Domestic politics and international relations
International relations are of paramount importance, and they have an increasing influence on domestic politics. Here we’re going to address this fact, and how this relationship works.
Today, I’m going to analyze how international relations have achieved a critical role in shaping domestic politics.
In the last episode, we saw the differences between domestic and international politics, and also pointed out their interconnection. Now it’s time to take one more step and study the way international relations determine domestic politics. To do so, we need a historical standpoint; otherwise, we won’t be able to understand the current dominant role of the international realm over domestic politics.
From the outset, we’ll analyze the birth and development of the modern State. Additionally, we’ll stress the geopolitical aspect of this process. Moreover, we will see the importance of the State system and how international relations fostered changes in the State’s inner realm.
You may ask yourself why the early modern age is the beginning of the explanation. The reason is simple. In the Middle Ages, there were no international relations as such because politics was a matter of personal relations between members of the western European elite.
The European nobility developed politics on the basis of personal bonds, and this situation entailed the existence of multiple overlapped jurisdictions. For this reason, there was neither an inner nor an external realm in politics. Besides, there was no clear hierarchy because many vassals shared multiple lords and loyalties. So, there wasn’t a final authority in a specific territory. However, everything changed with the beginning of modernity.
I don’t want to go into the causes of this change here. For now, I’ll just add that the fragmented geopolitical stage had much to do with this. There were hundreds of political units in western Europe in the sixteenth century, and they were fighting each other. As a result, different rulers started to claim an exclusive right to govern certain territories. This trend was completely new because it entailed the reorganization of the western European space, and, all in all, the destruction of the former medieval order. Territoriality arose from this trend as a new political principle that shaped the distinction between the inner and external realm.
From the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century took place the birth of the modern State. And from 1648, with the Peace of Westphalia, until the nineteenth century, after the Napoleonic wars, it was its consolidation. In the meantime, the State system was born.
Anyways, by the end of the sixteenth century, it was clear the existence of an inner realm with its domestic politics, and an international domain where interactions between countries developed. Warfare was critical in the formation of these two fields, and the constitution of standing political communities in the form of the modern State.
Most European wars were existential because they decided the survival or death of the State. In this situation of permanent rivalries and intense competition, international relations gained importance. The external realm was the primary concern of European sovereigns. Therefore, they had to face successive challenges posed by other powers. This uneasy geopolitical context pressed on political units, and they took measures in the inner realm. These measures transformed domestic politics to fulfill security needs. I refer to the creation and development of new bureaucratic and military institutions to extract economic and human resources to wage war.
War made the State, and the State made war. State-building was a direct consequence of waging war because States needed to develop new political structures to gather the necessary means for their survival. In that way, the international realm shaped domestic politics because every State had to adjust their inner conditions to face the external threats successfully.
We can’t overlook another important fact. I refer to the change in the way of waging war. New military technology, as gunpowder and portable weapons, new tactics, and the growth of armies, ratcheted up the cost of war. As a result, the pressures on domestic politics swelled, and they boosted new types of organizations to extract more resources from society. All of this unleashed a fundamental shift in the inner sphere of the State.
The development of the modern State supposed a progressively more intervention of authorities in society. The State needed to increase its capabilities, and for that aim, it developed new domestic policies to organize and adapt society to its security requirements. This process was the expansion of the State in the long run, and it came with a critical change in its relation to society.
Modernity, considered in political terms, was the beginning of a long-lasting process that continues today. Its main feature is the increasing concentration and centralization of power in a single central authority. That explains the rise of more powerful governments in western Europe in the early modern age, and also the appearance of impersonal and permanent institutions, such as the modern State itself.
Compared to the Medieval Age, modernity resulted in the apotheosis of the State. At least, from the perspective of domestic politics.
We see this phenomenon in the appearance of larger bureaucracy and armies, more taxes and laws, more surveillance with the creation of prisons, courts, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and so on.
The birth of the modern State brought the rise of the State system, insofar as nations started to reshape their relations on the basis of new principles, such as sovereignty and territoriality.
The driving force for social and political change came from abroad. In this way, international relations were, and they still are, a powerful stimulus to shape national institutions to fulfill the security requirements.
However, the way international relations influenced the States was very different depending on the inner conditions of each country. In this respect, the political evolution of each nation was the result of the combination of internal and external conditions. These circumstances were critical in the later political development of States because they explain the different trajectories of European countries.
Some scholars pointed out this aspect, such as Charles Tilly, or Otto Hintze. The latter argued, “If we want to find out about the relations between military organization and the organization of the state, we must direct our attention particularly to two phenomena, which conditioned the real organization of the state. These are, first, the structure of social classes, and second, the external ordering of the states -their positions relative to each other, and their overall position in the world”.
This quotation is enlightening for our explanation because it reflects the entanglement between domestic and international politics.
There is a dialectical influence between the external and the inner realm. Not only international relations press on political units to foster changes in their domestic politics, but these changes have consequences in the international sphere. There are many cases to illustrate this statement. The birth of the State system has its origins in the international field because it encouraged changes at the unit level that led to the formation of the modern State. This critical shift caused the transformation of the international environment with the birth of the State system.
So, international pressures operate through internal conditions of political units, and this is what makes the difference in their respective evolution.
Actually, dialectics as a method of thinking might be useful to understand this relation between the internal and external domains. That reminds us of the following quote from Chairman Mao. “Materialist dialectics holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.”
All of this has a direct relation to the problem of agency and structure. Agency is considered the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. The structure is those factors of influence that determine or limit an agent and their decisions.
All I explained so far, allows us to consider this problem in dialectical terms. In this respect, political actors construct the world in which they operate, and at the same time, this world constrains them. Therefore, political actors are free to make decisions. However, their choices are shaped by the structures and history they and their predecessors have made. The sociologist Philip Abrams suggested that “… a world in which we are both the creators and the creatures, both makers and prisoners; a world which our actions construct and a world that powerfully constrains us. The two-sidedness of society, the fact that social action is both something we choose to do and something we have to do … What we choose to do and what we have to do are shaped by the historically given possibilities among which we find ourselves”. All in all, this quote summarizes our explanation.
At this moment, we have a general idea of the mutual interaction between domestic politics and international relations. Now, it’s time to take one more step by addressing how this interrelation works today. Something that some people know, but nobody will tell you elsewhere.
International relations influence domestic politics in many different ways. It can be by resorting to takeovers, speculative trading, political turmoil, and so on. These methods may have their origin abroad. There is always someone trying to take advantage of the weakness of their rivals to undermine their position.
Aside from the specific methods used in the power struggle on the international stage, what matters here is the big picture. We see the competition between great powers to protect their national interest, and how these rivalries make them take on more international commitments. As a result, they end up assuming a heavy burden that requires changes in the inner sphere to fulfill the needs of an active and over expanded foreign policy. An unintended consequence of this dynamic is the transformation of the political structures of the country.
Let’s have a quick look at the U.S. case. After WWII, this country became a superpower, with many commitments all around the world. The new situation redefined its national interest on a global scale. But more important than this was the critical transformation of its domestic politics.
An overwhelming military-industrial complex emerged as a result of the war, and it provoked a crucial shift in the power distribution at the federal level.
Rather than dismantling this structure after the war, national leaders justified its existence based on security reasons, such as the post-war scenario, and the U.S. worldwide commitments. From then on, the military has played a dominant role in the government by concentrating a vast amount of financial and human resources. Consequently, the importance of other institutions, such as the Congress, declined.
The whole country went through fundamental changes in several fields to underpin the efforts of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, in the production to increase economic growth and boost federal revenues. But also in the technology to increase the strength of the military and the control of the workforce.
As we have seen, international relations have a significant influence on domestic politics. Still, it also shows us the cost of taking a central position on the international stage.
First, war is the shortest path to destroy freedom, especially when it is the result of expansionist and offensive measures.
With war comes standing armies, debt, taxes, and many instruments to bring the many under the domination of the few. So, it is the entrance hall of despotism.
And second, the best security is freedom. When you control your life, you control your security. Otherwise, you depend on someone else to have security, and then you become a slave.
To achieve a free and peaceful world is a daunting task. However, something is sure, we won’t get it by paying attention to those who sell us security, and in the meantime, enslave us.
Question of the day!
Question of the day!. What’s your point of view on the relation between freedom and security, and how it should be? You can post your opinion in the comments section below.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies, from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
James Madison
“… All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
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