Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0199556288
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Political realism dominated the study of international relations during the Cold War. Since then, however, its fortunes have been mixed: pushed onto the backburner during the 1990s, it has in recent years retuned to the center of scholarly debate in international relations. Yet despite its significance in international relations theory, realism plays little role in contemporary international political theory. It is often associated with a form of crude realpolitik that ignores the role of ethical considerations in political life.
Political Thought and International Relations explores an alternative understanding of realism. The contributors view realism chiefly as a diverse and complex mode of political and ethical theorizing rather than either a value-neutral branch of social science or the unreflective defense of the national interest. They analyze a variety of historical and philosophical themes, probing the potential and the pathologies of realist thought. A number of the chapters offer critical interpretations of key figures in the canon of twentieth century realism, including Hans Morgenthau, E. H. Carr, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Others seek to widen the lens through which realism is usually viewed, exploring the writings of Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss. Finally, a number of the contributors engage with general issues in political theory, including the meaning and value of pessimism, the relationship between power and ethics, the role of normative political theory, and what might constitute political 'reality.' Straddling international relations and political theory, this book makes a significant contribution to both fields.
Pessimistic Realism and Realistic Pessimism 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 175 towards science with the repeated claims about the fundamental truths about power politics, these are not very persuasive and by the time of Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau seems to have scaled back the scepticism to the point where he embraces social science in a limited way. I do not mean, of course, that the use of the term anarchy proves anything per se; I focus on it here only to
J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography (Baton Rouge: LSU, 2001); Jim George, Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re)Introduction to International Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994); Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy: The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold (London: Routledge, 1998); Robert Jervis, ‘Hans Morgenthau, Realism, and the Scientific Study of International Politics’, Social Research, 61 (1994), pp. 853–76; Joseph Kruzel
good” so much as pointing out that “good” was a good deal more complicated than many people made it out to be.’30 Carr’s understanding of morality is based on the observation of moral practice—morality can only be understood through observation and discussion of its nature rather than cast in primarily deontological terms. Carr’s insistence that it is moral certitude that poses the greatest threat to the establishment of ‘acceptable world order’ is an implicit defence of his relativistic
pacifist conscientious objector during World War II.47 The religious sources of (certain forms of) realism provide a fertile and underdeveloped topic for study. Vibeke Schou Tjalve argues in Chapter 10 that both Morgenthau and Niebuhr were exponents of ‘enchanted scepticism’. In response to totalitarianism and the disenchantment of the world, they sought to ‘initiate a spiritual public rebirth’ comprising three main elements: ‘a recovery of transcendent purpose in civic discourse; a redefinition of
Realism 139 in poetry, and in everything poetical that obtained poi¯eses as its proper name’.74 In the ‘Letter on Humanism’ Heidegger holds that ‘[t]he tragedies of Sophocles . . . preserve the ¯ethos in their sayings more primordially than Aristotle’s lectures on “ethics” ’.75 Still, the idea that thinking and poi¯eses, whatever their value, can limit technological domination may strike observers as fanciful in the extreme. On the surface, it does indeed strain our credulity to think that such