The Drive Theory of International Relations

This thesis develops a metatheoretical approach to international relations (IR) which it calls “the Drive Theory". The thesis starts out by highlighting the problem of several established approaches in IR in both broadly rationalist and broadly constructivist traditions. These approaches posit that particular interests (whether exogenously given or identity-derived) lead to particular forms of behaviour. However, they fail to specify a clear causal mechanism generating the postulated link. Among other things, that leaves them unable to account for empirical cases where their postulated correlation between interests and behaviour does not hold. Subsequent chapters define the Drive Theory’s ontological and epistemological underpinnings with a particular focus on the adopted notion of causality. This discussion draws on the school of critical realism in the philosophy of science in assuming that all events in the world result from the operation of underlying causal mechanisms. Based on this, the thesis proposes a model of two opposing causal mechanisms that are jointly responsible for all observable forms of international relations. This model draws on Sigmund Freud’s second instinctual theory – the theory of the life and death instincts. Reflecting this, the Drive Theory terms the causal mechanisms responsible for all observable forms of international relations “Eros” and “Thanatos”. Eros provides actors in the international system with the capacity to establish cooperative relations while Thanatos enables these actors to establish conflictual relations. Which form of relation is realized in a given case depends on the balance between relevant independent variables that support the manifestation of either Eros or Thanatos. By identifying these connections, the Drive Theory offers a metatheoretical framework that helps us explain why any international relation has the observed form and no other. The final part of the thesis discusses the Drive Theory's empirical applicability in areas such as historical explanation, the construction of counterfactuals, and – cautiously – empirical prediction.