Order and chaos in International Relations

Abstract

Order and chaos, mythological terms adopted by the exact sciences to explain the possibility or impossibility of predicting the behavior of natural phenomena respectively, are two concepts extrapolated to International Relations. Both are inexorable within the international system, whose functioning and configuration shows that anarchy provides the actors, especially the State, with rational behaviors apart from individualistic ones. This leads to a kind of social “Darwinism”, where the strongest is in charge of establishing the temporary world order, subordinated to the life of the hegemony empire. Throughout the history of humanity and with the multiple lessons learned, human beings have made different attempts to establish order in the international system through good will to the detriment of violence. They seek to establish norms capable of regulating, allowing, or prohibiting conduct on the actors. Each of the attempts has been limited by the impossibility of partially renouncing the power held by the superpowers. For it, a brief historical review is presented below, where chaos is identified as the common denominator. Chaos is understood as the systemic susceptibility to possible disturbances that lead to a reordering of the international system, or at least, an attempt to achieve it. The above, using some theoretical approaches from International Relations, in order to make final reflections, which propose how the incidence of chaos can be reduced in favor of order.