mearsheimer's 5 assumptions of realism

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. [2] The five bed-rock assumptions of Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism are: Mearsheimers offensive realism argues that states gain power to ensure security. 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. First, we explain the theory of offensive realism and the place of anarchy in that theory. Mearsheimer explains and argues for his theory of "offensive realism" by stating its key assumptions, evolution from early realist theory, and its predictive capability. When grounded in evolutionary theory, offensive realism need not simplify structure to interpret behavior and can parsimoniously develop and test corollaries over the entire span of human history. Has data issue: false The strategic allocation of resources to others often advances ones own Darwinian fitness. This version of realism retains the traditional realist assumption that the primary state goal is power, rather than the defensive realist assumption that states seek security. Two theories of offensive realism. For example, among wolves, lions, and chimpanzees, when members of rival groups are found alone, they are extremely vulnerable and risk being killed.140,141,142 We discussed intergroup killing in chimpanzees earlier, but the pattern is notable among social carnivores, too: Studies of undisturbed wolf populations in Alaska have found that 39 to 65 percent of adult deaths were due to intergroup killing.Reference Mech, Adams, Meier, Burch and Dale143, Of course, the ability to assess threats is much more complex in humans than it is in other animals, and human intelligence gives us a greater repertoire of behavior. First, neorealism does not rely on noumenal ultimate causation, and, second, it explains and predicts variations in the likelihood of war in international politicsparticularly among great powers. 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. A crucial extension of our theory concerns how leaders may differ from the average person in the population. This article is dedicated to the memory of Rafe Sagarin, an exceptional ecologist, colleague, and friend who devoted much of his life to bridging the gap between the life and social sciences. Mearsheimer's main innovation is his theory of 'offensive realism' that seeks to re-formulate Kenneth Waltz's structural realist theory to explain from a structural point of departure the sheer . Second, our argument makes two contributions to the theory of offensive realism: We ground the theory in human evolution (instead of the international system), and we extend it into new domains (beyond the interaction of states as units of analysis). | Find, read and cite all the research you . 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. 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. Chimpanzees with larger territories have higher body weights, and females in those territories give birth to more offspring. Clearly, when it comes to the many distinctive physiological and behavioral changes humans have undergone, ecology has been as or more important than phylogeny (hence, the field of evolutionary anthropology focuses on hunter-gatherer analogues, not nonhuman primate analogues). These adaptations in turn serve as a foundation for offensive realismwhat Mearsheimer independently identified as self-help, power maximization, and fear. Wranghams and Glowackis work has also established empirical support for the evolutionary logic in the patterns of intergroup conflict. 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. Due to the legacy of our evolutionary past, the anarchic state system is not required to obtain offensive realist behavioronly humans are. Individuals fight when benefits are expected to exceed costs (on average), and not otherwise. Humans may pursue self-interest and power by many means, including, for example, patience and reciprocity as well as coercion and violence. How does the evolutionary perspective outlined above relate to offensive realism? They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Under an iron fist, even the most egotistical, dominating, and xenophobic actor will be prevented from realizing his or her goals. The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. An article adapted from the book had previously been published by Foreign Affairs. While this may be true in western, industrialized . Napoleon Chagnons work among the Yanomamo of the Amazon revealed that indigenous groups had a constant need to find new territory as they expanded and split, and they experienced a constant fear of other groups because violent conflict was a recurring strategy used to stake out a livelihood.Reference Chagnon75 The Yanomamo are just one example of a pattern that extends to a wide range of indigenous societies around the world.76,77 Across such societies, around 15 percent of male deaths occurred in warfare, which compares to a figure of around 1 percent for the United States and Europe in the so-called bloody 20th century (and in many of those small-scale indigenous societies, the rate of male deaths from warfare is much higher than the average figure of 15 percent).78,Reference Bowles79, It has been argued that such high levels of conflict among indigenous societies might have been caused by pressure from more developed societies encroaching on their territories and way of life from the outside. He is the author of Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Harvard University Press, 2004), which argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of our capabilities, our control over events, and the future play a key roles in causing war, and, with Dominic Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Harvard University Press, 2006), which examines how and why popular misperceptions commonly create undeserved victories or defeats in wars and crises. 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. Major realist theories and their predictions,154 plus predictions from human evolution. 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. However, the Ngogo group and their neighbors are chimpanzees. John Mearsheimer also sees a looming tragedy, one that (he argues) is inevitable. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Like most international relations scholars of his generation, Mearsheimer was deeply influenced by Kenneth Waltz, the founder of the school of international relations known as neorealism. States are much the same. Mearsheimer argues that anarchy is the fundamental cause of such behavior. As with all things in nature, dominance hierarchies vary considerably. The preeminent evolutionary theorist J.B.S. Evolutionary theory also allows realist scholars to explain the intellectual foundations of offensive realism: Why individuals and state decision-makers are egoistic and strive to dominate others when circumstances permit, and why they make strong ingroup/outgroup distinctions. In sum, evolutionary theory offers realist scholars a natural-scientific behavioral foundation for offensive realism. As a result of our evolution, humans will act like offensive realists even inside the statethat is, in conditions of hierarchy (as far as they are be able to)as well as in relations between states. If our hypothesis is correct, then evolutionary theory offers the following: (1) a novel ultimate cause of offensive realist behavior; (2) an extension of offensive realism to any domain in which humans compete for power; and (3) an explanation for why individual leaders themselves, and not just states, seek power. The impressive design, by Tom Piper, comprises two very tall ladders, and . http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/59922#eid5780558, http://edge.org/conversation/steven_pinker-the-false-allure-of-group-selection. What is the logic for risking life and limb in engaging in violent aggression against other groups? 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. 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. In fact, he was highly critical of the Iraq War (200311) and what he saw as an attempt by the United States to police the world. Combining the previous two considerations (leaders and sex) raises another problem: If leaders are especially egoistic and domineering, and if sex is a primary cause, does this not mean that we predict state leaders will undertake actions (consciously or subconsciously) that serve to maximize their own personal reproductive opportunitiesperhaps at the expense of state interests? Given group selections theoretical constraints, it should be a last-resort explanation (subject to empirical testing), not a first point of call. However, we argue that offensive realists need not depend on the anarchy of the state system to advance their argument. In this article, we ask whether human nature may predispose us, like our nonhuman primate cousins, to behave as offensive realists. That natural selection should have drawn out the same three traits as Mearsheimer may seem a remarkable coincidence. 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. 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). The key finding is that humans quickly adopt an us (ingroup) versus them (outgroup) worldview. Despite realisms long history as a theory of international politics and its widespread use by scholars and policymakers such as E.H. Carr, George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, and Hans Morgenthau, the traditional realist argument rests on weak foundations. 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. Sexual selection is typically responsible for the hierarchical nature of group-living animal species, including humans, as males fight for rank and the reproductive benefits in brings.

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