Anantonese Journal of Economics and Theory

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Flexibility in Foreign Policy:
Constructivism and a way forward for Kalistan

Kenneth Jackson, Ph.D, Associate Professor, University of Ananto-Eveari
Michelle Reynolds, Ph.D, Associate Professor, University of Ananto-Eveari
June 15, 5642

Introduction

For years, Kalistani foreign policy has been dictated by the requirements and expectations of hard power politics. Since the reign of Pavlina I Ananto, Kalistani monarchs have found themselves at the center, sometimes unintentionally, of many international events, especially those in Artania. It may not seem intuitive, but most, if not all of these monarchs publicly expressed an unwillingness to take a lead role in the international system, despite being at the center of it.

As the focus shifts away from Artania, the descendants of the Black Empress have struggled with competing pressures: on one hand they have been obsessed with both security of the Anantonese Ocean, no longer having Lourenne to rely on, and on the other, they have wanted to, but have been unable to focus solely on the region due to their ongoing conflict with Artania. This dual pressure consumed the reign of Pavlina's daughter, Carolina I Ananto, and her son Fredrick III Ananto, half of the reign of Pavlina herself, and threatened to consume the reign of Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Mary I Ananto, until she began taking steps that seemed erratic to many foreign observers, first in unilaterally lifting sanctions against the fascist state of Kundrati, and then approving the use of the militia in the final battle to remove the fascist Legion from power in Kundrati.

This whiplash doesn't make sense from a hard realist perspective. The realists would say she is flailing. But perhaps a better theoretical perspective to consider her policy from is constructivism, which says that states jointly construct reality. The system may indeed be objectively anarchic, but state responses to that anarchy are not a priori determined, as they are in realism. A state doesn't need to respond to anarchy with obsession for security, an arms race or hegemonic war. A state can learn and a state can have more than one central interest, often at the same time.

Could Mary herself be a constructivist? It is hard to say that someone IS a constructivist or a realist, as these are more ideological paradigms that guide action and should not be seen even as mutually exclusive. But if Mary sees the world from that constructivist paradigm, and acts accordingly, her actions make a lot more sense than trying to shoehorn an explanation from a strict realist perspective.

Empress Mary, Herself

Of the Black Empress, Pavlina I Ananto, and her three descendants, Carolina, Fredrick and Mary, (Collectively known to historians as the Kundrati Dynasty) one of them was uniquely unprepared to become the monarch. Pavlina herself was a banker before becoming Empress. She had a scant two years of co-rule before her husband and the last member of the ancient Gaduri Dynasty, Fredrick II Ananto was assassinated in Kalistan. After that she faced civil war in Kalistan, reconstruction and then disintegration in her home country of Kundrati. She was never generally popular in Kalistan, and maintained her leadership by ensuring enough support from enough elites to keep dissent at a low simmer. But she also laid the foundation for Kalistan to become a truly imperial power in Seleya and in the world.

Her daughter, Carolina I Ananto, was trained at length for her role as Empress, at the knee of Pavlina, who doted upon her daughter and tried to provide her daughter with every advantage. In fact, one could say that Carolina, an only child began her Imperial training when he father died, before she was even 10 years old and barely spoke Vrassan. Carolina acted as Empress before she was crowned: She concluded a peace agreement with Luthori, and oversaw the accession of both Gaduridos and Lodamun to the Empire. She was perhaps the most imperial, and imperious of any monarch since Nicolette I Ananto, The Great. Carolina was also not her mother: Where Pavlina was unsure and often reactive, as a result of her being thrust into the role of monarch unexpectedly, Carolina embraced the office, and reigned with a confidence and arrogance that tended to alienate many internationally, and incidentally, also made Kalistan a global leader.

Fredrick III Ananto took power right as Kalistan was going to war for the first time in centuries. Fredrick always saw himself as an entertainer, not as an Emperor. He essentially maintained his mother's policies in tact as the Empire was strained both internally and externally by the prosecution of a very costly and ultimately only marginally successful war in the Artanian Sea and in Likatonia. But he also was Emperor when Kalistani regulars committed thousands of war crimes in Likatonia as Kalistan brutally swept through the that nation's eastern province. Though he himself endorsed war crimes tribunals, most of those who were accused of depredations escaped punishment following trials. He held the Empire together with an inflexible grip, even as he also saw Artania still committing crimes against its own people and being unable himself to rally much of the world to the cause. Fredrick died in a tragic plane crash while his daughter, Mary was still in National Service.

Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Mary I Ananto was made to take over soon after leaving the National Service Program. It was widely believed that her quick accession was due to a number of factors: Fredrick's sister, Michelle Ananto was not interested in governing, her main focus being on her charities and her operations of House Ananto's finances, but more importantly, members of the older Gaduri branch, who were concentrated in Suldanor, were making noise at various Ananto functions about the potential for the Gaduris to reclaim the throne if Mary was unwilling to serve. Mary entered service just after her 22nd Birthday, making her the youngest Ananto monarch to be crowned.

She was also one of the least prepared or interested. She, on multiple occasions stated that she would prefer to avoid people all together and remain in the woods well away from society. Mary is perhaps one of the least formally educated monarchs in Kalistani history: She never attended any post secondary education, and nearly dropped out of high school, showing no interest for traditional class learning or pedagogy. These two factors have strongly militated against any sort of continuity in ideological orientation between Mary and her predecessors. She neither possessed the basic skills necessary for successful political administration, nor the inclination to acquire them before she was crowned, and has spent more than a decade attempting to catch up.

In Kalistan, Mary leans very heavily upon the Imperial Protocol to govern by absolute fiat, completely disregarding political leaders and process as it is convenient, and replacing seasoned policy makers at will. She has not actively courted a base of strictly political support, but relies on her personal qualities to generate support, and still maintains a high popularity among the people: Many people see themselves in her, see her fight relentlessly for Kalistan's place in the world as something to be proud of, and feel a great personal awe and affinity for her as a person. They are therefore far more inclined to support the things she does than they were for past monarchs.

The very deep personal loyalty the people feel for the Empress gives her immense political capital, and politicians constantly hear from their constituents that their only job is to do whatever the Empress tells them to. In this way, the Empress has herself become synonymous with the Empire. She has surrounded herself with capable administrators, including most recently her sister, who is clearly the Empress' intellectual superior, and who has taken on the role of tutor for the Empress to teach her things she needs to know how to do to remain in office.

In this way, Mary, herself, rules by literal fiat, while she is heavily influenced by her sister, now the Director of Kalistan's spy agency IBSI, and whose foreign policy advice Mary seems to take invariably. It should therefore seem instructive to study the work of Margaret Ananto to learn about the foreign policy direction of the Empire. But the corpus of Margaret Ananto's political work tends to be more unmitigatedly hostile toward liberalism than supportive of any particular ideological perspective. She wrote a paper in High school on negative versus positive liberty, and has since published scholarly work on the failure of markets to adequately distribute social and public goods, critiques on selection of governments by voting, and the limits of international institutions to resolve international disputes. Her work certainly takes a bent that, while not necessarily realist, is certainly overwhelmingly hostile toward liberalism, which is to be expected from a member of the Ananto family.

So we are left with what Mary I Ananto has done to look for clues about her thinking on foreign policy. And we find that a surprisingly large amount of her decision making can be explained not in terms of realist theory, but in terms of constructivist theory.

Competing paradigms: Realist Expectation versus Constructivist Reality.

We can assume that readers of this work know at least something about both realist and constructivist IR theory. But just in case that is not a safe assumption here is a nutshell version

The International System has one overarching characteristic: anarchy or lack of a world government capable of punishing bad actors. States themselves exist in this structural reality: States find themselves with one of two choices: Dominate or Die. States are made of individuals, and so since individuals are rational (they seek to accomplish things efficiently) and egoistical (they seek to promote their interests over all other interests) anarchy dictates a system of self-help, where the only one we as a state can rely upon is ourselves. That leads to a host of implications and a host of adjectives to modify realism for scholars, but this is pretty much the jist of it.

Constructivism, on the other hand admits that the realists were right about anarchy being the defining characteristic of the international system. But they diverge here by stating that states do not have to resort to conflict and competition in that system. That response to anarchy is not only one of several choices, but is also not always the best one, but the reason we see it is because we have been taught through repeated example that this is the only way insecurity under anarchy can be mitigated.

If states, however, do not feel insecure, though they might not be objectively powerful, what does that mean for a theory that almost deterministically predicts conflict? A state, according to constructivists, can choose to address insecurity however they want, because after all, the insecurity is their perception: it is not real in and of itself. This is what is meant by socially constructed. We all decide how we want to shape our actions in response to external stimuli. And as we choose to do something different than what previous leaders have done, the "correct answer" so to speak to reiterated insecurity changes itself. If reality is constructed, in other words, it can be unconstructed.

Realist paradigms focus on material considerations: guns and bread are just two of them. They are focusing on what a state both has, and what a state can bring to a war should one break out. Constructivists on the other hand, focus more on what leaders think. Identity comes into play: Should a state feel insecurity when a long time friend develops, say a nuclear bomb? It is very possible that that event, which would instantly and most certainly create a security crisis for realists, may be seen very differently to a constructivist. If that nation is my enemy, I might respond with violence, but if that other state is seen as a friend, and a fraternal nation, I might see their nuclear bomb as something that will also protect my country, so I will certainly want them to have it and protect themselves, me included. That is the function of identity in constructivist thought. My fear response is limited to those I view to already be threats to me, while, when I see friends do that same thing, I tend to take heart and support the developments. In other words, I am contributing to the social construction of reality. And in my reality, that nuclear weapon poses no threat to me at all, because it is my brother in the other nation.

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