Muhammad Erza Pradana
Staff, Research Division FPCI Chapter UPN Veteran Jakarta
The issue of human rights has gained significant traction in global politics, particularly with the end of the Cold War. With the end of the superpower rivalry between the United States and the once-mighty Soviet Union, many pundits, scholars, activists, and indeed politicians believed that the new world we were heading toward should not remain focused on the issues of war, conflicts, and power politics in general. These kinds of issues were, in their views, things of the past, so we should focus on other crucial issues that had been neglected for so long. This paradigm shift then resulted in the (re)emergence of some previously neglected issues, such as the environment and, indeed, human rights.
With regards to human rights, it is almost certain that the people who are active in promoting this issue globally are idealists seeking to bring about the ideal world humankind has desired for so long, characterized by peace and harmony. Thus, I have no need to question that those people have the most virtuous and righteous intentions and missions to create an international system where human rights are the principles guiding actors’ interactions.
As someone who works within the realist theoretical tradition of international politics, I myself find this idea very intriguing. Indeed, personally, I would unquestionably hope and work to ensure that human rights should and must be the governing principles of inter-state relations. This means that states must recognize their very existence in this world to provide for their citizens through respecting and fulfilling basic rights such as a secure and peaceful environment where humans are free from terrors and wars, an excellent education system, generous and robust health care, and a social security system. However, although I find these ideas intriguing, they are still utopian in nature. The question we should ask ourselves is not whether power politics or human rights should be the underlying principles of international politics. Rather, the question should be whether it is possible to impose human rights as a governing principle in a world that has been characterized by conflicts and war for so long. My simple answer to that question is no.
To make sense of what I am arguing here, we ought to analyze how states have behaved across history. The crucial question we must ask is whether states truly adhere to the concept of human rights. Have human rights been declared the number one priority in international politics? I think whether you are a liberal or a hard-headed realist like me, your answer to these 2 questions would be “no.” and it is true. It is not the ideas of human rights that drive states’ behavior in international politics. So then, another question arises: what really drives states’ behavior? My answer is that it is the structure of the international system that drives states’ behavior over time.
The international system is distinguished by two key features. One is the ordering principle, which served as the foundation for state relations with other states. Specifically, the international system is characterized by anarchy, which simply translates into the absence of a global sovereign authority that can regulate inter-state relations and protect them in the event of danger. In short, unlike the situation within states where we have national governments, the international system has no such thing. The second feature of the international system is the existence of power as the main currency of international politics. Just like what John Mearsheimer has said, in the international system, each state has, to some extent, the means necessary to coerce other states (Mearsheimer, 2001).
When these two characteristics are combined, we find that states operate in a very dangerous external environment in which other states are potential foes and aggressors, and there is no global government to protect them. These unfortunate conditions imply that states should and must count on themselves to do what is necessary to ensure their security. This is what the real world is like. For centuries, international politics has largely been a struggle for power among states. Although there have been many cases of absence of conflict or war, stability, and even cooperation, this does not necessarily transcend the power struggle among states in the international system.
Now, what does that mean for the pursuit of human rights? Don’t get me wrong; as I have said before, I would certainly like to live in a world where human rights are cherished and respected. However, as a realist, I don’t get bogged down in idealistic fantasies of creating such a world. Therefore, my argument here is that the pursuit of human rights internationally is at least highly unlikely, if not impossible, and an unwise strategy for states to adopt. Human rights can undoubtedly be enforced within states that have a legitimate national government capable of enforcing law and order, resulting in a hierarchical political structure. Nevertheless, unlike domestic political structures, the international system (as mentioned before) is anarchic, thus implying the logic of self-help on the part of states. In short, in an anarchic world, states’ main concerns would not be whether or not human rights are enforced, but rather the balance of power among them.
To convince you even further of the strength of my argument, it is noteworthy to note the real-world case of what happens when a state (that is a great power) pursues a foreign policy on the basis of spreading human rights. To do this, I would like to comprehensively re-explain what Professor John Mearsheimer (2018) explained in his most recent book, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. The basic question that Mearsheimer wanted to answer in his book is when, why and what happens when a great power pursues a grand strategy of liberal hegemony (designed to spread liberalism abroad, in which human rights are included). In his efforts to provide answers, he focused on post-Cold War American foreign policy.
To shorten things up, I can conclude from Mearsheimer’s argument that a great power (in this case the United States) pursues liberal hegemony when the global distribution of power is unipolar, that is world where there is only one great power operating in the international system. One of the underlying reason behind the pursuit of liberal hegemony is that by spreading liberalism across the globe is that issue of human rights violations would be revolve as by definition, a liberal state would not violate their citizens basic rights. This in turn, is believed to foster international peace. However, the answer to question on what actually happened when the United States tried to realize its liberal hegemonic ambition is not a good one. In reality, the United States was heavily involved in the business of regime change in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. These interventions that first intended to impose liberal democracy, had turned into the so-called “never ending wars”, with significant amount casualties. Mearsheimer gave 2 reasoning for this failure: the power of realism and nationalism.
With that, I would like to conclude this piece by highlighting my arguments. First, while the enforcement of human rights in international politics is desirable, it is not achievable. The basic explanation for that is found in the structure of the international system, where anarchy, not hierarchy, is the ordering principle and where each and every state has, to some extent, the capability to threaten, coerce, or even directly attack each other. Thus, this forces states to focus on the relative distribution of power and not human rights. Second, reflecting on the case of the United States, in the present world, it is even more difficult to pursue human rights internationally where the world is a multipolar one. Furthermore, even when the US pursued liberal hegemony in unipolarity, it did not achieve success.
Note: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the stance of FPCI Chapter UPNVJ Jakarta.
References
Mearsheimer, J.J. (2001). The tragedy of great power politics. New York: WW & Norton Company.
Mearsheimer, J. J. (2018). The great delusion: Liberal dreams and international realities. Yale University Press.
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