Cosmopolitanism, war and realism: examining the role of dominance

Abstract

This paper examines the realist explanation of situations of war, mainly in the context of the rise of cosmopolitan ideals. The paper is an effort to recover the variable-based model to explain an event. Here, the effort is to understand the validity of the realist explanation of new wars. Realist explanations presuppose the importance of both power and dominance as independent variables. The paper examines dominance as the driving force behind cosmopolitan war. The major questions addressed here are: To what extent ‘dominance’ as an independent variable explain the pursuit for cosmopolitan wars? Is it possible to understand such a drive for cosmopolitan values as a prerequisite for attaining power in the international system? Can a cosmopolitan position be concomitant with a general realist aversion to norms and morality? Through a detailed analysis of various positions deriving from the realist perspective, the paper concludes that realism as a theoretical position and dominance as a variable fails to account for the rise of cosmopolitan wars.

Keywords

• Realism
• cosmopolitan war
• morality
• dominance
• International Relations
• International Relations Theory