Space Oddities and the Primitive Entities of Socio-Material Systems: Some Thoughts for the International System

In light of the previous chapter it may seem strange, even contradictory, to start this chapter by asking what it means to say that the international system is emergent. The careful reader may, of course, reply by asking what kind of emergenceEmergence I have in mind. That is certainly the question that springs to my mind of late when I encounter scholars referring to the global system of states as emergent or exhibiting emergent properties. A charitable re-reading of Kenneth Waltz's dominating theory of Structural (or Neo-) Realism has posited that Realism itself long ago defined the international system in emergent terms by arguing that it has properties irreducible to those of the parts (i.e. states). Though Waltz never used the term in the manner in which it has been used in this book, the theory of neorealism certainly envisions an irreducible international system with structures, like the ‘balance of power’ between states, as acting on states to constrain their behaviour. That certainly fits the definition of emergence in the broadest sense of the term. Scholars outside of Realism have, of course, invoked similar logics. Robert Jervis, who much more overtly invoked complexityComplexity and systems theory in his work, spoke of ‘system effects’, while complexity and its conceptual architecture more generally are increasingly making their way into the literature on international relations. Constructivist scholars have similarly spoken of global norms as emergent properties of the international system. As scholars of International Relations (IR) have recently come to question the substantive nature of the international system as a proper object or subject of inquiry, emergence has again found its way into the literature to understand the system as a particular kind of entity.