common: they privilege the experiences, interests, and contemporary
dilemmas of a certain portion of the society of states at the expense of the
experiences, interests, and contemporarydilemmas of the large majority of
states. This limitation does not render such theories completely irrelevant as
explanatorytools. These theories successfully explain importantaspects of how
the internationalsystem works. Yet it does restrict radically their explanatory
power because they fail to reflect fully the totality of the phenomenathey purport to explain and aspire to predict.
The monopoly over the constructionof theoreticalknowledge depicts fundamentally the problem of inequality in both internationalrelations and International Relations. It shapes the thoughtpatternsof policymakers and analysts
alike across much of the globe. This knowledge monopoly is intimatelyrelated
to the monopoly over what forms the legitimate subject of study in IR, as well
as, more substantively,"who gets to make the rules within which international
relations proceed and who decides how and where to enforce them."5

Forexample,see HedleyBull, "TheRevoltagainstthe West,"in HedleyBull and

Adam Watson,eds., The Expansion of InternationalSociety (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon

Press, 1984),pp. 217-228.


4
StanleyHoffmanncapturedthisrealityclearlya quartercenturyago in "AnAmericanSocialScience:International
Relations,"Daedalus106,No. 3 (1977),pp.41-60.
andInequalityin WorldPolitics,"inAndrew
5 NgaireWoods,"Order,
Globalization,
Hurrell and Ngaire Woods, eds., Inequality, Globalization, and WorldPolitics (New

York:OxfordUniversityPress,1999),p. 25.

30

MohammedAyoob

This leads to a major problem that could be potentially self-defeating,


even for those who are the primaryexponents of such theories and for their
natural constituencies among the policymakers and commentators in the
capitals of the major powers. Since much of the theoretically sophisticated
IR analysis is based on premises that are of limited relevance, it does not
reflect many of the major realities in the contemporaryinternationalsystem.
As a result of this limitation, neorealism and neoliberalism, the dominantparadigms in InternationalRelations, and the research that builds upon their basic assumptions are unable to satisfactorily meet the challenge that Michael
Mann has posed to IR theorists: "What we outsiders really want from IR is
substantivetheory on its most importantissue of all: the question of war and
peace."6

Since questions about war and peace cannot be addressed without referring to the context in which conflicts occur and are managed and resolved,
theorizing on the basis of inadequate knowledge of the historical and geographic contexts can be misleading and counterproductive.Neorealism and
neoliberalism suffer from two problems in this regard. First, they neglect a
major part of the political universe that must form the basis of observation
(the source of "data,"as scientifically oriented scholars would aver) to provide answers to the question of war and peace. Second, the predominanttheories in InternationalRelations try to portray themselves as "scientific" and
encourage the misleading conclusion that they are the repositories of "universal" laws that transcendtime and space. Such a portrayal of "theory"defies
the basic logic of theorizing in the social sciences, which Robert Cox sums
up succinctly. Cox notes that in the social or human sciences, "All theories
have a perspective. Perspectives derive from a position in time and space."
Cox argues further:"There is, accordingly, no such thing as theory in itself,
divorced from a standpoint in time and space. When any theory so represents itself, it is the more importantto examine its ideology, and to lay bare its
concealed perspective."7
In their pursuitof "scientism,"neorealism and neoliberalism, and the neoneosynthesis thatcapturesthe increasinglyexpandingcommon groundbetween
them, have lost substantiallythe sense of both geography (limited as their universe is in terms of geographiclocale) and history (including the history of the

A Contribution
fromCom6Michael Mann,"Authoritarian
andLiberalMilitarism:
parativeandHistoricalSociology,"in SteveSmith,KenBooth,andMarysiaZalewski,
eds., InternationalTheory:Positivism and Beyond (New York:CambridgeUniversity

Press, 1996),p. 221; emphasisin original.


7RobertW. Cox, "SocialForces,States,andWorldOrders:BeyondInternational
RelationsTheory,"in RobertW. Cox with TimothyJ. Sinclair,Approachesto World
Order(New York:CambridgeUniversityPress,1996),p. 87.

The Case for SubalternRealism

31

geographic area from which they draw much of their data).8This shortcoming
deprives much of the theorizing done under the rubricof the two paradigmsof
historical depth and geographic comprehensiveness.In other words, it restricts
their potential to accommodateand explain change in the internationalsystem,
for we can explain change only if we have a vision of historical continuity
(including the discontinuities embedded in the historical record) and spatial
inclusiveness.
The contrastbecomes particularlyclear when we juxtapose the "scientific"
approachof neorealism and neoliberalism against what Hedley Bull called the
"classical approach"to InternationalRelations.9Imbuedwith history,philosophy, and law, and acutely conscious of its temporaland geographiccontext and
the limitations accompanyingit, the classical approachespecially as employed
by the English School, does not make false "scientific" claims.'0 Nor does it
lay claim to methods of analysis popularin the naturalsciences. Bull described
the classical approachas "a scientifically imperfect process of perception or
intuition [thatis] characterizedabove all by the explicit reliance upon the exercise of judgement."II
It is this "explicit reliance on the exercise of judgement"that provides the
clue to the fact that scholars in the classical traditionare better able to expand
8According to Ole Waever,"Duringthe 1980s,realismbecameneo-realismand
liberalismneo-liberalinstitutionalism.Both underwenta self-limitingredefinition
towardsananti-metaphysical,
theoretical
andtheybecametherebyincreasminimalism,
A
dominant
became
theresearchprogramme
of the
neo-neosynthesis
inglycompatible.
No
were
realism
and
liberalism
'incommensurable'-on
the con1980s....
longer
shared
of
a 'rationalist'
researchprogramme,
a conception science,a shared
trarythey
willingnessto operateon thepremiseof anarchy(Waltz)andinvestigatetheevolution
of co-operationandwhetherinstitutionsmatter(Keohane).... Regimetheory,cooperationunderanarchy,hegemonicstability,alliancetheory,tradenegotiations,and
Buzaniansecurityanalysiscan all be seen as locatedin this field."Ole Waever,"The
Rise and Fall of the Inter-Paradigm
Debate,"in Smith,Booth, and Zalewski,eds.,
InternationalTheory,pp. 163-164. For an exampleof the scholarshipattemptingto
see DavidA. Baldbridgetheneorealist-neoliberal
gapandcreatea neo-neosynthesis,
win, ed., Neorealismand Neoliberalism:TheContemporaryDebate (New York:Colum-

bia UniversityPress,1993).
in Klaus
9HedleyBull, "International
Theory:TheCasefora ClassicalApproach,"
Knorrand James N. Rosenau, eds., ContendingApproaches to InternationalPolitics

(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,1969).
1oOneof the leadinglightsof the EnglishSchool,MartinWight,claimedthatthere
cannotbe an "international
theory."See MartinWight, "WhyIs There No InternationalTheory?"in HerbertButterfieldandMartinWight,eds., DiplomaticInvestigations (London:Allen and Unwin, 1966). The EnglishSchool did not propounda
theory.It developedan approachthatmayhaveturnedintoa traditionor even a school
(althoughthe lattertermmaybe too strong),butit certainlydid not becomea theory.
Theory,"p. 20.
1'Bull, "International

32

MohammedAyoob

their horizons and select materialfrom wider geographiclocales and historical


sources.'2 This awareness made Bull realize during the last decade of his life
that the universe from which he had drawn his material for his magisterial
work, TheAnarchical Society, was even more limited than he had been willing
to concede until the mid-1970s.'3 In addition, he recognized that this universe
was shrinking further in importance because the major empirical source for
generalizing aboutthe futureof the internationalsystem had moved beyond the
original Europeanhomeland of the modern system of states.
As Bull's last works, which emphasizedthe expansion of internationalsociety, demonstrateclearly, the classical approachprovides a sense of history and
is open to the idea of change and movement. It does so not merely because it
can take into accountunfolding events and the emergence of new social forces,
but also by permittingits practitionersto learn, as Robert Jackson points out,
from "the long history of observation and reflection on internationalrelations
and from the many theoristswho have contributedto thattradition."Such reflection inclines them to accept the idea that change and movement are not only
possible, but also inevitable. Furthermore,this reflection leads scholars in this
traditionto realize that the crux of historical analysis reflects the maxim that
"Theory is hostage to practice and not the other way about, as is often

assumed."14
My own recent work has attemptedto combine the historical groundingof
the classical tradition-in terms of both the history of institutions, including
those thatembody internationalnorms, and ideas formulatedby the greatthinkers of the past, which I find to be relevant to the contemporarysituation.'5 I
example,see the worksof R.J.Vincent,RobertJackson,and K.J.Holsti,
A valuableadditionto thisgenreis JacintaO'Hagan'sbook,Conceptuothers.
among
12For

alizing the Westin InternationalRelations (New York:Palgrave, 2002).


13Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in WorldPolitics (New

York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1977).

14Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States

(New York:OxfordUniversityPress,2000), pp. 75-76.


15The historicalandintellectualdepthof the EnglishSchoolbecomesclearwhen
we compareits definitionof institutionswiththe neoliberalone. "ForEnglishschool
theorists,institutionsarepracticesembeddedin the fabricof international
society....
WithWightandBull,theinstitutionsof international
societyhavea longerhistorythan
theproliferating
regimesof thelatetwentiethcentury;moreover,Englishschoolscholars equateinstitutionswith practicessuch as sovereignty,balanceof power,internationallaw,thediplomaticdialogue,andwar.Inorderto understand
theinstitutionof
for
an
school
would
advocate
a historical
sovereignty, example, English
approach
to
it
of
the
term
and
the
state
leaders
at
particularhismeaningsgiven
by
sociology
of
toricaljunctures.Suchaninvestigationis notamenableto the 'neo-neo'requirement
of
like
contention
testable
across
cases.
the
crucial
[Furthermore,]
framing
hypotheses
the neoliberalmodelis thatcooperationcan be understoodwithoutrecourseto com-

The Case for SubalternRealism

33

have tried to combine this with a keen sense of, and particularemphasis on, the
transformationsthat have taken place in the society of states during the past
fifty years. My approachis historically groundedbut makes no claim to timelessness, while asserting at the same time its pertinence in terms of unraveling
the currentmysteries of war and peace, conflict and order.
My perspective is particularlyinfluenced by the normativetensions created
by two major factors operatingin the internationalsystem during the past half
century,but whose importancehas been inadequatelyrecognized in IR theoretical literature.The first of these is the unprecedentedincrease in the numberof
new states as a result of rapid decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s, repeated
in a smaller measure in the early 1990s. The second factor is the continuing
attemptby these new members of the system to replicate the Europeantrajectory of state making and nation building in a vastly different internationalsetting where the postcolonial states are much more vulnerable to physical and
normative intrusionfrom outside. A combinationof these two interrelatedfactors holds the key to explaining the behaviorof the majorityof states, as well as
the origins of the majorityof conflicts in the internationalsystem.
To meet Mann's criterion for successful theorizing in InternationalRelations, it is importantto concentrateon these two factors as explanatoryvariables. Any perspective that claims to provide an intellectually satisfactory
explanationin the field of IR must be able to explain adequatelythe behaviorof
the primaryunits constituting the internationalsystem. Furthermore,the perspective must explain adequatelyissues of war and peace. To retain its significance, the perspective must be able to explain why the majority of conflicts
occur when and where they do. The latterfunction may also indicate how such
conflicts can be managedanddiffused,thushelpingthe policymakingcommunity.
Neorealism and neoliberalismfail to performthese twin tasks because neither can explain adequatelywhy the majorityof states behave the way they do
internationallyand domestically. They also fail to explain sufficiently the origins, both as beginnings and causes, of the majority of conflicts in the internationalsystem today.They fall shortin performingboth these tasks adequately
because they pay insufficient attentionto the preeminenttransformationarising
from the numericalexpansion cited above.
A principalreason why IR theoristsin the West and especially in the United
States neglected the importance of this factor from 1950 to 1990 was their
preoccupationwith the bipolarity that emerged in the wake of World War II.
The analysts' fascination with bipolaritybecame an obsession with superpower

monbeliefsor sharedvalues.But ... a coreassumptionof HedleyBull'sis theway in


whichinternational
cooperationis rootedin the sense of beingboundby intersubjec-

tively created rules." Tim Dunne, Inventing International Society: A History of the

EnglishSchool(New York:St. Martin'sPress,1998),p. 186;emphasisin original.

34

MohammedAyoob

rivalry following the introductionof nuclear weapons. Not only the strategic
studies discourse, but also a greatdeal of the IR literaturecame to be dominated
by nuclear concerns, spawning deterrencetheories based upon the notion of
MutualAssuredDeterrence(MAD). As two defining elements of the Cold War,
bipolarityand nuclearweapons not merely overshadowedall other post-World
WarII developments as far as IR theorists were concerned,but they also added
to the ahistoricalnatureof much of the theorizingin the field. This was the case
because bipolarityand nuclearweapons were perceived to be novel featuresby
both theorists and practitioners.
Yet when seen from a long-term historical perspective, these two developments, while unquestionablyimportant,did not make a fundamentaldifference
to either the workings of the internationalsystem or the norms of international
society. Bipolarity was but one, albeit the latest, transitorymanifestationof the
balance of power mechanismthat had helped ordergreatpower relations in the
internationalsystem for some four hundredyears. The development of nuclear
weapons was a part of the continuing saga of the revolutions in military affairs
that have renderedweapons more lethal and accurate. Such revolutions have
been a consistent feature of the modern system of states.16 The nuclearrevolution may have ruledout directconfrontationamong nuclearpowers with secondstrike capability,but it ended neither competition among the great powers nor
their rise and fall. The last was clearly demonstratedby the events of 19891991. More important, it failed to end war and conflict in the international
system.17

We can arguethatbipolarityandnuclearweaponswere second-orderchanges,


especially when comparedto the unprecedentedexpansionof the system's membership. This expansion of the internationalsociety led to the entry into the
system of postcolonial states with certain sharedcharacteristics,which set them
16LawrenceFreedmanstatesthatthe revolutionin militaryaffairs,of which the
nuclearrevolutionis a part,has manifested"threebasictrendsover the pastcentury.
First,the reachof militarypowerhas been steadilyextended.... [Second,]as the
rangehas been extendedso all aspectsof civil society have become steadilymore
the degreeof dependenceupon
vulnerableto attack.... [Thirdand paradoxically,]
societyas a wholeseemsto be decliningwhenit comesto wagingwar.Manpowerhas
of raw
becomeless important,
economicmobilizationless relevant,andaccumulations
powerunnecessaryas precisionreplacesbruteforce."LawrenceFreedman,"Revolutions in MilitaryAffairs,"in GwynPrinsandHylkeTromp,eds., TheFutureof War
2000), p. 230. The nuclearrevolutionfits this
(Boston:KluwerLaw International,
descriptionof revolutionsin militaryaffairs(RMA)well. Thecurrentphaseof RMA,
whichis manifestedin conventionalhigh-techweaponsandlinkedto the information
andcommunications
revolutions,is thelateststageof thisrevolutionandcomplements
the nuclearone.
'7HedleyBull arguedthatthe "balanceof terror"was but "a specialcase of the

balance of power" (The Anarchical Society, p. 112).

The Case for SubalternRealism

35

apart from most other established members. Astute observers of the international system should have perceived this expansion as possessing the potential for majorlong-termnormativeand empiricalimpact, since it had the ability
to generate changes that would outlive the temporaryfascination with bipolarity and nucleardeterrence.Yet this was not the case duringthe past half century
because postcolonial states were generally weak, vulnerable, and poor. Therefore, these states were vastly unequalto those seen as the "moversand shakers"
within the internationalsystem. The neglect of this variable in theorizing about
internationalrelations was a glaring demonstrationof how inequality works in
both internationalrelations and InternationalRelations.
This neglect persisted, despite the fact that in the realm of security-the
majorpreoccupationof neorealist thinkers-the new states redefined the very
notion of the security dilemmaby making it primarilya domestic ratherthan an
interstatephenomenon. Their security predicamentalso demonstratedthat the
external security concerns of the majority of states could not be easily separated from those of internal security.'8 Such preoccupationwith internal security would have been perfectlyintelligibleto Hobbesbuteludedthe understanding
of contemporaryneorealist thinkers. In the realm of economics, the postcolonial states stood the logic of interdependenceon its head, upsettingmuch of the
validity of the neoliberal argument.Dependence, not interdependence,defined
the pattern of their economic relationship with the established, affluent, and
powerful members of the internationalsystem, thus renderingabsurdthe concept of absolute gains-the leading neoliberal assumptionwith regardto cooperation under anarchy.19
Kenneth Waltz's and John Mearsheimer'sargumentsabout the superiority
of bipolarity over multipolarityin terms of providing order and stability to the
internationalsystem expose more clearly than others the inability of the dominantparadigmsto addressmost states' securityissues andto capturethe dynamics of the overwhelming majorityof conflicts in the internationalsystem.20 In
making this case, they ignore the fact that stability in Europe was achieved at

18sFordetails,see Mohammed
Ayoob,The ThirdWorldSecurityPredicament:State

Making,Regional Conflict,and the InternationalSystem(Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995). Also see Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War,and the State of War(New York:

CambridgeUniversityPress,1996).
'19Fordetails, see Amiya KumarBagchi, The Political Economy of Underdevelop-

ment(New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1983).


20KennethN. Waltz,"TheStabilityof a BipolarWorld,"in PhilWilliams,Donald
Goldstein, and Jay Shafritz, eds., Classic Readings in InternationalRelations, 2d ed.

"Backto
(FortWorth,Tex.:HarcourtBrace,1999),pp.77-85; andJohnMearsheimer,
the Future:Instabilityin Europeafterthe Cold War,"in Sean M. Lynn-Jonesand
Steven E. Miller, eds., The Cold Warand After: Prospects for Peace, 2d. ed. (Cam-

bridge,Mass.:MITPress,1994),pp. 141-192.

36

MohammedAyoob

the expense of stability and orderin much of the rest of the world. The unwillingness of the superpowersto challenge the statusquo in Europewas more than
compensatedby their eagerness to choose sides and fight intrastateand interstate proxy wars in the Third World. The result exacerbated conflict in the
peripheryboth within and among states, thus intensifying disorderin the international system.21
Similarly,the neoliberalthesis on cooperationunderanarchyskews the data
in favor of affluent, industrializeddemocracies of the global North that form a
small minorityof the total membershipof the internationalsystem.22The conclusions do not correspondto reality when applied to the internationalsystem
as a whole but are the result of several factors. First, the neoliberalemphasis on
absolute gains as the primarybeneficial outcome of cooperationwithin an anarchical system assumes much interdependenceand a high degree of identification with each other among actors engaged in cooperation. It also assumes
economic affluence and societal cohesion within these units and, above all,
territorialsatiation(whethervoluntaryor enforcedby the outcomeof two "world"
wars) in their relationshipwith each other.23
These assumptionsgeneratea false sense of mutuality.They neglect the fact
that most ThirdWorldstates are economically and militarily far too dependent
on their external benefactors to benefit substantiallyfrom relationshipsbased
on the notion of absolute gains, especially if we put such gains in a long-term
perspective. Many of these states, and especially their regimes, indeed reap
some immediate benefits, like InternationalMonetaryFund (IMF) and World
Bank loans or military hardwareby cooperatingwith the industrializedstates.
Yet much of this comes at great cost, including prematureeconomic liberalization, which often leads to deindustrializationand structuraladjustment,with
frequentmajor negative political and social effects and exacerbationof intra21

Sisir Guptacapturedthis realitythirtyyears ago in a seminalarticle, "Great


PowerRelationsandthe ThirdWorld,"in CarstenHolbraad,ed., SuperPowersand
AustralianNationalUniversityPress, 1971), pp. 105-139.
WorldOrder(Canberra:
Also see MohammedAyoob,"TheSecurityProblematicof the ThirdWorld,"World

Politics 43, No. 2 (1991), pp. 257-283.


22For more on the neoliberal or liberal institutionalistpositions, see Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the WorldPolitical Economy
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984); and KennethA. Oye, ed., Cooperation underAnarchy (Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1986).
23The democratic peace thesis, possibly the most influential offshoot of neoliberalism, suffers acutely from confusing cause with effect. Insteadof recognizing democracy as the dependent variable that results from long periods of territorialsatiation,

economicaffluence,andsocietalcohesiveness,it assignsto it the role of the independent variablethatmakesinterstateinteractionsamongdemocraticstatespeaceful.It


variablesdeterminebothdemocratic
refusesto recognizethatthesesameindependent
outcomesandpacificrelationsamongmatureliberaldemocracies.

The Case for SubalternRealism

37

state and interstateconflicts. These costs raise doubts about the notion of absolute gains in terms of North-Southrelations.
Moreover,the overwhelmingmajorityof economic interactions,which lead
to interdependence in a "globalizing" world, take place among the triad of
North America, Europe, and Japan. As Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson
point out, "Capitalmobility is not producinga massive shift of investment and
employment from the advanced to the developing countries. Rather foreign
direct investment (FDI) is highly concentratedamong the advanced industrial
economies and the ThirdWorldremainsmarginalin both investment and trade,
a small minority of newly industrializingcountries apart."24
Bruce Scott has pointed out the following:
The total stock of foreigndirectinvestmentdid rise almostsevenfoldfrom
1980 to 1997, increasingfrom4 percentto 12 percentof worldGDPduring
thatperiod.Butverylittlehasgoneto thepoorestcountries.In 1997,about70
percentwentfromonerichcountryto another,8 developingcountriesreceived
about20 percent,andthe remainderwas dividedamongmorethan100 poor
nations.Accordingto the WorldBank,the trulypoorcountriesreceivedless
than7 percentof the foreigndirectinvestmentto all developingcountriesin
1992-98.25

Such statistics make much of the "interdependence"and "absolutegains" arguments appearirrelevantas far as the majorityof states are concerned.
Equally,if not more important,the concept of absolutegains fails to capture
the reality of interstaterelationshipsamong ThirdWorldcountries themselves.
Most of these states are neither economically affluent nor socially cohesive,
and many suffer from the impulse of irredentismand the threatof secessionism.
Since much of the interactionof ThirdWorld states-especially in the security
sphere-is limited to their immediate neighborhood,they interact with other
statesthatpossess similarcharacteristics.Althoughtherehave been some attempts
at building institutionsto promote security cooperationand increase economic
interactions among regional states (including ASEAN, SAARC, and ECOWAS), they have met with limited success. The relationship among contiguous
and proximate states has been mostly one of suspicion, if not outrightconflict.
Many regional cooperationarrangementshave been bedeviled by the covert if
not overt hostility among members of regional institutions.
Furthermore,intrastateand interstateconflicts have become intertwinedin
the ThirdWorldfor numerousreasons. These include the arbitrarynatureof the
colonially craftedboundariesof postcolonial states;the fact thatthey cut through
24Paul Hirst and GrahameThompson,Globalizationin Question,2d ed. (Cam-

bridge,U.K.:Polity,1999),p. 2.

25Bruce R. Scott, "The Great Divide in the Global Village," Foreign Affairs 80,

No. 1 (2001), p. 164.

38

MohammedAyoob

groups that can be considered to have primordialties to each other; the nature
of many of the regimes within these countriesthat promoteexclusionary rather
than inclusionarynation building projects;and, above all, the reality that some
violence inevitably accompanies early stages of state making. As most contiguous andproximatestates are usually at similarstages of state and nationbuilding and their populations overlap with each other, these processes often have
transborderimpact.
As the history of early modern Europe clearly demonstrates,concurrent
state building among neighboringpolitical entities is usually a recipe for conflict and leads to the search for relative ratherthan absolute gains. This search
is based on the simple logic that favorable regional balances, which can be
constructedusually at the expense of neighboring states, aid the state-making
projectsof particularstates, andunfavorableones obstructsuch efforts. It would
take a very farsightedpolitical leader to visualize the benefit of absolute gains
in such a politically charged context, where the security and sometimes the
survival of states and regimes hang in the balance.26
The inability of the dominantparadigmsto addressthese realities, let alone
capturethem, results in their incapacity to explain the origins of most conflicts
in the internationalsystem. It also illustratestheirinability to explain the behavior of most states in the internationalsystem. It is essential to posit a supplementary,perhapsalternative,perspectiveto the currentlydominantIR theories.
Such a perspective must surpass the simplistic structuralassumptions of neorealism. It must investigate above all the natureand internaldynamics of most
states in the internationalsystem. By doing so, it will be able to expose the
interconnectionsamong domestic and internationalorderissues. This has been
a subject of perennial importancein politics, as any readerof Hobbes or Niccol6 Machiavelli would divine. Also, I believe the perspective also must demonstratethe capacity to provide intellectually satisfactoryexplanations for the
origins of the majorityof contemporaryconflicts in the internationalsystem.
In addition, such a perspective must be able to transcendthe ethnocentrism
of neoliberalism that limits its universe largely to one corner of the globe.
Moreover, it must be able to demonstratethe illusory nature of the broader
liberalagendaandespecially of its maverickoffshoot, globalism, which attempts
to impose a set of normative constraintson state action that are largely inapplicable to the state-making stage where most states find themselves. Most
states that have emerged into formal independence within the past fifty years
are currently struggling to approximatethe ideal of the Westphalianstate by
acquiringeffectiveness andlegitimacy within a drasticallyshortenedtime frame
and in highly unfavorablenormative and practical circumstances.To demand
that they transcendthe Westphalianmodel and open themselves to unbridled
26For

details, see Ayoob, The ThirdWorldSecurity Predicament,esp. ch. 3.

The Case for SubalternRealism

39

economic and political penetrationby powerful external forces, while attempting to provide domestic order,defies all political logic.
I believe that an alternativeperspective with sufficient explanatorypower
can be fashioned successfully by drawing upon the insights emanating from
various sources identified above. These include: (a) the penetratingobservations of classical realist thinkers,principallyHobbes; (b) the astute analysis of
historical sociology, especially the literaturethat pertains to state formationin
Europewhen states therewere at a similar stage of state makingthatmost Third
World states find themselves today;27and (c) the normativeperspicacityof the
English School, especially Hedley Bull's analysis of the expansion of international society and its impact on internationalnorms, a tradition currently
representedby, among others, Robert Jackson in his latest book, The Global
Covenant.
These insights then must be combined with a judicious interpretationof the
currentdomestic and external,normativeand practicalpredicamentsfacing the
postcolonial states. The latter task is essential because it is these problems,
many of them relatedto early state making and late entry into the states system,
that generatemost conflicts in the internationalsystem, as well as determinethe
external and domestic behavior of most states.
We must begin this exercise by reiteratingthat despite the proliferationof
nonstate actors and their increased capacity, in relative terms, to influence
international and national outcomes, the state continues to be the principal
actor in the internationalsystem. Although this could change in the future, as
human society progresses and develops to a "higher"stage, it is clear that the
state, as the exclusive repository of legitimate authority,is now the sole and
indispensable provider of order within territoriallyorganized polities. Since
no other institution can provide this order,which is essential for routine societal interactions to be stable and predictable, the state forms the cornerstone
of tolerable political life within discrete territorialcommunities. Without it
life would be truly "poor, nasty, brutish and short." A cursory glance at the
cases of state collapse or "state evaporation"28-Somalia, Liberia, Sierra
Leone, and Congo, among others-will be sufficient to recognize the verity of
this proposition.29 Globalization does not so much marginalize the state as
make it transparentthat only those states that possess the capacity to ade-

leadingexampleof such scholarshipis CharlesTilly, ed., TheFormationof


NationalStatesin WesternEurope(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,1975).
281 am gratefulto KeithKrausefor introducing
me to theterm"stateevaporation,"
whichcapturesthephenomenon
of statefailurein manycasesbetterthan"statecollapse."
27A

29For details, see I. William Zartman,ed., Collapsed States: TheDisintegrationand


Restoration of LegitimateAuthority(Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner, 1995).

40

MohammedAyoob

quately regulate intrasocietal and intersocietal interactions can prosper and


thrive in the twenty-first century.30
Consequently,the road map for weak states is not to transcendthe Westphalian state and adopt post-Westphaliancharacteristics (whatever that may
mean for polities struggling to establish themselves), but to create political
structuresthat approximateto a much greaterdegree than at present the Westphalian ideal type by increasing both their effectiveness and legitimacy. It is
truethatto be effective over the long haul states must be legitimate;it is equally
true that to be legitimate over the long term, states must be effective. Only by
approachingthe Westphalianideal more closely can the postcolonial states provide stable political orderdomestically and participateon a more equal footing
in writing and rewritingthe rules of internationalorder.
Moreover,only effective statehoodcan help solve the economic underdevelopmentandpoverty problemsthatplague much of the ThirdWorld."The state's
crucialrole is evident in the West's economic development.Europeaneconomic
supremacywas forgednotby actorswho followed a 'Washingtonconsensus'model
but by strongstates."31 It is disingenuousto advise ThirdWorldstatesto remove
all barriersto externaleconomic penetrationandreducethe role of the statein formulatingeconomic policy in the hope thatforeigntradeandinvestmentwill solve
theirunderdevelopmentandpovertyproblems.As Dani Rodrikpointsout, a "perversion of priorities"resultswhen "opennessto tradeandinvestmentflows is no
longer viewed simply as a componentof a country'sdevelopment strategy,"but
becomes synonymous with that strategy.32Moreover, economic liberalization
appearsirrationalwhen, in exchange for opening their economies, most poor
states receive but a pittance in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) from
the multinationalcorporations(MNCs) based in the global North.
I call this alternativeperspective "subalternrealism"because it draws upon
the experience of subalternsin the internationalsystem. These subalternsare
largely ignoredby the elitist historiographypopularizedby both neorealists and
neoliberals as a result of their concentrationon, respectively, the dynamics of
interactionamong the great powers and the affluent, industrializedstates of the
global North.The dictionarydefinitionof "subaltern"denotesthose thatareweak
andinferior.Yet it is the common experienceof all humansocieties thatthese are

30Forcorroboration
of this argument,see LindaWeiss,TheMythof the Powerless
State(Ithaca,N.Y.:CornellUniversityPress,1998);PeterEvans,"TheEclipseof the
WorldPolitics50, No. 1
State?Reflectionson Statenessin an Eraof Globalization,"
(1997), pp. 62-87; Dani Rodrik, WhyDo More Open Economies Have Bigger Gov-

Mass.:NationalBureauof EconomicResearch,1996);NBER
ernments?(Cambridge,
No.
5537.
WorkingPaper
31 Scott,"TheGreatDivide in the GlobalVillage,"p. 171.
32DaniRodrik,"Tradingin Illusions,"ForeignPolicy 123 (2001),p. 55.

The Case for SubalternRealism

41

the elements that constitutethe large majorityof membersin any social system.
Althoughborrowedfrom the subalternschool of history,my use of the termdoes
not conform strictlyto the usage by thatschool.33 ThirdWorldstates, ratherthan
subalternclasses, form the quintessentialsubalternelement within the society of
states, given theirrelative powerlessness andtheirposition as a large majorityin
the internationalsystem. This is a deliberateapplicationof the term, emanating
from my position that, despite the emergence of a plethoraof nonstate actors,
the contemporaryinternationalsystem is essentially a system of states. Therefore, statesshouldstill formthe primaryunitof analysisin InternationalRelations.
At the same time, this perspective is a part of the realist traditionbecause it
accepts the three fundamentalelements of "essential realism"-statism, survival, and self-help.34I refer to realism as a traditionratherthan as a theory or
school because the term "tradition"does greaterjustice to the richness and
variety of realist thinking.35The subalternrealist perspective attempts to go
beyond the narrowstructuralconfines of neorealism and examine the essential
nature of the subalterncategory of states. It does so by adopting a historical
sociology approachthat conforms to Theda Skocpol's prescription:"Trulyhistorical sociological studies ... [m]ost basically ask questions aboutsocial structures or processes understoodto be concretely situated in time and space....
They address processes over time, and take temporal sequences seriously in
accounting for outcomes."36
In situating the ThirdWorld state in time and space, subalternrealism borrows from the insights of classical realist thinkers sensitive to both domestic
order and internationalorder issues. Hobbes is the foremost example of such
thinkers, for, as Bull has pointed out "Hobbes's account of relations between
sovereign princes is a subordinatepart of his explanation and justification of
government among individual men."37

33For a collectionof seminalarticlesin subalternstudies,see RanajitGuhaand


GayatriChakravorty
Spivak,eds.,SelectedSubalternStudies(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1988).
34TimothyDunne,"Realism,"in JohnBaylis and Steve Smith,eds., The Globalizationof WorldPolitics(New York:OxfordUniversityPress,1997),pp. 114-119.
35Michael Oakeshottnotes:"Itbelongsto the natureof a traditionto tolerateand
uniteaninternalvariety,notinsistinguponconformityto a singlecharacter,
andbecause,
further,it has the ability to changewithoutlosing its identity."In Rationalismin
Politicsand OtherEssays,2d ed. (Indianapolis,Ind.:LibertyPress,1991),p. 227.
36 ThedaSkocpol,"Sociology's
in ThedaSkocpol,ed., Vision
HistoricalImagination,"

and Method in Historical Sociology (New York:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984),

p. 1.
37Bull,TheAnarchicalSociety,pp. 46-47. Also see MichaelWilliams,"Hobbes
and InternationalRelations:A Reconsideration,"InternationalOrganization,50,
No. 2 (1996), pp. 213-236.

42

MohammedAyoob

Hobbes's writings also highlight the tension between liberty and authority.
For him, the solution was to concentratepower in the person of the sovereign,
but, equally important,to insist that the sovereign be legitimate (the productof
a contract) and legal (bound by laws). "Hobbes conceives the Sovereign as a
law-makerandhis rule,not arbitrary,butthe rule of law. ... What ... is excluded
from Hobbes's civitas is not the freedom of the individual, but the independent
rightsof spurious'authorities'and of collections of individualssuch as churches,
which he saw as the source of civil strife of his time."38
Anyone familiar with the problem of competing "authorities"in multiethnic and multireligioussocieties, which make up most of the ThirdWorldtoday,
would immediately understandHobbes's basic predicamentand his attemptto
overcome it by creating an institution-the sovereign-based on the "masterconceptions of Will and Artifice."39 Similarly, anyone familiar with the legitimacy problem of many ThirdWorldstates will recognize the need for a social
contract between citizens and citizens and citizens and the state. Such a contract would free the state from challenges to its authority.Hobbes's social contractwas obviously abstract,if not mythical, based as it was on deductive logic.
Nonetheless, it capturedthe essential dilemma of modern state making and the
fundamentaldeparturethis entailed from the multiple overlapping authority
structuresof the medieval period that lay at the root of much of the violence
and chaos of Hobbes's time.
In uncanny ways, the domestic context in which many ThirdWorld states
function today resembles that of the late medieval and early modern period in
Europe. This explains the relevance of Hobbes's conclusions to our times.
Unless the insights provided by Hobbes's deductive reasoning are accompanied by the historical sociology of the modern state based on inductive reasoning, our perspective will remain incomplete. Historians of state making in
early modernEuropeprovide the best source for these additionalinsights based
on inductive reasoning since Europe was the original home of the modern
sovereign state.40 Above all, such historical explanations debunk the neoreal-

38Oakeshott,Rationalism in Politics, p. 282.

39Ibid.,p. 227.
40For some of the best differingperspectivesof the originsof the modernstatein
U.K.:Cambridge
Europe,see E.L.Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,2d ed. (Cambridge,
University Press, 1987); Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD

990-1990 (Cambridge,
U.K.:Basil Blackwell,1990);andHendrickSpruyt,TheSovereignStateand Its Competitors(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1994).
For similaritiesand differencesin the state-makingprocessin the ThirdWorldas
see MohammedAyoob,"TheSecurityPrediccomparedto its Europeancounterpart,
Peramentof the ThirdWorldState:Reflectionson StateMakingin a Comparative
spective," in BrianJob, ed., TheInsecurityDilemma: National Securityof ThirdWorld

States(Boulder,Colo.:LynneRienner,1992),pp. 63-80.

The Case for SubalternRealism

43

ist claim that all states are the same. "The central feature of historical sociology has been an interest in how structureswe take for granted (as 'natural')
are the productsof a set of complex social processes. . . . Historical sociology
undercuts neo-realism because it shows that the state is not one functionally
similar organization,but instead has altered over time."41 This insight lies at
the base of Janice Thomson's assertion that "internationalrelations specialists
would do well to abandonthe notion that the state is the state is the state. The
national state that emerged in 1900 was fundamentally different from its
42
predecessor."

The historicalsociology literatureaboutstateformationin Europealso relates


to anotherfundamentalaspectof the currentdilemmafacingThirdWorldstatesnamely, that violence inevitably accompanies the process of state formation
and consolidation. Tilly's famous dictumthat "warmade states and states made
war"capturesthis reality in a nutshell. Tilly's conclusion is based on the European experience, which must be readin its properhistoricalcontext. This should
lead us to recognize that what we now call "internalwar" contributedto state
making equally, if not more so, than interstatewar. Constructingand imposing
political order is by necessity more a domestic than an internationalactivity.
This becomes clear by Tilly's own admission that "Earlyin the state-making
process, many parties sharedthe right to use violence, the practice of using it
routinelyto accomplish theirends, or both at once. ... The distinctionsbetween
'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' users of violence came clear only very slowly, in
the process duringwhich the state's armedforces became relatively unified and
permanent."43

In the case of many Third World countries, most states were initially constituted by juridical sovereignty conferred upon them by departing colonial
powers and subsequently endorsed by the internationalcommunity through
membershipin the U.N. Yet this did not make them immune to challenges to
their authority,their "rightto rule," on the part of recalcitrantelements within
their populations or by those who aspired to replace the "successor elites" and
take over the reins of state power themselves. In many cases, establishingeffective statehood, to whatever extent this was possible, entailed the exercise of

41

SteveSmith,"NewApproachesto International
Theory,"in JohnBaylisandSteve

Smith, eds., The Globalization of WorldPolitics, pp. 178, 181.


42Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and
ExtraterritorialViolence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniver-

sity Press,1994),p. 149.


43CharlesTilly,"WarMakingandStateMakingas OrganizedCrime,"in PeterB.
Evans,et al., eds.,BringingtheStateBackIn (New York:CambridgeUniversityPress,
1985), p. 173.

44

MohammedAyoob

violence and counterviolence by the state and its opponents.44The imposition


of domestic orderbecame the prime preoccupationof state elites in most countries following decolonization. Despite differences in historical contexts, we
can see the similarities in the security predicamentsfaced by ThirdWorldstate
elites and the state makers in early modern Europe.
As in early modern Europe, in the ThirdWorld domestic and international
issues became inextricably intertwined with each other. The major difference
was that during much of the relevant period in Europe the distinction between
internaland externalwars was far fuzzier thanhas been the case duringthe past
half centurybecauseterritorialdomainswere continuouslycontestedandchanged
hands often. This occurredwithout the notion of legitimacy privileging any one
party over the other until quite late in that historical process, thus making it
appearthat much of the state-makingconflict between "princes"was interstate
in character.This appearancecan be explained by the fact thatjuridical sovereignty was not conferred as clearly on one of the parties as it is in the case of
ThirdWorldstates today. Also, bordersamong states were not as clearly delineated as during the past fifty years.
Although classical realism and the historical sociology accounts of state
formationin Europeprovide subalternrealism with fundamentalinsights, these
are not enough to complete the perspective that must account for both the similarities and differences and continuities and discontinuities between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. One fundamentaldifference between modern
Europeand the context in which ThirdWorldstates have had to undertaketheir
state-makingprojects is related to the fact that modernEurope's state building
was largely an autonomous and often unpremeditatedactivity by early state
makers.45 For the ThirdWorld, the geopolitical contours of states were established largely by outside forces. Postcolonial state elites were left with the task
of mobilizing humanand materialresourcesto effectively administerterritories
encompassed by colonially crafted boundaries.
In other words, in the ThirdWorld, state making is both less of an autonomous activity and more of a directed or premeditatedone. In Europe sovereignty followed the establishmentof effective statecontrol.46In the ThirdWorld,
44Fora discussionof juridicalandeffectivestatehoodandthe differencebetween

them, see Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty,InternationalRelations and the

ThirdWorld(New York:CambridgeUniversityPress,1990).
45Accordingto CharlesTilly, "Thestatestructures
thatactuallytook shapegrew
largely as unintendedby-productsof other activities."Big Structures,Large Processes, Huge Comparisons(New York:RussellSage Foundation,1984),p. 141.
46
JamesA. Caporasopointsout,"Sovereigntyas a claimaboutultimaterulewithin
a territorycameafterthe stateitself, even if todaywe confusinglydefinethe stateas
sovereign.This definitionaltangleof separatepropertiesmasksa complexhistorical
Order:
interactionbetweenstatesandsystemsof rule.""Changesin the Westphalian

The Case for SubalternRealism

45

juridical sovereignty preceded the establishmentof such control. Ratherit was


a preconditionfor establishingterritorialanddemographiccontrol.47This makes
the task of ThirdWorldstate makersboth difficult and easier-difficult because
it makes state elites less legitimate than those in Europe,who had won control
of territoryby the exercise of superiorforce; and easier because the trajectory
for ThirdWorldstates is clearly mappedout and unforeseendirectionsare ruled
out.
It is not merely the geopolitical contours of Third World states that have
been shaped by external forces. External actors also have determinedthe normative environmentand the distributionof power in the internationalsystem.
As a result, the history of state creation in the ThirdWorldhas been subject to
major external influences and determinants.The internationalpower hierarchy
and its capacity to displace great power conflicts onto Third World states and
regions have impinged greatly on the process of state formation in the postcolonial countries. In addition, internationalnorms that define effective and
legitimate statehood, as well as those that increasingly encourageinternational
interventioninto the affairs of weaker states, have influenced crucially the trajectories of state formation among subalternstates. This has had major consequences for the level of conflict both within and among ThirdWorld states.
These states are faced with severe problems related to the operation of
internationalnorms and the recent changes thathave occurredin thatnormative
environment,largely at the behest of the developed states of the global North.
As new entrantsinto the internationalsystem, their state structureslack adequate effectiveness and unconditionallegitimacy. Yet internationalnorms compel them to acquire both in a much shorter time compared to their European
predecessorsor to face internationalderision.Furthermore,contemporaryinternational norms place contradictorydemands on ThirdWorld state elites. They
enjoin the demonstrationof effective territorialand demographiccontrol by the
state. At the same time, they requirethe state elites to treatthe domestic opponents of the state humanely.These concurrentbut contradictorydemandsmake
the task of ThirdWorldstate makersenormouslydifficult. Europeanstate makers at a corresponding stage of state building did not have Amnesty International and the U.N. HumanRights Commission breathingdown their necks.
These problems have been compounded further by the policies of great
powers that have traditionally interfered in the process of state building in
many ThirdWorldcountries to advance their own global and regional political
agendas. In doing so, they magnify the difficulties inherentin providing political order to emerging polities. Vietnam,Angola, Mozambique, Zaire/Congo,
PublicAuthority,and Sovereignty,"InternationalStudiesReview2, No. 2
Territory,
(2000), p. 10.
47 RobertJackson,Quasi-States.

46

MohammedAyoob

Afghanistan, and Somalia, among others, bear direct testimony to this fact.48
Consequently,ThirdWorld state making has proceeded in a far more difficult
internationalenvironmentthan in Europe two or three centuries ago.
Clearly, there are domestic repression problems within many Third World
states, as well as actual or potential instances of state failure. Yet use of force
and state collapse are integralpartsof the state-makingsaga, especially at early
stages of state formation. This is not to condone state repression of selected
groups,especially if the repressionis systematicand sustained.Nor is the intent
to justify repressionby predatoryregimes for self-aggrandizement.The intent
is to invite reflection on two dimensions of this problem.
First, state repression for consolidating state authority should be distinguished from the purelypredatoryactivities of self-seeking rulerswho areinterested not in consolidating state authoritybut merely in privatizing the state to
enrich and empower themselves. For instance, Indian actions in Kashmir or
Turkey's repression of its Kurdishpopulation should not be equated with the
predatoryactions of the Mobutu regime in Zaire/Congo or the Nigerian military regime's suppression of the Ogoni people, who protest against the environmentaldegradationof their oil-rich lands.
Second, in many newly established states, the security of the state and the
regime become closely intertwined. Without the security of the regime, the
security of the state is likely to fall into utter disrepair,if not disappearaltogether. Historians studying Bourbon France, TudorEngland, or Kemalist Turkey will immediately recognize the verity of this assertion. Although analysts
ought to distinguish among the purely predatoryactivities of ruling elites and
those relating to state consolidation strategies, they must also be aware that
sometimes actions to secure regimes in the Third World are essential for the
existence and security of the state. Scholars must not shirk from exercising
their informedjudgment on this issue in relation to discrete cases. One cannot
make law-like generalizations in this regard that would fit all cases of state
repression and the exercise of violence domestically.
I have deliberately not addressed the issue of the plight of the subaltern
classes, groups, and individuals within Third World states. The reason is that
the internationalsystem has not yet progressed from being an international
society to that of a world society.49It is only at this latterstage thatquestions of
equity andjustice within polities would reachthe top of the internationalagenda
and invite concerted internationalaction. Fortunatelyor unfortunately,we are
still stuck at the stage where most people's primarypolitical loyalties are to
their states and nations. Most importantdecisions about security and welfare
48Fordetails,see Ayoob,The ThirdWorldSecurityPredicament,esp. chs. 5 and7.
49For

the distinctionbetweeninternational
societyandworldsociety,see Bull, The

Anarchical Society, ch. 1.

The Case for SubalternRealism

47

are made at the state and national level, with state and national concerns determining such decisions. As long as this is the case, we must continue to see
states as the primaryactors on the internationalscene.
Treatingthe internationalsystem in normativeterms, as if a world society
were alreadyin existence, would be self-defeatingandcounterproductivebecause
it would projecta solidaristconception of the internationalsystem that does not
correspond to contemporaryinternationalrealities. Conceiving international
society in such false terms will permit the dominantpowers to act even more
arbitrarilyby arrogatingto themselves the right to act on behalf of the internationalcommunity.50Some cases of so-calledhumanitarianinterventionalready
point toward this trend. The danger is that repeated arrogation of authority
based on a solidarist conception of world order is likely to erode severely the
fragile consensus undergirdingthe currentpluralistnotion of internationalsociety. It is likely to have a major negative impact on the level of order existing
within the internationalsystem and increase the level of confrontationalrhetoric and action.
The subalternrealist perspective is groundedin what it perceives to be the
existing realities of the internationalsystem. It also exhibits a clear normative
preference for the pluralist structureand ethos of internationalsociety for reasons repeatedlycited. Its contributionto the analysis of InternationalRelations
is likely to come from its capacity to provide more comprehensiveexplanations
for the origins of the majorityof conflicts in the internationalsystem and for the
behavior of most states inhabiting it. It attemptsto construct this comprehensive picture by weaving together several different intellectual strands.Again,
these strandscomprise the insights regardingthe creationand orderingof political communities provided by classical realist thought;by historical sociological literatureconcerning the formationand legitimization of states in Europe;
by the intriguing but important role played by the operation of international
norms in orderingboth domestic and internationalsocieties; and by the current
predicaments facing weak and vulnerable Third World states that are at the
early stages of state making.
As a result of the confluence of these various strands,the subalternrealist
perspective assumes that issues relating to the maintenance and creation of
domestic order and those of internationalorder are inextricably intertwined,
especially in the arena of conflict and security. It also assumes that domestic
orderissues, primarilyconnected with the state-makingenterprisewithin states,
must receive analytical priority if we are to explain successfully most current
conflicts in the internationalsystem because they are the primarydeterminants
of such conflicts. In addition, issues of domestic order and conflict are not

Intervention
andStateSover50Fordetails,see MohammedAyoob,"Humanitarian

eignty," InternationalJournal of HumanRights, 6, No. 1 (2002), pp. 81-102.

48

MohammedAyoob

immune to either regional or global external influences, especially given the


permeabilityof the majorityof states to externalpolitical and economic actors.
The subaltern realist position also posits the linkage between domestic and
external variables to explain the nexus between intrastateand interstateconflicts. It does so by highlighting the intertwiningof the state-makingenterprise
with regional balance of power issues.
Finally, this perspective takes into account the impact of the international
normativeframeworkon state making and nation building in the ThirdWorld,
as well as the ThirdWorldstates' insistence on maintainingthe essential norms
of the Westphaliansystem to protectthemselves from unwantedexternal intervention.By integratingthese variousstrandsof analysis,this perspectiveattempts
to provide explanationsfor both the origins of most contemporaryconflicts and
the behavior of the majorityof states currentlyinhabitingthe internationalsystem. It is this combination of explanatorycapacities that makes it a powerful
tool that can be used quite successfully to analyze issues of war and peace,
conflict and orderin the currentera.
Although subalternrealism does not necessarily aspireto supersedeor supplant neorealism and neoliberalism as the "theory"that fully can explain how
the internationalsystem operates, it does go a long way toward filling important gaps in the theoreticalliteratureand correctingthe acute state of inequality
thatpervadesInternationalRelations theorizing.It does so by making the experiences and concerns of the majority of states the centerpiece of theorizing in
InternationalRelations. Inequalityis certainly not new, yet it seems to be intensifying as a result of globalization and the latest revolution in military affairs.
There is no doubt in my mind that the issue of inequality in internationalrelations needs to be addressedmore seriously at the beginning of the twenty-first
century than has been done so far. Otherwise,there is the dangerthat the "global covenant"that sustainsinternationalordermay begin to fray beyond repair.
As professionalscommittedto teaching and researchin InternationalRelations,
we could begin the task of addressing inequality in internationalrelations by
incorporatingmore widely in our discussions the subalternrealist perspective
as an analytical device.
One last word about theory: to be elegant and comprehensible, theories
attemptto be parsimonious.Yet parsimonyperpetuatesinequalityby providing
the opportunityto the more powerful to exclude and occlude the interests and
experiences of those who have less power and less voice. Acknowledging the
complexity in human affairs-less "theory"and more "perspectives"-opens
up avenues for accommodation and adaptationthat permit the subalternsto
enter the world of ideas, concepts, and, yes, "theory."

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