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Realism

Realism, set of related theories of international relations that emphasizes the role of the state, national interest, and power in world politics.

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1. Related Topics: international relations

Realism has dominated the academic study of international relations since the end of World War II. Realists claim to offer both the most accurate explanation of state behaviour and a set of policy prescriptions (notably the balance of power between states) for ameliorating the inherent destabilizing elements of international affairs. Realism (including neorealism) focuses on abiding patterns of interaction in an international system lacking a centralized political authority. That condition of anarchy means that the logic of international politics often differs from that of domestic politics, which is regulated by a sovereign power. Realists are generally pessimistic about the possibility of radical systemic reform. Realism is a broad tradition of thought that comprises a variety of different strands, the most distinctive of which are classical realism and neorealism.

2. Classical realism in international relations

Realists frequently claim to draw on an ancient tradition of political thought. Among classic authors often cited by realists are Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Max Weber. Realism as a self-conscious movement in the study of international relations emerged during the mid-20th century and was inspired by the British political scientist and historian E.H. Carr. Carr attacked what he perceived as the dangerous and deluded “idealism” of liberal internationalists and, in particular, their belief in the possibility of progress through the construction of international institutions such as the League of Nations. He focused instead on the perennial role of power and self-interest in determining state behaviour. The outbreak of World War II converted many scholars to that pessimistic vision. Thereafter, realism became established in American political science departments, its fortunes boosted by a number of émigré European scholars, most notably the German-born political scientist and historian Hans Morgenthau. It is the realism of Carr, Morgenthau, and their followers that is known as classical.

Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations (1948) helped to meet the need for a general theoretical framework for realism. Not only did it become one of the most extensively used textbooks in the United States and Britain—it continued to be republished in new editions over the next half century—it also was an essential exposition of the realist theory of international relations. Numerous other contributors to realist theory emerged in the decade or so after World War II, including Arnold Wolfers, George F. Kennan, Robert Strausz-Hupé, Henry Kissinger, and the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

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According to realism, states exist within an anarchic international system in which they are ultimately dependent on their own capabilities, or power, to further their national interests. The most important national interest is the survival of the state, including its people, political system, and territorial integrity. Other major interests for realists include the preservation of a nation’s culture and economy. Realists contend that, as long as the world is divided into nation-states in an anarchic setting, national interest will remain the essence of international politics.

Classical realism was not a coherent school of thought. It drew from a wide variety of sources and offered competing visions of the self, the state, and the world. Whereas Carr was influenced by Marxism, Morgenthau drew on Friedrich Nietzsche, Weber, Carl Schmitt, and American civic republicanism. Classical realists were united mainly by that which they opposed. Critical of the optimism and explanatory ambition of liberal internationalists, classical realists instead stressed the various barriers to progress and reform that allegedly inhered in human nature, in political institutions, or in the structure of the international system. The fortunes of classical realism, grounded as it was in a combination of history, philosophy, and theology, waned during the era of social-scientific behaviourism in the 1960s. Its fortunes were revived by the emergence of neorealism during the 1970s.

3. Neorealism in international relations

Associated in particular with the American political scientist Kenneth Waltz, neorealism was an attempt to translate some of the key insights of classical realism into the language and methods of modern social science. In the Theory of International Politics (1979), Waltz argued that most of the important features of international relations, especially the actions of great powers, could be explained solely in terms of the anarchical structure of the international system. Although Waltz’s position was not original, in systematizing it and attempting to establish it on empirical grounds he simultaneously reinvigorated realism and further detached it from its classical roots.

4. Neorealism differed from classical realism in two important respects:

methodology and level of analysis. In terms of method, realism was reconfigured as a rigorous and parsimonious social-scientific theory drawing in particular on microeconomics. Regarding level of analysis, Waltz argued that traditional realist arguments about domestic institutions, the quality of diplomacy and statecraft, national morale, and human nature were largely irrelevant. He conceived of states as unitary rational actors existing in a “self-help” system (i.e., one in which each state must fend for itself). Concerned above all with survival and operating with imperfect information, states are conditioned by the logic of the system into similar patterns of behaviour. The international system is defined by remarkable continuity across space and time, and the trajectory of international relations is explained by the distribution of power across units in the system. Waltz argued that the most stable arrangement was “bipolarity,” or a balance between two great powers.

5. Development and criticism of neorealism in international relations

Both Waltz’s conception of international relations and his substantive arguments proved influential, and debates between neorealists and their critics dominated the field for much of the 1980s and ’90s. Although a competing school of neoliberal institutionalists dissented from Waltz’s claims about the difficulty of cooperation under anarchy, they nevertheless adopted his methods and many of his assumptions. Neorealists, meanwhile, eventually split into “defensive” and “offensive” camps. Defensive realists, following Waltz, argued that because states tend to seek security, a stable international equilibrium is possible via balancing. Offensive realists argued that states seek to maximize power rather than security, making equilibrium harder to achieve.

6. Neorealism has had numerous detractors, including many who were sympathetic to classical realism. Neorealism has been faulted, for example, for neglecting the insights of history, sociology, and philosophy; for falsely claiming scientific validity; for failing to account for systemic transformations in international relations (including the end of the Cold War and the advent of globalization); and for an allegedly self-defeating analytical reductionism. Nevertheless, it has remained a powerful research program in the study of international relations.

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