that might influence, hinder or distort these comparisons. Affect is one of the most
important differences. The small size of most Greek cities and personal basis of their
politics made it more likely that the emotions of citizens and their city ran along parallel
tracks. In modern states, size, the social divide and are many layers of institutions
between the political elite and voters confound the comparison. The problem is more
acute when we move from the level of political units to regional and international
systems. We cannot convincingly attribute affect to states and the systems in which they
operate, only to those individuals who occupy important positions within them.
The larger problem here is reification: treating the state as if it were a person.
This fiction is recognized by international law, and prominent theorists like Waltz, Jervis
and Wendt recognize the problem but nevertheless refer to the “motives,” “beliefs,”
“feelings,” even the “personalities” of states.
To some extent this is a linguistic
shorthand; Jervis is absolutely explicit about the problems of psychologizing states.
Wendt goes the furthest in treating states as persons; his “alter” and “ego” elide the
distinction between the two. My comparison between persons and states (and by
extension, regional and international systems) falls somewhere between the two. I argue
that order and disorder has the same effects for all, and that it comes about in the same
ways: reason gains or loses control over spirit and appetite. At the same time, I recognize
important differences in the ways in which this occurs at different levels of analysis.
What goes on in the head of the individual is not the same what happens in a state, and
states usually differs from regional or international systems by virtue of the density of
their institutions and enforcement capabilities. My comparison is accordingly an
analogy, but one that I hope to show has great analytical power.
Comparisons across levels of analysis run into a second problem: systems differ
79
Convention