Note that we do not intend to make the full case forthe role of evolution in human behavior. Darwin himself envisioned these nuances, even though he did not know the biological mechanisms at work. On the contrary, it provides or adds to the reasons why we demand and need them, and indeed why they are so hard to establish and maintain. The theory might thus be extended to explain the behavior and actions of many phenomena: the Roman Empire, warfare among Papua New Guinean or Native American tribes, the European conquest of South America, the race for the American west and the failed Mormon and Confederate secessions, the imperialist scrambles over African colonies, institutions like the medieval Catholic Church, commercial organizations from the East India Company to Coca-Cola, the struggles of rival ethnic groups the world over, and the ruthlessness of electoral campaigns. Note: The unit of analysis varies among the theories (states for defensive and offensive realism, humans for classical realism and human evolution), but all predictions are for state behavior. In some species, reproductive access is settled by coercion, in which the strongest male defeats rivals to dominate a harem. Humans may pursue self-interest and power by many means, including, for example, patience and reciprocity as well as coercion and violence. What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.. On the contrary, it is famously hard to initiate and maintain from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, which is why this topic continues to fill huge volumes of scholarly literature in economics and political science.208,209 As we have emphasized, cooperation is easy to explain where it brings clear mutual benefits to the self-interest of those involved, such as trade or military alliances (in which case offensive realism is as good an explanation of cooperation as any other theory). Utah's Office of Licensing, which provides oversight to youth residential treatment centers, has conducted 341 investigations in the past five years at Provo Canyon School's four campuses. Reading the literature of offensive realism can be hauntingly analogous to reading ethnographies of warfare among preindustrial societies such as the Yanomamo in the Amazon, the Mae Enga in New Guinea, or the Shuar in the Andes. In 1982 he became a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he was appointed the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science in 1996. Second, the group might seek an alternative for the resource, perhaps through technological innovation or by substitution. While biological group selection among humans is unlikely, the selection of cultural traits among groups is possible. In 2007 Mearsheimer coauthored with Stephen M. Walt a best-selling but highly controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007). The origins of warfare are rooted in the imperative to gain and defend resources necessary for survival and reproduction in dangerous and competitive conditions. First, offensive realism fails to explain why costly wars sometimes occur against the interests of the states that initiate them. II, Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History, Five rules for the evolution of cooperation, 16 common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans, Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behaviour and the Quest for Status, Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership, Teeth, horns and antlers: The weapons of sex, States in mind: Evolution, coalitional psychology, and international politics, Sex Differences: Summarizing More Than a Century of Scientific Research, Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight, Sex differences in leadership emergence during competitions within and between groups, The feeling of rationality: The meaning of neuroscientific advances for political science, Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, Violence and sociality in human evolution, Policing stabilizes construction of social niches in primates, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, Managing ingroup and outgroup relationships, What we know about bias and intergroup conflict, problem of the century, Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression, The coevolution of parochial altruism and war, Groups in mind: The coalitional roots of war and morality, Human Morality and Sociality: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives, Meeting at Grand Central: Understanding the Social and Evolutionary Roots of Cooperation, The paranoid optimist: An integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases, Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion, Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making, Political Psychology in International Relations, The Winner Effect: How Power Affects Your Brain, Chimpanzees and the mathematics of battle, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations, Divergence population genetics of chimpanzees, All Apes Great and Small. Although it is not our intention to resolve offensive realisms theoretical lacunae, an evolutionary account can help to explain them. This idea is important because, if individuals are working for the good of the group rather than only for themselves, then groups composed of more-cooperative individuals may do better than less-cooperative groups, meaning that genuinely altruistic traits (sacrificing ones own interests for the good of others) can spread in the population.Reference Wilson184,Reference Wilson and Sober185 However, there are several reasons why this possibility does not affect our argument. Hierarchies may be weak or strong, and alpha males may sire nearly all offspring or just more than others. Up to now, our claims have focused on traits that are common to all humans. Offensive realism, more than other major theories of international relations, closely matches what we know about human nature from the evolutionary sciences. Each season at Evermore Park brings new adventures, fit for all ages. Indeed, a wide range of empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience suggests instead that humans, especially men, not only want to be leaders but also enjoy the pursuit of power (as well as its material fruits).156,Reference Robertson157,158 The force of this motivation is frequently revealed in victors expressions of the satisfaction of conquest. Classical realists (such as Thucydides, E.H. Carr, Arnold Wolfers, and Hans Morgenthau) and offensive realists share the assumption that states seek to maximize power - that states are relentless seekers of power and influence.Specifically, for classical realists "nations expand their political interests abroad when their relative power increases . Mearsheimer, taking his geography argument further, asserts that stopping the power of w ater is precisely why no state can be a global hegemon. Correspondence: Dominic D. P. Johnson, Alastair Buchan Professor ofInternational Relations, Department of Politics andInternational Relations, University of Oxford, St. Antonys College, 62 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6JF, United Kingdom. Where these conditions are tempered, such as in the modern peaceful democracies of Western Europe, these cognitive and physiological mechanisms are likely to be more subdued. Evolutionary theory and the causes of war,, John Strate emphasizes the importance of defense from attack by conspecifics, other humans; he argues that it caused the growth of human societies. If women led them, or were better represented in legislative or executive branches of government, a logical prediction of our theory is that egoistic, dominant, and groupish tendenciesbeing primarily male traitswould be less likely to influence state behavior. However, unlike Waltz, who fears that too much power for a state will lead other states to seek to achieve a balance of power and thus actually threaten the states security (the genesis of defensive realism),30 Mearsheimer argues that the international system requires that states maximize their offensive power to be secure and keep rivals from gaining power at their expense.31 In fact, this systemic incentive is so powerful that states would become the most powerful of all if they could: A states ultimate goal is to be the hegemon in the system.32 Only by being the hegemon can the state be absolutely sure of its security. Our theory is also unlimited in domain, explaining behavior wherever there are human actors and weak external constraints on their actions, from ancestral human groups, ethnic conflict, and civil wars to domestic politics, free markets, and international relations. However, if actors seek dominance at least partly because of evolved behavioral dispositions (of which actors may not even be aware), then we may expect sometimes to observe power-maximizing behavior whether or not it is a good strategy. For an excellent general analysis of the genetic origins of aggression and its chemical mediators in humans such as the hormone testosterone, its derivative dihydroxytestosterone (DHT), neurotransmitters such as serotonin, and some of the differences in behavior caused by these factors in men and women, see William R. Clark and Michael Grunstein, In this respect, too, international politics resembles animal behavior. Total loading time: 0 We argue that evolutionary theory also offers a fundamental cause for offensive realist behavior (see Table1). 15, No. Offensive realism based on evolutionary theory makes the same predictions for state behavior, but the ultimate causal mechanism is different: human evolution in the anarchic, dangerous, and competitive conditions of the late-Pliocene and Pleistocene eras. As we have explained, there are several mechanisms by which altruistic or helping behavior can (and have) evolved because of the benefits of helping others that accrue to oneselfnot least, altruistic behavior among kin, reciprocity, and reputation formation. The most obvious challenge that evolutionary theory presents to international relations concerns our understanding of human nature. An article adapted from the book had previously been published by Foreign Affairs. Mearsheimer outlines five bedrock assumptions on which offensive realism stands: (1) the international system is anarchic; (2) great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability; (3) states can never be certain about the intentions of other states; (4) survival is the primary goal of great powers; and (5) great powers are rational actors.39 From these core assumptions, Mearsheimer argues three general patterns of behavior result: fear, self-help, and power maximization.40 It is these three behaviors that are the focus of our article. That natural selection should have drawn out the same three traits as Mearsheimer may seem a remarkable coincidence. The environment in which we evolved typically implies the Pleistocene era, lasting from 2 million years ago until around 10,000 years ago. The abundance of intergroup threats, which cause the fear and uncertainty Mearsheimer identifies, are deeply rooted in human evolution under conditions of anarchy over millions of years, and not just in the anarchy of the modern state system in recent history. First, the preferences of individual citizens are, at least to a degree, represented in those elected toor tolerated inoffice, and those preferences may also be seen in the goals of the state. In sum, evolutionary theory offers realist scholars a natural-scientific behavioral foundation for offensive realism. The ubiquity and strength of the ingroup/outgroup bias across history and across human cultures suggest it is an ingrained aspect of human nature, and evolutionary theory explains why such a mechanism would evolve.Reference Alexander125,Reference Hammond and Axelrod126,Reference Choi and Bowles127 First, considerable evidence from both archeological and ethnographic research on preindustrial societies points to intensive intergroup conflict in our past.128,129,130,131,132,133 As we noted earlier, around 15 percent of male populations in indigenous small-scale societies died in warfare (and, in some such societies, war-related mortality rates were considerably higher).134,135 War also remains a significant influence on the social organization and physical distribution of these societies even when they are not actually at war. Depending on the time of year, visitors can enjoy a Mythological Fair in the summer (MYTHOS), a Haunted Festival & Adventure in the fall (LORE) and a Magical Christmas/Winter . Historically, evidence has often supported this hypothesis.199,200,201 However, we take the position that, on average, state leaders personal interests have significant and genuine overlap with national security interests, not least of which is the survival and prosperity of the state for themselves and their progeny. Under conditions of anarchy, when there is the threat of predation and resource competition (as in many eras and locales in history), cognitive and physiological mechanisms of egoism, dominance, and groupishness are triggered. Our point is therefore not that humans are naturally good or naturally bad at all times and in all circumstances, but rather that people have evolved mechanisms for egoism, dominance, and groupishness that are activated and amplified in certain settings. In this article, we ask whether human nature may predispose us, like our nonhuman primate cousins, to behave as offensive realists. Humans and chimpanzees shared some features of their socio-ecological environment, such as spatially and temporally variable food resources, which required that individuals leave the protection of the group to forage in open or bordering areas, often alone or in small groups, subjecting them to greater risks of predation or ambush from conspecifics.Reference wrangham, Pilbeam, Galdikas, Briggs, Sheeran, Shapiro and Goodall167 In contrast, the ecology of bonobos has been relatively benign. Mearsheimer's theory is a spin-off of Kenneth Waltz's neorealism, also known as structural or defensive realism. His new book, God is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines the role of religion in the evolution of cooperation and how cross-culturally ubiquitous and ancient beliefs in supernatural punishment have helped human society overcome major challenges of collective action. Humans survived (and note that several other Hominin species did not) by virtue of evolved behavioral traitsamong them egoism, dominance, and the ingroup/outgroup biaswhich were adaptations to competitive ecological conditions. We recognize that a challenge to the theory of offensive realism is the empirical mix of cooperation and conflict in the real world. Published online by Cambridge University Press: [2] The five bed-rock assumptions of Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism are: In either case, it is females rather than males that are the limiting factor in sexual competition, making male competition for available females intense. Identification with a specific group provides individuals with meaning and purpose, encouraging them to become part of a community with common interests, values, and goals.Reference Hewstone, Rubin and Willis122,Reference Fiske123,Reference Sidanius and Pratto124 One also knows what one is notthe outgroup, which is stereotyped and homogenized as the Other. Among the many different possible ingroup categories, the most common and significant include family, friends, age, sex, class, ethnicity, politics, religion, and nationality. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). (Examples include the spread of Christianity or Islam at the expense of traditional religions over the last 2,000 years.) He is the author of Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Harvard University Press, 2004), which argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of our capabilities, our control over events, and the future play a key roles in causing war, and, with Dominic Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Harvard University Press, 2006), which examines how and why popular misperceptions commonly create undeserved victories or defeats in wars and crises. Dominic Johnson is professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. Major realist theories and their predictions. The most enduring theories of international relations, therefore, will be ones that are able to incorporate (or at least do not run against the grain of) evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theorists now recognize, following William Hamiltons concept of inclusive fitness, that egoism has complexities. Mearsheimer and Walt in particular make cases for "restraint" and "offshore balancing," meaning a reservation of the use of force to the most serious threats to US power, coupled with a policy to prevent China's assumption of regional hegemony in Asia (Mearsheimer and Walt 2016). Our argument is that evolution produced a human brain and human behaviors that closely match these implicit behavioral patterns on which Mearsheimers theory of offensive realism depends: Egoism (self-help) captures why we want resources and resist their loss; Dominance (power maximization) explains why we want power to control resources for ourselves and our relatives and why we seek to defend them from or deny them to others; Ingroup/outgroup bias (fear of others) explains why we perceive other human groups as threats and rivals. Mearsheimer outlines five "bedrock" assumptions on which offensive realism stands: (1) the international system is anarchic; (2) great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability; (3) states can never be certain about the intentions of other states; (4) survival is the primary goal of great powers; and (5) great powers are Heis the author of Darwin and International Relations: On the EvolutionaryOrigins of War and Ethnic Conflict (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). Whether or not humans and chimpanzees inherited warlike propensities from a common ancestor, there was nevertheless a strong selection pressure in both species to develop them. Evolutionary theory is especially helpful here because it advances our understanding of the proximate (biological) causes of offensive realist behavior and the conditions under which mistakes are more likely to be made (i.e., conditions that exacerbate egoistic, dominating, and groupish behaviors even where such behaviors may not help to achieve strategic goals). What is the logic for risking life and limb in engaging in violent aggression against other groups? On the importance of resource harvesting for the development of dominance hierarchies, see James L. Boone, Competition, conflict, and the development of social hierarchies, in. By 2009, after 18 such killings, the rival group had been all but destroyed. Again, the political world mirrors nature: Not everyone can be the alpha male. All three species descended from an (unknown) common ancestor. For Mearsheimer, states seek to maximize power not because they are aggressive, but because the system requires itthis behavior is the best way to maximize security in an anarchic world. Core Assumptions of Realism (5) 1. Biology, politics, and the emerging science of human nature, Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers, Behavior, Culture, and Conflict in World Politics, Blood Is Their Argument: Warfare Among the Mae Enga Tribesmen of the New Guinea Highland, War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory, Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Human aggression in evolutionary psychological perspective, The evolution of war: theory and controversy, Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population, Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism, Intergroup aggression in chimpanzees and war in nomadic hunter-gatherers: Evaluating the chimpanzee model, Warfare and reproductive success in a tribal population, The genetical evolution of social behavior. However, our contention is that significant aspects of political behavior could be given a stronger foundation if we acknowledge the powerful and basic biological principles that are chronically ignored in the political science literature, as well as the conditions under which they become exacerbated or suppressed. Likewise, many other religious and utopian theorists attribute egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias to special, or at least changeable, circumstances. Cooperation among unrelated individuals is possible but only as the result of interactions that help genes replicate in the long run, through mechanisms such as reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, and signaling.Reference Nowak92 Even cooperation and helping behavior, therefore, are strategies that increase an individuals Darwinian fitnessindeed, that is precisely why they evolved.Reference West, El Mouden and Gardner93 In nature, genetic egoism is the basis of natural selection. We are positively biased toward our own groups and negatively biased toward other groups. Mearsheimer explains that when following a realist policy . Dominance behavior occurs in thousands of taxonomic groups ranging from fish and reptiles to birds and mammals. With regard to U.S. foreign policy, he advocated a strategy of global balancing rather than global hegemony. A superpower such as the United States, he argued, should not try to impose its rule on all continents but should intervene only when another major power threatens to rule a region of strategic importance. A caveat to this prediction is that women in power may tend to act like men, either because selection effects trump stereotypical sex differences (female leaders may have personalities similar to male leaders), or because egoism and dominance are necessary traits in order to survive in the system of international anarchy (or on Capitol Hill).Reference Fukuyama197,Reference Clift and Brazaitis198. He subsequently became Content Manager at PressReader. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Moreover, and lastly, cultural differences have themselves represented an additional cause and consequence of conflict. First, we explain the theory of offensive realism and the place of anarchy in that theory. We argue that evolution under conditions of anarchy has predisposed human nature toward the behaviors predicted by offensive realism: Humans, particularly men, are strongly self-interested, often fear other groups, and seek more resources, more power, and more influence (as we explain in full later). Many criticisms of international relations theories focus on these unsubstantiated or contested assumptions about underlying human nature. John Mearsheimer's Theory and its Major Assumptions|Realism #realpolitik International Relations & Politics 13.4K subscribers Subscribe 153 2.4K views 6 months ago Talk given on December. In this article, The Ngogo group annexed their newly captured area, increasing their territory by more than 20 percent.Reference Mitani, Watts and Amsler1. Aggression may be a risky strategy, but it is a more attractive option than starvation or other lethal dangers. Defensive realists argue that too much powerclassically, too much military powerdecreases a states security because other states will balance against it. Therefore, to advocate group selection over individual selection does nothing to reduce predictions regarding human conflict or aggression. It is important to appreciate, however, that some influences on human evolution have extended over a much longer timescale. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. These strategies are not unique to humans and, in fact, characterize a much broader trend in behavior among mammals as a wholeespecially primatesas well as many other major vertebrate groups, including birds, fish, and reptiles. The Yanomamo among whom I lived were constantly worried about attacks from their neighbors and constantly lived in fear of this possibility. Unsatisfied with military life, he decided to pursue graduate studies rather than become a career officer. Destined for War gets its Thucydides wrong, but its intentionsto warn that China and the US are on course to stumble into an unwanted warare noble. When the stakes are high enough, individuals as well as states all too easily revert to egoism, dominance, and fear. An evolutionary foundation offers a major reinterpretation of the theory of offensive realism and permits its broader application to political behavior across a wide range of actors, domains, and historical eras. Waltzs core concept in Theory of International Politics is the anarchy that reigns in world politics. Third, by acknowledging that the social and natural sciences are both necessary to understand human behavior, we advance consilience. Of the many features of hunter-gatherer society and organization, we focus on intergroup relations, since these are most relevant to the behaviors associated with international relations. In short, you do not need group selection to explain altruism. States are much the same. Third, the group could acquire more of the resource from outside of their territory through migration to uninhabited areas, trade, theft, or warfare.65,77,Reference Guilaine and Zammit67,Reference LeBlanc and Register68,Reference Wrangham and Peterson69,70, Although warfare is certainly costly to any member of a group who is killed or wounded, as well as in terms of the resources and time expended, it can become the sole (or least bad) choice for a group if migration is risky due to factors such as inhospitable or unproductive terrain or hostile neighboring groups, and where trade is difficult or impossible. As Chinggis Khan is purported to have said: The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes.159 Although not usually expressed in such stark terms, the pleasure of competition and victory has been widely recognized as a feature of human nature from classical times to the present day, and success in competitive interactions and the domination of others are known to increase testosterone and dopamine responses in menthe so-called victory effect.160 Such dominance behavior is, we suggest, exaggerated among leaders because they are generally ambitious and competitive, and usually male. Like most international relations scholars of his generation, Mearsheimer was deeply influenced by Kenneth Waltz, the founder of the school of international relations known as neorealism. An exceptional study of realism, and in some respects the fountainhead of offensive realism is Ashley Joachim Tellis, Gat 2006 and Azar Gat, So why do people fight? However, a study by Wrangham and Glowacki, which explicitly looked at warfare among hunter-gatherers who were surrounded by other hunter-gatherers, found that warfare was just as common in this more natural setting.Reference Wrangham and Glowacki80 Evidence from across the cumulative research of archeologists and anthropologists indicates that violence is a widespread feature of small-scale foraging societies and follows a pattern that is consistent as far back as we can see in the ethnographic and archeological record.81. Similarly formidable obstacles to cooperation exist in international relations. Egoism and dominance are important mechanisms for attaining security, but also important is attaining security from members of other groups. The international system is anarchic. What is more important is the ecological differences and similarities that we shared with the two species. Behavior under anarchy in different domains. hasContentIssue false, Human evolution under anarchy: predation, resource competition, and intergroup conflict, The evolution of adaptive behavioral strategies: Egoism, dominance, and ingroup/outgroup bias, Evolution and offensive realism: New insights, Criticisms and extensions of an evolutionary approach. A key debate in evolutionary anthropology has revolved around the origins and extent of intergroup conflict among hunter-gatherers, and the emerging consensus is that such conflict is (and has long been) significant and widespread, and that it serves adaptive functions.59, Let us first consider these functional advantages. Rather, we suggest it is an example of what biologists call evolutionary convergencesimilar traits arising in different settings because they are good solutions to a common problem. and Chimpanzees, for example, will attack others when they have a numerical advantage, but they will retreat if they are outnumbered.Reference Wilson, Britton and Franks162 This behavior makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective, because a decision-making mechanism that takes account of the probability of winning will spread at the expense of a decision-making mechanism that does not. Incorporating ideas from the life sciences into the social sciencesrich in the study of culture and institutions and other influences on political behaviorwill help scholars base their theories in rigorous scientific principles and subject their assumptions to empirical testing.Reference Wilson20,21 Our approach draws heavily on evolutionary anthropology, which recognizes that human behavior is in large part the result of evolved cognitive, physiological, and behavioral mechanisms designed to solve recurrent problems confronted by our ancestors in the environment in which we evolved.
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