mearsheimer's 5 assumptions of realism

We do not, however, need to rely on mere analogies linking animal and human behavior. The cognitive mechanisms underpinning the three traits were established in an environment very different from the one in which humans now live, but they persist because our brains, biochemistry and nervous systems, which evolved over many millions of years, have remained the same despite the rapid sociological and technological advances of the last few centuries. On the importance of resource harvesting for the development of dominance hierarchies, see James L. Boone, Competition, conflict, and the development of social hierarchies, in. 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. In this article, we ask whether the three core assumptions about behavior in offensive realismself-help, power maximization, and outgroup fearhave any basis in scientific knowledge about human behavioral evolution. Both laboratory experiments and real-world observations have identified empirical differences between men and women in a range of social behaviors, not least that men tend to have relative-gains, or zero-sum motivations (wanting to get ahead at the expense of others), whereas women tend to favor payoff-maximization, or variable-sum motivations (content to do well even if others also do well in the process).Reference Lopez, McDermott and Petersen106,Reference Ellis, Hershberger, Field, Wersinger, Pellis, Hetsroni and Geary107,Reference Taylor, Klein, Lewis, Gruenewald, Gurung and Updegraff108,Reference Van Vugt and Spisak109, It is well established that dominance and status-seeking behaviors in humans are based on many of the same biochemical and neurological processes as in other mammals, such as the secretion and uptake of testosterone and serotonin, which modify status-challenging behavior.110,111 However rational we may like to think we are, our judgments and decision-making are nevertheless influenced by cognitive mechanisms and biochemicals circulating in our bodies and brains that relate to dominance behavior.Reference McDermott112,Reference Damasio113,114,115, Dominance hierarchies need not only benefit those at the top. The recent crises of the Euro and migration have shown in stark terms that individual states continue to exploit the opportunity to free-ride on others if they can, and even the most powerful states, such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, have been reluctant or unwilling to make sacrifices to protect other states. The fact is that evolution explains and predicts both (under the relevant circumstances). Individual differences are important because political leaders may be more likely than the average person to display egoism, dominance, and groupishness. According to Waltz, the need for security leads states to favour the status quo and to adopt a defensive position toward their competitors. Between groups, group selection would do the opposite, maintaining or even exacerbating conflict.187 Because the premise is that selection operates at the level of groups, altruistic traits can only spread if altruism helps spread the genes responsible for it at the expense of other genes, and that must occur via intergroup competition or conflict. However, an evolutionary perspective raises new doubts about the significance of such evidence. The group can accept organization with some centralization of power (dominance hierarchies), or it can engage in perpetual conflict (scramble competition), which incurs costs in terms of time, energy, and injuries, as well as depriving the group of many benefits of a communal existence, such as more efficient resource harvesting.119 Among social mammals, and primates in particular, dominance hierarchies have emerged as the primary form of social organization. Instead, we can make more concrete predictions about how humans tend to think and act in different conditions, based on new scientific knowledge about human cognition and behavior, and in particular a greater understanding of the social and ecological context in which human brains and behaviors evolved. Unsatisfied with military life, he decided to pursue graduate studies rather than become a career officer. Evolutionary theory would expect that intergroup conflict contributes to fitness in certain circumstances if successful defense and offense against outgroups yield resources and reduce competition in an environment defined by finite resources.60,61 A resource is any material substance that has the potential to increase the individuals ability to survive or reproduce, such as food, shelter, territory, coalition allies, and members of the opposite sex.Reference Low, Zimmerman and Jacobson62, What an evolutionary perspective allows us to understand is that the origins of warfare and the functions of warfare are interconnected. A key debate in evolutionary anthropology has revolved around the origins and extent of intergroup conflict among hunter-gatherers, and the emerging consensus is that such conflict is (and has long been) significant and widespread, and that it serves adaptive functions.59, Let us first consider these functional advantages. First, the group could eliminate or reduce consumption to make the resource last. Let us begin, therefore, by situating offensive realism in the realist paradigm moregenerally. 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. Nevertheless, in evolutionary biology, the attribution of traits to common ancestry (a species phylogenetic history) can be important too. Our argument is that evolution produced a human brain and human behaviors that closely match these implicit behavioral patterns on which Mearsheimers theory of offensive realism depends: Egoism (self-help) captures why we want resources and resist their loss; Dominance (power maximization) explains why we want power to control resources for ourselves and our relatives and why we seek to defend them from or deny them to others; Ingroup/outgroup bias (fear of others) explains why we perceive other human groups as threats and rivals. 15, No. 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. These strategies are not unique to humans and, in fact, characterize a much broader trend in behavior among mammals as a wholeespecially primatesas well as many other major vertebrate groups, including birds, fish, and reptiles. That certainly may be, as he attempts to demonstrate. The most obvious challenge that evolutionary theory presents to international relations concerns our understanding of human nature. Fourth, group decision-making may actually amplify the influence of human dispositions; it is groups of men that are especially prone to behaviors associated with dominance, aggression, and coalitionary psychology.Reference Baumeister, Boden, Geen and Donnerstein203,Reference Janis204,205,206,Reference Wrangham and Wilson207. 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. Two theories of offensive realism. All anarchy does is remove constraints on pursuing such behavior. We see several reasons why human behavior is an important predictor of state behavior in the context of this article. Recently, a 10-year conflict in the Kibale Mountains of Uganda came to an end. Variations of Realism Working from these core assumptions realists have developed three major explanatory frameworks: l Classical or Human Nature Realists (Hans Morgenthau) l Structural or Defensive (a. k. a. neo-realists) Realists (Kenneth Waltz) l Offensive Realists (John Mearsheimer) l 3 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. First, offensive realism fails to explain why costly wars sometimes occur against the interests of the states that initiate them. Mearsheimers argument is a key contribution to the growing body of literature on offensive realism.Reference Lynn-Jones33,34 In general, offensive realists argue that states are compelled to maximize their relative power because of competition in the international system.Reference Mearsheimer35,36,37 States will be secure only by acting in this way. 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. 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. Additionally,. Whether or not humans and chimpanzees inherited warlike propensities from a common ancestor, there was nevertheless a strong selection pressure in both species to develop them. John Mearsheimer is one of these theorists. A couple of times a month, groups of males would venture stealthily and deliberately into the periphery of their neighbors territory and, if the invaders found males wandering there alone, they brutally beat them to death. In 1982 he became a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he was appointed the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science in 1996. In Waltzs model the absence of an authority above states (the condition of anarchy) forces them to make alliances in order to contain the threats posed by rival powers. Although alphas in the hierarchy tend to have the highest reproductive success, other males may benefit from group membership by gaining protection from other groups, or by biding their time for a chance to challenge the alpha male when they become strong enough or old enough. 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. 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. That choice, I argue in this article, creates three problems for his theory. However, he criticized post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy for overestimating the countrys military power and its capacity to project that power at will. The modern understanding of evolution rejects the simplistic stereotype that selfish genes equates to selfish organisms (Richard Dawkins carefully explained why that is not a logical consequence in The Selfish Gene Reference Dawkins6). 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. As we show in the next section, competition between groups is especially significant for human evolution, and for international politics, precisely because it is at the intergroup level where anarchy reigns supreme and is much harder to suppress. He is missed. Up to now, our claims have focused on traits that are common to all humans. Neorealism or structural realism is a theory of international relations that emphasizes the role of power politics in international relations, sees competition and conflict as enduring features and sees limited potential for cooperation. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Northwestern University) and has written numerous articles Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. Third, critics point to international cooperation among states as evidence against offensive realism. First, the preferences of individual citizens are, at least to a degree, represented in those elected toor tolerated inoffice, and those preferences may also be seen in the goals of the state. We prefer a more positive picture of human nature, perhaps one that accords with comfortable modern life in developed states. However, if unconstrained from having to fit evolutionary insights into any particular existing school of thought, evolutionary theory may offer its own, unique theory of international relations that shares features of offensive realism (and perhaps other theories too) but is distinct from them all. An individuals Darwinian fitness therefore includes the success of related others (hence the phrase inclusive fitness). Darwin himself envisioned these nuances, even though he did not know the biological mechanisms at work. For example, Western Europeans feel relatively secure (at least while the United States provides for their security). 21 June 2016. Mearsheimer's theory is built on five bedrock assumptions. None captures all salient issues. He argues, like Waltz, that the anarchic international system is responsible for much troublesuspicion, fear, security competition, and great power warsin international politics. 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 The theory of Mearsheimer has five basis assumptions: 1. Eric Labs captured this logic in his argument that, a strategy that seeks to maximize security through a maximum of relative power is the rational response to anarchy.38. The origins of warfare are rooted in the imperative to gain and defend resources necessary for survival and reproduction in dangerous and competitive conditions. | Find, read and cite all the research you . What is the logic for risking life and limb in engaging in violent aggression against other groups? 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). We recognize that many factors may affect the behavior of states, including bureaucracies, types of government, culture, international institutions, or the international system itself, but we also recognize, as traditional theories of international politics have from the time of Thucydides, that humans affect state behavior as well.Reference Levy202 Many factors come between an individual leader and the behavior of a state, but that does not mean leaders have no effect at all. Far from the original view of chimpanzees as boisterous but peaceful human cousins, researchers in recent decades have uncovered that these primates have a systematic tendency to kill males from rival groups.Reference Wilson, Boesch, Fruth, Furuichi, Gilby, Hashimoto, Hobaiter, Hohmann, Itoh, Koops, Lloyd, Matsuzawa, Mitani, Mjungu, Morgan, Muller, Mundry, Nakamura, Pruetz, Pusey, Riedel, Sanz, Schel, Simmons, Waller, Watts, White, Wittig, Zuberbuhler and Wrangham2,Reference Wrangham3,Reference Manson and Wrangham4 As primatologist Richard Wrangham put it, violence between groups of chimpanzees is like a shoot-on-sight policy.Reference Wrangham5 The strategic rationale is very simple: to eliminate rivals and increase territory. Given group selections theoretical constraints, it should be a last-resort explanation (subject to empirical testing), not a first point of call. As with all things in nature, dominance hierarchies vary considerably. 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. Whatever ones personal views on evolution, the time has come to explore the implications of evolutionary theory for mainstream theories of international relations.Reference Neumann51,Reference Johnson52. Something inherent in our biological makeup motivates us to try to improve, or at least maintain, our standing against those with whom we compete for important positional resources.Reference Frank94 In the context of evolutionary theory, dominance usually means that particular individuals in a social group have priority of access to resources in competitive situations.Reference Milinski, Parker, Krebs and Davies95 A wide variety of animals exhibit a form of social organization called a dominance hierarchy, in which members of a social group each have a status rank descending from the alpha male down through all the other individuals to the lowliest subordinates. This is what neorealists call a self-help system: Leaders of states are forced to take these steps because nothing else can guarantee their security in the anarchic world of international politics. He also frequently participated in public debates by contributing op-ed articles to the The New York Times and other national newspapers. George C. Williams famously made this point in response to so called nave group selectionists of the time, and his insight has continued to be reiterated to biology students ever since.Reference Williams189. As an alpha male provides stability to the group, so too a hegemon in international politics, as many scholars recognize, may provide stability for lesser states both in the realm of international security and for international political economy. The rest of the 500-plus page book more closely outlines. Offensive realism, more than other major theories of international relations, closely matches what we know about human nature from the evolutionary sciences. Offensive realism based on evolutionary theory makes the same predictions for state behavior, but the ultimate causal mechanism is different: human evolution in the anarchic, dangerous, and competitive conditions of the late-Pliocene and Pleistocene eras. Of particular note regarding the impact of dominance on human behavior are the roles of both phylogeny (a species ancestral lineage) and ecology (its adaptations to local conditions). Offensive realism holds that states are disposed to competition and conflict because they are self-interested, power maximizing, and fearful of other states. 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. Many models of consumer behavior include fundamental assumptions which are rarely questioned. Under conditions of anarchy, when there is the threat of predation and resource competition (as in many eras and locales in history), cognitive and physiological mechanisms of egoism, dominance, and groupishness are triggered. 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. Fourth, we have argued that evolutionary insights closely match offensive realism among existing theories of international relations. The anarchic state of the international system means that states cannot be certain of other states' intentions and their security, thus prompting them to . At worst, this perspective will make us err on the side of caution. 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. 2022. We recognize that humans are influenced by culture, norms, rational calculation, and moral principles. Competition for resources results in situations where consumption by one individual or group diminishes the amount available for others, or where one individual or group controls the distribution of resources and thus can deny them to others.Reference Meggitt63,Reference Keeley64, In the Pleistocene era, any group facing a shortage of resources (or a need for more, as the group expands) could have adopted one or a combination of three basic strategies. "useRatesEcommerce": false However, rapid advances in the life sciences offer increasing theoretical and empirical challenges to scholars in the social sciences in general and international relations in particular, who are therefore under increasing pressure to address and integrate this knowledge rather than to suppress or ignore it. Huda, Mirza Sadaqat The theory might thus be extended to explain the behavior and actions of many phenomena: the Roman Empire, warfare among Papua New Guinean or Native American tribes, the European conquest of South America, the race for the American west and the failed Mormon and Confederate secessions, the imperialist scrambles over African colonies, institutions like the medieval Catholic Church, commercial organizations from the East India Company to Coca-Cola, the struggles of rival ethnic groups the world over, and the ruthlessness of electoral campaigns. Heis the author of Darwin and International Relations: On the EvolutionaryOrigins of War and Ethnic Conflict (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). Chimpanzees with larger territories have higher body weights, and females in those territories give birth to more offspring. Whereas classical realists such as Hans Morgenthau had traced international conflicts to the natural propensity of political leaders to seek to increase their power, neorealists (or structural realists) such as Waltz located the cause of war in the structure of international relations. Nevertheless, overwhelming evidence shows that people also behave in ways that can be predicted from the biological knowledge outlined above. 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. We argue that evolutionary theory also offers a fundamental cause for offensive realist behavior (see Table1). That natural selection should have drawn out the same three traits as Mearsheimer may seem a remarkable coincidence. 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. If anchored on evolutionary theory, offensive realism allows new insights to elucidate why individuals and substate groups are self-interested, vie for power, and fear each other, and it can explain political behavior and war that occurred long before the creation of the modern state system in 1648. 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. Mearsheimer outlines five bedrock assumptions on which offensive realism stands: (1) the international system is anarchic; (2) great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability; (3) states can never be certain about the intentions of other states; (4) survival is the primary goal of great powers; and (5) great powers are rational actors.39 From these core assumptions, Mearsheimer argues three general patterns of behavior result: fear, self-help, and power maximization.40 It is these three behaviors that are the focus of our article. Bradley A. Thayer is professor of political science at the University of Iceland. 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). } 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. (Examples include the spread of Christianity or Islam at the expense of traditional religions over the last 2,000 years.) Individuals fight when benefits are expected to exceed costs (on average), and not otherwise. The third contribution of our theory is that it identifies a more explicit role for leaders (see Table3). The genes of egoistic individuals survive and spread at the expense of those that fail to effectively put their own interests first. 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". Humans evolved in a state of nature where competition for resources and dangers from other humans and the environment were great. Haldane thus quipped that he would give his life to save two of his brothers (each sharing half of his genes) or eight of his cousins (each sharing one-eighth of his genes).Reference Haldane89,90 Inclusive fitness provides a biological basis for the common intuition that individuals favor those who are close genetic relatives.Reference Betzig91. 17 This is why he considers the US a regional hegemon, not a global one. Starting with biology, or with human evolutionary history, has never been typical in international relations scholarship, but this approach is now less exotic than it once seemed as innovators in a range of social sciences, including economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, pursue this line of inquiry.Reference Fowler and Schreiber54,55,56,57 International relations stands to gain from similar interdisciplinary insights. Looking at the environment in which our own species evolved, we find significant empirical evidence for, and a Darwinian logic favoring, intergroup aggression. Evolutionary theory can also explain dominance. Scholars often argue over whether historically humans experienced a Hobbesian state of nature, butwhatever the outcome of that debateit is certainly a much closer approximation to the prehistoric environment in which human brains and behavior evolved.48,Reference Buss49,Reference Mirazn Lahr, Rivera, Power, Mounier, Copsey, Crivellaro, Edung, Maillo Fernandez, Kiarie, Lawrence, Leakey, Mbua, Miller, Muigai, Mukhongo, Van Baelen, Wood, Schwenninger, Grn, Achyuthan, Wilshaw and Foley50 This legacy heavily influences our decision-making and behavior today, evenperhaps especiallyin the anarchy of international politics. Historically, evidence has often supported this hypothesis.199,200,201 However, we take the position that, on average, state leaders personal interests have significant and genuine overlap with national security interests, not least of which is the survival and prosperity of the state for themselves and their progeny. Mearsheimer explains that when following a realist policy . Such comparisons are not central to our argument. Given the considerable cooperation evident in the natural world, one might think that evolution provides a foundation for cooperative behavior rather than selfish, power-maximizing behavior.

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