Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village

Chapter One REPUBLICAN SECURITY THEORY No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism , but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton bomb. —Theodor W. Adorno1 SECURITY, BOUNDING POWER, AND THE BOUNDING OF POWER From its inception, republican security theory has been concerned with what might be termed the security-political question: what kinds of political arrangements are necessary for security? Republican security theory comprises a cluster of interrelated problematiques and substantive arguments , which this chapter reconstructs. In addressing the question of what kinds of political arrangements are necessary for security, republican security theory has started from the simple assumption that achieving securityfrom -violence (security from the application of violent power to human bodies) is the most basic political problem. Arising from the intersection of human corporeal vulnerability and the fundamental value of life as a prerequisite for all other ends, security-from-violence is the primary (but not sole) purpose of political association. Thus animated, republican security theory has focused on the relationship between restraints and security. In the broadest terms, insecurity results from the absence of restraint on violent power, and security results from the presence of restraints on violent power. There are logically only two possible sources of restraints—either in the limits imposed by the material context or in socially constructed limits provided by political practices and structures. If either material-contextual or political-structural restraints are present, there is security; if neither material-contextual nor political restraints are present, there is insecurity. Looking at the overall sweep of Western structural-materialist theory from the polis to the contemporary global village, in the idioms of republicanism and its main descendants, both limits imposed by material context and limits imposed by political arrangements have been in interactive motion , sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. The essential dynamic at work is captured in the interplay between the two different meanings of the phrase ‘bounding power.’ As power capability leaps or bounds upward, 28 CHAPTER 1 the scope and type of political restraints or bounds necessary for security is also altered. Over time the possibilities of violent power have been bounding upward, inexorably growing by leaps and bounds from the bow, arrow, spear, and sword, through gunpowder weapons transported by animal or wind, through steel guns, railroads, and steamships, to thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. As the material context changes, the permanent problem of security-from-violence reappears in new and different forms, and this in turn means that the political arrangements able to provide security by restraining violence must change if acute insecurity is to be avoided. Providing security in a world of bounding power, of leaping violence possibilities, has thus required changes in the scope and types of bounding power, of socially constructed practices and structures. Bounding power requires the bounding of power. THE TWO PROBLEMATIQUES Immediately beneath this canopy metaphor of bounding as leaping and restraining sit the two main problematiques of republican security theory: the anarchy-interdependence problematique and the hierarchy-restraint problematique (see figure 1.1). The material context plays a pivotal role in the relationship between security and restraint. It conditions the security viability of the three major types of political arrangements—anarchy, hierarchy , and republics. The material context shapes the scope and severity of the application of violent power, thus defining the extent and type of political arrangement needed for security. Parts of these problematiques, and the substantive arguments generated within them, remain salient in contemporary Realism and Liberalism, but in an incomplete and fragmented form. The anarchy-interdependence problematique examines the relationship between variations in material context, the scope of security-compatible anarchy, and the scope of authoritative government necessary for security. Today the expression ‘the anarchy problematique’ stands as the label for a rich body of arguments produced by neorealist international theorists and their critics about the dynamic logic of interstate anarchic systems. These arguments, often quite powerful so far as they go, are a truncated version of the anarchy-interdependence problematique because they employ an impoverished conceptualization of material context as a factor in security politics. Contemporary Realist international theory, reflecting major (if unacknowledged) republican legacies, centers its analysis upon the distribution (‘balance’) of power, largely neglecting the previous centrality of interdependence as it relates to violence. [35.202.208.150] Project MUSE (2024-06-15 13:55 GMT) REPUBLICAN SECURITY THEORY 29 Figure 1.1 Main Problematiques of Republican Security Theory In republican security theory, many different material contextual factors make their appearance, but one variable stands...