Mapping US Humanitarian Aid: A Pentadic Cartography of Michael Leavitt's Health Diplomacy

Abstract

Anderson and Prelli argued that pentadic cartography could be used to examine the motivational vocabularies of discourses and to provide alternative vocabularies for negotiating rhetorical terrains. Applications of pentadic cartography have used Kenneth Burke's principles to examine and critique the motivational vocabularies of a variety of texts but have less often mapped proposed alternative vocabularies. This article expands the application of pentadic cartography by demonstrating the value of a full mapping process. This study examines two potential mappings of former Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt's speech outlining US health diplomacy. Two maps are generated: a pragmatic map centered on an agency-purpose ratio and an idealist map centered on an agent-act ratio. Each mapping is assessed for its abilities to open and to close the universe of discourse. The importance of fully mapping humanitarian discourses is outlined.

Keywords:

• Kenneth Burke
• Pentadic Cartography
• US Foreign Aid

Notes

Hereafter, Leavitt's speech will be cited by page number only.

Realism traces its roots to the Greek historian Thucydides who, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, wrote, “The strong do what they have power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” (1972, p. 402). In modernizing this notion, Morgenthau (1948), often credited as the first political theorist to systematize realist principles, claimed that “international relations is a struggle for power … Statesmen think and act in terms of interest as defined by power” (p. 5). The focus on power is not simply the ability of one nation-state to make other nation-states obey its commands, although this is certainly a part of what power allows. Rather, as Huntington (1993) argued, “Power enables an actor to shape his environment so as to reflect his interests. In particular it enables a state to protect its security and prevent, deflect or defeat threats to that security” (pp. 69–70). The realist paradigm claims, then, that nation-states are driven by a survival instinct to accumulate power so as to maintain security.

• Although there is a national instinct for survival, this survival instinct does not operate irrationally. Rather, realism views nation-states as reasoned actors in a chaotic system. As explained by Legro and Moravcsik (1999; see also Mearsheimer, 2001; Waltz, 1954; Williams, 2004), realists must make three assumptions about international relations. First, realists assume that states are rational, unitary political units that find themselves in an irreducibly anarchic system. Second, these states have fixed goals of accumulating power that are in conflict with other states’ goals. Third, the material capabilities of states are the primary determinants of international strategies adopted to attain these goals. Driven by these assumptions, realists, then, regard the pursuit and maintenance of resources qua power as both the cause of nation-states’ actions and the means of evaluating whether a nation-states’ action was successful. Drawing on these assumptions, Taliaferro (2000) argues, “realist core assumptions tell scholars what to expect in broad terms: International outcomes will match the relative distribution of material resources” (p. 181). Those states that have resources, however generated or obtained, will be the powerful states, and powerful states tend to attain their goals.

• In the realist view, both power and resources are finite. As such, Schweller and Wohlforth (2000) maintain that the realist world is characterized by constant competition among nation-states for limited resources. This competition defines states’ actions in two ways. First, successful competition leads to the control of these resources, and control of the resources leads to the accumulation of power. Failed competition leads to a loss of control and a concomitant loss of power. Second, those states that are already powerful are more likely to succeed in these resource competitions, allowing hegemonic actors to continually dominate less powerful states or, in the alternative, requiring less powerful states to form alliances to balance the influence of the powerful states. Because of this constant competition, and the various strategies and tactics nation-states may use to “win” the competition, Legro and Moravcsik (1999) claim that realists have, “sought to highlight the manipulation, accumulation, and balancing of power by sober unsentimental statesmen, focusing above all on the limits imposed on states by the international distribution of material resources” (p. 6).

As the primary alternative to realism, idealism holds that international relations are not guided by raw national self-interest but by the values that a nation-state seeks to promulgate. Although his summary of the main thrust of idealism is somewhat pejorative, Gilpin (1996) wrote that liberal idealists “believe in the overwhelming power of ideas; ideas in and of themselves are believed to move the world … the task of the liberal is to convert the benighted and to make the world over in the liberal's image” (p. 3). US idealist thinkers hold that Americans’ allegiance to a common set of principles (chief among them democracy, individualism, anti-statism, populism, and egalitarianism) guides American foreign policy and destines the United States for international leadership (see Moravcsik, 1997; Weiss & Edwards, 2011). US idealists draw inspiration from Thomas Jefferson's (1809/1906) identification of the United States as “the solitary republic of the world,” “the only monument of human rights,” and “the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government,” and, as the only nation-state with these characteristics, from Jefferson's further claim that “from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence,” as a model for all other nations (pp. 157–158). The blessings of liberty, in Jefferson's, and descendent American idealists’, views created an obligation to spread these principles through American foreign policy. Idealism focuses on these principles and sees international relations as efforts to implement these principles on the global stage.

• Idealism's focus on ideas and values is, in part, a response to realism's focus on power and force. Although there is not a clear “idealist school” in foreign policy, Osiander (1998) has identified three assumptions that are common to most theorists labeled as “idealists.” First, idealists view international systems as integrative rather than competitive. Whereas realists claim military competition is the basis of most international relations, idealists notes that cooperation and integration are more common in trade, economic, health, environmental, and other policy areas where states can work together to maximize, or even to increase, total shared resources. Second, idealists’ views are underlined by a democratic vision. Although the most common reference points for idealists are the League of Nations and the United Nations, there are many other points of international contact where powerful states listen to, and sometimes follow the lead of, less powerful states. Third, idealists view history as progressive. Rather than seeing a stasis in which countries compete for power in a zero-sum game, idealists see nation-states learning from history that conflict is ultimately destructive and finding ways to work together for the betterment of humankind. This set of assumptions allows Wrightson (1996) to write that, “idealists contend that just as human beings have the capacity to understand and transform the physical world, they are also capable of transforming the social world” (p. 355).

• These changes in emphasis create a different view of what power is and how it matters to international relations. Whereas realism is reactive, in that the state responds to power moves made by others, idealism is “a proactive theory of international relations” because the democratic state seeks “concrete ways to bring about a more peaceful and just world” (Wrightson, 1996, p. 355). For example, Ashley (1984) argued that, under realist paradigms, “what emerges is an ideology that anticipates, legitimizes, and orients a totalitarian project of global proportions: the rationalization of global politics” (p. 228). He argues that realism, and its neglect of nonmaterial values, not only denies ideals to emphasize power but also replaces choice and autonomy with structural determinism, science with control, and responsibility with order. Ashley argues that realists are not the rational statesmen Morgenthau identified; they cannot make choices about international relations because their choices are always already determined by material circumstance and power relations (see also Jervis, 1998). As an alternative to a predetermined war of all against all over limited resources, idealism emerges as not only a value-laden alternative but, as Schweller (2000) noted, an alternative that includes, “the voice of reason, historical progress, universal ethics, and the importance of ideas and ‘right thinking’ leaders” (p. 176). Rather than might making right, as in realism, it is by being and doing right that one gains influence and power.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin R. Bates

Benjamin R. Bates is the Barbara Geralds Schoonover Professor of Health Communication and Associate Director for Graduate Studies in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University.