From Cooperation To Conflict: The Degradation Mechanisms Of International Relations

International relations which are the congregation of human relations across borders result from the conscious interaction between human beings. Just because international relations come into being in the interaction between actors, they are also undergoing continuous changes in the process of interaction. Two directions lie ahead of the change in the interaction between actors: progress-oriented and regress-oriented. What do progress and regress signify in international relations? How do they come into being? This dissertation unfolds itself centering on this puzzle. To minimize the impact exerted by value judgments, the disseration removes the moral implications of progress and regress, and defines them according to the current of change between cooperation and conflict. Specifically speaking, the transformation from conflict to cooperation is defined as progress, on the contrary, the transformation from cooperation to conflict is regarded as regress.Academic research revolving around progress has been developed to the full in the field of international relations theory, however, regress remains a academic blindspot. By drawing on some relevant academic accomplishments and adopting social ontology of international relations, the dissertation employs rationalist methods to unravel a constructivist puzzle. It argues that international relations exist in the form of"system"which includes three dimensions of unit, process and structure. Process is a conscious interaction between actors, while structure is a kind of norm formed in the interaction. As progress and regress belong to the structural change, dynamic of changes comes necessarily from the two aspects of unit and process, and from the change in the interactive mode resulted from the change of the actor on its own.The dissertation, which unfolds across the two dimmensions of structure and process, and the two levels of system and its units, advances a progress/regress analysis framework for international relations study. This framework consists of three components: the congruence degree between identities→effective support degree among actors→temporal dimension of structural evolution. Specifically speaking, the direction of the interaction of international relations depends on actors'attitudes, and actors'attitudes concerning the interaction depend on the congruence degree between their old and new identities; progress or regress in international relations hinges on actors'effective support for it in the case of incomplete congruence between their old and new identities; the formation of progress or regress results necessarily from a long-term evolution along the temporal dimension.Due to the fact that actors'identities cannot be completely congruent, the effective support degree comes to be the key to the regress and progress, and effective support is essentially concerned with the political participation."Participation"in political system is similar to the"employment"in economic system, and the beneficiary that participates in, and benefit from, the system will identify with the behavioral norm within it. So, if we want to direct the international relations toward the progress-oriented direction, we should include as much actors as possible in international system in order to enhance the effective support degree for the structure of international relations and keep it at a high level along a long-term temporal dimension. When the effective support for the international structure is not so high, or it can not be kept at a high level along a long-term temporal dimension, international relations will inevitably be directed toward the regress-oriented diretion.The trajectory of the relationship between Iran and United States and Western countries runs counter to that of the relationship between Turkey and United States and Western countries, which provide corroborative evidence in support of the progress/regress analysis framework advanced by this dissertation. Iran after World War II and Turkey after World War I were thrown into similar situations, they both were remainders of powerful empires in history, had deep-rooted traditions of autocratic monarchy, were influenced by Islam, had been in long confrontations to western and eastern powers and were undergoing domestic trouble and foreign invasion. More importantly, the governments of the two countries had strongly implemented modernization strategies, pushed forward secularization and westernization ,and adhered to pro-western and pro-American foreign policies.The two monarches of the Pahlavi dynasty had vigorously pushed forward the modernization of Iran, and activated the long slumber of social groups and their political participatory consciousness. Due to their highly centralized tyrannies, they regarded political participation as a threat, rather than a latent support, to their regimes. Therefore, they pushed nearly all other groups outside the bureaucracy toward the opposite side of their regimes. During and after World War II, the United States and Iran had formed a"friend"relationship. During 1950s Iran-U.S. relationship reached its peak, however, their relationship had regressed with the decline of the monachy since the early 1960s. After mid-1970s, the long-closed political system of Iran had been forced to open up, and immediately various political groups had become active which destroyed the Pahlavi regime in only more than a year, resulting in the sharp transformation of Iran-U.S. relationship from a"friend"to a"enemy"relationship.Similar to the Reza Shah Pahlavi's reform in Iran, Kemalism had encountered strong opposition from domestic conservative forces. However, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who relied on the strong backing of military force and gathered support for his reform through democratization and political participation made his reform unfold smoothly and deepened the friendly and cooperative relationship between Turkey and western countries. Just before his death, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk left his"political testament", while the Turkish army has always been playing the role of ultimate defender of Kemalist principles. This institutional arrangement has been called"civilian rule, military supervision", which provided powerful effective support for the relationship between Turkey and western countries. Successive administrations have adhered to the given guideline concerning the relationship between Turkey and western countries, otherwise they would run the risk of being overthrown by a military coup.