mearsheimer's 5 assumptions of realism

I, The genetical evolution of social behavior. The result was that the theory lacked, and still lacks, a scientifically describable ultimate cause. Our point is therefore not that humans are naturally good or naturally bad at all times and in all circumstances, but rather that people have evolved mechanisms for egoism, dominance, and groupishness that are activated and amplified in certain settings. The fact that human evolution occurred under conditions of anarchy, that we evolved as hunter-gatherers in an ecological setting of predation, resource competition, and intergroup conflict, and that humans have been subject to natural selection for millions of years has profound consequences for understanding human behavior, not least how humans perceive and act toward others. Of the many features of hunter-gatherer society and organization, we focus on intergroup relations, since these are most relevant to the behaviors associated with international relations. As we have noted, offensive realism contains explicit assumptions about how states behave in international politicsgiven the hostile environment, states are (and ought to be if they are to survive) self-interested, power maximizing, and fearful of others. An evolutionary foundation offers a major reinterpretation of the theory of offensive realism and permits its broader application to political behavior across a wide range of actors, domains, and historical eras. The constraints on biological group selection, such as significant differences in a given trait between groups and low migration, are relaxed in the case of cultural traits, since groups actively promote cultural distinctions and have many mechanisms to prevent flows between them.Reference Richerson and Boyd190 Therefore, it is not just likely but quite apparent that many cultural traits have evolved out of group-level competitionsometimes referred to as memes, as opposed to genes. The most well-known advocate of this view in recent years has been John Mearsheimer, whose offensive realism is articulated in his book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: We prefer a more positive picture of human nature, perhaps one that accords with comfortable modern life in developed states. Pomeroy, Caleb Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Ethological studies have shown that hierarchical dominance systems within a primate groups social network can reduce overt aggression, although aggression increases again when the alpha male is challenged.Reference Knauft116,Reference Flack, Girvan, de Waal and Krakauer117,Reference de Waal118. Again, the political world mirrors nature: Not everyone can be the alpha male. The role of war in the evolution of political systems and the functional priority of defense,, For an excellent review of the logic for, and evidence of, adaptations for war, see, Inclusive fitness has recently been the subject of a heated debate in the biological literature; see M. A. Nowak, Corina E. Tarnita, and Edward O. Wilson, The evolution of eusociality,, There is copious evidence from historical and contemporary times that such nepotism is a significant influence in politics. Thus, the power of sexual selection can lead to the evolution of traits that actually damage survival in order to achieve superiority over other males.Reference Lincoln, Short and Balaban104,Reference Trivers and Campbell105 Reproduction trumps survival in evolution. Retaliation and collaboration among humans, Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations, Evolutionary biology: Struggling to escape exclusively individual selection, Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioural sciences, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Origins of Cooperation, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power and the Pursuit of Office, Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes, Selected: Why Some People Lead, Why Others Follow, and Why It Matters, Presidential Ambition: Gaining Power at Any Cost, Women and the evolution of world politics, Madam President: Women Blazing the Leadership Trail, Misperception and the causes of war: Theoretical linkages and analytical problems, Aggression and the self: High self-esteem, low self-control, and ego threat, Human Aggression: Theories, Research, and Implications for Social Policy, Victims of Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, Collective violence: comparisons between youths and chimpanzees. It is hard to escape the conclusion from the ethnographic and archeological evidence from Europe, North America, South American, Australia, and New Guinea that hunter-gatherers both simple and complex engaged in socially sanctioned lethal conflict between independent polities, suggesting an extremely long history of warfare that can ultimately be traced back to early hominins., Terry Jones and Mark AllenReference Allen and Jones58, Humans evolved as a distinct lineage principally in the Pleistocene era (from 2 million to 10,000 years ago), and our analysis therefore requires a discussion of the small-scale hunter-gatherer groups that formed the social and ecological context for that period of human evolution. Each season at Evermore Park brings new adventures, fit for all ages. In sum, evolutionary theory offers realist scholars a natural-scientific behavioral foundation for offensive realism. In short, offensive realism may really be describing the nature of the human species more than the nature of the international system. However, we argue that offensive realists need not depend on the anarchy of the state system to advance their argument. However, a study by Wrangham and Glowacki, which explicitly looked at warfare among hunter-gatherers who were surrounded by other hunter-gatherers, found that warfare was just as common in this more natural setting.Reference Wrangham and Glowacki80 Evidence from across the cumulative research of archeologists and anthropologists indicates that violence is a widespread feature of small-scale foraging societies and follows a pattern that is consistent as far back as we can see in the ethnographic and archeological record.81. 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. Until recently, international relations theorists rarely used insights from the life sciences to inform their understanding of human behavior. Will an outsider compete for the current or future resources that the insiders need to survive or expand? Utah's Office of Licensing, which provides oversight to youth residential treatment centers, has conducted 341 investigations in the past five years at Provo Canyon School's four campuses. First, to whatever extent anarchy deserves its place among realist presumptions, the evolution of human groups interacting in conditions of anarchy deserves study within realism. It is also worth noting that offensive realism may often be derided because we do not want it to be true. Second, even if group selection does occur, it can only increase altruism within groups. The ubiquity and strength of the ingroup/outgroup bias across history and across human cultures suggest it is an ingrained aspect of human nature, and evolutionary theory explains why such a mechanism would evolve.Reference Alexander125,Reference Hammond and Axelrod126,Reference Choi and Bowles127 First, considerable evidence from both archeological and ethnographic research on preindustrial societies points to intensive intergroup conflict in our past.128,129,130,131,132,133 As we noted earlier, around 15 percent of male populations in indigenous small-scale societies died in warfare (and, in some such societies, war-related mortality rates were considerably higher).134,135 War also remains a significant influence on the social organization and physical distribution of these societies even when they are not actually at war. Egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup distinctions have previously been attributed to variables such as culture, economics, or religion.148,149 For example, Karl Marx and his followers identified egoism as a result of capitalism and called for its suppression and the triumph of class consciousness. Evolutionary theory can also explain dominance. Many models of consumer behavior include fundamental assumptions which are rarely questioned. His most recent book, with Brian Mazanec, is Deterring Cyber Warfare: Bolstering StrategicStability in Cyberspace (Palgrave, 2014). Although warfare is a high-stakes collective action problem, warriors are willing to participate because over evolutionary time the dividends have tended to outweigh the costs.84,Reference Wrangham and Glowacki85. After graduating from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1970, Mearsheimer served for five years as an officer in the air force, rising to the rank of captain. Neorealism therefore works from realism's five base theoretical assumptions as outlined by offensive neorealist scholar John J. Mearsheimer in "The False Promise of International Institutions". Also like Waltz, Mearsheimer argues that bipolarity (where two states have the majority of power and international influence) is more stable than multipolarity for three reasons: First, bipolarity provides fewer opportunities for war between the superpowers; second, there will tend to be smaller imbalances of power between the superpowers; and, third, there is less potential for great power miscalculation.29. Older versions of evolutionary theory sometimes presented strategies and behaviors as fixed or hard wired. Modern biology stresses the contingent, context-dependent nature of behavioral adaptations, which generates finer predictions for when we should expect to see different types of behavior.Reference Davies, Krebs and West155 This is an important point to which we will return. "useRatesEcommerce": false However, there is, of course, considerable variation in egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias. In addition to fighting over resources, we can now fight over ideology as well. Evolutionary theory and the causes of war,, John Strate emphasizes the importance of defense from attack by conspecifics, other humans; he argues that it caused the growth of human societies. First, the group could eliminate or reduce consumption to make the resource last. Note: In all cases, we argue, holding onto the status quo is not always good enough to ensure survival. Indeed, part of the beauty of evolutionary approaches is their ability to predict sources of variationthe socio-ecological conditions under which we should expect to see humans acting (in this case) more fearful and more self-interested, and pursuing more power maximization, rather than less. However, an evolutionary perspective is particularly useful here because it predicts that behavior is contingent, not fixed. All three species descended from an (unknown) common ancestor. More important, however, is that we both evolved in conditions of free-for-all competitionof anarchywithout any Leviathan to administer life-and-death struggles with rival groups, a situation well recognized in the study of international relations among states. Mearsheimer's 5 Assumptions 1) International System is Anarchic 2) Great Powers possess military capability 3) States can't be certain about other state intentions 4) Survival is the primary goal of great powers 5) Great powers are rational actors Mearsheimer's 3 Functions of State Behavior 1) States fear each other Classical realists (such as Thucydides, E.H. Carr, Arnold Wolfers, and Hans Morgenthau) and offensive realists share the assumption that states seek to maximize power - that states are relentless seekers of power and influence.Specifically, for classical realists "nations expand their political interests abroad when their relative power increases . An article adapted from the book had previously been published by Foreign Affairs. However, another important source of variation is individual differencesthat is, specific people exhibit these traits to greater or lesser degrees. The environment in which we evolved typically implies the Pleistocene era, lasting from 2 million years ago until around 10,000 years ago. As with all things in nature, dominance hierarchies vary considerably. Kenneth Waltz placed realism on a more scientific foundation by introducing a new realist theory: neorealism or structural realism. According to Waltz, the need for security leads states to favour the status quo and to adopt a defensive position toward their competitors. Mearsheimer and Walt in particular make cases for "restraint" and "offshore balancing," meaning a reservation of the use of force to the most serious threats to US power, coupled with a policy to prevent China's assumption of regional hegemony in Asia (Mearsheimer and Walt 2016). Feature Flags: { John Mearsheimer's Theory and its Major Assumptions|Realism #realpolitik International Relations & Politics 13.4K subscribers Subscribe 153 2.4K views 6 months ago Talk given on December. His new book, God is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines the role of religion in the evolution of cooperation and how cross-culturally ubiquitous and ancient beliefs in supernatural punishment have helped human society overcome major challenges of collective action. While this may be true in western, industrialized . Rather, we suggest it is an example of what biologists call evolutionary convergencesimilar traits arising in different settings because they are good solutions to a common problem. Evolutionary theory explains why humans are egoistic, strive to dominate others, and make ingroup/outgroup distinctions. Behavior varies considerably, just as standard offensive realism predicts for states, and countervailing forces would sometimes mitigate power-maximization strategiesalthough the very need for and difficulties of those countervailing forces help to demonstrate the fact that offensive realist behavior remains an underlying problem. While biological group selection among humans is unlikely, the selection of cultural traits among groups is possible. The organism has to ensure that its physiological needs (for food, water, shelter, and so on) are satisfied so that it can survive and reproduce. In fact, interactions with people from other groupsunrelated others that may not have shared interestsmay be especially costly or lethal compared to within-group interactions. Mearsheimer outlines five assumptions or premises comprising his theoretical . Indeed, the possibility of even more intense security competition in the Sino-American relationship, between India and Pakistan, and in the Middle East highlights the importance of making the theorys logic explicit and revealing and testing its foundations. As we have stressed, the human traits of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias are adaptations to the ecological conditions prevalent in human evolution. For example, Western Europeans feel relatively secure (at least while the United States provides for their security). Offensive realists can thus explain more than the behavior of states or great powers. We do not assume that humans and our primate cousins simply inherited these traits wholesale from a common ancestor. This match, in turn, should be no surprise because human behavior evolved under conditions of anarchy, which pervaded throughout our evolution as well as in international politics today. State as primary actor 2. Indeed, cultural selection has often reinforced, not reduced, these very behaviors over human history. He is the author of Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Harvard University Press, 2004), which argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of our capabilities, our control over events, and the future play a key roles in causing war, and, with Dominic Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Harvard University Press, 2006), which examines how and why popular misperceptions commonly create undeserved victories or defeats in wars and crises. Similar patterns are evident in nature. We are also yet to see how European states will cooperate or compete when the U.S. security umbrella is removed. 4 (December 1997), pp. Where these conditions are tempered, such as in the modern peaceful democracies of Western Europe, these cognitive and physiological mechanisms are likely to be more subdued. The key finding is that humans quickly adopt an us (ingroup) versus them (outgroup) worldview. At the dawn of the 21st century, an era that will be dominated by science at least as much as philosophy, we have the opportunity to move away from untested assumptions about human nature. Self-help, power maximization, and fear are strategies to survive nature, not just contemporary international politics. In the Pleistocene era, this strategy could have been an option with some resources but not others. However, unlike Waltz, who fears that too much power for a state will lead other states to seek to achieve a balance of power and thus actually threaten the states security (the genesis of defensive realism),30 Mearsheimer argues that the international system requires that states maximize their offensive power to be secure and keep rivals from gaining power at their expense.31 In fact, this systemic incentive is so powerful that states would become the most powerful of all if they could: A states ultimate goal is to be the hegemon in the system.32 Only by being the hegemon can the state be absolutely sure of its security. Table2. However, offensive realism is one of the most compelling current theories for explaining major phenomena across the history of international politics, such as great power rivalries and the origins of war. Moreover, it argues that statesare obliged to behave this way because doing so favors survival in the international system. The abundance of intergroup threats, which cause the fear and uncertainty Mearsheimer identifies, are deeply rooted in human evolution under conditions of anarchy over millions of years, and not just in the anarchy of the modern state system in recent history. In 2003 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Where extensive international cooperation does occur, it is often only by virtue of a hegemon willing to sustain it, and cooperation quickly breaks down if core interests and security are put at risk. 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. Others are even older, such as the limbic system, hormones, and sexual dimorphism, which are shared by countless species extending across all mammals and beyond. Note: The unit of analysis varies among the theories (states for defensive and offensive realism, humans for classical realism and human evolution), but all predictions are for state behavior. Waltzs core concept in Theory of International Politics is the anarchy that reigns in world politics. 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. Under these conditions, such behavior will have been favored by natural selection and spread. His current work focuses on evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary psychology, and religion in human conflict and cooperation. Defensive realists argue that too much powerclassically, too much military powerdecreases a states security because other states will balance against it. This foundation permits us to reach realist conclusions about international politics, such as the importance of power in interstate relations, without having to believe in Morgenthaus animus dominandi. The legacies of this long evolutionary history exert powerful influences on our behavior, including our political behavior, even today in large settled societies and in the global arena. Our theory advances offensive realist arguments without seeking an ultimate cause in the anarchic international state system. PDF | Previous research has found emotion interpretation biases in individuals with social anxiety (SA) when emotions are ambiguous. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Cooperation among unrelated individuals is possible but only as the result of interactions that help genes replicate in the long run, through mechanisms such as reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, and signaling.Reference Nowak92 Even cooperation and helping behavior, therefore, are strategies that increase an individuals Darwinian fitnessindeed, that is precisely why they evolved.Reference West, El Mouden and Gardner93 In nature, genetic egoism is the basis of natural selection. When the stakes are high, such as in 1914, 1939, 1941, or 1962, or today in the Middle East, Ukraine, or the East and South China Seas, offensive realism does not seem so foreign.

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