Talk:Realism (international relations)/Archive 1

US-centric Tag
I think there ought to be a US-centric tag here. This article seems to be fairly US centric, with little mention of other points of view.

Realism is a quite US centric theory, considering the majority of realist theorists were schooled and taught there.


 * That's the first I've heard of that. Most of the famous Realists were from Europe, as far as I recall—wouldn't you call Metternich and Bismark realists? CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * CRGreathouse is right; moreover, this article features the English school, which is clearly not US. But the reason for the heavy presence of US scholarship in Realism in this article is that most of the Realist theoretical debate takes place within US academia.  My experience is that scholars from other countries interested in Realist theory simply come to the United States to study.  I don't think that it would be fair to put a US-centric tag here. If the article overlooks important contributions of non-US Realist scholars, please enlighten us and incorporate them into the article.  But if it is US-centric simply because Realist research takes place within the US, then that would be the same as putting a US-centric tag on an article about American football.  --Treemother199 04:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a distinction between structural realism and liberal realism???
I really don't believe that neoliberal istitutionalism can be considered as a part of political realism. I got used to imagine the liberal theory and the realist one as two separed and opposed theories. While they have the same basic concept(Anarchical structure of the system), the neoliberal theory emphazises the role of international institutions to reach peace and harmony in the international system, while realist thought is strictly related to the idea of State (the entity who defines the role of institutions). There is an inner debate in realism, related to the relevancy of power or security in states'purposes, but surely, for the institutionalis teory, the ultimate purpose of states is the overcome of Anarchy, seen as a problem for the pacification of the system. This concerns the role of war, for realists it's to be considered as a political mean, for liberals it's caused by a distortion of the system (the anarchical structure), so it's to be overcome by the reach of a gerarchical system structure (e.g by the creation of a world government...) I believe that the author fell in a considerable mistake. --Alessandro


 * Hi Alessandro, I believe that the article is referring to the realism of Hedley Bull and Zbigniew Brzezinski when it refers to "Liberal realism." I agree with you that neoliberal institutionalism is not part of the realist school of thought.  I'll try to edit the article to make this distinction clearer.  Thanks! &mdash;thames 14:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

hmmm, it appear that i mistakely presumed it was rummel promotion. FWBOarticle

Minimal/Maximal Realism????
I am currently taking an International Relations course in college and it I believe i can explain the minimal/maximal realism question. Both the supposed minimal and maximal realist theories are based in neo-liberalism, which is differentiated by the fact that balance of power is the independent variable in the system. Multi-polar and uni-polar situations are inheriently more dangerous because power is not properly balanced. In these situations weaker countries can choose either to bandwagon, join sides with the strong country, this is what the article incorrectly calls Maximal Realism. Or weak countries can balance, by joining together against the strong country in the system, this is what the article calls Minimal Realism I hope this helps. (JasonSolo1 06:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC))

JasonSolo1, so you have a source for this though? --Nargos 22:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I have just followed a university course in International Relations Theories. I have asked my prof (who has taught the course for many years and has written many theoretical articles) about maximal and minimal realism. He responded that he has never heard of such a concept, and in all his years of studying (up to a doctorate) and teaching IR he has never heard of such concepts. The same goes for the notion of "structural/liberal" realism. It would be great if the author of this section of the article could include a few citations rather than making such broad and unfounded statements.--Nargos 22:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of minimal or maximal realism either. I believe the more commonly accepted terms are "defensive realism" (associated with Gilpin) and "offensive realism" (associated with Mearshimer) respectively.  I'm inclined to remove the minimal/maximal terminology and replace it with defensive/offensive.  Structural realism is the same thing as neorealism--Kenneth Waltz wrote a book about it, see scholarly uses here.  Kupchan wrote a book about liberal realism (it's often associated with Hedley Bull and the English School), see here for other scholarly uses.&mdash;thames 01:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Rationalism is usually the term use to describe the English school, as expoused by Bull and Wight. See Birchill (ed) et al, 2005, Theories of International Relations. --Hadros@yahoo.com 05:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I "sort of" find a reference to minimal/maximal realism by googling. Here is the article.
 * "At minimum all political entities seek security, at maximum they may have a more extensive agenda and pursue world conquest. (Dougherty & Pfaltzgraff, Jr; op.cit.,,p.58)"

Now, though minimal/maximal realism isn't accepted term of school of realism, this distinction is a valid/relevant debate of realism. We should rephrase the sentence rather than deleting it. FWBOarticle

Unfortunately, once source is not good enough for an article such as this. It takes away from lots of the credibility of Wikipedia. I have looked into it and yes, structural/liberal realism is in fact accepted. But I think it would be great if someone here could modify the whole section of minimal/maximal realism. Delete it if need be, and add an external link to the article you were talking about. I think that you would need an actualy academic book to be able to back up claims of the existence of minimal/maximal realism. --Nargos 02:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * For as far as I know: minimal realism is a reaction to maximal realism. Minimal realism limits itselfs to its basic assumptions (strive for power/security, states most important actors, states as rational and unitary actors, etc.), while maximal realisme wants to solve the known disadvantages of realisme - by for instance trying to assimilate advantages of other theories - includes a lot more and thus often becomes theoretically fuzzy. Liberal realisme is a minor theoretical stream (e.g. Hedley Bull of the English School), while structural realism (as first formulated by Kenneth Waltz and reformulated by - among others - Barry Buzan) is one of the most dominant streams of realisme. Sijo Ripa 12:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Where is your sourcing on this though? Which actual theorists have actually written about minimal and maximal realism? That's what I'm looking for- sources for the info displayed here. --Nargos 19:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Though I don't have time to read it all, I think the following article deals (among other things) with the matter. J. LEGRO & A. MORAVCSIK, Is Anybody Still a Realist?, 1998, pp. 6-35. Sijo Ripa 21:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

When I said "rephrase", i meant removing the reference to "minimal/maximum realism" while keeping the debate alive. FWBOarticle

I think that the minimal/maximal theory should be realised as part of a wider spectrum of all country's (and their inhabitants) rules and laws. These matters are crucial and with the alliances and differences in power they should not co-exist peacefully and yet they do.

What to do to improve this page
Can't do it myself, because it takes too much time. Some suggestions:
 * 1) Correct origin of the term Realism. If I recall correctly, the term in its international relations meaning was first used in Politics among nations (written by Hans Morgenthau). By using the term "realism" he wanted to point out what the reality of international relations is. Furthermore, I wouldn't consider Realpolitik and Realism the same. Some differences are:
 * A. Realpolitik is not a theory, but a mode of thought. It most resembles classic realism, which also isn't a theory, but even then it still isn't the same, as Realism makes certain assumptions, which Realpolitik doesn't.
 * B. Realpolitik prescribes a way to conduct foreign policy, and is not about decribing, explaining and predicting international relations. This does not mean that realist theories can't prescribe (and they often do), but they are theories about IR in the first instance.
 * C. Realpolitik is only remotely related to neorealism, liberal realism and constructivist realism.

Sijo Ripa 21:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Correct meaning of maximal and minimal realism: Current meaning on article page is incorrect.
 * 2) Add liberal realism.
 * 3) Add neoclassical realism, a reformulation of classic realism. This theoretical approach is relatively new and based on human nature like classic realism (rather than on structure, like the other relatively new theoretical approach of neorealism)
 * 4) Add constructivist realism, a minor new realist approach that assimilates certain elements of constructivism.

Some very good ideas in there, though I'm still rather uneasy with the adding in of minal realism. Notice how in the article that you gave, anytime minimal realism was evoked it was put under quotation marks. I think it would be faulty to speak of minimal realism as canon. --Nargos 00:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, I think a correction needs to be made in terms of the original definition. Realism defines state's interests in terms of military and/or economic power (NOT SECURITY - that is an addendum of NEO-realism/structural realism). Although we have told our students not to rely on the accuracy of wikipedia, it could be improved to be a reliable source. One of my students got a lower grade on her midterm because she answered the question of what motivates states according to realism with the answer "security" and referred to wikipedia as the source. -Lisa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.227.230 (talk) 01:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review request
Editors interested in this topic might like to take part in peer review on a new version of Global justice I've been working on. Cheers, --Sam Clark 11:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism: non-state actors
I think the non-state actors subsection needs some work, and I wanted to get some feedback on it.

First, the example about the UN seems out of place. A realist would not suggest that the US should/would not seek UN aproval, but that the act of seeking UN approval is in fact a diplomactic act to gain the approval of other state actors (in this case, Russia and France especially). The criticism, then, has to be that the US effort was focuses less on the nations whose approval was sought and more on nations with influence on the Security Council. The particular example has them coincide a bit much to make a good argument... perhaps another, similar example?

Second, the EU. The problem it presents is identification: at what point does a supranational organization become a nation for the purpose of unitary actorhood? For other theories this is less of a problem, as they could have individual nations slowly lose power as the EU gained state-like power, but for realism there must be a quantum transition where all the power is transferred from the member states to the EU, before which time the EU is powerless.

Any thoughts? CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Grammatical errors?
There are two sentences that appear to me to be ungrammatical. Both appear in the Criticisms of Realism section. Are these considered grammatical in any of the Englishes? Are they garden path sentences? Or are they just residual syntax errors from late-night editing?

Sentence-in-question #1: The second sentence in the second paragraph of the Criticisms of Realism section:

"Realists respond that as the divisions within the EU on everything from agreeing on a constitution to agricultural policies, states may just be joining in pursuit of their own rational self-interest."

Sentence-in-question #2: The fifth sentence in the third paragraph of the same section:

"The focus should lie on the powerful states, and 'outliers' (such as failed states) do not general explanatory power Realism would offer."

Does anyone care to coment?

~Smith


 * Good finds, they should both be rewritten. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Realism and "moral" power?
Is moral power really a "common" assumption of realist IR? As I understand it this was essentially abandoned in mainstream realism after E.H. Carr's invoking of "power over opinion." Certainly it cannot be included in any theory of structural realism as change is seen as exogenous to the state and naturally individuals as well, what Yosef Lapid referred to as the "eliminability of the human."

The concept of "morals" or "morality" being a variable of interest to realists is explicitly rejected by Morgenthau. He does admit that there are moral principles that man will be "influenced by moral codes, but states are not moral agents." (Quote is from Burchill et. al.). "Prudential behavior based on judicious assessments of the consequences arising out of alternative political choices is the guiding law for realists." (quote is from the same). Normally one theorists opinion on a variable is insufficient to prove the character of the field, but given that the claim is that moral power is a common assumption, and the overwhelming influence of Morgethau, it seems that this makes a good case that this assumption is not "common" among realists.

See Scott Burchill et. al., Theories of International Relations, (New York, Palgrave, 2001), pp. 79-80.

Alexander Wendt discusses the incompatibilty of realism, especially neorealism, with variables that are not materialist in Social Theory of International Politics. Admittedly he is a constructivist, but his point is valid.

If neorealists do not use the variable of moral power to determine capabilty it cannot be a common assumption of the strain of thought.

For the Lapid reference see Yosef Lapid, “The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Relations Theory in a Post-Positivist Era,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3. (Sep., 1989), p. 240. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.230.174.224 (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

Complex realism, fundamentalism, constitutionalism, and structuralism
I've noted that these terms aren't really discussed in this article. Does anyone mind if I restructure it to include them? Trampled - talk 18:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Go for it. Just remember to A) cite your sources, and B) present the state of the debate, not one school over another, or criticisms as if they were facts.  Otherwise, be super bold.  If you follow those rules, you needn't even ask permission beforehand.  Have a blast.&mdash;Perceval 08:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Rose needs a year for its cite: 1998 I believe

Request: Move to Political realism
Renaming the article to "Political realism" would both simplify the current article title and bring it inline to the common name used to refer to this field. It is unnecessarily cumbersome to use this long title, when the term "political realism" has wide acceptance and usage (see here.) I have made a formal request to move this page because I wasn't able to do it myself, something was "in the way" it seems. --Lucretius 20:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've moved the page, per your request. If anybody opposes the move, I hope they'll post something here and let us know. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms?
I'm not sure that either democratic peace theory or federalism could be accurately described as criticisms of realism.

Democratic peace theory is a rival apporach to explaining the behaviour of states but does not set out to refute the underlying principles of realism. Rather, it simply proposes an alternative. Federalism seems to be getting way off-topic. Federalism describes a particular way of structuring the institutions of government whereas realism is an explanation of how the international system works. They are almost completely unrelated.

I would be very suprised to find references that supported the idea that these are criticisms of realism. In the absence of such references, this section should be removed.Bazley B 02:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you Bazley B. --Lucretius 23:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

"Political Realism" has got to be the most obnoxiously titled academic theory outside of "Philosophical Objecticism". But thats not really about this article, just thought I'd put that out there. :) 124.178.170.71 (talk) 03:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that things like Multipolarity, or even the existence of international organizations including the United Nations as underminding the legitimacy of this theory are absent from the criticism section, yet two theories that don't even seem to be directly contradictory to the realist theory are? It seems to me that the criticism section of this article needs a lot of wrok. -- False Prophet (talk) 19:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Add them, well cited of course. Although I don't know how the existence of the United Nations in and of itself as an argument against political realism.  I think arguments in favor of cooperation for the common good and perhaps game theory results indicating the need for developing trust and a shared set of rules would be major criticisms, but I'm no expert. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Liberal Realism
I don't think it's correct to include the English School in the article on realism for the simple reason that the foremost English School theorist, Hedley Bull, said "I am not a realist." I could go further into Wight's distinction over Hobbesian, Kantian and Grotian traditions of thought, but I think the quote summerises quite succinently. 143.167.174.30 (talk) 14:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Realism leads to instability?
I'm concerned about this sentence: "This aggressive build-up, however, leads to a security dilemma where rational actors increasing each one's security can bring along greater instability as the opponent(s) builds up its own arms." In addition to not being terribly well written, it contains a highly contestable point: that Realism leads to greater instability. I think this is far from a universally held view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.3.130.129 (talk) 19:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Needs to be worded better. How about: "This can lead to an arms race that comes with its own political economic, and security challenges."? ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Note 6
There is a footnote 6 that starts "But see" and then references an article by M. Kahler. Given where its superscript is placed in the text, the note makes no sense. It should either be explained/clarified or removed.Redound (talk) 15:25, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Subjective Sentence
″Neoclassical realism is particularly appealing from a research standpoint because it still retains a lot of the theoretical rigor that Waltz has brought to realism, but at the same time can easily incorporate a content-rich analysis, since its main method for testing theories is the process-tracing of case studies.″ I think this one is a bit subjective? How about changing it into: ″Neoclassical realism retains the theoretical rigor of Waltz' neorealism, while leaving room for content-rich analyses. Its main method for testing theories is the process-tracing of case studies.″? Even though I share your impression that neoclassical is an interesting perspective, I think the paragraph should be informative rather than judging.

Requested move
Realism in international relations theory → Realism (international relations) – Better to use a disambiguator since the phrase "realism in international relations theory" is not commonly used. Also this would be consistent with idealism (international relations). –CWenger ( ^ •  @ ) 02:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed as per consistency to other articles and also the Article (One word descriptor) convention. JoshuaJohnLee talk softly, please 04:12, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Current title suggests that this is a colloquial expression which could not be further from the truth, the move would be also consistent with the standard naming convention. Wladthemlat (talk) 18:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've moved the page as per the above request, and reworked the intro paragraph to reflect this. --Hadal (talk) 09:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense sentence
"The international that runs through the bloodline is a system in a constant state of antagonism."

This does not make any sense. --- Desertphile, Dec 23 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.19.14.19 (talk) 07:06, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested moves

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move. Cúchullain t/ c 13:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

– 20:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC) This page should be moved in line with standard practice; per PRECISION and NCDAB, a parenthetical is called for here. In a previous discussion, an editor proposed (international relations theory) instead of (international relations); however the addition of the word theory is not common practice - for example, we have String (physics) not String (physics theory); in addition, there are already several other IR articles with the parenthetical disambiguation, like Neutrality (international relations). Note that some of the pages in this group were improperly moved in the past, e.g institutionalism in international relations and realism in international relations, so when moving these back could the closing admin please try to preserve their history rather than deleting (for example Realism (international relations) which is where much of the history of this page actually lies.) KarlB (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Realism in international relations → Realism (international relations)
 * Behaviouralism in international relations theory → Behaviouralism (international relations)
 * Anti-foundationalism in international relations theory → Anti-foundationalism (international relations)
 * Foundationalism in international relations theory → Foundationalism (international relations)
 * Rationalism in international relations → Rationalism (international relations)
 * Post-positivism in international relations theory → Post-positivism (international relations)
 * Functionalism in international relations → Functionalism (international relations)
 * Positivism in international relations theory → Positivism (international relations)
 * Post-structuralism in international relations theory → Post-structuralism (international relations)
 * Structuralism in international relations theory → Structuralism (international relations)
 * Anarchy in international relations → Anarchy (international relations)
 * Neoliberalism in international relations → Neoliberalism (international relations)
 * Institutionalism in international relations → Institutionalism (international relations)
 * Classical realism in international relations theory → Classical realism (international relations)
 * Neorealism in international relations → Neorealism (international relations)
 * Post-modernism in international relations → Post-modernism (international relations)
 * Postcolonialism in international relations → Postcolonialism (international relations)
 * Power in international relations → Power (international relations)
 * Polarity in international relations → Polarity (international relations)
 * Liberalism in international relations → Liberalism (international relations)
 * Feminism in international relations → Feminism (international relations)
 * Balancing in international relations → Balancing (international relations)
 * Balance of power in international relations → Balance of power (international relations)
 * Green Theory in international relations → Green theory (international relations)


 * It seems there are two categories of articles in this request. First, those of terms that have a distinct meaning in the realm of international relations (IR).  These include, by my reckoning:
 * Realism
 * Functionalism
 * Neoliberalism
 * Classical realism
 * Neorealism
 * Power
 * Polarity
 * Liberalism
 * Balancing
 * Balance of power
 * I support moving those articles per nom as these are not broader approaches applied to IR but are uses of the terms unique to IR. The other articles, many of them one sentence stubs of questionable value that seem to be used to populate navigation templates, deal with terms that do not have a distinct meaning in IR.  These articles instead illustrate how a particular broader approach is applied in IR (e.g., Feminism in international relations).  These should remain at their current titles and I oppose their move.  —  AjaxSmack   22:48, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support with the exception of Green Theory (international relations), which should correct the capitalisation to Green theory (international relations). -- RA (talk) 22:59, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I changed the nom above to reflect this capitalization fix. per comment of AjaxSmack, if you look at the feminism article, it seems to be a specific strand of feminism, derived from a different theoretical basis than mainstream feminism, and thus I still think a disambig/paren term is warranted. --KarlB (talk) 23:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Green Theory and Green theory are redlinks. Why not use the plain title without the qualifier? Jafeluv (talk) 10:12, 15 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Support However, I also share the concerns about feminism and green theory. -- Jprg1966  (talk)  15:54, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Cleanup after copy-and-paste move
Karl.brown pointed out that the page histories of Realism in international relations and Realism (international relations) had been improperly split via copy-and-paste move. It should be sorted out now. The original page history can be found here (Realism (international relations)); history from after the split can be found at Realism in international relations, now a redirect. Discussion previously located at Talk:Realism (international relations) has been moved to Talk:Realism (international relations)/Archive 1.--Cúchullain t/ c 18:40, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Not my area so I'm not sure of the best way to merge it, but we probably shouldn't have a standalone section on what minor (?) Oxford academic Nayef Al-Rodhan's thinks about realism. (An editor seems to have been creating brand new sections in various articles to describe Al-Rodhan's particular take on each subject, rather than contributing to a relevant section of the existing content.) Is he just part of the neoclassical movement? --McGeddon (talk) 11:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Nietzsche and Schmitt
Just in to note that the followig authors might be good additions to the historic antecedents

Friedrich Nietzsche - a German philosopher describing the will to power as the main driving force in humans

Carl Schmitt - a German political theorist, known for defining politics as the realm of the friend-enemy distinction

Heinkhel (talk) 21:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Relation to Realpolitik
I propose to eliminate the opening "cautionary" statement "Not to be confused with realpolitik", and to add a section explaining what the connections between both are. To this purpose I propose to include a section from the Realpolitik article:

"Realpolitik is related to the philosophy of political realism, and both suggest working from the hypothesis that it is chiefly based on the pursuit, possession, and application of power. (See also power politics) Realpolitik, however, is a prescriptive guideline limited to policy-making (like foreign policy), while realism is a descriptive paradigm, a wider theoretical and methodological framework, aimed at describing, explaining and, eventually, predicting events in the international relations domain."

The section title could simply be Realpolitik.--Auró (talk) 21:02, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

"Predominant"? Says who?
"Realism is the *predominant* school of thought in international relations theory..."

There's no citation or proof of this assertion.

84.62.37.142 (talk) 10:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)