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Toward a Foucauldian analysis of international regimes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

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The liberal approach to international regimes is attractive in the development of thatconcept because it deploys a well-developed and rigorous set of analytic devices in the form of rational actor models. However, it also assumes that regimes are benevolent, voluntary, cooperative, and legitimate associations of actors, which unnecessarily limits theregime concept and encourages an ideological and apologetic position with respect to regimes. Following a critique of the liberal approach, this article suggests an alternative based on a fundamental assumption of contestability in regimes. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault which culminates in the concept of “power/knowledge,” it regards international regimes as attempts to define, order, and act within international public spaces. It also regards international regimes as loci and foci of struggle. Some aspects of this conceptualization are sketched in preliminary form, and a brief illustration in the area of nuclear nonproliferation is provided.

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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1990

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References

For their comments on earlier drafts, I thank David Haglund, Michael Hawse, John Young, and their colleagues at Queen's University; Mark Zacher; Kal Holsti; Oran Young; Barry Cooper; Guy LaForest; Michael Kaduck; Sheila Singh; and the reviewers.

1. Krasner, Stephen D., “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” in Krasner, Stephen D., ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 2.Google Scholar

2. On the concept of contestability, see Gallie, W. B., “Essentially Contested Concepts,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (19551956), pp. 167–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a recent critique, see Swanton, Christine, “On the ‘Essential Contestedness’ of Political Concepts,” Ethics 95 (07 1985), pp. 811–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Susan Strange argues that the regime concept has been developed in a way that “tends to exclude hidden agendas and to leave unheard or unheeded complaints, whether they come from the underprivileged, the disenfranchised or the unborn, about the way the system works.” She suggests that “government, rulership, and authority are the essence of the word [“regime”], not consensus, nor justice, nor efficiency in administration.” Strange also notes the dominance of American concerns, experiences, and perceptions in the regime literature. See Strange, Susan, “Cave! Hic Dragones: A Critique of Regime Analysis,” in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 338 and 344.Google Scholar

4. A total separation may be impossible, but increasing the distance between the two might still have some benefits. On the problem of separating analysis and advocacy, see Taylor, Charles, “Neutrality in Political Science,” in his Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 5890.Google Scholar

5. The following works of Foucault, Michel are of particular relevance: Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Random House, 1965)Google Scholar; The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Tavistock, 1970)Google Scholar; The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972)Google Scholar; The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (London: Tavistock, 1973)Google Scholar; Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1979)Google Scholar; Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, edited by Gordon, C. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980)Google Scholar; and The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1980)Google Scholar. For some commentaries on Foucault, see the following: Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Rabinow, Paul, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Merquior, J. G., Foucault (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Megill, Allan, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Hoy, David C., ed., Foucault: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).Google Scholar

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9. Keohane explicitly limits his analysis of economic regimes to First World states in order to explore the problems of cooperation under even apparently relatively favorable conditions. See Keohane, Robert, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 6Google Scholar. If these states are not the only members of the regimes he studies, this limits his conclusions about regimes as such. Others who might overlook his explicit limits could then be mistaken about the implications of his analysis. Barry argues that while models of economic rationality may be ideologically neutral, their interpretations or applications often are not. See Barry, Brian, “Methodology Versus Ideology: The ‘Economic’; Approach Revisited,” in Ostrom, Elinor, ed., Strategies of Political Inquiry (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982), pp. 123–47.Google Scholar

10. Stein notes that the prisoner's dilemma is not a dilemma for society as a whole. An actor's assessment of a regime—and an analyst's assessment as well—might thus vary considerably with the point of view assumed. See Stein, Arthur, “Coordination and Collaboration in an Anarchic World,” in Krasner, , International Regimes, p. 123, fn 16.Google Scholar

11. Voegelin, Eric, “The Mongol Order of Submission to European Powers, 1245–1255,” Byzantion 15 (1941), pp. 378413Google Scholar. See also Voegelin, Eric, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), pp. 5660.Google Scholar

12. Voegelin, , “The Mongol Order,” pp. 405–6.Google Scholar

13. Thucydides, , The Peloponnesian War (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1954), pp. 6768Google Scholar. In “Theories of International Regimes,” p. 502, Haggard and Simmons note the rele-vance of this case. See also the discussion of taxation systems in Frohlich, Norman, Oppenheimer, Joe A., and Young, Oran R., Political Leadership and Collective Goods (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), especially pp. 6265Google Scholar; and Garst, Daniel, “Thucydides and Neorealism,” International Studies Quarterly 33 (03 1989), pp. 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Snidal argues that such an interpretation is central to the logic and originality of the theory of hegemonic stability. He also notes the coercive possibilities of the theory. See Snidal, Duncan, “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory,” International Organization 39 (Autumn 1985), especially p. 581, fn 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. See Sandier, Todd M., Loehr, William, and Cauley, John T., The Political Economy of Public Goods and International Cooperation, vol. 15, book 3 (Denver, Colo.: University of Denver Monograph Series in World Affairs, 1978), p. 41Google Scholar, in which the authors briefly note the possibility of compensation; it might also appear in the form of the possibility of side-payments. Snidal's treatment of coercive hegemonic stability still assumes that the good is desired; otherwise, the case is one of “exploitation” and is presumably uninteresting. In “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory,” p. 592, Snidal goes on to note the legitimacy problem.

16. Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 198Google Scholar; see also p. 205. On the “blasphemy” of nations clothing “their own particular aspirations in the moral purposes of the universe,” see Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1967), p. 10Google Scholar. See also Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919–1939 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).Google Scholar

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18. See the explication in MacKay, Alfred A., Arrow's Theorem: The Paradox of Social Choice (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980)Google Scholar. For an application to international relations, see Morrow, James D., “Social Choice and System Structure in World Politics,” World Politics 41 (10 1988), pp. 7597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. For a statement of the functionalist approach, see Keohane, , After Hegemony, pp. 85109.Google Scholar

20. What appears to be “myopic self-interest,” a pursuit of objectives in one issue-area without reference to implications for another, may be something else if we make different assumptions about the connections among issue-areas and about the ordering of an actor's priorities among them. See Keohane, , After Hegemony, pp. 99 and 103–9 for the concept.Google Scholar

21. In International Regimes, p. 3, Krasner suggests the need for a “general sense of obligation,” but this cannot arise satisfactorily from mere rational actor analysis; thus, from whence and why does it arise, what does it consist of, and should one source or content be privileged over another except as a theoretical convenience?

22. For a brief description of these two approaches, see Haggard, and Simmons, , “Theories of International Regimes,” pp. 500504 and 509–13Google Scholar. See also pp. 499–500, in which they specifically note the importance of Foucault with respect to the weaknesses of “cognitive” theories.

23. The development of the idea of discourses is found particularly in Foucault's, Discourse on Language, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, and portions of Power/Knowledge.Google Scholar

24. Foucault, , Discourse on Language, pp. 223–24.Google Scholar

25. According to Foucault, these are “a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently elaborated: naive knowledges, located low down on the hierarchy, beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity.” See “Two Lectures,” in Power/Knowledge, p. 82.

26. See Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., “Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review 56 (12 1962), pp. 947–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., “Decisions and Non-Decisions,” American Political Science Review 57 (09 1963), pp. 632–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. The development of the idea of disciplines is found particularly in Foucault, , Discipline and Punish, pp. 135228.Google Scholar

28. Foucault, , Discipline and Punish, pp. 257308Google Scholar. The phenomenon has been noted by others; see, for example, Goffman, Erving, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1961), pp. 171320Google Scholar; and Orwell, George, Down and Out in Paris and London (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1961).Google Scholar

29. This notion of a public space draws loosely on the work of Hannah Arendt; see, for example, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958)Google Scholar, especially chap. 2, “The Public and the Private Realm.” The general idea of such a space, in which actors are brought together to conduct “the public business,” is distinct from the specific ordering it reflects at any one time.

30. See, for example, Adamson, Walter L., Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Cox, Robert W., “Labor and Hegemony,” International Organization 31 (Summer 1977), pp. 386–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Baumgartner, T., Buckley, W., and Burns, T., “Relational Control: The Human Structuring of Co-operation and Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 19 (09 1975), pp. 417–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While there may be apparent overlaps between Gramsci and Foucault, the former is a Marxist seeking to replace one hegemony with another. Foucault rejects both Marxist truth claims and the new hegemony. For a comparison of Gramsci and Foucault on the question of hegemony, see Smart, Barry, “The Politics of Truth and the Power of Hegemony,”Google Scholar in Hoy, , Foucault: A Critical Reader, pp. 157–73.Google Scholar

31. See, for example, Jacobson, Harold K., Networks of Interdependence: International Organizations and the Global Political System (New York: Knopf, 1979)Google Scholar; and Ruggie, , “International Responses to Technology.”Google Scholar

32. Foucault, , “Two Lectures,” p. 102.Google Scholar

33. This possibility is also present in Ruggie's concepts of a “negotiated collective situation” and a “negotiated collective response.” See “International Responses to Technology,” pp. 567–68 and 574.

34. Foucault, , “Two Lectures,” pp. 9495Google Scholar. Invoking international law in this way implies that it is a discourse and has a set of associated disciplinary devices. Foucault, however, tends to treat law as outside of disciplinary techniques, although it may be colonized by them (see, for example, “Two Lectures”). If we accept international law as a discourse and discipline set, it appears to have a fundamental importance in international relations, providing generalized language, concepts, and mechanisms for the formal creation and characterization of international public spaces. International law as such, not just specific rules in substantive issue-areas, should be an important subject in regime analyses. If it is disputed or not followed, we must understand that in advanced games, rules are played, circumvented, and ignored as well as created, observed, and defended.

35. See Foucault, , History of Sexuality, vol. 1, pp. 2335, 100–102Google Scholar, and passim. This recalls Haas's treatment of issue-areas as “lumpings-together” of specific issues, packages linked by certain constructions and with certain considerations, understandings, and priorities in mind. See Haas, Ernst B., “Why Collaborate? Issue-Linkage and International Regimes,” World Politics 32 (04 1980), pp. 357405CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Foucault's analysis of the functions performed by the compound discourse on sexuality (History of Sexuality, vol. 1, pp. 154–55) also recalls Haas's analysis of “ocean space” as a unifying concept in “Is There a Hole in the Whole? Knowledge, Technology, Interdependence and the Construction of International Regimes,” International Organization” 29 (Summer 1975), pp. 830–38.Google Scholar

36. Ruggie, , “International Responses to Technology.”Google Scholar

37. Haas, , “Why Collaborate?” pp. 370–75 and 385–86.Google Scholar

38. See Keohane, , After Hegemony, pp. 9091Google Scholar; and Aggarwal, Vinod K., Liberal Protectionism: The International Politics of Organized Textile Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 1628.Google Scholar

39. This is exacerbated if we adopt an “issue-structural” approach to power. See Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), pp. 4952.Google Scholar

40. See especially the following works of Foucault, : “Two Lectures”Google Scholar; “The Subject and Power,” in Dreyfus, and Rabinow, , Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, pp. 208–26Google Scholar; and The History of Sexuality, vol. 1. In “Social Choice and System Structure,” p. 80, Morrow briefly discusses the structuring effects of regimes but does so from a perspective that assumes their desirability.

41. For an application of Foucauldian ideas to collective decision making, see Shapiro, , Bonham, , and Heradstveit, , “A Discursive Practices Approach.”Google Scholar

42. See Haas, , “Why Collaborate?” pp. 370–75 and 385–86.Google Scholar

43. Ruggie, , “International Responses to Technology.”Google Scholar

44. See, for example, Grieco, Joseph M., “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), pp. 485507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45. The case of nonproliferation is explored further, although tentatively, in the following: Keeley, James F. and Singh, Sheila K., “Atomic Discipline: The Creation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association,Windsor, Canada, 1988Google Scholar; Keeley, James F. and Singh, Sheila K., “Before and After: The Comprehensive Test Ban and the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association,Quebec City, Canada, 1989Google Scholar; and Keeley, James F., “A Structural Overview of Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association,Quebec City, Canada, 1989.Google Scholar

46. In Fischer, David A. V., The International Non-Proliferation Regime 1987 (New York: United Nations, 1987), p. 3Google Scholar, the author lists the following “main elements”: agreed rules and norms seeking to proscribe proliferation (the NPT and nuclear weapon free zone agreements); complementary agreements such as the Partial Test Ban Treaty; security assurances by nuclear weapon states; various United Nations resolutions; bilateral supply agreements; Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines; IAEA, European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), and national safeguard and control systems; and national means of verification. Smith adopts a similar broad approach, although he concentrates on the NPT and the IAEA. See Smith, Roger K., “Explaining the Non-Proliferation Regime: Anomalies for Contemporary International Relations Theory,” International Organization 41 (Spring 1987), pp. 253–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Shaker, Mohamed I., The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Origin and Implementation, 1959–1979 (London: Oceana Publications, 1980)Google Scholar, in which the author would seem to add the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I) and other Soviet–U.S. arms control agreements.

47. Thus, there is concern about “new suppliers,” who may not adhere to regime norms and who may provide alternative sources of supply both to nonmembers and to disgruntled members of the regime. See, for example, Ing, Stanley, “Emergent Suppliers, the Non-Proliferation Regime and Regional Security,” in Dewitt, David B., ed., Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Global Security (London: Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 119–30.Google Scholar

48. See IAEA, Information Circular no. 254, February 1978, and additions.

49. For an explication of these two general perspectives, see Meyer, Stephen M., The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), chaps. 1–3.Google Scholar

50. In “Explaining the Non-Proliferation Regime,” pp. 258–59, Smith suggests that “substantial reductions in the arsenals of the superpowers' nuclear inventories would run counter to the underlying logic of the NPT which views extended deterrence as central to non-proliferation” and that transfers of “sensitive” technologies would mean “a violation of Article I.” However attractive these contentions may be to dominant supplier and nuclear weapon states, they run contrary not only to the words of the NPT but also to its negotiating history, and they fail to account for the contentions over Articles IV and VI. The “extended deterrence” argument reverses the linkage in the nonproliferation discourse, seeing the possession of nuclear weapons by some as assisting in nondissemination. The issue is not which construction of the issue-area is “true” but, rather, that both the disconnected and the reversed construction differ radically from that found in the negotiation of the NPT. Nye, among others, treats “nonproliferation” and “nondissemination” as identical. He takes vertical proliferation as a problem for arms control, a separate regime, and finds the relations between arms control and “nonproliferation” to be paradoxical. See Nye, Joseph, “Maintaining a Non-Proliferation Regime,” International Organization 35 (Winter 1981), especially pp. 3435CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the original nonproliferation discourse of the NPT, there is no paradox and there is only one overall regime.

51. Here again, therefore, a concern arises about “new suppliers.”

52. Arendt, , The Human Condition, pp. 194–95.Google Scholar