This theory resolves into various shades depending on what the standard of the national interest is claimed to be and the moral permissibility of employing various means to desired ends. Several definitions may be offered as to what ought to comprise the national interest: more often than not the claims invoke the need to be economically and politically self-sufficient, thereby reducing dependency on untrustworthy nations.
The common denominator between the two positions is the proposition that a nation can only grow rich at the expense of others. This influential tier supporting political realism is, however, unsound. Trade is not necessarily exclusively beneficial to one party: it is often mutually beneficial.
The economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo explained the advantages to be gained by both parties from free, unfettered trade. Nonetheless, the realist may admit this and retort that despite the gains from trade, nations should not rely on others for their sustenance, or that free trade ought not to be supported since it often implies undesired cultural changes.
The right to a separate cultural identity is a separate. The discussion invokes the ethics of impartiality; those who believe in a universal code of ethics argue that a self-serving action that cannot be universalized is immoral. However, universalism is not the only standard of ethical actions.
But if morality is employed in the sense of being altruistic, or at least universalistic, then political realists would rightly admit that attempting to be moral will be detrimental to the national interest or for the world as a whole, and therefore morality ought to be ignored.
But regarding every individual as being engaged in a perpetual quest for power—the view that he shares with Hobbes—is a questionable premise. Human nature cannot be revealed by observation and experiment. It cannot be proved by any empirical research, but only disclosed by philosophy, imposed on us as a matter of belief, and inculcated by education. Morgenthau himself reinforces the belief in the human drive for power by introducing a normative aspect of his theory, which is rationality.
But he defines rationality as a process of calculating the costs and benefits of all alternative policies in order to determine their relative utility, i. Only intellectual weakness of policy makers can result in foreign policies that deviate from a rational course aimed at minimizing risks and maximizing benefits. Hence, rather than presenting an actual portrait of human affairs, Morgenthau emphasizes the pursuit of power and the rationality of this pursuit, and sets it up as a norm.
It can be either a means or an end in politics. But if power is only a means for gaining something else, it does not define the nature of international politics in the way Morgenthau claims. It does not allow us to understand the actions of states independently from the motives and ideological preferences of their political leaders.
It cannot serve as the basis for defining politics as an autonomous sphere. Accordingly, it is useless to define actions of states by exclusive reference to power, security or national interest. International politics cannot be studied independently of the wider historical and cultural context.
Although Carr and Morgenthau concentrate primarily on international relations, their realism can also be applied to domestic politics. To be a classical realist is in general to perceive politics as a conflict of interests and a struggle for power, and to seek peace by recognizing common interests and trying to satisfy them, rather than by moralizing. However, political theory realism and international relations realism seem like two separate research programs.
Duncan Bell , those who contribute to realism in political theory give little attention to those who work on realism in international politics. At the same time, there was an attempt to develop a more methodologically rigorous approach to theorizing about international affairs.
This in turn provoked a counterattack by Morgenthau and scholars associated with the so-called English School, especially Hedley Bull, who defended a traditional approach Bull As a result, the IR discipline has been divided into two main strands: traditional or non-positivist and scientific or positivist neo-positivist. At a later stage the third strand: post-positivism has been added.
The traditionalists raise normative questions and engage with history, philosophy and law. The scientists or positivists stress a descriptive and explanatory form of inquiry, rather than a normative one. They have established a strong presence in the field. Already by the mids, the majority of American students in international relations were trained in quantitative research, game theory, and other new research techniques of the social sciences.
This, along with the changing international environment, had a significant effect on the discipline. The realist assumption was that the state is the key actor in international politics, and that relations among states are the core of actual international relations.
However, with the receding of the Cold War during the s, one could witness the growing importance of international and non-governmental organizations, as well as of multinational corporations. This development led to a revival of idealist thinking, which became known as neoliberalism or pluralism. While accepting some basic assumptions of realism, the leading pluralists, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, have proposed the concept of complex interdependence to describe this more sophisticated picture of global politics.
They would argue that there can be progress in international relations and that the future does not need to look like the past. The realist response came most prominently from Kenneth N.
Waltz, who reformulated realism in international relations in a new and distinctive way. In his book Theory of International Politics , first published in , he responded to the liberal challenge and attempted to cure the defects of the classical realism of Hans Morgenthau with his more scientific approach, which has became known as structural realism or neorealism. Whereas Morgenthau rooted his theory in the struggle for power, which he related to human nature, Waltz made an effort to avoid any philosophical discussion of human nature, and set out instead to build a theory of international politics analogous to microeconomics.
He argues that states in the international system are like firms in a domestic economy and have the same fundamental interest: to survive. Waltz maintains that by paying attention to the individual state, and to ideological, moral and economic issues, both traditional liberals and classical realists make the same mistake.
They fail to develop a serious account of the international system—one that can be abstracted from the wider socio-political domain. Waltz acknowledges that such an abstraction distorts reality and omits many of the factors that were important for classical realism. It does not allow for the analysis of the development of specific foreign policies. However, it also has utility.
Notably, it assists in understanding the primary determinants of international politics. It cannot serve to develop policies of states concerning their international or domestic affairs.
His theory helps only to explain why states behave in similar ways despite their different forms of government and diverse political ideologies, and why, despite their growing interdependence, the overall picture of international relations is unlikely to change. According to Waltz, the uniform behavior of states over centuries can be explained by the constraints on their behavior that are imposed by the structure of the international system.
Anarchy, or the absence of central authority, is for Waltz the ordering principle of the international system. The units of the international system are states. Waltz recognizes the existence of non-state actors, but dismisses them as relatively unimportant. Since all states want to survive, and anarchy presupposes a self-help system in which each state has to take care of itself, there is no division of labor or functional differentiation among them.
While functionally similar, they are nonetheless distinguished by their relative capabilities the power each of them represents to perform the same function.
Consequently, Waltz sees power and state behavior in a different way from the classical realists. For Morgenthau power was both a means and an end, and rational state behavior was understood as simply the course of action that would accumulate the most power.
In contrast, neorealists assume that the fundamental interest of each state is security and would therefore concentrate on the distribution of power. What also sets neorealism apart from classical realism is methodological rigor and scientific self-conception Guzinni , — Waltz insists on empirical testability of knowledge and on falsificationism as a methodological ideal, which, as he himself admits, can have only a limited application in international relations.
The distribution of capabilities among states can vary; however, anarchy, the ordering principle of international relations, remains unchanged. This has a lasting effect on the behavior of states that become socialized into the logic of self-help. Trying to refute neoliberal ideas concerning the effects of interdependence, Waltz identifies two reasons why the anarchic international system limits cooperation: insecurity and unequal gains.
In the context of anarchy, each state is uncertain about the intentions of others and is afraid that the possible gains resulting from cooperation may favor other states more than itself, and thus lead it to dependence on others. In a self-help system, considerations of security subordinate economic gain to political interest.
Because of its theoretical elegance and methodological rigor, neorealism has become very influential within the discipline of international relations. However, while initially gaining more acceptance than classical realism, neorealism has also provoked strong critiques on a number of fronts. In Waltz wrote that in the nuclear age the international bipolar system, based on two superpowers—the United States and the Soviet Union—was not only stable but likely to persist —7.
The bipolar world turned out to have been more precarious than most realist analysts had supposed. Its end opened new possibilities and challenges related to globalization. This has led many critics to argue that neorealism, like classical realism, cannot adequately account for changes in world politics. The new debate between international neo realists and neo liberals is no longer concerned with the questions of morality and human nature, but with the extent to which state behavior is influenced by the anarchic structure of the international system rather than by institutions, learning and other factors that are conductive to cooperation.
However, by employing game theory he shows that states can widen the perception of their self-interest through economic cooperation and involvement in international institutions. Patterns of interdependence can thus affect world politics. Keohane calls for systemic theories that would be able to deal better with factors affecting state interaction, and with change.
Critical theorists, such as Robert W. Cox, also focus on the alleged inability of neorealism to deal with change. In their view, neorealists take a particular, historically determined state-based structure of international relations and assume it to be universally valid. In contrast, critical theorists believe that by analyzing the interplay of ideas, material factors, and social forces, one can understand how this structure has come about, and how it may eventually change.
They contend that neorealism ignores both the historical process during which identities and interests are formed, and the diverse methodological possibilities. It legitimates the existing status quo of strategic relations among states and considers the scientific method as the only way of obtaining knowledge.
It represents an exclusionary practice, an interest in domination and control. While realists are concerned with relations among states, the focus for critical theorists is social emancipation. It supports cultural diversity and stresses the interests of minorities. Feminism argues that the realist theory exhibits a masculine bias and advocates the inclusion of woman and alternative values into public life.
Since critical theories and other alternative theoretical perspectives question the existing status quo, make knowledge dependent on power, and emphasize identity formation and social change, they are not traditional or non-positivist. Constructivists, such as Alexander Wendt, try to build a bridge between these two approaches by on the one hand, taking the present state system and anarchy seriously, and on the other hand, by focusing on the formation of identities and interests.
Countering neorealist ideas, Wendt argues that self-help does not follow logically or casually from the principle of anarchy. It is socially constructed. There is no single logic of anarchy but rather several, depending on the roles with which states identify themselves and each other.
Power and interests are constituted by ideas and norms. Wendt claims that neorealism cannot account for change in world politics, but his norm-based constructivism can. A similar conclusion, although derived in a traditional way, comes from the non-positivist theorists of the English school International Society approach who emphasize both systemic and normative constraints on the behavior of states.
Therefore, states can bind themselves to other states by treaties and develop some common values with other states.
Hence, the structure of the international system is not unchangeable as the neorealists claim. It is not a permanent Hobbesian anarchy, permeated by the danger of war. An anarchic international system based on pure power relations among actors can evolve into a more cooperative and peaceful international society, in which state behavior is shaped by commonly shared values and norms.
A practical expression of international society are international organizations that uphold the rule of law in international relations, especially the UN. An unintended and unfortunate consequence of the debate about neorealism is that neorealism and a large part of its critique with the notable exception of the English School has been expressed in abstract scientific and philosophical terms.
This has made the theory of international politics almost inaccessible to a layperson and has divided the discipline of international relations into incompatible parts. This is perhaps the main reason why there has been a renewed interest in classical realism, and particularly in the ideas of Morgenthau.
Rather than being seen as an obsolete form of pre-scientific realist thought, superseded by neorealist theory, his thinking is now considered to be more complex and of greater contemporary relevance than was earlier recognized Williams , 1—9. It fits uneasily in the orthodox picture of realism he is usually associated with. In recent years, scholars have questioned prevailing narratives about clear theoretical traditions in the discipline of international relations.
Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes and other thinkers have become subject to re-examination as a means of challenging prevailing uses of their legacies in the discipline and exploring other lineages and orientations. Morgenthau has undergone a similar process of reinterpretation.
A number of scholars Hartmut Behr, Muriel Cozette, Amelia Heath, Sean Molloy have endorsed the importance of his thought as a source of change for the standard interpretation of realism. And so on and so forth. The perception grows that the poem is beautiful, no matter what people may think of it. Are normative preferences not built into our descriptive language? Do our factual claims not often have an evaluative element?
When we describe the glass of water as either half empty or half full, are we not making a kind of value-judgement? Of course, we could simply say that a realist theory of politics should be primarily descriptive, even if it cannot avoid normative content altogether.
It is not a logical corollary that they should eschew any hint of evaluation in their theoretical analyses. But there is a further question. Not without reason, the realist outlook is routinely lambasted for reifying the present by identifying existing arrangements with abstract necessity.
The former thinker defended the virtues of republican governance and called for the expulsion of foreign forces from the Italian peninsula; the latter was a champion of free market principles.
Rather like Marx, however, they saw these preferences as emerging, almost naturally, from their empirical observations. Gramsci is not saying that values can be logically deduced from facts about the world; he is simply saying that political values and goals should have a factual, as opposed to speculative, basis.
It seems to me that the normative preferences expressed by Machiavelli and Pareto satisfy this criterion. But why does the realist thinker want to change society? After all, he disparages the doctrinal liberal for seeking to eradicate the mysteries of the human world by substituting for them the certainty of applied reason. The answer perhaps lies in what is, for political realism, the primary political objective: namely, the establishment of order and the conditions for cooperation.
To most realists, the requirements of good order will not remain static. Given this existential instability, given this assumption that transience is part of the human condition, the maintenance of a balance of mutual advantage will often entail the need for innovation.
Ought propositions, in other words, would be fundamentally determined by the struggle for power, and not by a desire to impose timeless moral truths. Machiavelli was keen to mobilise the Italian people for progressive ends — ultimately, the creation of a unified national state. But, to him, these ends were not imaginative constructs or logical deductions from first principles. To the contrary, they were practical aspirations, grounded in objective historical forces.
It was mentioned earlier that realists could advocate change as a way of preserving social order in the face of instability. By way of preliminaries, let us bear in mind that realism, in the Machiavellian sense, is not just about practicality; it also involves the uncovering of hidden truths motives, power relations, perverse consequences lurking beneath the veneer of pieties and platitudes that sustains the status quo.
The realist typically wants to lift the veils of euphemism and portray social and political life as it really is, without embellishment. In this sense, the realist, even if he veers to the right, is never conventionally conservative; he is alive to the contingencies and dysfunctions of society, and — at least in the cases of Machiavelli and Pareto — takes pleasure in pointing them out. The underlying structural reality of society may point in a different direction from its professed values and objectives.
What is functional at one time may not be functional at other times. A Marxist like Gramsci will stress the supposed contradictions of capitalism, along with their resolution in a form of radical socialism. Pareto, a staunch defender of capitalism, would hardly agree. It should be clear by now that a realist analysis cannot entirely detach itself from value preferences.
As Gramsci recognised, however, there is no contradiction here. Of course, patterns of thought and behaviour in any modern society are complex and variable.
But what I think I have shown is that political moralism, with its exclusively normative concerns, does not enjoy a monopoly of political morality. Those who reject the abstract idealism of Anglo-American political philosophy are not thereby condemned to act as apologists for the status quo. And in their search for guidance in these matters, they would do well to consult the teachings of Machiavelli and Pareto. Coady C. Cohen G. Farrelly C. For all his foresight, Borgia was not able to foresee that at a crucial moment in his campaign to conquer all of Italy, his father, Pope Alexander VI, would die prematurely.
He knew that his father could die at any moment, and he had even made contingency plans for that eventuality, but he could not predict that precisely at the moment his father would die, he too would fall sick and be on the verge of death. This story, with all its ironies, raises a question that in my view goes to the heart of The Prince and its exasperated attempts to detach politics from morality. Think of King Lear , for example.
There are a number of characters in that play who have an explicitly Machiavellian cynicism about politics, who believe that politics is nothing but efficacy, the will to power, naked ambition, pragmatism devoid of ethical considerations.
One such character is Edmund, the illegitimate son of Gloucester. They engage in a sword fight and Cornwall gets wounded by the servant before Regan stabs the servant from behind and kills him.
It comes unexpectedly. It leaps out at him from the shadows as the last trick or trump card of a fortune he thought he had mastered. If its ambition was to be a handbook by which rulers could advance their own agendas, if its ambition was to instruct a prince who could one day unify Italy and throw out the foreigners, if its ambition was to found a school of political theory or promote some kind of trans-formation in the history of nation states, or even if its ambition was much more modest, namely to ingratiate its author with the Medici rulers of Florence, then we have no choice but to conclude that as a political treatise The Prince was an abortion.
It failed to achieve its ends. Christianity itself— its imagination of another world beyond the so-called real world—completely transformed the real politics of Europe. Or Karl Marx, for that matter.
You cannot get reality to bend to your will, you can only seduce it into transfiguration. And the fact remains that reality cannot be seduced by realism, only by trans-realism, if I may use a word that denotes more than fantasy, utopianism, intuitionism, or religious supernaturalism.
Trans-realism refers to something that neither resists nor escapes reality but calls on reality to transcend itself, and to turn its prose into poetry. You can listen to the original broadcast from which this article was adapted and other episodes of Robert Harrison's radio program at the Entitled Opinions website.
0コメント