Beyond Anarchy and Interdependence: New Thinking about an Old System

Abstract

In describing the nature of the international system international relations contemporary theorists frequently divide themselves into two groups: neorealists and neoliberalists. The neorealists emphasise an anarchical structure, drawing implications from this anarchy to explain the order and disorder that greets the analyst of international affairs. Theirs is a system of conflicting interests and, oftentimes, conflicting actors. Conversely, neoliberalists favour an explanation that focuses on the interdependence of international actors. These theorists instead point to what they claim are more significant implications arising from international interactions between actors, both foreign and domestic. The two groups and their different conceptions of the same international system result in a disciplinary divide, the so-called ‘neo-neo debate’ in international relations theory.

This paper argues that this divide does not reflect the reality of the international order of today’s changing world. The international system of the twenty-first century is not one that can be so simply described as either ‘anarchical’ or ‘interdependent’. Instead, the features of the system – the dynamism, the zones of order and disorder, the complexities of international interactions, the transformations and transitions, even the exponential growth in the number of actors that must be considered international – can be described in terms reminiscent of other systems from the biological and meteorological sciences. Thus, this paper argues that the international system is not either anarchical or interdependent, but something more complex, sensitive to seemingly insignificant inputs and beyond discussions of order and disorder. The essence of the international system, indeed its very nature, is chaos.

Keywords: anarchy, interdependence, chaos, international relations theory