Mankind’s November 5 Hubris

We are warned that the election of November 5 could be the end of the great American experiment, the final nail in the coffin of its democracy. It is also predicted that this could be a great inflection point in world history. But what if all the warnings and hype are wrong? What if the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is insignificant in terms of greater changes? The answers to these two questions depend on your level of analysis.

Professor James Rosenau introduced level-of-analysis in a seminal 1966 essay examining different ways to examine a country’s foreign policy. He was searching for a general theory that “combines the field of international and comparative politics” In brief, his level-of-analysis involved individuals, the actions of individual states, and the overall global system.

Rosenau’s Level 1 deals with the role of individuals, or what he called “the idiosyncracies of the decision-makers.” In terms of the November 5 election, the choice is dramatic. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are very different. Besides their very different personalities, they have very different visions for the U.S. domestically and internationally. The role of the two as well as members of their different political parties could have significant consequences.

Arguing against Trump as some form of deviant or for Harris as the future of America prioritizes the importance of individuals. Abraham Lincoln, Hitler, Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Mao all are said to have changed history, just as the assassination of John Kennedy could be analyzed as what might have been. Individuals, especially those in power in powerful countries, are the drivers at Level 1.

Level II involves individual states and their actions. The fact that Trump or Harris will win the election certainly will have an effect on the United States and international relations. But the actions of the next U.S. president will also be influenced by the election of the members of Congress. Whatever Trump or Harris wishes to do will be influenced by the “government’s structure that limits or enhances the foreign policy choices made by decision-makers,” as Rosenau described Level II.

Finally, according to Rosenau, the levels of analysis must include aspects beyond individual decision-makers and states. “Geographical ‘realities’ and ideological challenges from political aggressors are obvious examples of systemic variables,” he wrote. This effect can be seen in the evolving role of the United States. When The New York Times points to the diminishing role of the United States in the Middle East despite eleven visits there by Secretary of State Antony Blinken – “Israel Calls the Shots in the Mideast as U.S Plays a Lesser Role” – there is something important here going on about American decline. The relations between the current U.S. election and the meeting of the BRICS+ in Russia at the end of October should not be ignored. Level II is about the relation of states and some form of international stability through a balance of power.

The highest level is the overview of the entire global system. While states are important individually, as is the relations of states, the overall system may have its own ebbs and flows that go beyond individuals and individual states. Think of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It could be that there are countries who rise to lead, such as Rome, but that over time none of these empires is eternal. Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 euphoric The End of History and the Last Man written at the end of the Cold War had a rather short life span. Our current system is based on state sovereignty that has existed since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, just over a mere 350 years.

What about an even higher level beyond Rosenau’s?  Rosenau was interested in a country’s foreign policy, part of inter-national relations. In 2024, the role of states in general and the state system specifically should and must include other actors beyond states in what is currently called global politics. Non-political actors like Greta Thunberg cannot be ignored in influencing global public opinion, similar to the role of social influencers and social media. The private sector with transnational multinational companies are in many ways as important today if not more important than the public sector.

But isn’t it also time we started examining actors beyond the Anthropocene? Nature may be more of an influencer on our lives than what Rosenau saw in 1966. Global warming, flooding and fires may be Nature’s way of showing us her foreign policy. It could be that Nature’s “policy” is more powerful than any elected official in the United States or any political leader in another state or an Elon Musk like billionaire.

How to speak of Nature? When we anthropomorphize, calling it (her) Mother Nature or Gaia, we recognize its (her) role, but we are incapable of understanding exactly what that role entails. We anthropomorphize in order to give Nature attributes similar to humans, to give it (her) some form of understandable agency. What else can we do? What other language can we use?

Fukuyama’s hubris that capitalism and democracy are the end of history was part of a very human, anthropocentric vision of the world. “In the beginning was the word,” is the first verse in the Gospel of John in the New Testament. But there were plenty of actions and agents interacting before humans appeared and started speaking and writing. Humans did not appear out of a void.

There are other forces acting outside human understanding and control. This is not to deny that what humans do effects Nature. Their interaction is constant.  But there have been ice ages and global warmings before humans started shooting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The November 5 election is important within a human level of analysis. But there are other levels that should never be overlooked in the current election excitement.

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