Everything in Moderation

There are so many different views regarding the way in which the international system is supposed to function. Realism, idealism, neoliberalism, and world systems theory all appear so different that it's difficult to imagine the people who hold those views of the world live in the same one.

I want to go farther than Atkins to say that the system as a whole involves such a breadth of cultures and persons that no overarching theory can function to explain the whole of it. One must select from the theories as applicable in order to understand the world as a whole. There is no reason for a person to, say, cling to realism when it is obvious that, for the benefit of the community, states can be fully willing to abandon their struggle for power and give some of it away (i.e. the European Union as of Nice). At the same time, post-modern idealism may be a poor choice when attempting to explain China's economic policies vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

In order to obtain a fuller, more hollistic view of the world system—and this must, I'm certain, apply also to subsystems such as Latin America and the Caribbean—, a pluralist mind-set should be adopted.