Do realist International Relations (IR) scholars believe that apes can speak? It is a ridiculous question. But had many psychologists last century been asked, they would have leaped at the opportunity to extoll the research of chimpanzees and gorillas communicating in human languages. The story of ape language research, and its eventual academic downfall, is worth remembering as realism finds itself embroiled in controversy over the Russo-Ukrainian War.
In the twentieth century, some researchers tried to teach other primates human languages, like American sign language. The idea, drawing from an intuitive view of how humans learn languages, was that our close evolutionary relatives could learn them with sufficient training. Experimental subjects like Koko the Gorilla became household names as she exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Rogers and gestured in sign language with Robin Williams.
It turns out the enterprise was bankrupt. Apes, like Koko, didn’t understand the meanings we humans associate with language and often, funnily enough, fumbled their way through interactions with human researchers to get more food.
But the kicker is that plenty of intelligent humans believed these apes were learning languages—for years! Some researchers simply could not help but project human meanings onto apes’ scattershot uses of signs.
Realist IR scholars sometimes remind me of these researchers. The Russo-Ukraine war is something like their Koko.
The war in Ukraine has re-opened a longstanding fissure between realists and competing approaches to IR and foreign policy. The debate over “Great Illusions or Great Transformations” in the post-1945 world rages on. This debate matters.
But rather than arguing about realism using tools already exhausted by others, I instead use the story of “ape language” research as an analogy for realism’s status today. I offer a perspective on what makes realism so seductive for its supporters and so frustrating for its detractors that escapes unproductive commentary.
I aim to lower the temperature of the debate by shedding light on the nature of its participants—the experts themselves—rather than on realism itself.
Realism and Ukraine
“Realism,” wrote Robert Keohane in 2020, “with its emphasis on conflict, is undergoing a revival…” The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 convinced realist Stephen Walt of the perspective’s “enduring relevance” regarding the world’s anarchic nature, “where there is no agency or institution that can protect states from each other…”
Realism, however, is often viewed unfavorably. It is, as scholar Paul Poast says, “the curmudgeon of international relations thought,” reminding others of “the gravity that undercuts human attempts to fly.” Although realism is comprised of diverse perspectives, it is common to find realist characterizations of international politics or great power politics as “tragic.” Concepts like the rules-based international order are dismissed as the gauntlet is thrown down to deal with an unattractive but realistic world.
Realists’ role in assessing the Russo-Ukraine has brought the debate over the approach’s utility to a new fever pitch. Part of this is because of scholar John Mearsheimer’s bizarre claims regarding Putin’s intentions in Ukraine. But this does not account for all of it.
Journalist Anne Applebaum figures prominently among those who believe Russia’s full-scale invasion, and Ukrainians’ reaction to it, created a clash between Western assumptions about state behavior and human agency. Financial Times columnist Edward Luce decried realism for its association with the “idea that Russia should have its own sphere of interest, including Ukraine, and a veto over Nato expansion” for both moral and pragmatic reasons.
Yet, as researchers Nicholas Ross Smith and Grant Dawson observe, these and other commentators seem to be arguing primarily against structural realism in IR, neglecting its other variants. But does this come down solely to theoretical debate?
A Fundamental Sameness
Something deeper than theory may be at play.
Realism frustrates and seduces people. It pushes individuals’ cognitive buttons in a manner comparable to the use of sign language by apes. There is something about the core tenets of realism, like human-ape communication, that makes it so persistently controversial.
Kenneth Waltz put his finger on this pernicious force. Following his now-classic account of how state policies are shaped by interactions with other states, Waltz asks a simple question: why is it that, despite the actors of world politics varying over time and with changes always occurring, there exists an ‘impressive continuity’ in world politics?
This is “the enduring anarchic character of international politics,” comprised of a “striking sameness in the quality of international life through the millennia, a statement that will meet with wide assent.”
Scholar Neta Crawford recognized that Waltz and other realists who deny fundamental changes in IR incorrectly confuse “a somehow-defined timeless human nature with social institutions…” She elsewhere argues that Waltz smuggled in a classical realist conception of human nature in which human nature is fixed, nature and nurture stand rigidly apart, and humans tend to be hostile but rational power-seekers.
Crawford is correct that realists must hold assumptions about human nature that are consistent with their theories. But Crawford stumbles by simply taking the mirror view, insisting that scholars consider the notion of “human natures” (plural).
Why does this tendency to perceive a fundamental sameness in human behavior persist among realists?
Realism As an Ape Language
The story of ape languages is instructive. The idea that apes could acquire languages and communicate with humans is remarkably seductive and intuitive. It really seems like Koko is attaching human meanings to her signs. Although it is easy to mock in retrospect, many researchers pursued this idea for years, despite others’ objections. For years, the same illusion—humans projecting meaning onto apes—persisted.
Is the realist tendency to see a fundamental sameness in international affairs like this?
Some individuals are likely drawn to realism because they intuitively see the world in these most basic terms. Much like the judgment that Koko is “communicating” or using “language” is at first an intuitive judgment given intellectual justification, the realist perception about fundamental sameness is an intuitive judgment given intellectual argument.
Realist Graham Allison famously interprets Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian war in connection with contemporary IR. If one listens to Allison talk about this history, one notices this perception of a fundamental sameness from the fifth century BC through today. With this perception, historical differences shrink, and scholars, as Andrew Ehrhardt says in a related context, “build bridges over rich swamps of historical detail…”
This perception of fundamental sameness is, most basically, a psychological phenomenon. While realist Patrick Porter is correct that “the reaction against realism this year is…about how we see the world, and how we secure ourselves,” what is needed is a meta-theoretical stance on this debate—thinking less like intellectuals, and more like individuals. For all the love that Robert Jervis is given for his political psychology of misperception, many realists are averse to seeing themselves as subjects of an ongoing psychological misunderstanding.
Realism may be an ape language of IR.
Where Should Realism Go from Here?
Realism will not be going away, nor should it. Nor do the shortcomings of alternative approaches, like constructivism, allow us to dismiss theory.
The analogy to ape language research is meant to highlight the existence of a highly specific perceptual bias undergirding realist accounts of state behavior. Such a perception can operate underneath intelligent, rigorous, and sophisticated empirical and theoretical research by realist scholars — just as ape language research operated.
It would be a mistake, however, to believe that just as ape language research collapsed, so too should realism. The perception can be recontextualized to productive ends in three ways.
First, recognize that debates over realism are not just intellectual or political. Individual scholars may possess rival mental “premises” from which they adopt theories and formulate arguments. Because these psychological premises are typically unconscious, they go unnoticed. This leads even well-intended arguments to quickly take on mocking or shrill tones. Realism as an ape language is seductive and frustrating for this reason.
Second, Crawford is correct that realists never escaped their earlier problems with human nature. She was incorrect to try and fill the gap with such confidence. Realism as an ape language is a perception of how the world fundamentally works. But this perception must be confronted and recontextualized within a broader, perhaps interdisciplinary tradition, not buried.
Finally, heeding these points is a matter of painful, personal choices. As commentary on the war in Ukraine continues, it is helpful to remind ourselves that the mere articulation of a position is not sacrosanct. An argument about escalation, for example, is not its instantiation, and scholars ought to simultaneously take theory seriously while avoiding the moralization of their own beliefs. Realism may be an ape language, but perception is not everything and we can choose to confront it and improve it.
[Photo by Tom Page, via Wikimedia Commons]
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
Vincent J. Carchidi is a RAINCLOUD Intern at RAIN Research Group. He holds an M.A. in political science from Villanova University.
