871. Review article: Realism: rational or reasonable?
- Author:
- Chris Brown
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- For better or worse, since the publication of E. H. Carr's Twenty years' crisis in Britain in 1939 , and Hans J. Morgenthau's Politics among nations in the United States in 1948 , 'Realism' has been the default setting for International Relations (IR) theory. The core insight of Carr, Morgenthau and their successors—that the international order and the foreign policies of states are, at a fundamental level, shaped by considerations of power and interest—has been repeatedly challenged but remains at the heart of the discipline of International Relations; it also, not coincidentally, tends to be the way in which both practitioners and informed publics think about matters international. But the price of this dominance is that the clarity which Carr and Morgenthau sought two generations ago has been lost. There are now many varieties of Realism on offer, and many theories that once were thought of as antithetical to Realism have adopted Realist ideas; navigating the field has become a job for specialists. The direct descendants of Carr and Morgenthau think of themselves as 'classical Realists' (or, if Reinhold Niebuhr is acknowledged as a major influence, 'Augustinian Realists') as opposed to the 'Structural Realists' who take their lead from Kenneth Waltz's master work Theory of international politics . Structural Realists in turn divide into 'defensive Realists' and 'offensive Realists', and are also closely related to 'neo-classical Realists'; to make matters worse, 'liberal institutionalists', who, in principle, are the modern version of the traditional opponents of Realism, have adopted from Waltz the notion of the 'anarchy problematic' and from some perspectives have become part of the Realist big tent. So confusing is this spectrum of theories that, on the one hand, John Vasquez can claim that the 'power of power politics' is such that Realism still dominates the field, while, on the other, liberal institutionalists Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik can ask 'Is anybody still a Realist?'—and John Mearsheimer, perhaps today's most prominent Realist, can regard himself as a lone figure in an academic field dominated by 'idealism'.
- Topic:
- International Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States