The International System. To what extent is anarchy a constant or a variable? (PDF)

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1st, The University of Liverpool, course: Theories of International Relations, language: English, abstract: We can observe that the question about how the international realm is structured and about how anarchy works receives growing importance with recent events. While showing the theoretical approaches of the two named IR schools, it is important to keep in mind that this topic is very close and mutually connected to latest political developments as the Brexit or the new US-President who attempt to renew the international order.

At first, this essay will embed the theories in a historical background and their origins. Constructivism is not only a theory in international relations. It's a big school of thought with a huge number of subcategories and different manifestations. Especially the end of the cold war and the fact that the scholars in IR who were following the big theories like realism or idealism failed to predict this end, opened the door for the development of a new theory in IR. Alexander Wendt applied the theory of a socially constructed world to the subject of international relations.

The main interest of a state, to seek survival, don't change from a realist to a neo-realist point of view. For realists, the condition of flawed man in the status of human nature explains why cooperation is never guaranteed and states must increase their power consequently. In contrast to that human nature don't play a role in the neo-realist theory, for (neo)realists, international anarchy describes the social relations among sovereign nation-states that causally explain why wars occur.