Abstract
Ideology plays a major role in international relations by shaping a country’s foreign policy preferences and actions. Different theoretical approaches conceptualize the relationship between ideology and international relations in distinct ways. Realism downplays the importance of ideology, while liberalism and constructivism see ideology as an essential driver of state behavior. Marxism frames ideology as a tool of capitalist domination, and feminism critiques realist assumptions as ideological and argues gender norms affect foreign policy. This article provides an overview of how major IR theories treat ideology and its influence on the international system and state relations. It examines realism, liberalism, Marxism, constructivism, feminism and other perspectives to highlight their contrasting ideological frameworks for understanding global politics.
Introduction
A state’s foreign policy is shaped by many factors, both material and ideational. The role of ideology in international relations has been conceptualized in different ways by major theoretical approaches. Realism traditionally minimizes the importance of ideology, viewing the international system as fundamentally anarchic and conflictual, where states are unitary rational actors competing for power. Liberalism sees ideology as a source of cooperation and shared values between liberal states. Marxism views ideology as a tool of capitalist domination, obscuring class relations. Constructivism understands ideology as the beliefs and values that construct state identities and interests. Feminism critiques realist assumptions as ideological and highlights how gender ideologies affect foreign policy.
This article provides an overview of different perspectives on ideology within international relations theory. First, it outlines the core assumptions of major IR theories – realism, liberalism, Marxism, constructivism and feminism – and how they conceptualize the role of ideas and ideology. It then explains the rationalist-reflectivist debate within IR theory over whether material or ideational factors have primacy. The article concludes by assessing the different strengths and limitations of IR theories in accounting for the complex relationship between ideology and state behavior in the international system. Evaluating diverse theoretical lenses illuminates the multifaceted ways ideology shapes global politics.
Realism and Ideology
Realism is a dominant theoretical paradigm in international relations, providing an account of world politics focused on state power and survival. Classical realists view the international system as inherently conflictual and competitive (Carr 1946; Morgenthau 1948). States exist in an anarchic ‘state of nature’ where the primary concern is the national interest defined in terms of power. The global distribution of military capabilities determines state’s foreign policies, not their professed ideologies. States may cloak actions in moralistic rhetoric, but their behavior ultimately reflects rational cost-benefit calculations about material power dynamics. From a realist perspective, ideology functions as propaganda or window-dressing, obscuring the fundamental realities of power politics.
Neorealism or structural realism articulated by Kenneth Waltz (1979) offers a more systemic version focused on how anarchy shapes state interactions, but it shares classical realism’s scepticism about the role of ideology. Waltz argues the anarchic structure of the international system creates strong incentives for states to prioritize power and security. Polarity – the number of great powers – is more important than ideology in shaping state capabilities and behavior. States balance power rather than bandwagon, contradicting one of Morgenthau’s (1948) claims. But neorealism agrees states act based on rational assessments of material structure, not ideological factors which are ephemeral compared to permanent anarchy (Waltz 1979). Defensive realism similarly focuses on the security dilemma rather than ideology as a driver of conflict and competition between states (Jervis 1978; Glaser 2010). In general, realism takes a utilitarian and materialist view of state behavior that minimizes the role of ideology in world politics.
However, some foreign policy analysts have attempted to integrate ideology into a broader realist framework, arguing certain belief systems have systematic effects. Randall Schweller (2006) incorporated neoclassical realist factors like state-society relations to explain the differential foreign policies of fascist, communist and liberal states. Henry Kissinger’s (1994) diplomacy model suggested different worldviews – realist, idealist, revolutionary – shape state behavior. Yet critics argue these ideational factors are underspecified in realist theories and cannot account for ideologies changing state interests (Vasquez 1997). Overall, realism does not consider shared ideas or ideologies as an important explanatory factor or determinant of state behavior and international outcomes.
Liberalism and Ideology
In contrast to realism, liberalism sees shared ideology and values as a major force in international politics. Liberal international relations theory emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a challenger paradigm to realism (Doyle 1997; Moravcsik 2003). Liberalism takes a more optimistic view of human nature and cooperation rooted in democratic norms and institutions. Liberal states have compatible values and ideology that foster cooperation, trade and international institutions – hence theories of liberal peace and democratic peace. Liberal institutionalism argues regimes and norms help cooperate and reduce conflict between states, facilitating international public goods in spheres like trade and the environment (Keohane 1984). Economic interdependence and international institutions also promote peace and shared values between liberal democratic states (Doyle 1997; Oneal & Russett 1999). Liberal theory considers ideological affinity and shared liberal norms as crucial forces shaping state behavior and international politics.
Liberalism also assumes ideas and economic ideology influence domestic politics which affect foreign policy (Moravcsik 2003). Societal ideas and identities shape state preferences and interests, which liberal states pursue through cooperative means. Different domestic ideologies – socialist, nationalist, neoliberal etc – lead to different foreign policies. Regime type matters since democratic norms and values constrain leaders abroad, while non-democracies are less restricted. Liberal theories incorporate both systemic-level ideological patterns in cooperation between liberal states and domestic-level ideological conflicts that shape foreign policy. This two-level interplay between domestic ideas/interests and international strategic interaction constitutes complex interdependence between states (Putnam 1988; Keohane & Nye 1989). Overall, liberalism provides a much more extensive role for ideas and ideology in international relations compared to realism.
However, some critics argue that liberalism overemphasizes shared norms and fails to explain conflict between liberal states (Layne 2006). It also exhibits ideological bias in how it defines ‘liberal’ values and ideology. Marxists critique the liberal assumption that spreading capitalist democracy promotes progress and cooperation when imperialism remains persistent. Despite these debates, liberal IR theories firmly incorporate ideational factors and demonstrate how ideological convergence between liberal democratic states allegedly facilitates cooperation. This contrasts sharply with realism’s dismissal of ideology as epiphenomenal.
Marxism and Ideology
Marxist approaches view ideas like ideology as integral to properly understanding international politics dominated by capitalist social relations. Marxism critiques realism and liberalism for obscuring systemic patterns of exploitation and domination under capitalism as a global structure (Rupert and Smith 2002). Liberal pretensions about morality and rights serve to mystify the reality of elite capitalist interests. But classical Marxism also rejects idealism for focusing superficially on ideas rather than material conditions. Instead, ideology must be situated within broader capitalist relations.
Marx and Engels ([1846] 1970) argue the dominant ideas in any epoch reflect ruling class interests. The bourgeoisie propagate liberal ideology that naturalizes capitalist social relations and private property (Hall 1984). Ideology thereby reproduces class domination and false consciousness that masks exploitation. Lenin ([1916] 2001) claimed imperialism was the highest stage of capitalism representing bourgeois ideology and interests on a global scale. Dependency theory similarly views Western capitalist ideology and liberal values as masking the exploitative relations upholding global inequality between the core and periphery (Frank 1967; Wallerstein 1974). In general, the Marxist tradition treats ideas like ideology as functions of the material base and class relations, part of superstructure reflecting economic substructure.
At the same time, Marxism sees ideology as masking contradictions in the system and provoking class conflict. Antonio Gramsci (1971) theorized hegemony and emphasized how ideology helps manufacture consent to capitalism. But counter-hegemonic ideas also inspire resistance from the proletariat. Ideological effects are contested and unstable. Marxism foregrounds the economic base but recognizes the complex mediating ideological aspects of class struggles and praxis transforming society (Cox 1983). Ideology both reproduces oppression and contains seeds of emancipatory change. This dialectical Marxist approach provides a deeper view of ideology’s role compared to liberal pluralism.
Overall Marxism offers a comprehensive framework for understanding ideology as integral to class relations in both domestic politics and the international system dominated by imperialism. Realists ignore class relations while liberals naturalize capitalist ideology. But Marxism reveals the exploitative underpinnings obscured by liberal rhetoric and hegemonic bourgeois ideology that fragments the working class. A materialist theory of ideology remains crucial to examine global capitalism and resistance.
Constructivism and Ideology
Constructivism emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s as a challenge to rationalist mainstream IR theories like realism and liberalism (Wendt 1992; Onuf 2013). Alexander Wendt (1992) critiqued the “materialist bio-reductionism underlying realist and liberal IR theory” (p. 393). Inspired by sociological institutionalism, constructivism sees the identities and interests of states and other actors as socially constructed through collectively shared ideas and norms, not given exogenously by nature or pre-determined material forces. Wendt (1992) argues “anarchy is what states make of it” (p. 395). State identities and roles as ‘enemy’, ‘rival’, or ‘friend’ depend on shared meanings and knowledge rather than material structure or polarity.
Constructivism focuses on the ideational forces that construct social realities and “the role of human consciousness in international life” (Onuf 2013, p. 5). Discourse and language constitute intersubjective structures of meaning that define state interests and guide behavior. Ideology forms these shared cognitions and normative frames that shape policies. Whether security issues like climate change or migration are politicized reflects social processes of constructing meaning, not just material pressures (Busby 2007). Constructivists analyze how discourse embeds ideological assumptions and constructs the subject positions of states and other actors like the ’global south’ or ‘terrorists’ (Guzzini 2005). Foreign policy and systemic processes are socially and ideationally constructed, not determined by objective material forces.
However, some constructivists also incorporate material factors and how they interact with ideas (Guzzini 2005). Wendt’s thin constructivism focuses on ideational microprocesses while critical constructivists adopt a deeper poststructuralist lens exposing power relations that discourse obscures. Feminist constructivists illuminate gender ideologies and how masculinized cultures of militarism and sovereignty dominate IR discourse (Peterson 1992; Tickner 2005). Constructivism provides diverse conceptual tools for theorizing the complex role of ideas, norms, language and ideology in the intersubjective construction of international relations. Yet critics argue its focus on ideas underplays material and economic constraints. Constructivism remains divided between idealist and postpositivist variants (Barkin 2010). But overall it firmly establishes ideology and social knowledge as essential to understanding how state interests and the international system are produced, not natural or predetermined.
Feminism and Ideology
Feminist IR perspectives also emphasize the ideological construction of traditional concepts like power, security and sovereignty (Sylvester 1994; Tickner 1997). They argue gender ideologies are integral to the practice and theories of international relations (Whitworth 1994). Traditional IR paradigms like realism and liberalism embed ideological assumptions about masculinity and patriarchy systemic to world politics. State sovereignty and security are framed in masculinist terms of penetration, violation and dominance (Peterson 1992). Feminists problematize these naturalized ideologies that marginalize women and overlook how gender constructs social hierarchies at all levels from the household to global politics.
Feminist standpoint theory critically examines how ideologies define subject positions and reproduce gendered power relations embedded in language and discourse (Harding 2004). Hegemonic masculinities dominate political structures, silencing women’s voices in policy making and perpetuating militarized state power and nationalistic ideologies (Enloe 1990). Yet theconstruction of femininity also shapes international politics, from justifications for occupations as ‘saving women’ to dynamics of global care chains (Youngs 2004). Feminist theory reveals the mutually constitutive relationship between gender ideologies and global power structures obscured by realism and liberalism.
Postcolonial feminism additionally emphasizes how gender and racism interlock with capitalist ideologies to shape the experiences of the Global South (Mohanty 1984). Transnational feminist advocacy networks challenge hegemonic state-centric masculinist discourses by promoting alternative worldviews and ideologies promoting peace, human rights and economic justice across borders (Sperling, Ferree & Risman 2001). Feminist perspectives foreground how deeply embedded ideologies of gender, race and class are reproduced through dominant discourses and practices of international relations that must be contested and transformed to empower marginalized voices. This ideological deconstruction reorients the entire field beyond traditional paradigms.
Rationalism vs Reflectivism
The different conceptions of ideology across IR theories relate to a broader ‘rationalist-reflectivist’ debate within the field’s philosophy of science and metatheory (Keohane 1988; Fearon & Wendt 2002). Rationalism adopts a positivist epistemology seeing IR as a science studying objective causal forces shaping world politics. It assumes states have fixed preferences and make rational calculations based on material capabilities and constraints. Rationalist theories like neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism use game theory, mathematical models and quantitative methods to discover law-like generalizations and predictions about state behavior, denying that ideas or norms have causal power (Keohane 1988). Reflectivism instead contends IR should focus on interpreting beliefs, ideas and discourse to understand meanings and how subjects and structures constitute one another.
The rationalist-reflectivist divide parallels disagreements over agency-structure. Rationalism focuses on how material structures like anarchy shape and constrain state behavior while reflectivists examine how agents socially construct structures through ideas and meanings. But some theorists argue both material and ideational forces interact (Wendt 1987). The agent-structure problem has no definitive resolution. Critical realists try to balance material and ideational factors by distinguishing the transfactual domain of unobservable causal mechanisms from actual patterns and events (Kurki 2008). But others contend IR requires both positivist and postpositivist lenses.
The different ways IR theories conceptualize ideology reflect these epistemological tensions. Realism adopts a scientific rationalist approach that claim ideology has no explanatory power compared to objective material forces like polarity. Liberalism incorporates some ideational factors but tries to retain rationalist assumptions. Marxism offers a structural theory of how ideology reflects class positions within the capitalist mode of production. Constructivism and feminism adopt critical postpositivist stances to focus on how ideas, discourse and meaning construct international politics and embed ideological assumptions. The status of ideology relates closely to rationalism versus reflectivism as metatheoretical paradigms. But attempts to adjudicate this debate tend towards indeterminacy given IR’s interparadigmatic divides.
Conclusion
Ideology is deeply contested within IR theory, highlighting differences between positivist and postpositivist approaches. Realism tries to eliminate ideology as an explanatory factor and treat it as epiphenomenal to material power capabilities. Liberalism grants ideology more importance in fostering cooperation between liberal democratic states that purportedly share values. Marxism situates ideology within the capitalist mode of production as reflecting class interests and producing hegemony and false consciousness that naturalizes inequalities. Constructivism focuses on the intersubjective role of shared ideas, discourse and norms in constructing the interests and identities of states and other actors that structure global politics. Feminism reveals the gender ideologies underlying traditional IR concepts that perpetuate patriarchal state power and marginalize women’s concerns.
These diverse theoretical lenses provide different conceptions of ideology based on their underlying assumptions. Realism adopts a utilitarian philosophy stipping away subjective factors. Liberalism incorporates some ideational elements but tries to retain rationalist explanations. Postpositivist approaches like constructivism, Marxism and feminism reject materialist determinism and emphasize how ideology constitutes subjects, structures and power relations. Integrating across paradigms shows ideology has multiple complex effects at the intersection of material and social forces. But fundamental tensions remain between rationalism and reflectivism that prevent definitive judgments on ideology’s role in the contested terrain of international relations theory and practice.
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