Why is Cooperation between States so Difficult in International Politics?

Why is cooperation between states so difficult in international politics? Is It possible to achieve lasting co-operation in international politics?

Cooperation between states is so difficult due to clashes in Ideology, culture, and the concept of a states ‘national interest’. These separate concepts mean such different things to states across the globe and as a result make unilateral cooperation incredible hard to find. I do not think that it is possible to achieve lasting cooperation between states in international politics precisely due to the previously mentioned points regarding ideology, culture, and national interest.  

Ideology plays such a large part in the reason that cooperation between states is so difficult. The term ideology refers to the ways that a person or people form political or economic views. These ideologies can be very contrasting to one another. For example, there is a vast difference between the notion of democracy in the West which allows everyone a vote, basic human rights etc, compared to the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East, who aspire to run the whole world under a caliphate (A state run by an Islamic ‘steward’ who holds the position of ‘Successor to the prophet Mohammed’), under Islamic law known as Sharia Law. This large clash in ideology shows how any sort of cooperation is impossible due to the extreme variations on what two different ideologies deem as socially acceptable. 

Ideology plays a part in international cooperation between states purely because it is an Ideology that often draws states together or pushes them apart. The Cold war was an incredible example of how two clashing ideologies almost resulted in mutually assured destruction (MAD). Communist Soviet Union had a very different method of running itself compared to the democratic western powers of the UK and the US. These clashes in ideology prevented the US and USSR from reaching agreements on many world issues and often took the two countries towards the brink of war, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis which was the closest the two superpowers came to a full-scale conflict. 

The second point is that there are so many cultural clashes between states. This means that coming to an agreement on certain issues and cooperating with other states proves to be incredibly difficult. For example, the recent events that occurred in Japan when their government said that the state was to resume their controversial whaling program were directly criticized by many governments including the Australian Government who appealed the decision at the International Court of Justice at the Hague. This decision by the Japanese was directly made as a result of the consumption of whale meat being part of their culture. This clash of cultures directly results in cooperation is much harder to attain between two states, even if they have close ties with each other. At the end of the day, people are human and if one state representative argues than another’s culture is harmful and wrong, those two [states] are going to struggle to come to agreements. This, however, is not constrained just to culture clashes between states. In the United States, former president Barack Obama was met, from day one of his presidency with staunch obstructionism from the Republican party. This clash of cultures between the two dominant parties in US politics meant that the economy was initially in falling apart around Obama’s feet, and as quoted in Politico Magazine, “Not one House Republican had voted to revive it”. This culture of anti-party votes within US politics illustrates that cooperation even between politicians in one state is a struggle sometimes, and it is not just limited to US politics. The anti-Brexit bug has caught onto many members of the Conservative party in the United Kingdom, directly countering what Prime Minister Theresa May is doing. If members of parliament in one state are struggling to agree on policy formation and implementation, this explains why cooperation between different states is so difficult. 

National Interest has become a hot topic in the post 9/11 years. It has often been the first thing that leaders of states decide on when taking office. The phrase is often combined with talks regarding a state’s foreign policy as the national interest is mostly based around what impact a leader wishes their state to have on the globe. This naturally leads to getting involved with other states regarding trade, conflict, or multilateral agreements. Following the September 11 attacks in New York, the United States has pursued a strong foreign policy agenda, basing its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later on in Libya and Syria, on protecting its ‘National Interest’. This has definitely led to cooperation with other countries becoming a lot harder. For example, the George W Bush administration showed support for Israel to retain settlements on the West Bank. This sparked international condemnation from Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and a number of European governments. This move was clearly an attempt by Bush to maintain a good relationship with a major power in the Middle East; which at that time was almost certainly in the US ‘National interest’. This cooperation with one state has led to condemnation from other states, such as Palestine and Russia, who were involved in the talks. This has led to further weakened relations between the US and Russia and any sort of cooperation does not look promising in the future.

On the one hand, it is clear that international cooperation is possible for a time. There was a period of time between the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 to the start of the first world ward in 1914, there was peace between the major world powers (who were mostly in Europe). This showed international cooperation between the various states and lasted almost half a century. 

However, there is a clear parallel between states existing and conflict existing between them. When two states have separate ideologies, policies and cultures, they are undoubtedly going to collide with others. When this happens, there become divisions between not only the two fighting states but also their separate allies. This often leads to further conflict or sanctions being put in place. It is because of this that I struggle to see any chance of there being lasting cooperation between states in international politics. An example would be the 2015 Paris climate change summit. This took 2 weeks to draft a deal that included major powers such as the US and India but hit a roadblock when President Donald Trump announced that the US was to withdraw from it in 2017. This sudden lack of cooperation between the US and the rest of the signing members highlights just how fragile agreements and cooperation between states can be. If states can withdraw from globally beneficial agreements and not cooperate with other states based on facts that will prevent an extreme rise in global warming, then it does not seem possible that there will be long-lasting cooperation in international politics. 

It is clear that cooperation on the International stage between states is a very precarious dance of foreign policy, diplomacy, and negotiation. There are many examples of where states have cooperated with one another to come to major agreements and treaties, such as the 2015 Paris Climate summit, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1) 1991, and the formation of NATO and the EU. However, as previously mentioned, a combination of differences in Ideology, Culture, National Interest, as well as just basic natural distrust between people, means that the likelihood of states cooperating on enough global policymakers to maintain a safe and easy world to live in, highly unlikely. Therefore, the evidence leads to the natural conclusion that the likelihood of there being a world that contains a sustained period of cooperation in International politics between states is not likely, and there is a high probability that there will be a period of cooperation followed by periods of aggression and conflict. The likelihood of there ever being global governance (Cooperation between states in regard to solving issues that do not just affect one state; for example, Global Warming) in all issues is highly unlikely unless there were to be a lining of culture and ideology, in other words, an abolition of all that makes a state unique.

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