{"id":468,"date":"2014-09-12T07:46:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/?p=468"},"modified":"2014-09-21T14:59:24","modified_gmt":"2014-09-21T14:59:24","slug":"who-put-the-real-in-realist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/2014\/09\/12\/who-put-the-real-in-realist\/","title":{"rendered":"Who put the “real” in realist?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The UNFCCC official seal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Elizabeth Plascencia<\/p>\n

Evidently realists will be realists, I will be me, and you shall be you. Set on a trajectory of thought spanning from the latter end of World War II, realism, as a paradigm, populated the gamut of international relations, which felt seemingly appropriate for its time. Strikingly similar to that of the second law of thermodynamics, entropy or chaos, was at an all time high post-World War II, in which case a realists\u2019 pessimistic stance deemed valid. Within R. Bova\u2019s text, How the World Works: A Brief Survey of International Relations<\/em>, he boldly states, \u201cAt this point, however, no single paradigmatic challenger to realism has emerged\u201d, where I contentiously yet mindfully respond. Today, September 12, 2014, I challenge the realist paradigm on the sanction of qualitatively and quantitatively significant evidence extrapolated from the liberalism paradigm of international relations theory.<\/p>\n

In essence, liberalism<\/a> speaks to the ever-changing nature of world politics and opens the window to optimism that realists\u2019 blocked with stagnant anarchic assumptions for the rest of the world. In lieu of qualitative evidence negating Bova\u2019s statement, \u201cIn short, for realists, the expectation that global environmental crisis will lead to cooperative responses is both na\u00efve and contrary to the record of human history\u201d, the unity of liberal internationalism, liberal commercialism, and liberal institutionalism creating the Kantian Triangle[1] are highly regarded (pg 249-50). The UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) is an outstanding example for a liberal institution that promotes peaceful cooperation on an issue as pressing as global climate change. Moreover as presented by the National Research Council within \u201cThe Context for America\u2019s Climate Choices\u201d the United States \u201c\u2026endorsed an effort to work with the international community to prevent a 2\u00a0(3.6 ) increase in global temperatures relative to pre-industrial levels\u201d (pg. 11). Furthermore providing evidence framing single nation and multi-nation cooperative initiations that are making active efforts to mitigate climate change.<\/p>\n

Within a working liberalism paradigm<\/a> there exists this notion of \u201cabsolute gains\u201d [2] which is derived from cooperative and peaceful state interactions. Whilst keeping a focus on absolute gains, a liberalist sees no reason to compare their gains to that of another nation. In fact, quantitative statistical analyses as presented by the International Energy Agency reveal that \u00a0\u201cThe Australian government and European Union had announced intentions to link their systems, starting with one-way trading of European allowances into the Australian market from 2015, followed by two-way linking from 2008\u201d and \u201cIn December 2008, the European Council and the European Parliament endorsed an agreement on climate change and energy package which implements a political commitment by the European Union to reduce its GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions by 20% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. The package also includes a target for renewables in the European Union, set at 20% of final energy demand by 2020\u201d (pg. 17).<\/p>\n

As previously stated – realists will be realists, I will be me, and you shall be you. Derive what you will from the empirical trends, but know this – if anarchy is what they think, anarchy is what they will get.<\/p>\n

Footnotes:<\/p>\n

[1] Kantian Triangle \u2013 Idea that international institutions, economic interdependence, and the diffusion of democratic government are mutually reinforcing and together support liberal notions of a trend towards peace and cooperation among states (Bova, 22).<\/p>\n

[2] Absolute gain \u2013 the total benefits that accrue to a state as a consequence of its interactions with other states without regard to the benefits that accrue to others (Bova, 19).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Bova, R., 2011, \u201cHow to think about world politics, realism, and its critics\u201d How the World Works: A Brief Survey of International Relations<\/em>, Longman Publishing, pp 3-37.<\/p>\n

Bova, R., 2011, \u201cTransnational challenges, the state system under stress\u201d How the World Works: A Brief Survey of International Relations<\/em>, Longman Publishing, pp 237-250.<\/p>\n

International Energy Agency, 2013, CO2 emissions from Fuel Combustion, Highlights, pp 7 – 19.<\/p>\n

National Research Council, 2011, \u201cThe Context for America\u2019s Climate Choices,\u201d in America\u2019s Climate Choices, pp 7 -14.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elizabeth Plascencia Evidently realists will be realists, I will be me, and you shall be you. Set on a trajectory of thought spanning from the latter end of World War II, realism, as a paradigm, populated the gamut of international relations, which felt seemingly appropriate for its time. Strikingly similar to that of the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Who put the “real” in realist?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1611,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100739,77135],"tags":[100711,1301,22,86837,48787,34249],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-governance-politics","category-mosaic","tag-bova","tag-climate-change","tag-dickinson","tag-liberalism","tag-realism","tag-unfccc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}