Soft anarchy: balancing sovereignty, regionalism, and globalization

Abstract

In the international relations discipline, arguably the most consequential divide in the system is between anarchy and hierarchy. Although the international system is formally anarchic, beneath its surface lies a persistent hierarchy. As Hedley Bull suggests, anarchy does not produce chaos but an international society governed by norms, albeit one that often masks the dominance of great powers. Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue captures this imbalance most starkly. The example closest to our time is the United Nations Security Council, which epitomises how, with the rhetoric of sovereignty, structural inequity is hidden. In contrast, soft anarchy provides the opposite explanation: a system that permits cooperation without the need to nullify the anarchic nature of global politics. Kenneth Waltz's structural realism argues that states, in isolation, act to survive in a self-help ecosystem. Soft anarchy alters this assumption; it emphasises that within regional platforms, power is allowed to be pooled. Rather than being subordinated to a global hierarchy, states are able to act through regional organisations. In this scenario, states are able to preserve sovereignty while enhanced cooperation is achieved by many. The claim made by Alexander Wendt, ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, supports this model, claiming that if the structure is socially constructed, then it can be softened with regional agency. Thus, soft anarchy embodies Rousseau's notion of collective will and Bull's ‘anarchical society’ rephrased to the regional level. Here, power shifts from a zero-sum tool to a shared instrument of governance. The soft anarchy is not a utopia; instead, utopia is to manage global volatility. It provides a concept where the world is not still divided into 193 actors; rather, it is grouped into cooperative blocs with the capability of restoring order. It is a form of invitation to perceive order in anarchy and cooperation within sovereignty.