Structural Realism/Offensive and Defensive Realism The impact of these biological factors on social and political behavior will vary depending on context. Moreover, it argues that statesare obliged to behave this way because doing so favors survival in the international system. On the contrary, it provides or adds to the reasons why we demand and need them, and indeed why they are so hard to establish and maintain. However, what is striking is the prevalence and potency of dominance in social organization, despite variations in the specifics. For Mearsheimer, states seek to maximize power not because they are aggressive, but because the system requires itthis behavior is the best way to maximize security in an anarchic world. States are much the same. Note that we do not intend to make the full case forthe role of evolution in human behavior. Evolutionary theory provides an important framework for understanding the ingroup/outgroup distinction commonly noted by anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists, and perhaps most prominently by psychologists.Reference Kurzban, Neuberg and Buss120,121 Of the many biases identified in the so-called cognitive revolution in psychology, the ingroup/outgroup bias is one of most pervasive, pernicious, and powerful. (Examples include the spread of Christianity or Islam at the expense of traditional religions over the last 2,000 years.) Third, critics point to international cooperation among states as evidence against offensive realism. Mearsheimer notably advocated the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Europe, arguing that their presence there was irrational, as no state currently threatened to dominate the continent. Even if this strategy is never successful, it motivates individuals to achieve the maximum possible. Other recent work has been an International Security paper, with Monica Toft, Grounds for War: The Evolution of Territorial Conflict, which explores the behavioral origins of fighting over land. Egoism and dominance are important mechanisms for attaining security, but also important is attaining security from members of other groups. We are also yet to see how European states will cooperate or compete when the U.S. security umbrella is removed. Individuals bide their time, form coalitions and alliances, and cooperate with others, but they also seize power where the opportunity arises. For example, among wolves, lions, and chimpanzees, when members of rival groups are found alone, they are extremely vulnerable and risk being killed.140,141,142 We discussed intergroup killing in chimpanzees earlier, but the pattern is notable among social carnivores, too: Studies of undisturbed wolf populations in Alaska have found that 39 to 65 percent of adult deaths were due to intergroup killing.Reference Mech, Adams, Meier, Burch and Dale143, Of course, the ability to assess threats is much more complex in humans than it is in other animals, and human intelligence gives us a greater repertoire of behavior. As formulated by Mearsheimer, the theory of offensive realism is a type of neorealism because the principal causes of state behavior are rooted in the anarchic international system. Neorealism points to international anarchy, a phenomenon we can evaluate, as the ultimate cause of state behavior. By contrast, as rational actor theorists would expect, hunter-gatherers are averse to the risk of fighting symmetric battles with roughly equivalent numbers on each side.82 Importantly, sustained instances of imbalances of power over evolutionary history would have led to the selection of contingent aggression. Drawing on both disciplines, he is interested in how new research on evolution, biology, and human nature challenges theories of international relations, conflict, and cooperation. We find that these precise traits are not only evolutionarily adaptive but also empirically common across the animal kingdom, especially in primate and human societies. Evolutionary theory is especially helpful here because it advances our understanding of the proximate (biological) causes of offensive realist behavior and the conditions under which mistakes are more likely to be made (i.e., conditions that exacerbate egoistic, dominating, and groupish behaviors even where such behaviors may not help to achieve strategic goals). While biological group selection among humans is unlikely, the selection of cultural traits among groups is possible. However, a key insight from evolution is that the primacy of self-help, power maximization, and outgroup fear does not necessarily condemn individuals or groups to competition and conflict; rather, these traits can in themselves give rise to cooperation and alliances. The very existence of these phenomena, not to mention the extreme efforts and expense they continually require to function, only supports the point that international politics needs very special and powerful arrangements to prevent people from acting as offensive realistspredisposed as they are to do so. PDF 241-256 IRE 104637 - John Mearsheimer In short, on the basis of the family tree, there is little reason to assume that humans should be more or less like bonobos or chimpanzees. As a result of our evolution, humans will act like offensive realists even inside the statethat is, in conditions of hierarchy (as far as they are be able to)as well as in relations between states. The most obvious challenge that evolutionary theory presents to international relations concerns our understanding of human nature. Correspondence: Dominic D. P. Johnson, Alastair Buchan Professor ofInternational Relations, Department of Politics andInternational Relations, University of Oxford, St. Antonys College, 62 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6JF, United Kingdom. Individuals may follow generalized decision rules, but these rules give rise to different behaviors in different contexts. Some of these date from the split with our last nonhuman primate ancestor at the beginning of the Pliocene, around 5 million years ago. or Kenneth Waltz's structural realism. Indeed, a wide range of empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience suggests instead that humans, especially men, not only want to be leaders but also enjoy the pursuit of power (as well as its material fruits).156,Reference Robertson157,158 The force of this motivation is frequently revealed in victors expressions of the satisfaction of conquest. Animals do not constantly fight. Footnote 16 In summary, Mearsheimer's realism is influenced profoundly by this core theoretical commitment to structural realism and its modification to include the rational actor assumption. For example, Wrangham recounts that among the Inuit of the Arctic, unfamiliar men would normally be killed even before questions were asked.139, Such wariness of individuals from other groups is paralleled among animals. Our evolutionary theory of offensive realism is unlimited in time, explaining behavior from the ancestral environment to the present day, whereas offensive realism is conventionally inapplicable prior to 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia established the European state system. The central issue raised by our theory is what causes states to behave as offensive realists predict. For an excellent general analysis of the genetic origins of aggression and its chemical mediators in humans such as the hormone testosterone, its derivative dihydroxytestosterone (DHT), neurotransmitters such as serotonin, and some of the differences in behavior caused by these factors in men and women, see William R. Clark and Michael Grunstein, In this respect, too, international politics resembles animal behavior. In addition to fighting over resources, we can now fight over ideology as well. In human history and prehistory, other human groups were commonly the most dangerous threat in the environment, and the ingroup/outgroup bias is likely to have helped the ingroup remain cohesive, avoid and be wary of outgroups, solve the collective action problem in emergencies, and kill outsiders.136,137,Reference Tooby, Cosmides and Hgh-Olesen138, Second, the ingroup/outgroup bias offers a rapid heuristic to weigh the various threats when encountering other humans. If our hypothesis is correct, then evolutionary theory offers the following: (1) a novel ultimate cause of offensive realist behavior; (2) an extension of offensive realism to any domain in which humans compete for power; and (3) an explanation for why individual leaders themselves, and not just states, seek power. All three species descended from an (unknown) common ancestor. This version of realism retains the traditional realist assumption that the primary state goal is power, rather than the defensive realist assumption that states seek security. The Ngogo group annexed their newly captured area, increasing their territory by more than 20 percent.Reference Mitani, Watts and Amsler1. Debate continues as to whether modern states actually do, or should, behave in this way, but we are struck by a different question. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. In fact, however, anarchy has been a constant feature of the entire multimillion year history of the human lineage (and indeed the 3.5 billionyear history of the evolution of all life on Earth before that). Conventional offensive realism cannot explain such events well. Napoleon Chagnons work among the Yanomamo of the Amazon revealed that indigenous groups had a constant need to find new territory as they expanded and split, and they experienced a constant fear of other groups because violent conflict was a recurring strategy used to stake out a livelihood.Reference Chagnon75 The Yanomamo are just one example of a pattern that extends to a wide range of indigenous societies around the world.76,77 Across such societies, around 15 percent of male deaths occurred in warfare, which compares to a figure of around 1 percent for the United States and Europe in the so-called bloody 20th century (and in many of those small-scale indigenous societies, the rate of male deaths from warfare is much higher than the average figure of 15 percent).78,Reference Bowles79, It has been argued that such high levels of conflict among indigenous societies might have been caused by pressure from more developed societies encroaching on their territories and way of life from the outside. These traits help to explain why humans (including political leaders) will behave, in the proper circumstances, as offensive realists expect them to behave. Furthermore, cooperation is often itself a means to power maximization in the formation of military and security alliancesand thus, cooperation can be a prediction of, not a challenge to, offensive realism. Defensive realists argue that too much powerclassically, too much military powerdecreases a states security because other states will balance against it. Mearsheimer: International institutions Flashcards | Quizlet While relations within groups might be characterized by coordination and cooperation (although internal conflict was important too), relations between groups were characterized by competition and conflict (although external cooperation and trade was also possible). The fact that there is no world government compels the leaders of states to take steps to ensure their security, such as striving to have a powerful military, forging and maintaining alliances, and acting aggressively when necessary. If anything, group selection would tend to increase violence, since between-group competition (conflict among strangers) can be more brutal than within-group competition (conflict among kin and fellow group members). PDF | Previous research has found emotion interpretation biases in individuals with social anxiety (SA) when emotions are ambiguous. Rather, chimpanzees appear to have evolved an innate aggression toward other groups, a tendency that causes them to attack neighboring males when the opportunity arises, and leads to greater Darwinian reproductive success over time. He subsequently became Content Manager at PressReader. Published online by Cambridge University Press: Third, we illuminate offensive realisms new explanatory power when wedded to evolution. Collective action to attain public goods, however, is much harder to attain because of the threat of free-riders (as demonstrated, for example, by the slow response to climate change, the reluctance of states to accept Syrian refugees, and Eurozone fiscal responsibility). That is, there is no ultimate authority in international politics comparable to a domestic government that can adjudicate disputes and provide protection for citizens.Reference Waltz25,Reference Waltz26 Without governmental authority, Waltz argues, the international system is a self-help system, where states must provide for their own protection through arms and alliances.

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