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El presente artículo es sobre teoría política internacional. La teoría política internacional es una disciplina normativa de las Relaciones Internacionales y la teoría política. La tarea de la teoría política internacional consiste en proponer principios para guiar y evaluar acciones en la esfera internacional. El realismo político, en teoría política, es una co-rriente contemporánea de pensamiento político que sostiene que la política tiene su propia normatividad que no se reduce a principios morales, ni al mero éxito en la consecución de intereses. En este sentido, el realismo se distancia tanto de las propuestas cosmopolitas y estatistas en los debates de la justicia global, así como de las de la realpolitiken los estudios de las Relaciones Internacionales. Bernard Williams, uno de los autores realistas más influyentes en teoría política, presenta la demanda de legitimación básica (DLB) que distingue entre el poder legítimo y la mera dominación y el terror. Matt Sleat propone la DLB como un principio normativo realista para las relaciones interna-cionales centrado en evitar ciertos males reconocibles por los agentes internacionales.La justificación de la cooperación entre los agentes es evitar males universales reconocidos como un summum malum. Chantal Mouffe, usualmente considerada una autora realista, plantea concebir el orden internacional como uno multipolar en el que no hay una sola hegemonía, sino una pluralidad de polos regionales que afrontan sus con-flictos tratándose unos a otros como adversarios y no como enemigos que deben ser destruidos. Mouffe sostiene que no es posible plantear un principio normativo para las relaciones internacionales porque implicaría la instauración de un principio hegemónico para el orden global. En este artículo se argumenta que la DLB supera ese problema y es un principio político adecuado para un mundo multipolar.El enfoque metodológico que aquí se sigue para defender el argumento es el análisis conceptual de la teoría po-lítica analítica: marcar distinciones y establecer relaciones conceptuales para así argumentar. La estructura del artículo es la siguiente: en primer lugar, trazo distinciones entre el realismo político de Sleat, las posiciones de cosmopolita y estatista de la justicia global, y el enfoque de la realpolitik en las relaciones internacionales. En esta parte se contraargumenta esta última posición para afirmar que es posible plantear principios normativos en la es-fera internacional. En la siguiente parte se caracteriza la DLB, planteada por Sleat, como un principio conformado como un summum malum que pretende guiar las acciones de los agentes en las relaciones internacionales. En la siguiente sección, se reconstruye conceptualmente la idea del mundo multipolar planteada por Mouffe basándose en su propuesta de la democracia agonista y distinguiéndolo del cosmopolitismo. En la cuarta sección se presenta el argumento del artículo: la DLB es un principio normativo básico para la cooperación internacional en el escenario global multipolar. En esta sección se trazan relaciones conceptuales entre la DLB y el mundo multipolar a partir de un enfoque realista. En esta parte se argumenta que la DLB es un principio normativo realista adecuado para la propuesta agonista de un mundo multipolar planteada por Mouffe.
Political realism appeared as a reaction to the highly moralised and idealised form of political theory devel-oped by John Rawls and a great part of contemporary political theory. Political realism in political theory defends that politics is a distinctive sphere of human thought and action not reducible to morality or eco-nomics. In other words, realists argue that politics owes its normativity. As it is well-known for Anglophone academics in political theory, political realism has increased its influence on many topics through problems of political theory and other political science subjects. One of those topics is international political theory.International political theory is the branch of political theory and the study of international relations whose target is to propose, evaluate and justify normative principles that guide the complex array of re-lations and issues among international agents. In this academic discipline, prominent debates are related to global justice. The two main theoretical positions are cosmopolitanism and statism. The main critique from political realists to this debate between those positions in global justice is that both represent the priority of a moral approach to international relations. Political realists such as Duncan Bell, Enzo Rossi, Jan Pieter Beetz, Alison McQueen and Matt Sleat have elaborated contributions in this field. One of these investigations examines the theoretical connections between political realism in political theory and the large tradition of political realism in the study of international relations.The other program is based on extending Bernard Williams’ theory of political legitimacy to international political theory. This program aims to distinguish itself from, on the one hand, the moralistic approach of statism and cosmopolitanism and, on the other hand, those views in political realism within the interna-tional relations —often called Realpolitik— that reduce politics to the pursuit of interests using the power of international agents. Contrary to both approaches, in the international political theory political realists argue that politics is conceptually different from successful domination and terror. Politics is legitimised coercion to sustain a social order where there are disagreements and conflicts.This article focuses on this last area of research, focusing on Sleat’s proposal. Drawing on Williams’ Basic Legitimation Demand (BLD), Sleat poses a normative political principle for international relations. This principle prevents universal evils recognised as a summum malum: unfair war, torture, devastation, fam-ine and so forth are evils that everyone everywhere fears. As Judith Shklar points out, this means putting cruelty first as a summum malum, and it represents a normative political principle. For the international sphere, the basic task for international agents is to avoid this cruelty. In this sense, an international agent is justified if it follows BLD. In other words, an action in the international sphere is justified if its target is to prevent or avoid cruelty. On the other hand, Chantal Mouffe has been catalogued as a realist author for contemporary political realists because she conceptualises the political as conflict, and politics as the human activity that manages legitimately this conflict.Despite being formed by the influence of continental philosophers such as Louis Althusser and Jaques Derrida, she has debated her political proposals with Rawls’ political philosophy and other analytical authors. Regarding Mouffe’s work in international political theory, she contends for an agonistic model of global order. In this model different international agents coexist, gathered around diverse regional poles without the supremacy of one type of hegemony. In other words, there is a plurality of both states and international associations that follow different economic systems and have different cultures. Not-withstanding, Mouffe’s agonistic proposal lacks of a normative principle to guide the cooperation among these international agents.There is no political principle to justify the intervention of one of these agents in the issues of other agents in a multipolar world. Mouffe argues that posing such as principle is an erroneous step because it would subjugate this multipolar world to a moral principle for multiple and diverse states and associations. In short, it would pose a moral hegemony over the whole world. In this paper, I argue that the DLB posed by Sleat in international political theory complements the agonistic model of global order canvassed by Mouffe. I suggest that DLB is an appropriate principle to justify basic cooperation in a multipolar world. To contend my argument, the methodology followed here is characteristic of the analytic political theory developed mainly in Anglo-American research groups: draw distinctions between concepts and establish conceptual relationships to argue a point of view.
My argument shows that BLD bypasses the critics posed by Mouffe to moral principles because it is a political principle, not a moral one. BLD offers a realist normative standard that is formulated from a realist conception of politics and is attentive to the context in which it emerges. BLD has a minimal account of human rights that is not made by an ideal and moralistic consensus but by a summum malum of evils that it is essential to continually prevent, being even a necessary condition for raising and demanding greater demands of justice. Therefore, BLD is an adequate source of normativity for international cooperation in a multipolar world.The stages to defend this argumentation follow the next structure: firstly, I draw distinctions between Sleat’s political realism, the cosmopolitan and statist positions of global justice, and the Realpolitikapproach in international relations. In this part, I counterargue this last position to affirm that it is pos-sible to propose normative principles in the international sphere. In the next part, the BLD proposed by Sleat is characterised as a summum malum for agents in international relations. Thirdly, the idea of the multipolar world proposed by Mouffe is conceptually reconstructed based on her proposal of agonistic democracy, distinguishing it from cosmopolitanism positions. The fourth section presents the argument of this paper: the BLD is a basic normative principle for international cooperation in a multipolar global. Based on a realist approach, this last section draws conceptual relationships between the BLD and the multipolar world. In this part, it is argued that the BLD is a realistic normative principle suitable for the agonistic proposal of a multipolar world put forward by Mouffe.
