Water is not supposed to be flammable.
Climate change challenges everything that a realist believes: it’s a problem that requires international cooperation to solve regardless if a country is or is not involved in the pollution of the environment which challenges the idea that a country can better solve its problem maintaining its sovereignty or that a country needs to politick to maintain its balance of power, it has devastating effects for every person equally, regardless of their social status or the amount of power they hold, and it’s more likely to be existential than a big military war and actually maintaining a big military with all of its oil requirements brings extinction more upon us. Machiavelli would have never predicted such a threat against the entire human race.
But, there is one aspect of his argument that still applies to climate change directly: consent of the governed. As Greta Thunberg said in her passionate speech, climate change cannot be solved with “business as usual,” however, today, I do not believe that people in power are held fully accountable to their constituencies due to a lack of democratic election systems because they do not exist or are corrupted. So, we need to move beyond the realist narrative in order to recognize the importance of supranational organizations in solving supranational problems. Not having one hegemon in charge of solving climate change can result in all countries recognizing their role as a problem solver rather than resulting in anarchy as realism describes if there is a supranational organization that they all are accountable to. I mean, there’s a reason why Greta spoke at the UN.
Of course, the realist perspective offers many ideas to why this may not work that all focus in on the selfish tendencies of countries and their respective leaders. My response: climate change is existential, so get over yourself.
Hello Peanut Butter M Jelly,
ReplyDeleteNice post! My one mild refutation would be that a realist approach to international politics is not tantamount to rejecting international cooperation. Disparate countries with similar motivations and objectives have historically come together to safeguard their respective national interests under the guidance of realist thinkers. Think about the United States of America’s alliance-building efforts during the Cold War (e.g. SEATO, although it failed miserably, and NATO). American foreign policy titans such as George Kennan and Dean Acheson, who were both influenced by realism, vouched for the American national interest by promoting alliances with European counterparts against Soviet communism. Furthermore, if you look at the United States’ symbiotic relations with right-wing Latin American strongmen during Operation Condor, the same themes apply.
I would direct you to my post on The Erudite Iconoclasts website, where I offer a contrarian perspective. I look forward to hearing from you.
Oghosa Cosmopolitan
As I understand it, your point is that realist countries ally with each other when it is in their national interest to do so. The examples that you gave—NATO, SEATO, and Operation Condor—all concern security matters, specifically, stopping the spread of communism. However, I do not believe that climate change would ever be considered a national security concern under the realist perspective because realism always identifies an actor with human nature/logic as the enemy and never non-human processes like the climate and rising sea levels. This is in part because considering climate change the enemy would require the protagonist to admit that they are the cause and the creation of the enemy (since climate change is a problem caused by human actions). In short, climate change messes with the dichotomy of good and bad in the realist perspective. In fact, the status quo of limited US action against climate change is actually seen as better for national matters. When Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, he stated it was because the deal was disadvantages to the “United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers,” further proving solving climate change is not seen as a national concern.
Deletehttps://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/