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

2.2 The Debate and assumptions:

The debate;

Therealist and neo realist: They argue the state motivated by self interest are the only important actors, realism is a theory assuming a particular view of the world, or a paradigm of state power politics relations, defined by the following assumptions; the international realm is anarchic and consists of independent political units called states; Concerned with balance power equilibrium, making war inevitable due to power shifts; International organizations are tools of the state for national interests and affects international relations stability; States are sacrosanct and are the major players in global governance and rivalry relations to offset one another such as US and USSR in Cold War, as such security is competition where the powerful states influence institutions in their interests; States are the primary actors and inherently possess some offensive military capability or power which makes them potentially dangerous to each other; states can never be sure about the intentions of other states; the basic motive driving states is survival or the maintenance of sovereignty that must not be violated by interference from outside a state; states are instrumentally rational and think strategically about how to survive that is state primary duty is its own interest of developing a strong economy which can support a strong military to ensure the security of the state; Economic realism mercantilism involves protectionism on a zero sum basis; Political disagreement is different from intellectual disagreement and view politics as not an exchange of opinion, rather a contest for power hegemony; endorse liberal democracy but reject the view that human beings are all equal, that is view inequalities among individuals with moral and civic equality;

The realist want to think narrowly about the means and ends of national policy at home and abroad, that is they see the world the way it is or it was affected by political, economic and social circumstances, they seek a framework of analysis, a method of diagnosis of the human conditions as it is or it was according (Strange 1994, p.16). While Neo-realism is a theory developed by Hans Maugenthau’s Politics Among Nations 1948 and Kenneth Waltz 1959, in which states seek to survive within an anarchical system. Although states may seek survival through power balancing, balancing is a product with the aim to survive and because the international system is regarded as anarchic and base on self help, the most powerful units set the scene of action for others as well as themselves. These major powers are referred to as poles; hence the international system or regional subsystem, at a particular point in time, maybe characterised as unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar (Katzenstein et al 1999, p. 18; Ravenhill 2008, p. 33). Use collective security to keep the power of the state and will use its own force outside collective security if necessary; Environment is seen as low priority and minor issues due to the problems of costs, free riders and tragedy of the commons where states do not contribute such as third world countries, use their resources which becomes threat to power.

while the liberalists and the neo liberalists sees the state as most important actors using regimes in order to further their interests, liberalism and neo liberalism covers a fairly broad perspective ranging from Wilson’s idealism through to contemporary neo liberalism theories and the democratic peace thesis. Here states are but one actor in world politics, and even states can cooperate together through institutional mechanisms and bargaining that undermine the propensity to base interests simply in military terms. States are interdependent and other actors such as Transnational Corporations, the IMF, WB, UN plays a role. Liberalism is a paradigm based on cooperation, interdependence, free trade, democracy and globalization. The liberalist argues that the states are most important actors using regimes to further their interests, that the state is not sacrosanct, and that international intervention into the internal affairs of another state is permissible if a state violate the human rights of its own citizens such as the Rwandan genocide. They assume open economy with institutional mechanisms base on free market relations, regional trading blocks second best. Neo liberal institutionalism argues that international institutions play an important role in coordinating international cooperation. Proponents begin with the same assumptions used by realists, except for the following; where realists assumes that states focus on relative gains and the potential for conflict, neo liberal institutionalists assume that states concentrate on absolute gains and the prospects for cooperation. Neo liberal institutionalists believe that the potential for conflict is overstated by realists and suggest that there are countervailing forces, such as repeated interactions, that propel states toward cooperation. They regard cheating as the greatest threat to cooperation and anarchy as the lack of organisation to enforce rules against cheating. Institutions are described by neo liberals as persistent and connected sets of rules (formal or informal) that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity and shape expectations Keohane.

On their part, the Marxist sees an uneven development and construction of global capitalism leading to imperialism, and the concentration and mobilization of capital. They define the world as the centre, semi periphery and the periphery. Marxism; may be understood as a body of thought inspired by Karl Marx. It emphasises the dialectical unfolding of historical stages, the importance of economic and material forces and class analysis. It predicts that contradictions inherent in each historical epoch eventually lead to the rise of a new dominant class. The era of capitalism, according to Marx, is dominated by the bourgeoisie and will give way to a proletarian, or working class, revolution and an era of socialism in which workers own the means of production and move toward a classless, communist society in which the state, historically a tool of the dominant class, will wither away. A number of contemporary theorists have drawn on Marxian insights and categories of analysis, most evident on dependency and the world capitalist system (Viotti et al 1987. Idem) it is necessary at this point to establish the linkage between security and economics so we can better understand the pattern of the security in the Gulf of Guinea.