The Importance of Africa to The World System After 9/11 Attacks: War on Terrorism or Integration for Sustainable Development

The realist view that the states are the key central actors in world politics;

The key concept in IPE is the nature of political and economic relations which is derived from the nature of politics itself. The picture of the Middle East without warring states and the outside powers would make no sense. In non Marxist perspective, politics is conceptualised in a particular way in a Weberian sense. The state is define as ’’a political enterprise of an institutional social character, that is an organization, with a bureaucratic administrative department that is a government, which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, physically constraining all the other actors and sectors within the state’’²⁴, With a judicial and sociological identity (my emphasis). According to Sylvan realist argue that, theoretically, economic activities are linked to politics since they involve government actions, and from a methodology stand point, the way to study political-economic relations is by looking at actions. The realist further argues that the other non state actors do not have the military, political, economic, and social capability as the state. Further more the international organizations are an extension of the state apparatus, which look up to the state for legitimacy. Put differently political economy is defined as government economic activities and international political economy as the attempt by governments to regulate and manage international economic relations. (Spero 1977 in strange 1984, p.12).

The liberals complain the realist assumption of actors’ accord much place and role to the state, whereas in the truth of the matter, the state is neither completely monopolistic nor rational. The realist claim that the states are the central actors does not tell us which interests and policies they pursue.

In response to these criticisms, the realists say their choices are first of all methodological and only propose a framework of analysis to the vision of power and play very important role in the competition and interdependence between states. However, realism has evolved and an approach said to be neo-realism animated by authors such as Susa S, Keohane R, are making much efforts in incorporating the economic and commercial dimensions of competition between states.

The liberals argue the picture of the Middle East would be woefully inadequate if it did not include a variety of non state actors. They argued for example in the security field that, even though it maybe true that all states want a high measure of security, some strive for other goals especially expansion of various kinds, a case in point is the expansion of the EU, and US in the gulf of guinea tied around security but need oil resources to sustain her economic needs of keeping their industries running at the expense of security. Furthermore, even if security is the prime objective, this does not tell us or the statesmen what behaviour will reach it. For example belligerent policies are likely to decrease rather than increase the states security, when other states are satisfied with their status quo; realism is seen as offering insufficient guidelines here because other actors may build and expand (Robert Jervis 1999, p.342), Multinational companies such as shell, British Petroleum, and Exxon Mobile and their roles are one type of state actors, other such as the UN, Arab league, OPEC, NGOs such as the Red Cross and Amnesty International in addition to the variety of transnational ethnic groups, terrorists groups, drug cartels, and mafia organizations not withstanding international religious movements, are all ranges of non state that add a further dimension to the works of transnational relations that challenged the state centric assumptions. (Nye 2007, p.9) Furthermore in that politics as an action inherent in liberal, transnational, mercantilist and some other non structural perspective (Katzenstein et al, p.18). furthermore the rise of non state actors and their increasing role in international relations to bring about a better social world. International organizations such as the United Nations and its specialize agencies with material capability in some instance richer than the state. Multinational corporations and their role in war. A case in point is the conflict for power in Congo Brazzaville, pitching democratically elected president Pascal Lisuba backed by American Oxy Oil Company against general and formal president Denis Sassou Nguesso supported by French TotalFinaElf, through military coup took over the government…,

Contrary to the realist view of the state as key central actor in international politics that favours open competing markets and economic nationalism of relative gains in domestic industrial development and although the Marxists emphasize the primacy and national security of the state, they sees the state as the servant to the dominant social and economic class( the over determination of the economic factors); The Marxist believe that the economics drives Politics and that political struggles arises from the conflict between different classes in the society over the distribution of wealth. The Marxist argue that the state is simply a construction of leading capitalist, structural Marxist argued that capitalist states acts in the interest of preserving capitalism as a whole based on dependency theory, they further argue that the world economy enmeshed poorer countries exporting raw materials in relationship of unequal exchange, (Prebisch 1959 in Katzenstein 2008, p. 24). They defended their argument with evidence of the provision of public policy initiative such as social security and the recognition of labour unions, social forces and production relations. Their arguments and others about imperialism when developed explained the poverty of the countries of the south in terms of their position on the world economy, That dependency embedded a hidden form of nationalism in which the role of the state in the periphery south and its polity was not just weak but were in a relationship that undermined their autonomy, exploited their wealth and made their state an object in international relations (P.25). further more Cox argues politics as action is inherent in liberal, mercantilist and non structural perspective, he explains action is never absolutely free but takes place within a framework with form of an historical structure, thought patterns, material conditions and human institutions, constitutes the context within which action takes place (Cox 1981, p. 135,in Strange 1984)