Theories of International Politics and Zombies

by Daniel W. Drezner

  A specter is haunting world politics—the specter of reanimated corpses coming to feast on people's brains. To date, the scholarly response by international relations theory to the zombie menace has been only skin deep. I have tried to take a much deeper cut at this looming problem. As the preceding pages should make clear, international relations theory offers some interesting and varied predictions and recommendations about how governments, international institutions, domestic interests, bureaucracies, and individuals would respond to the transnational threat posed by the living dead.

  A quick review reveals some interesting continuities across the different theoretical paradigms. For example, most of these approaches would predict that the living dead would have an unequal effect on different national governments. Powerful states would be more likely to withstand an army of flesh-eating ghouls. Weaker and developing countries would be more vulnerable to a zombie infestation. Whether due to realist disinterest, waning public support, bureaucratic wrangling, or the fallibility of individual decision makers, international interventions would likely be ephemeral or imperfect. Complete eradication of the zombie menace would be extremely unlikely. The plague of the undead would join the roster of threats that disproportionately affect the poorest and weakest countries.

  The different theories also provide a greater variety of possible outcomes than the bulk of the zombie canon. Traditional zombie narratives in film and fiction are quick to get to the apocalypse. Most of the theoretical approaches presented here, however, suggest that there would be a vigorous policy response to the menace of the living dead. Realism posits an eventual live-and-let-live arrangement between the undead and everyone else. Liberals predict an imperfect but useful counter-zombie regime. Neoconservatives believe that an aggressive and thorough military deployment would keep the undead menace at bay. Some constructivists would predict a robust pluralistic security community dedicated to preventing new zombie outbreaks and socializing existing zombies into human society. Organizations might err in their initial response, but they could also adapt and overcome. Individuals would be hardwired toward an aggressive policy response against the living dead.

  These kinds of predictions suggest that maybe, just maybe, the zombie canon's dominant narrative of human extinction is overstated.

  While encouraging, this survey also reveals some cautionary warnings lurking on the horizon. First, catastrophic outcomes are still quite possible. Bureaucratic dysfunction could trigger a total collapse in state authority. Public opinion and interest group pressure could make multilateral cooperation more difficult. A norm cascade could trigger a world in which the biological distinctions between humans and zombies would be immaterial—everyone would act like zombies. Policymakers or individuals could overreact against the zombie menace, killing many humans in the process. Still, these are possible outcomes; whether they are the likely outcomes is another question altogether.

  Second, from a human security perspective, even the “optimistic” outcomes discussed above would be unmitigated disasters. Human security approaches focus on risks to individuals, whereas national security approaches focus on risks to states.1 From this perspective, anything that threatens an individual's bodily integrity qualifies as a threat. In a world in which zombies were concentrated in the poorest and weakest countries, billions of human beings would have an additional threat to contend with on top of disease, poverty, and the erosion of the rule of law. A majority of the world's population would not achieve freedom from fear in a world where the undead roam.

  This sobering assessment highlights a flaw in the standard international relations paradigms—their eroding analytical leverage over the security problems of the twenty-first century. Most international relations theories are state-centric, but interstate conflict is not all that significant a threat anymore. Consider the list of dangers that opened this book; almost none of them emanated from states. Neither terrorists nor hackers possess large swaths of territory, making retaliation difficult. Natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanoes do not possess “agency” as we understand the concept; neither do disease vectors or melting glaciers. The international relations profession has always started with the state—and governments will continue to be an important part of the world politics equation. Unless these theories can adapt to the plethora of asymmetric threats to the human race, however, they will be hard-pressed to offer cogent policy responses to the living dead.

  Clearly, further research is needed. This leads to some final but crucial questions: How can we assess the explanatory power of each paradigm's predictions? Is only one of them true? Some of them? All of them? In the social sciences, the best way to adjudicate between different theories is to devise empirical tests that buttress or falsify the different approaches. For the zombie question at hand, however, that is neither desirable nor plausible.

  The international relations scholar must concede that analytical rigor alone is an insufficient basis for political judgment on how to respond to the living dead. A paradigmatic approach to explaining political outcomes provides some useful analytical tools, but the tool kit remains incomplete. Even international relations theorists themselves are aware of this fact. Perhaps individual realists would treat zombies as different from humans; perhaps advocates of legislative constraints would allow that an attack from the living dead might overwhelm Congress's ability to respond. It is possible that, when confronted with a concrete policy problem like flesh-eating ghouls, specific microtheories—contingent hypotheses that apply to a very narrow set of circumstances—might be more useful than the grand paradigms.2

  Having the judgment to know which models apply in world politics—and when—is more art than science.3 As Albert Hirschman observed soon after George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) was released, “[O]rdinarily social scientists are happy enough when they have gotten hold of one paradigm or line of causation. As a result, their guesses are often further off the mark than those of the experienced politician whose intuition is more likely to take a variety of forces into account.”4

  This volume serves as a caution against the fallacious but prevalent view of zombie studies: that the world will end once the dead walk the earth. It is up to readers to exercise their own judgment in determining what to do with that information. International relations theory clearly retains some practical utility. Perhaps, however, the ability of these theories to explain current global threats and challenges is more circumscribed than international relations theorists proclaim in their scholarship. Informed by these paradigms, the interested and intelligent students of world politics should use their own brains to cogitate on this question—before the zombies decide to use them instead.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Growing up, I was not a fan of the horror movie genre. My earliest memory of a horror film was watching ten minutes of Poltergeist as a kid and then not sleeping that night. It wasn't until I stumbled across 28 Days Later one night on television that I developed any enjoyment for the zombie genre. I am therefore grateful to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the director and writer of that underrated film, for getting me interested in zombie flicks in the first place.

  The genesis of this monograph was a Foreign Policy blog entry that I posted in August 2009.* The post garnered a fair amount of attention within both the blogosphere and the international relations community. A number of international relations professors contacted me to say that they had directed their students to this post because it provided an accessible entry point into the more abstruse areas of international relations theory. This inspired me to see if the premise could be expanded into what you are now reading.

  I thank Alex Massie for piquing my interest about the zombie question with his blog post on the topic. At Foreign Policy, Rebecca Frankel, Susan Glasser, Blake Hounshell, Joshua Keating, Moises Naim, Britt Peterson, and Tom Stec have provided me a wonderful home at which to blog about everything from arcane disputes within international relations theory to the global govern
ance of movie apocalypses. A portion of this manuscript was excerpted in the July-August 2010 issue of Foreign Policy*

  Chanda Phelan was kind enough to provide me with her data on postapocalyptic fiction.

  I foisted the draft manuscript onto more friends, colleagues, and complete strangers than I do my more conventional work. I thank Bethany Albertson, Kyle Brownlie, Charli Carpenter, Stephanie Carvin, Jonathan Caverley, Sam Crane, Erika Drezner, Esther Drezner, Shoreh Harris, Charlie Homans, John Horgan, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Jacob T. Levy, Kate McNamara, Blake Messer, Micah Mintz, Jennifer Mitzen, Dan Nexon, Negeen Pegahi, Gabriel Rossman, Steve Saideman, Anna Seleny, Joanne Spetz, Laurie Wilkie, Jason Wilson, and Amy Zegart for their feedback, advice, and support. Whether they knew it or not, Alan Beattie, Elizabeth Economy, Brad Gendell, Yfat Reiss Gendell, Jennifer M. Harris, G. John Ikenberry, David Lake, and Michael Mastanduno provided useful suggestions.

  The team at the Princeton University Press has dramatically improved this book with their meticulousness, energy, and professionalism. I am grateful to Julia Livingston, Natalie Baan, Theresa Liu, and Jennifer Roth for their assistance in converting this book from pixels to print. Brian Bendlin saved me from many abstruse errors with his copyediting. Each of Anne Karetnikov's drawings are worth a thousand words—which means she's responsible for an awful lot of the intellectual value of this book. Political science editor Chuck Myers and editor in chief Peter Dougherty will have my eternal, undying gratitude for being brave enough to think, “Why yes, now that we think about it, what's really missing from our catalog is a book on international relations and zombies.”

  My wife Erika reacted to this book idea in the same way she reacts to all of my ideas—with an appropriate mixture of reassurance and bemusement. My appreciation for her unstinting, level-headed support in these endeavors will last well beyond the grave.

  Finally, to Kenneth Waltz, author of Theory of International Politics, an icon in my field of study, and someone whom I've never properly met: I'm very sorry.

  * * *

  *See http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/18/theory _of_international_politics_and_zombies (accessed July 15, 2010).

  *Daniel W. Drezner, “Night of the Living Wonks,” Foreign Policy 180 (July-August 2010): 34-38.

  NOTES

  Introduction…to the Undead

  1. Bishop 2008; Dendle 2007.

  2. Brooks 2003; Louison 2009; Ma 2010.

  3. Bolger 2010.

  4. Austen and Grahame-Smith 2009; the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has spawned a number of similarly reinterpreted classics ranging from children's stories (Baum and Thomas 2009; Carroll and Cook 2009), to touchstones in American literature (Twain and Czolgosz 2009), to the history of the Beatles (Goldsher 2010).

  5. Katy Harshberger of St. Martin's Press, quoted in Wilson 2009.

  6. Bishop 2008; Newitz, 2008; VanDusky 2008.

  7. Koblentz 2010; Stern 2002–3.

  8. Dendle 2007, 54.

  9. Buus 2009; Grayson, Davies, and Philpott 2009.

  10. See, for example, the University of Florida's advisory manual at http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~jybarra/zombieplan.pdf (accessed July 15, 2010).

  11. Wexler 2008. See also http://humansvszombies.org/About (accessed July 15, 2010).

  12. John B. Snow, “Surviving the Undead: Zombie Guns,” Outdoor Life, March 3, 2010; http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/survival/2010/03/surviving-undead-zombie-guns (accessed July 15, 2010).

  13. Carlson 2003; Chyba and Greniger 2004; Klotz and Sylvester 2009; Koblentz 2010; Stern 2002–3.

  14. Berlinski 2009; Davis 1988.

  15. Twitchell 1985, 273.

  16. Waldmann 2009.

  17. Significant exceptions include Brooks 2006 and Grant 2010.

  18. Cooke 2009, chap. 7. Obvious and important exception are Joss Whedon's TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Angel (1999–2004).

  19. On teen vampires in books, see L. J. Smith's Vampire Diaries series (1991–); Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries (aka the True Blood series, 2001–); Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (2005–); Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series (2006–); D. C. Cast and Kristin Cast's House of Night series (2007–); and Melissa De La Cruz's Blue Bloods series (2007–); and that's just for starters.

  20. Grayson, Davies, and Philpott 2009, 157.

  The Zombie Literature

  1. Bishop 2009; Harper 2002; Loudermilk 2003.

  2. Chalmers 1996; Dennett 1995; Moody 1994.

  3. Foster, Ratneiks, and Raybould 2000; Hughes et al. 2009; Hughes, Wappler, and Labandeira 2010.

  4. Rudolf and Antonovics 2007.

  5. Vass 2001.

  6. Cassi 2009.

  7. Cooke, Jahanian, and McPherson 2005.

  8. Smith? et al. 2009, 146.

  9. See Gelman 2010; Messer 2010; Rossman 2010.

  10. The full list is available at http://zombieresearch.org/advisoryboard.html (accessed July 15, 2010).

  11. See, for example, Quiggin 2010.

  12. On the economic research into vampires, see Hartl and Mehlmann 1982; Hartl, Mehlmann, and Novak 1992; and Snower 1982.

  13. Sun Tzu, Art of War, chap. 11, line 14; Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, book 2, par. 50; Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, part 1, chap. 13, par. 9.

  14. On UFOs, see Wendt and Duvall 2008. See Nexon and Neumann 2006 on wizards and international relations, and Ruane and James 2008 on hobbits and international relations. Buus 2009, Davies 2010, and Molloy 2003, discuss vampires and international studies.

  15. Goldsmith 2007; Hoyt and Brooks 2003–4; Klotz and Sylvester 2009.

  16. Suskind 2006.

  17. Stern 2002–3.

  18. Clarke 1999; Cordesman 2001.

  19. Drezner 2009.

  20. Sparks, Nelson, and Campbell 1997.

  21. Markovsky and Thye 2001.

  22. Crawford 2000; Gray and Ropeik 2002; Moïsi 2007; Strong 1990.

  23. Maberry 2008, 267.

  24. Ibid. See also Bishop 2009.

  25. King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 29–30.

  26. Ferguson 2004; Haass 2008; Schweller 2010.

  27. See Der Derian 2002. More recently, Max Brooks addressed cadets at the U.S. Naval War College at the behest of the school commandant. See http://maxbrooks.com/news/2010/04/12/the-us-naval-war-college/ (accessed July 15, 2010).

  28. On simulations, see Van Belle 1998; on agent-based modeling, see Cederman 2003.

  29. See Buus 2009; Cordesman 2001; Hulsman and Mitchell 2009; Muller 2008; Van Belle, Mash, and Braun-warth 2010; Weber 2006; Weldes 2003.

  30. Solnit 2009, 120–34.

  31. Tetlock 2005.

  32. Jackson and Nexon 2009.

  Defining a Zombie

  1. See also Brooks 2003, 1.

  2. This definition also excludes some more recent characters with quasi-zombie properties, like the Reavers in Joss Whedon's TV series Firefly (2002) or the Virals in Cronin 2010.

  Distracting Debates about Flesh-eating Ghouls

  1. For recent examples of the variegated approaches to the undead, see Golden 2010; and Adams 2008.

  2. See Keene 2004 and 2005, as well as Wellington 2006a, 2006b, 2007.

  3. King 2006.

  4. Brooks 2003, 2006.

  5. Recht 2006.

  6. Cordesman 2001; Koblentz 2010.

  7. Perrow 1984.

  8. Klotz and Sylvester 2009.

  9. Dendle 2001, 121; Twohy 2008, 16.

  10. Bishop 2009, 21; Maberry 2008, 22–23.

  11. For a recent and concise summary of this debate, see Levin 2004.

  12. Ma 2010, 2–3.

  13. Brooks 2003, 13–14.

  14. Maberry 2008, chap. 3.

  15. Cordesman 2001, 11; Maberry 2008, 172.

  The Realpolitik of the Living Dead

  1. Space constraints prevent a further exploration of the myriad intraparadigmatic divisions of realism. For classical realism, see Morgenthau 1948. Fo
r neoclassical realism, see Rose 1998 and Zakaria 1998. On postclassical realism, see Brooks 1997. Mearsheimer 2001 provides the exemplar of offensive realism. For a good example of defensive realism, see Snyder 1991. For a critique, see Legro and Moravcsik 1999.

  2. Walt 1987.

  3. Waltz 1979, 105.

  4. Grieco 1988; see also Powell 1991 and Snidal 1991.

  5. Herz 1950; Jems 1978.

  6. Mearsheimer 2001.

  7. Mearsheimer and Walt 2007; Walt 2005.

  8. Waltz 1979, 76–77.

  9. Gilpin 1981; Kennedy 1987; Kim 1992; Organski 1958.

  10. Diamond 1999; McNeill 1976; Price-Smith 2002.

  11. Anbarci, Escaleras, and Register 2005; Brancati 2007; Cohen and Werker 2008; Kahn 2005; Nel and Richarts 2008.

  12. Glaser and Kaufmann 1998.

  13. Brooks 2006, 105–11.

  14. On containment, see Gaddis 1982 and Kennan 1984.

  15. Christensen and Snyder 1990; Mearsheimer 2001.

  16. Mastanduno 1992.

  17. Hughes 2007.

  18. Brancati 2007; Nel and Righarts 2008.

  19. Walt 1996.

  20. Mearsheimer 2001, 152–55.

  Regulating the Undead in a Liberal World Order

  1. Space constraints prevent an extended discussion of the different varieties of the liberal paradigm. On Kantian liberalism, see Doyle 1983; on commercial liberalism, see Russett and Oneal 1997. Keohane 1984 provides the best development of neoliberal institutionalism, and Moravcsik 1997 develops ideational liberalism. On democratic liberalism, see Doyle 1986, and on liberal internationalism, see Ikenberry 2000.

  2. Hardin 1982; Olson 1971.

  3. Axelrod 1984; Axelrod and Keohane 1985.

  4. Keohane and Nye 1978; Lipson 1984.

  5. Drezner 2000; Keohane 1984; Martin 1992.

  6. Martin 2000; Simmons 2009.

  7. Powell 1991; Snidal 1991.

  8. Kimball 2006; Knobler, Mahmoud, and Lemon 2006; Koblentz 2010, 102–3.