In an anarchic state, there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can resolve disputes, enforce law, or order the system of international politics.
[6] Jack Donnelly argues that Philip Kerr's book Pacifism is Not Enough (1935) was first to ascribe the same meaning and context to term anarchy that modern IR theorists do.
[8][9][10] While the three classic schools of thought in international relations theory and their neo-counterparts (Realism, Neorealism, Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Constructivism) agree that the world system is anarchic, they differ in their explanations of how they believe states should, and do, deal with this problem.
[11] According to the classic realist thinker Niccolò Machiavelli, the desire for more power is rooted in the flawed nature of humanity, which extends itself into the political world, and leads states to continuously struggle to increase their capabilities.
While classic realists such as Machiavelli and Morgenthau attributed power politics primarily to human nature, neorealists emphasize anarchy.
[11] This idea was first advanced by Kenneth Waltz, in his neorealist text, Man, the State and War, and expanded on in his Theory of International Politics.
However, unlike realism, liberal theories argue that international institutions are able to mitigate anarchy's constraining effects on interstate cooperation.
[18] Liberal theory contends that it is not in a country's interest to go to war with a state with which its private economic agents maintain an extensive exchange of goods and capital.
Realists tend to believe that power is gained through war or the threat of military action, and assert that due to this power-grabbing system there is no such thing as lasting alliances or peace.
[citation needed] This sentiment is summed up by Norman Angell, a classical London School of Economics liberal, who claimed: "We cannot ensure the stability of the present system by the political or military preponderance of our nation or alliance by imposing its will on a rival".
[20] Neoliberalism, the process of implementing liberalism's political ideology, seeks to counter the neo-realist claim that institutions are unable to "mitigate anarchy's constraining effects on inter-state cooperation”.
[citation needed] Constructivists, namely Wendt, assert that neorealism's "structure" in fact fails to predict “whether two states will be friends or foes, will recognize each other's sovereignty, will have dynastic ties, will be revisionist or status quo powers, and so on".
[citation needed] Thus, constructivists assert that through their practices, states can either maintain this culture of anarchy or disrupt it, in turn either validating or questioning the normative basis of the international system itself.
[citation needed] The constructivist sentiment is summed up in the following extract from Wendt's seminal constructivist text, Anarchy is what states make of it: "I argue that self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or casually from anarchy and that if today we find ourselves in a self-help world, this is due to process, not structure.
"[25] Bear F. Braumoeller derived and tested a theory that combines realism and liberalism and showed that neither was sufficient to explain Great Power behavior without the other.
[27][28][29] Other scholars, such as Charles Kindleberger, Stephen D. Krasner, and Robert Gilpin, argued that the international system is characterized by hegemony, which alters and mitigates the effects of anarchy.