International Relations Theory and Zombies

In the July/August issue of Foreign Policy, Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, author of the forthcoming Theories of International Politics and Zombies, gives us the short version of his book, in “Night of the Living Wonks”. The entire article is well worth reading (it’s fairly short and can be read online) but I wanted to point out some especially quotable phrases here:

On the question posed:

If the dead begin to rise from the grave and attack the living, what thinking [in international relations] would — or should — guide the human response? How would all those theories hold up under the pressure of a zombie assault? When should humans decide that hiding and hoarding is the right idea?

On why answering these questions are important:

This zombie boom is — and should be — taken seriously. For some international relations thinkers, the interest in all things ghoulish might represent an indirect attempt to get a cognitive grip on what former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once referred to as the “unknown unknowns” in international security.

On the Realist approach:

International relations would be largely unaffected. Although some would see in a zombie invasion a new existential threat to the human condition, realists would be unimpressed by the claim that the zombies’ arrival would lead to any radical change in human behavior. To them, a plague of the undead would merely echo older plagues, from the Black Death of the 14th century to the 1918 influenza pandemic. To paraphrase Thucydides, the realpolitik of zombies is that the strong will do what they can and the weak must suffer devouring by reanimated, ravenous corpses.

On the Liberal approach:

Provided that the initial spread of zombies did not completely wipe out governments, the liberal expectation would be that an international counterzombie regime could make significant inroads into the problem. Given the considerable public-good benefits of wiping the undead from the face of the Earth, significant policy coordination seems a likely response…Liberals would acknowledge that the permanent eradication of flesh-eating ghouls is unlikely. The reduction of the zombie problem to one of many manageable threats, however, is quite likely. Most countries would kill most zombies most of the time.

On the Neoconservative approach:

The neoconservative policy response to an undead uprising would be simple and direct. To paraphrase Robert Kagan, humans are from Earth, and zombies are from hell. Neither accommodation nor recognition would be sustainable options in the face of the zombie threat. Instead, neocons would recommend an aggressive and militarized response to ensure human hegemony. Rather than wait for the ghouls to come to them, they would pursue offensive policy options that take the fight to the undead. A pre-emptive strike against zombies would, surely, be a war against evil itself.

Finally:

Traditional zombie narratives in film and fiction are quick to get to the apocalypse. The theoretical approaches presented here, however, suggest that in the real world there would be a vigorous policy response to the menace of the living dead.

Drezner’s tongue-in-cheek look at international relations in terms of a zombie apocalypse is quite enjoyable, I recommend reading the whole thing.

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