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

Realism as a pluralist theory that is with diverse approach why and what?

Within the realist school many variants are observed such as nationalism, interdependence, world system, hegemonic stability and security dilemma, mercantilism or structuralism, new critical theory or constructivism, is equilibrium of power a gift or is it constructed? Why is conflict inherent in international relations? What type of international system is most appropriate for peace?

What type of international system is most appropriate for peace? Hegemonic Stability Theory;

The realists all contend that peace and stability is necessary in the international system to enhance economic development and wellbeing. They assume that the stability of the system varies in the number of states. The more the number of states increases, the more the risks of instability increases. To Waltz, an increase in the number of actors increases the risks of seeing the states committing errors of judgment. On the contrary, other authors like David Singer , Karl Kautsky claim uncertainty urges actors to be careful and the best system of maintaining peace is a multipolar system. On their part Kindleberger and Keohane approach estimated that security is best assured in a unique system under the respect of unique dominant power (unipolar hegemonic world order). The loss of productive capacity of the US and the rise of new economic rivals have not by themselves put an end to American hegemony. Hegemonic decline is a process in which the reduction of production power precedes the economic and military down fall, for example the hegemonic decline of the British Empire around 1880.

Hegemony is understood in this paper as the expression of broadly based consent, manifested in the acceptance of ideas and supported by material resources and institutions. As a social construction, neo-realist HST argues that international order may exist provided it rest on one powerful state, which dominates all other states through its military and economic capabilities (Gilpin 1981; Bieler 2000; Morton 2001; Bieler & Morton 2001). In contrast to the neo-realist (Cox 1981: 139) broadens the domain of hegemony and argues it goes beyond the state dominance and may prevail within a world order as a coherent conjunction(configuration) of material power, norms, and a set of institutions which administer the order universally. Explaining therefore, Cox assumes hegemony is a form of dominance of consensual order by a powerful state (idem.: 139).

the central idea of this theory is that, the historical structure of hegemonic stability of the international system requires a single dominant state to enforce the rules of interaction among the most important members of the system, It must have three spheres of attributes; the capability to enforce the rules of the system(the social relations of production), the will to do so(forms of state), and a commitment to a system which is perceived as mutually beneficial to the major states(the world orders)(Cox 1987:1-9; 1989: 39).

The capability to enforce the rule of the system or social relations of production refers to the production and reproduction of knowledge and of social relations, morals and institutions that leads to the production of physical goods (idem.: 39), these patterns are referred to as modes of social relations of production that sees social forces as the most important collective actors. The different modes of social relations of production gives rise to particular social forces that becomes the bases of power within and across states and within a specific world order.(idem 1987:4). This ensures that social forces are not reduce to material aspects but also include non class issues of peace, ecology, and feminism of the social realities shaped through the production process²⁶ .

A hegemon’s capability rests upon the likes of a large growing economy dominance in a leading technological or economic sector, and political power backed up by projective military power. An unstable system will result if economic, technological and other changes erode the international hierarchy and undermine the position of the dominant state, pretender to hegemonic control will emerge if the benefits of the system are viewed as unacceptably unfair. (Ferraro & Lawson).

The basic problem of the HST is the fight for control between the forms of states and the market, the state power rests on the underlying configurations of social forces, of historical constructions of forms of state and the social context of political struggle of historical blocs of states and civil society. Historical blocks refer to the different forms of states that is leading social forces within specific national context overriding other social forces. More than a political alliance, it shows an integration of a variety of different class interests that are propagated throughout society to bring about a unison of economic, political, intellectual and moral unity on a world scale (gramsci 1971:181-2 in Bieler and Morton 2001). This relationship is referred to as the state-civil society complex, owes it origin to gramsci. According to Gramsci, the state is not just the apparatus of the government operating within the public sphere(government, political parties, military) it also include private sphere of civil society( churches, media, education) through which hegemony functions(idem 1971: 261). Viewing the state through gramsci lens, it could be argued that, the state is not a distinct institutional category in itself but a conceived form of social relations through which capitalism and hegemony are expressed.

A world order is understood to mean an enlarged conception of global society including economic and social forces with institutionalization and regulation, and interactions cutting across state boundaries. It does not only represent phases of stability and conflict, but also scope of thinking how alternative forms of world order might emerge. Cox argued the construction of historical social bloc cannot exist without the hegemonic social class, explaining it to be a national phenomenon (Cox 1981: 135-8; 1983: 168-74 in Bieler & Morton). Examples of negotiating for the biosphere which humanity shares interdependently with other forms of life, international production and finance which operate with great autonomy outside of state regulation, and others concerned with ecology, peace, gender, ethnicities, human rights, the defence of the dispossessed and disadvantaged that all act independently of the state, as it is interrelated and shaped by the multilateralism (Cox 1996, p.494-6)

Yet once hegemony has been consolidated, it may expand beyond a particular social order through the expansion of particular mode of social relations of production and can be supported by international organization. It can be deduced that, each of this three main spheres are further influenced by three element of ideas of the (world order), material capability referring to (accumulated resources or social forces of production), and institutions (means of stabilizing order or forms of state). With the intention of overriding the historical structures of social relations of production, forms of state and world order existing within the capitalist mode of production. Social forces as the collective actors, influenced by social relations of production operate within and across all sphere of activity through the rise of contending social forces linked in changes in production, mutually reinforcing the forms of state and world order (Op.cit 396-8 in Bieler & Morton)