Anarchy Is What States Make Of It

Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics
Alexander Wendt

The debate between realists and liberals has reemerged as an axis of contention in international relations theory.' Revolving in the past around competing theories of human nature, the debate is more concerned today with the extent to which state action is influenced by "structure" (anarchy and thedistribution of power) versus "process" (interaction and learning) and institutions. Does the absence of centralized political authority force states to play competitive power politics? Can international regimes overcome this logic, and under what conditions? What in anarchy is given and immutable, and what is amenable to change? The debate between "neorealists" and "neoliberals" has been based on aLike shared commitment to "rationali~m."~ all social theories, rational choice directs us to ask some questions and not others, treating the identities and interests of agents as exogenously given and focusing on how the behavior of
This article was negotiated with many individuals. If my records are complete (and apologies if they are not), thanks are due particularly to John Aldrich, MikeBarnett, Lea Brilmayer, David Campbell, Jim Caporaso, Simon Dalby, David Dessler, Bud Duvall, Jean Elshtain, Karyn Ertel, Lloyd Etheridge, Ernst Haas, Martin Hollis, Naeem Inayatullah, Stewart Johnson, Frank Klink, Steve Krasner, Friedrich Kratochwil, David Lumsdaine, M. J. Peterson, Spike Peterson, Thomas Risse-Kappen, John Ruggie, Bruce Russett, Jim Scott, Rogers Smith, David Sylvan, Jan Thomson,Mark Warren, and Jutta Weldes. The article also benefited from presentations and seminars at the American University, the University of Chicago, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Syracuse University, the University of Washington at Seattle, the University of California at LQS Angeles, and Yale University. 1. See, for example, Joseph Grieco, "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A RealistCritique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism," International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), pp. 485-507; Joseph Nye, "Neorealism and Neoliberalism," World Politics 40 (January 1988), pp. 235-51; Robert Keohane, "Neoliberal Institutionalism: A Perspective on World Politics," in his collection of essays entitled International Institutions and State Power (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989),pp. 1-20; John Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War," International Security 13 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56, along with subsequent published correspondence regarding Mearsheimer's article; and Emerson Niou and Peter Ordeshook, "Realism Versus Neoliberalism: A Formulation," American Journal ofPolitical Science 35 (May 1991), pp. 481-511. 2. See Robert Keohane,"International Institutions: Two Approaches," International Studies Quarterly 32 (December 1988), pp. 379-96. International Organization 46,2, Spring 1992 o 1992 by the World Peace Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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agents generates outcomes. As such, rationalism offers a fundamentally behavioral conception of both process and institutions:they change behavior but not identities and interesk3 In addition to this way of framing research problems, neorealists and neoliberals share generally similar assumptions about agents: states are the dominant actors in the system, and they define security in "self-interested" terms. Neorealists and neoliberals may disagree about the extent to which states are motivated by relative versus absolutegains, but both groups take the self-interested state as the starting point for theory. This starting point makes substantive sense for neorealists, since they believe anarchies are necessarily "self-help7' systems, systems in which both central authority and collective security are absent. The self-help corollary to anarchy does enormous work in neorealism, generating the inherently competitive...