Hauss, Charles. Beyond Confrontation: Transforming the New World Order. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996.
It would be rather easy to criticize Charles Hauss' Beyond Confrontation for some of its conspicuous shortcomings, including its intractable ideological bias (witness the remark that the 1994 Republican Congressional victory was "devastating news") and the use of a decidedly non-academic style, which at times resembles something closer to a personal letter to the reader. However, it is clearly evident that Hauss recognizes these constraints, and has made a forceful attempt to work through them in what only may be described as a non-traditional approach to the topic of change and conflict in international politics. Though undoubtedly not as influential or innovative as other studies of the subject, such as Robert Gilpin's War and Change in World Politics, or James Rosenau's Turbulence in World Politics, Hauss' contribution is unconventional, and indeed refreshing, in its enthusiasm for transformation and confidence in the new order.
One of the more serious problems with this book is in the manner in which Hauss frequently attempts to deflect criticism by first recognizing a problem in his argument, then stating that he is in fact attempting something else. This form of accommodating engagement acknowledging a critic's judgment as justified and constructive works, provided an alternate purpose is demonstrated. Yet too often in this book, there is no evidence that this alternate purpose exists, or in fact what it might be. In his preface, for example, Hauss states the need for a "new approach to domestic and global politics that can give us real hope," a broad mandate indeed for a small book. But while he contends that his perspective in this book is "too narrow" to be a "blueprint" for this new approach, his emphasis on regimes, cognitive perception, constructive association within the context of international security, the environment, economics, ethnic affairs, interdependence and change is hardly a "narrow" approach.
Though Hauss understates (or perhaps misstates) the underlying aim of this book, his approach is provocative and compelling; this is one of those rare scholastic pieces that is genuinely difficult to put down, even if one disagrees with what it has to say. Hauss provides here something of a survey of issues pertaining to change in the post-Cold War era, and he uses as his framework two concepts that are so used and misused in the academic and non-academic literature that they risk becoming hackneyed: understanding change, and utilizing interdependence. Rather than limiting himself to one area of concern, Hauss' book is a broader survey of issues in international politics, from the environment, to nuclear war, to normative assumptions of the "other" in the international system, to organizational and non-governmental change. In so doing, Beyond Confrontation poses more questions than responses.
From a theoretical point of view, the most vexing problem here is Hauss' use of the prospect for paradigmatic change. As any student of Thomas Kuhn would contend, paradigmatic changes require that a discipline first must have an established and generally agreed upon set of ideas and theories that influence and inform all areas of research in the field. Kuhn's paradigms imply a more rigid definition in that they are universally accepted foundations for analysis. Hauss gets ahead of himself, and international relations in general, by suggesting that a change of paradigms is taking place, in what he refers to as the "new thinking." The problem here, one that is largely undeveloped, concerns the nature of conventional thinking, and more to the point why we should believe in the first place that such universally accepted foundations exist at all. Change indeed is taking place, just as every system is marked by change, but to suggest it is "paradigmatic" overstates our sense of universal purpose, which of course never existed, nor does it now. The Kuhnian reference here is noteworthy, since Hauss uses Kuhn's structure as a basis for fully seven chapters of the book. Hauss, then, subscribes to Kuhn's framework, but not his most basic assumption (that the structure of scientific revolution is at this stage not transferable to the social sciences). In short, in order to change the "first principles" of paradigms, the paradigm must exist in the first place. Hauss does not elaborate on this existing paradigm, and with good reason, as one does not exist.
There are other arguments made in Beyond Confrontation that deserve response. The suggestion that war cannot be used to solve political disputes is overly deterministic (not to mention Western-centric), and the argument that the threat of nuclear war is less serious with the end of the Cold War ignores more prescient regional affairs in the North Pacific and Indian subcontinent. More fundamental to the basic argument in this book is the assumption that the opportunity for change in the post-Cold War era lies in "cooperative solutions to global problems." Yet Hauss' own admission that confrontation will not likely be eradicated, in concert with a "micro" (individual unit of analysis) interpretation of potentially cooperative behavior, does not outline a clear trajectory toward the prospects for global cooperation. Unfortunately, the recommendations for moving toward a cooperative framework resemble something along the lines of a "twelve-step" conflict resolution program (it is difficult to imagine, for example, how global actors might "put [themselves] in the other person's shoes"). The final third of the book is a bit unwieldy, as Hauss attempts to incorporate public and private sector administration issues into his global "new thinking" framework, outlines the management practices of some "new age" companies, such as the Body Shop and the Green Guy, and condenses Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time into a few pages. Unfortunately, Hauss loses his critical perspective here, and the general relationship to transformation in the international system is not clear.
Overall, while it is not altogether apparent whether this text would be useful for course work, aside from excerpts for senior international relations seminars, it is an engaging piece for those with an interest in global change and transformation. Though inconsistent and disjointed at times, Hauss' book deserves praise for its (perhaps unwitting) adherence to Rosenau's entreaty that international relations analysts "break out of their conceptual jails." To that end, Hauss is exceptional, and successful.
George A. MacLean
The University of Manitoba