The invocation of realism is grounded in racist discourse that rationalizes hierarchical racial orders as a starting point for scholarship – that creates inescapable logics which enable white racial domination

Errol A. Henderson PhD, “Hidden in plain sight: racism in international relations theory”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 12 February 2013,

A racist conceptualization of anarchy became the centrepiece of the major paradigms of world politics: realism and liberalism/idealism, and their recent offshoot, constructivism. Today, realism is the dominant paradigm in world politics; or, specifically, neorealism, which rests on Waltz’s revision of the traditional realism of Schuman and Morgenthau. Neorealism asserts that the international system is anarchic and that states are the dominant actors. The anarchic structure of the system mandates a self-help orientation among the states because absent an authority above them, individual states must ensure their own security. In such a system, security is the basic objective of states and power is essential to achieving state aims and resisting those of others. Realists argue that states seek to maximize their power to ensure their security; but the security dilemma ensures that, ironically, each state’s pursuit of its own security leads ultimately to its greater insecurity. Balance of power practices become essential in this conflict-laden global system in which power—especially military power—is the ultimate arbiter of conflicts of interest. Liberalism (or idealism)—the paradigmatic counterpoise of realism—is similarly grounded in a preoccupation with anarchy. Idealists accept the view that the global system is anarchic and that anarchy could lead to security dilemmas, balance of power politics, and interstate war, but, unlike realists, they do not accept that these are the inevitable outcomes of international interactions. Grounded in the Enlightenment belief in the perfectibility of the individual, they transferred their view of domestic politics to the international realm and argued that conflict and wars were largely a result of ‘bad’ institutions, such as autocratic regimes, and that by democratizing regimes, facilitating international commerce and encouraging international institutions, international cooperation would ensue. In this view, states are not destined to predation borne of anarchy, the persistent pursuit of power, and the security dilemma, as realists maintain. Instead, the spread of democracy, liberal international trade policies, and international law should allow states to overcome the security dilemma and cooperate with each other. Foreign policy is assumed to reflect domestic policy such that states that are peaceful domestically (for example, democracies) are more likely to be peaceful abroad and those that are more violent domestically (for example, autocracies) are more likely to be violent abroad.

One of the key idealists of the twentieth century, who is also viewed as one of the progenitors of the field of IR, was Woodrow Wilson (Ray 1995, 7). But the view that Wilson—especially Wilson of the post-1918 period—established IR is more received wisdom than actual fact, obfuscating less salutary but more significant factors leading to the field’s emergence. As noted above, at its birth IR was concerned with issues of anarchy and power; however, this anarchy was largely assumed to inhere in the ‘primitive’ polities of the ‘inferior’ races—primarily in the tropical domains of what we’d now consider the ‘third world’. At the same time, the relevant power was that wielded by the ‘civilized’ white race through their ‘modern’ states. The mechanism of ‘efficient’ and ‘rational’ colonial administration, many early IR theorists maintained, could insure that ‘anarchy’ did not spread to the ‘modern’ world and lead to violence among the major (white) powers. So the concerns among realists and idealists with anarchy are grounded in a racist discourse that is concerned with the obligations of superior peoples to impose order on the anarchic domains of inferior peoples in order to prevent the chaos presumed to be endemic in the latter from spilling over into the former’s territories or self-proclaimed spheres of interest. Similarly, the realist and idealist concern with power was grounded in a racist discourse concerned largely with the power of whites to control the tropics, subjugate its people, steal its resources and superimpose themselves through colonial administration. Therefore, the roots of realism—the dominant paradigm in world politics—are grounded in a rationalization of the construction of a hierarchical racial order to be imposed upon the anarchy allegedly arising from the tropics, which begged for rational colonial administration from whites. It is little more than an intellectual justification for colonialism and imperialism in the guise of the ‘white man’s burden’. Also, the roots of idealism are found less in idealized versions of classical liberal precepts regarding the perfectibility of humanity, the primacy of ‘Godgiven’ individual rights, and the spread of democracy, free trade and the rule of law, than with the imposition of a white racist order on indigenous peoples throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Given the imperative for ‘progress’ and ‘development’ and the view that the unspoiled lands were not being sufficiently exploited by the indigenous peoples, realists and idealists agreed that the incentive for imperialist conquest could lead to conflict among whites; therefore, a rational distribution of territory and its appropriate administration by colonial agencies was necessary. Realists and idealists disagreed on the implications of the global system for the interaction of white peoples and their states and political institutions, but often they accepted or justified the subjugation of nonwhites by whites. In this way they found congruence in their policy recommendations for the domestic and international spheres at least in this regard: they supported white racial domination through racial discrimination against nonwhite minorities at home and white imperialism through racial domination of nonwhite polities abroad. Nowhere were these racist policies more evident than in Africa—and in the treatment of the racial minorities of the African diaspora in Western Europe and the Americas.

While realism and idealism converge on a white supremacist logic that has been evident since the establishment of the field of IR, I maintain that not only was this racism present at the creation of the field, but it continues to inform the major paradigms, primarily—though not uniquely—through their conceptions of anarchy. For example, Sampson (2002, 429) argues that ‘the discourse of international politics employs a particular conception of anarchy—tropical anarchy—that portrays the international system as “primitive”’. This ‘tropical anarchy’ the social contract theorists assumed was the primeval condition of nonwhite peoples, which Kidd (1898), among many others, rationalized as a basis for Western colonialism. The anarchical world—the state of nature—was the preserve of non-Europeans, primitive peoples. Sampson views anarchy as a ‘trope’ more than a ‘natural state of affairs’; but he is clear that ‘while scholars may define anarchy variously, the primitive images that anarchy evokes remain constant’. Not only are the paradigmatic roots of IR theory saturated by the racist stream of tropical anarchy, but Sampson is even more explicit that ‘the foundation upon which much of the discipline rests is not anarchy but rather an image of primitive society popularized by British social anthropologists during the 1930s and 1940s’ (Sampson 2002, 429). For example, Sampson argues that Waltz’s thesis on system structure derives from an obsolete, anarchic and in many ways racist conceptualization of African primitive society by anthropologist SF Nadel. Sampson (2002, 444) does not argue that Waltz’s definition of system structure—so crucial to his rendering of ‘structural realism’—borrows from Nadel, ‘but the structure Waltz employs is Nadel’s’ (emphasis in original). Waltz analogizes Nadel’s view of the structure of African primitive societies to the global structure in which international politics takes place. He adds that Waltz ‘derived all three components of his theory of international politics (ordering principles, functional differentiation, and the distribution of material capabilities) from a theory of primitive society published by Nadel in 1957’ (2002, 430); and he documents Waltz’s allusions to Nadel in his Theory of international politics (1979) as well as in prior and subsequent works.

Sampson notes that ‘[p]rimitive societies have long intrigued theorists of international politics’ but ‘[n]one of these theorists, however, challenge the categorization of systems, societies, or peoples as primitive’ (2002, 431). While since the 1960s anthropologists have ‘questioned the ‘ambiguous and inconsistent’ notion of primitive society’, the field of IR ‘continues to recycle definitions constructed nearly a century before’ (2002, 431). He explains, ‘In early anthropology and social theory, primitive systems are portrayed as decentralized, disorganized, and anarchic; modern ones are centralized, well organized, and hierarchic. Primitive societies are simple, traditional, uncivilized, premodern, and functionally undifferentiated; they resemble nonvertebrates like “polyps” or; if they are slightly segmented, “earthworms.” Modern societies, on the other hand, are complex, advanced, civilized, and functionally differentiated; they have skeletons, central nervous systems, discrete organs, and heads with the capacity to think and act rationally (unlike primitive societies, where actions are products of passionate reflexes). Primitive peoples are described as devoid of individuality, remarkable only through their homogeneity’ (2002, 431).

For Sampson, there are several ‘dangers of employing claims about a supposedly primitive society to the foundation for analysis’ (2002, 429). First, ‘primitive systems and societies are inventions that no longer serve as valid categories of classification’ (2002, 429). Second, taking an explicit focus of social anthropology, the characteristics of ‘primitive African’ social systems, and transposing them ‘into an implicit theoretical assumption’ about the structure of the global system, ‘we prejudge the nature of international politics’ (2002, 429). Third, ‘using primitive society as the starting point for scholarship creates an inescapable logic that reduces possible policy responses to a simple choice: either maintain the primitive’s status quo or civilize the world’ (2002, 429). For Sampson, Waltz’s neorealism ‘selects the first option’, and Wendt’s social constructivism ‘chooses the second’ (2002, 429). He notes that, ‘[a]t first glance, one might find it ironic that a theory “necessarily based on the great powers” and “states that make the most difference” owes its existence to anthropological fieldwork in Africa’ (2002, 430). Beyond irony, ‘Waltz’s appropriation of a theory originally intended to help colonial administrators control primitive African societies produces an image of international politics that privileges power over progress, equilibrium over change, and preventative measures over curative ones’ (2002, 430).

The neorealist conception of system structure is generally accepted by liberal theorists, who mainly differentiate among states—particularly democratic states, which they argue have assembled a separate peace among themselves, thus overcoming the Hobbesian anarchy and replacing it with a Kantian one. It also converges with the view of neoliberal institutionalists, who largely accept the realist version of homo politicus as an egoistic, rational, expected utility maximizer while retaining the liberal focus on interstate cooperation; however, in this conceptualization cooperation is contingent not on democracy but on the actions of state and non-state actors attempting to address recurring problems of market failure (Henderson 1999; 2002). International anarchy, sovereignty and self-help regularize the behaviour of states throughout the system, interstate cooperation emerging from a homogenization process, ironically, similar to that proposed by Waltz (1979, 73– 77); but, in the liberal view, cooperation ensues from a reduction in transaction costs, decreased uncertainty and the formation of institutions to reward cooperation and punish noncooperation—international regimes. Importantly, (neo)realist and (neo)liberal arguments have as their point of departure the global anarchy of Waltz, which is the tropical anarchy of ‘primitive’ African social systems.

For social constructivists the convergence with Waltz’s system structure is even more apparent. The differentiation that Waltz fails to observe in world politics is captured in Wendt’s distinction among Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian international systems. Wendt views the essential relationships among sovereigns in a Hobbesian anarchy as one of enemies, while in a Lockean anarchy it is one of rivals, and, lastly, in a Kantian anarchy it is one of friends. His most culturally evolved system, the Kantian, is one shared primarily by the Western powers, while others exist within Lockean and Hobbesian contexts. This means that only the Western states could be entrusted to transfer to the third world the requisites for a higher level of social evolution to elevate them out of their lower condition.6 Therefore, ‘the “burden” of structural transformation, the responsibility of “teaching” the rest of the world how to evolve, falls squarely on the shoulders of great powers. Less powerful states have little or no hope of transforming the international system on their own’ (Sampson 2002, 449). Sampson characterizes Wendt’s ‘social theory of international relations’ as ‘remarkably un-international’. He states that while Wendt chastises Waltz’s study for lacking a reference to ‘role’ in its index, Sampson counters that, ‘discounting Montezuma and the Aztecs, one might say the same of Wendt’s social theory for the entire “ThirdWorld”’ (Sampson 2002, 448 –449). He adds that ‘Wendt’s text is largely an attempt to explain how Europe and the United States pulled themselves out of “nature’s realm.” It tells us how NATO and Europe evolved into complex social kinds through a process dubbed “cultural selection”. There is no mention of non-Western social kinds. It is not even clear whether African or Asian states could “evolve” without the help of bigger, more powerful “benefactors”’ (Sampson 2002, 449).

Sampson notes that, counter to the title of Wendt’s most popular article, ‘anarchy is only what some states make of it’. In fact it is as constrained by the logic of tropical anarchy as is Waltz’s; only that where Waltz rationalizes the stasis of the status quo equilibrium (the balance of power, or, by analogy, the maintenance of Western power in the colonies), Wendt rationalizes the transformation of the status quo within limits governed by the status quo powers (Kantian social evolution, or, by analogy, the establishment of colonial administration in the colonies as a function of the ‘white man’s burden’ or mission civilisatrice). He concludes that ‘by arguing that “anarchy is what states make of it,” Wendt suggests that powerful, civilized states have the capacity to lift weaker, primitive states out of the heart of darkness and into the light of democratic peace. Thus superpowers like the United States should shoulder the global burden of civilizing international society. This reverses Waltz’s conclusions. Waltz seeks system maintenance and equilibrium. Wendt seeks transformation. Waltz privileges power over progress. Wendt suggests the opposite’ (Sampson 2002, 450). Waltz’s framework resurrects anthropology’s misrepresentation of African political systems of the 1950s and Wendt reproduces anthropological debates of the 1930s and 1940s (Sampson 2002, 451). Both paradigms converge on a notion of tropical anarchy which reinforces a racist dualism in world politics that is manifest, in turn, in prominent theses that derive from these paradigms.