Although it is not our intention to resolve offensive realisms theoretical lacunae, an evolutionary account can help to explain them. 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. Offensive realism, more than other major theories of international relations, closely matches what we know about human nature from the evolutionary sciences. Note that we did not pick the traits of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias out of a hat. We recognize that humans are influenced by culture, norms, rational calculation, and moral principles. Some of these date from the split with our last nonhuman primate ancestor at the beginning of the Pliocene, around 5 million years ago. 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. The key observation is that bonobos are less aggressive than chimpanzees. First, ambitious leaders self-select themselves into seeking high-profile roles in the first place.Reference Ehrenhalt191 Second, strong leaders are selected into power over weak-willed or hesitant candidates.Reference Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren and Hall192,Reference Van Vugt and Ahuja193 Third, leaders rise to the top of their respective hierarchies through an intensively competitive process that compels them to be increasingly attentive to self-interest and self-preservation.Reference Shenkman194 Fourth, once in power, decision-makers tend to heed hawkish rather than dovish advice.Reference Kahneman and Renshon195 Fifth, the experience of power itself is well known to corrupt, precisely because being a leader elevates ones sense of worth and power.196 Taking these phenomena together, a skeptic of our argument that humans are generally egoistic, dominance-seeking and groupish may nevertheless concede that the small subset of humans that become political leaders tend to express these traits. With regard to phylogeny, most primates and all the great apes (the group to which humans belong) have strong social dominance hierarchies, and humans are no exceptiondominance hierarchies have been extensively documented among humans in a wide variety of settings and eras.Reference Wason96,Reference Mazur and Booth97,98 With regard to ecology, dominance hierarchies are a common form of social organization in the kind of ecological settings in which humans evolved (social groups with competing interests, variation in power, and finite resources). And, even then, these arrangements often fail to work. Our theory is also unlimited in domain, explaining behavior wherever there are human actors and weak external constraints on their actions, from ancestral human groups, ethnic conflict, and civil wars to domestic politics, free markets, and international relations. 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. The fact that there is no world government compels the leaders of states to take steps to ensure their security, such as striving to have a powerful military, forging and maintaining alliances, and acting aggressively when necessary. Realism, under Mearsheimer's perception, suggests states are rational since they ought to think strategically about their survival (Shadunts, 2016). Therefore, to the extent that it matters, let us address the bonobo-chimpanzee issue briefly here, because certain phylogenetic and socio-ecological factors suggest that we are more like chimpanzees than bonobos. 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. Second, we introduce key evolutionary concepts that explicate the human behaviors upon which offensive realism depends. 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. We thank Robert Jervis for bringing this point to our attention. 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. By contrast, our theory posits that a tendency toward offensive realist behavior, however modulated by other tendencies, would have conferred a fitness advantage in the environment in which humans evolved and should thus have led to dispositions to seek and like power. Of course, cooperation and helping behaviors are common in nature, but such behaviors persist only where they help the genes causing that behavior to spread. We realize international cooperation is prevalent, but that does not mean such cooperation is easy to obtain. Examples of offensive realism include John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability inEurope after the Cold War,"International Security, Vol. We reiterate the point above, however, that it is the context of our own evolution as hunter-gatherers in the socio-ecological conditions of the Pleistocene era that offers the crucial evidence on human behavioral adaptations. Indeed, it is at these vast scales where our evolved dispositions can have their greatest and most dangerous effects. Individuals may follow generalized decision rules, but these rules give rise to different behaviors in different contexts. This is not to deny that they miscalculate from time to time. To the extent that cultural group selection extends back into our evolutionary past, cultural traits have not been consistently or powerfully contrary to the evolved traits of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias. In 2003 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Depending on the time of year, visitors can enjoy a Mythological Fair in the summer (MYTHOS), a Haunted Festival & Adventure in the fall (LORE) and a Magical Christmas/Winter . | Find, read and cite all the research you . Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Behavior under anarchy in different domains. A states elitesits captains of industry and media and its military and political leadersmay be more likely than average to show these traits in abundance for five reasons. Studies from an evolutionary perspective of the fundamental assumptions of neoliberalism, constructivism, poststructural approaches, Marxist and dependency theories, and other theories of international relations would be welcomed for four reasons. We are positively biased toward our own groups and negatively biased toward other groups. Defensive realists argue that too much powerclassically, too much military powerdecreases a states security because other states will balance against it. How does the evolutionary perspective outlined above relate to offensive realism? However, even fellow realists have found problems and inconsistencies with Waltz's structural realism. Part of the reason for its intuitive and explanatory success is, we suggest, its close match with human behavior. Sexual selection has led to costly biological adaptations, such as fighting, the growth of heavy weapons (e.g., antlers), risky courtship displays, or adornments that signal genetic quality (e.g., gigantic tails). 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. However, an evolutionary perspective raises new doubts about the significance of such evidence. See. The ultimate causation offered by Morgenthau, the major theorist of classical realism, is noumenaloutside the realm of what science can investigate and demonstrate.Reference Morgenthau23,Reference Morgenthau24 Morgenthau argued that an animus dominandi (desire for power) motivates humans, but he did not explain how such a spirit may be derived logically from his theory or how his theory could be tested scientifically. Hunter gatherers have recurrent tendencies, including hostility toward members of different societies, and for killing to be carried out in relative safetythat is, only when there is a strong asymmetry in power between subgroups, such as in a raid or ambush (the imbalance of power hypothesis). 4 (December 1997), pp. 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. Evolution is sometimes argued to operate on groups rather than individuals (group selection). 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. Behavior under anarchy in different domains. Behavior intention models, for example, assume people have: a linear time orientation (the future has meaning), an internal locus of control, and the ability to think in probabilistic terms. 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. The most obvious challenge that evolutionary theory presents to international relations concerns our understanding of human nature. Our evolutionary approach predicts the same behavior as offensive realism but derives from a different ultimate cause. [2] The five bed-rock assumptions of Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism are: The strategic allocation of resources to others often advances ones own Darwinian fitness. Indeed, given our approach, we submit that it is incumbent upon offensive realists to demonstrate why the anarchy of the international political system is necessary as a basis for their theory. The Yanomamo among whom I lived were constantly worried about attacks from their neighbors and constantly lived in fear of this possibility. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. One reason why an evolutionary explanation of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias is useful is because alternative explanations for these empirical traits have failed. The theory of Mearsheimer has five basis assumptions: 1. Waltzs core concept in Theory of International Politics is the anarchy that reigns in world politics. Chimpanzees with larger territories have higher body weights, and females in those territories give birth to more offspring. Note that we do not intend to make the full case forthe role of evolution in human behavior. 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. In 2007 Mearsheimer coauthored with Stephen M. Walt a best-selling but highly controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007). Mearsheimer follows on the premises of Kenneth Waltz's theory by deriving the behavior of states from the "structure" of the international system. As well as being the key behavioral traits identified by Mearsheimer, self-interest, social stratification, and groupish behavior are three of the most prominent behavioral features of social animals. We understand that this assertion may be a point of contention and look forward to engaging with our critics on this matter. 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. In Matt Ridleys words, to prefer group selection over individual selection is to prefer genocide over murder.Reference Ridley188 Group selection can promote cooperation and altruism, but only within the group. Likewise, many other religious and utopian theorists attribute egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias to special, or at least changeable, circumstances. We now explore the adaptive logic of these behaviors in turn. 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. Humans survived (and note that several other Hominin species did not) by virtue of evolved behavioral traitsamong them egoism, dominance, and the ingroup/outgroup biaswhich were adaptations to competitive ecological conditions. 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. If women led them, or were better represented in legislative or executive branches of government, a logical prediction of our theory is that egoistic, dominant, and groupish tendenciesbeing primarily male traitswould be less likely to influence state behavior. It contended that a powerful lobby skews U.S. foreign policy against the countrys national interests by securing unconditional support for Israel. Humans evolved in a state of nature where competition for resources and dangers from other humans and the environment were great. 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. Mearsheimer, taking his geography argument further, asserts that stopping the power of w ater is precisely why no state can be a global hegemon. First, we explain the theory of offensive realism and the place of anarchy in that theory. 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. Although Thomas Hobbes claimed to have deduced Leviathan scientifically from motion and the physical senses, he was writing two hundred years before Darwin and so had no understanding of evolution.Reference Hobbes53 International relations scholars have tended to claim to deduce their own theories from Hobbes, or subsequent philosophers who followed him, and we suggest it is time to revisit the idea of foundational scientific principles. It is therefore no surprise, as psychologists have argued, that evolution has favored a bias to be fearful of strangers to avoid the costlier error.Reference Haselton and Nettle146,Reference Rozin and Royzman147. It is not just that we lack a global Leviathan today; humans never had such a luxury. Genes obviously do not want or try to spread, but the machinery of natural selection means that self-serving alleles will generally increase in relative frequency in the population over time, at the expense of alleles that are neutral or self-sacrificing for no return benefit. Structuralism is a method of study that focuses on the interaction of the parts, or units of a system, seeing them as more useful to study than the individual units themselves.27 Waltz uses structuralism to demonstrate how the distribution of power in international politics is critical for understanding whether war is more or less likely.28 By wedding anarchy as an ultimate cause and structuralism as a method of analysis, Waltzs neorealism improves upon Morgenthaus realism in two ways. Mearsheimers contrasting view, which he called offensive realism, holds that the need for security, and ultimately for survival, makes states aggressive power maximizers. Wranghams and Glowackis work has also established empirical support for the evolutionary logic in the patterns of intergroup conflict. 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). Therefore, even the strongest advocates of group selection, such as David Sloan Wilson, argue that, in any given case, it remains an empirical question as to whether or not the selection pressures acting at the level of individuals are outweighed by selection pressures potentially acting at the level of the group (so called multi-level selection). 17 This is why he considers the US a regional hegemon, not a global one. Third, by acknowledging that the social and natural sciences are both necessary to understand human behavior, we advance consilience. The most enduring theories of international relations, therefore, will be ones that are able to incorporate (or at least do not run against the grain of) evolutionary theory. In general, humans cooperate where we can (e.g., within groups or within alliances deriving mutual benefit), but the anarchy of international relations is a hostile environment that, like the one in which humans evolved, tends to trigger our egoism, dominance, and group bias. 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. } John Mearsheimer is one of these theorists. 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. The fifth assumption is that states are rational actors, which is to say they are capable of coming up with sound strategies that maximize their prospects for survival. This insight has important implications for international politics because it suggests that we can potentially createat least in principleenvironments that take account of our human nature so we can turn them to our advantage, such as designing institutions that elicit cooperative rather than conflictual tendencies.Reference Keohane164,Reference Stein165. 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. A dominance hierarchy is created competitively, often violently, and is maintained forcefully, but it can serve to prevent or reduce conflict within a group because it establishes a pecking order that is generally respected. 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. Yet, it is notable that while humans are indeed a remarkably cooperative species, history shows that we have been remarkably good at cooperating in order toamong other thingsdominate others and kill. In some species, reproductive access is settled by coercion, in which the strongest male defeats rivals to dominate a harem. They have enjoyed an absence of competition from gorillas (bonobos only live south of the Congo River, while gorillas only live on the north side of the river), high-quality foliage for food, and dense forest, which reduced vulnerability to ambush and thus, it is thought, the utility of aggression in males.168,169 Accordingly, bonobos may not be a good model for understanding human behavior, for reasons of both phylogenetic history and shared ecology. Other recent work has been an International Security paper, with Monica Toft, Grounds for War: The Evolution of Territorial Conflict, which explores the behavioral origins of fighting over land. That natural selection should have drawn out the same three traits as Mearsheimer may seem a remarkable coincidence. Moreover, it argues that statesare obliged to behave this way because doing so favors survival in the international system. 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. As we have stressed, the human traits of egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias are adaptations to the ecological conditions prevalent in human evolution. 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. In this section, we have presented standard biological arguments that egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias are deeply rooted behavioral adaptations common among mammals in general and primate species in particular. By making implicit assumptions about human behavior explicit, offensive realism may become a more powerful theory. In international politics, the bigger problem may be aspiring hegemonsstates that do not need to cooperate to obtain what they want. By contrast, as rational actor theorists would expect, hunter-gatherers are averse to the risk of fighting symmetric battles with roughly equivalent numbers on each side.82 Importantly, sustained instances of imbalances of power over evolutionary history would have led to the selection of contingent aggression. Offensive realism holds that states are disposed to competition and conflict because they are self-interested, power maximizing, and fearful of other states. The rest of the 500-plus page book more closely outlines. Hamilton used genetic models to show that, while individual organisms are egoistic, they should be less so in their behavior toward genetic relatives, especially in parent-offspring and sibling relationships.Reference Hamilton87,Reference Hamilton88 This decrease in egoism is because close relatives share many of the same genesone-half for siblings and parents, one-quarter for aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and one-eighth for cousins. Anarchy is, ironically, the ordering principle of the global state system and the starting point for most major theories of international politics, such as neoliberalism and neorealism.42,Reference Keohane43,Reference Jervis44,Reference Nye45 Other theoretical approaches, such as constructivism, also acknowledge the impact of anarchy, even if only to consider why anarchy occurs and how it can be circumvented.Reference Wendt46,Reference Onuf47 Indeed, the anarchy concept is so profound that it defines and divides the discipline of political science into international politics (politics under conditions of anarchy) and domestic politics (politics under conditions of hierarchy, or government). Much of Thayers scholarship centers onlife-sciences insights into political-behavioral topics, including the origins of war and ethnic conflict and the dynamics of suicide terrorism. The imperative for survival in a hostile environment also requires that an individual organism places its survival, especially in a time of danger or stress, above the survival of others. In fact, however, anarchy has been a constant feature of the entire multimillion year history of the human lineage (and indeed the 3.5 billionyear history of the evolution of all life on Earth before that). 1 (Summer 1990), pp. The Ngogo group annexed their newly captured area, increasing their territory by more than 20 percent.Reference Mitani, Watts and Amsler1. Mearsheimer thus judged U.S. participation in World War II to have been entirely appropriate, since Nazi Germany and imperial Japan sought to dominate their respective regions. That choice, I argue in this article, creates three problems for his theory. Mearsheimer outlines five assumptions or premises comprising his theoretical . Third, exploring how evolution intersects with other theories of international relations would advance the goal of consilience, fusing theoretical and empirical knowledge drawn from both the social and natural sciences. As we have explained, there are several mechanisms by which altruistic or helping behavior can (and have) evolved because of the benefits of helping others that accrue to oneselfnot least, altruistic behavior among kin, reciprocity, and reputation formation. We do not assume that humans and our primate cousins simply inherited these traits wholesale from a common ancestor. 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. This has been done extensively many times elsewhere.Reference Barkow7,Reference Hodgson and Knudsen8,Reference Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby9,Reference Thayer10,Reference Sidanius, Kurzban, Sears, Huddy and Jervis11,Reference Alford and Hibbing12,Reference Gat13,Reference Rosen14,Reference Pinker15 Furthermore, we do not intend to make the full case for whether states do or do not act as predicted by offensive realism, which has also been done extensively elsewhere.Reference Layne16,Reference Mearsheimer17,Reference Labs18 The article focuses instead on our novel theoretical question: Do the core behavioral assumptions underlying the theory of offensive realism map onto evolved human nature? Although we have stressed that evolved behavior is often contingent on circumstances, this matching is not perfect, especially when human decision-makers are faced with an evolutionarily novel environmentas witnessed today with mass societies, modern technologies, and interactions with distant peoplesfor which the human brain was not designed. However, if actors seek dominance at least partly because of evolved behavioral dispositions (of which actors may not even be aware), then we may expect sometimes to observe power-maximizing behavior whether or not it is a good strategy. 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. It is also worth noting that offensive realism may often be derided because we do not want it to be true. Egoism and dominance arose as strategies that provided solutions to achieving survival and reproduction in this environment. However, our contention is that significant aspects of political behavior could be given a stronger foundation if we acknowledge the powerful and basic biological principles that are chronically ignored in the political science literature, as well as the conditions under which they become exacerbated or suppressed. 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. 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.
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