Classical Realism – Lebow
It recognizes the central role of power in politics of all kinds, but also the limitations of power and the ways
in which it can readily be made self-defeating. It stresses sensitivity to ethical dilemmas and their practical
implications and the need to base influence, whenever possible, on shared interests and persuasion.
Introduction
Kenneth Waltz, father of neorealism, denuded the realism of its complexity and subtlety,
appreciation of agency and understanding that power is most readily transformed into influence
when it is both masked and embedded in a generally accepted system of norms.
Neorealism
o Key terms: power and polarity
o Its scope conditions are left undefined
o It relies on a process akin to natural selection to shape the behaviour of units in a world
where successful strategies are not necessarily passed on to successive leaders and where
the culling of less successful units rarely occurs.
o Neorealism is unfalsifiable
o Its decline was hastened by the end of the Cold War, which many scholars understood as
critical test case for a theory that sought to explain the stability of the bipolar world. The
end of the Cold War and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union also turned scholarly
and public attention to a new range of political problems to which neorealism was
irrelevant.
Classical realism
o The principal thinkers in this tradition – Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, Carl von
Clausewitz and Hans J. Morgenthau – are concerned with questions of order, justice and
change, at the domes- tic, regional and international levels.
o Classical realists stress the similarities, not the differences, between domestic and
international politics
o They emphasize the importance of ethics and community in promoting stability in both
domains. In keeping with their tragic understanding of life, they recognize that communal
bonds are fragile and easily undermined by the unrestrained pursuit of unilateral
advantage by individuals, factions and states. When this happens, time-honoured
mechanisms of conflict management like alliances and the balance of power may not only
fail to preserve the peace but may make domestic and international violence more likely.
o Like Greek playwrights, classical realists tend to regard history as cyclical, in the sense
that efforts to build order and escape from fear-driven worlds, while they may succeed for
a considerable period of time, ultimately succumb to the destabilizing effects of actors
who believe they are too powerful to be constrained by law and custom.
o Classical realists understand great powers to be their own worst enemies when success
and the hubris it engenders encourage them to see themselves outside of and above their
1
, community. Such a self-understanding blinds them to the need for self-restraint and
prompts aggressive and self-defeating foreign policies.
o Thucydides & Morgenthau - Their belief that theoretical knowledge is not an end in itself,
but a starting point for actors to work their way through contemporary problems and, in
the process, come to deeper forms of understanding.
Classical realison on order and stability
Community, order, and stability
Most realists have a straightforward answer to the problem of order: effective central authority.
Governments that defend borders, enforce laws and protect citizens make domestic politics more
peaceful and qualitatively different from international politics. The international arena remains a
self-help system, a ‘brutal arena where states look for opportunities to take advantage of each
other’ (Mearsheimer, 1994–5). Survival depends on a state’s material capabilities and its alliances
with other states (Waltz, 1979: 103–104).
For classical realists, all politics is an expression of human drives and subject to the same
pathologies.
Morgenthau’s understanding of the relationship between domestic and international politics
mirrors that of Thucydides. He makes a sharp distinction between international and domestic
politics which he then sys-tematically undermines.
o All politics, he insists, is a struggle for power that is ‘inseparable from social life itself’
(1948a: 17–18). In many countries, laws, institutions and norms direct the struggle for
power into ritualized and socially acceptable channels. In the international arena, the
struggle cannot so readily be tamed.
Morgenthau recognized the same variation in domestic politics.
o In strong societies like Britain and the United States, norms and institutions muted the
struggle for power, but in weak societies like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union,
they broke down. Politics in these latter countries was every bit as violent and
unconstrained as in any epoch of international relations.
For Morgenthau, as for Thucydides, communities and the identities and norms
they help to create and sustain are the most critical determinants of order, at home
and abroad.
Balance of power
Contemporary realists consider military capability and alliances the foundation of security.
For Morgenthau, the universality of the power drive means that the balance of power was ‘a
general social phenomenon to be found on all levels of social interaction’ (1958: 49, 81). Indi-
viduals, groups and states inevitably combine to protect themselves from predators.
o At the international level, the balance of power has contradictory implications for peace. It
might deter war if status quo powers outgun imperialist challengers and successfully
demonstrate their resolve to go to war in defense of the status quo. Balancing can also
intensify tensions and make war more likely because of the impossibility of accurately
assessing the motives, capability and resolve of other states. Leaders understandably aim
to achieve a margin of safety, and when multiple states or alliances act this way, they
2
It recognizes the central role of power in politics of all kinds, but also the limitations of power and the ways
in which it can readily be made self-defeating. It stresses sensitivity to ethical dilemmas and their practical
implications and the need to base influence, whenever possible, on shared interests and persuasion.
Introduction
Kenneth Waltz, father of neorealism, denuded the realism of its complexity and subtlety,
appreciation of agency and understanding that power is most readily transformed into influence
when it is both masked and embedded in a generally accepted system of norms.
Neorealism
o Key terms: power and polarity
o Its scope conditions are left undefined
o It relies on a process akin to natural selection to shape the behaviour of units in a world
where successful strategies are not necessarily passed on to successive leaders and where
the culling of less successful units rarely occurs.
o Neorealism is unfalsifiable
o Its decline was hastened by the end of the Cold War, which many scholars understood as
critical test case for a theory that sought to explain the stability of the bipolar world. The
end of the Cold War and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union also turned scholarly
and public attention to a new range of political problems to which neorealism was
irrelevant.
Classical realism
o The principal thinkers in this tradition – Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, Carl von
Clausewitz and Hans J. Morgenthau – are concerned with questions of order, justice and
change, at the domes- tic, regional and international levels.
o Classical realists stress the similarities, not the differences, between domestic and
international politics
o They emphasize the importance of ethics and community in promoting stability in both
domains. In keeping with their tragic understanding of life, they recognize that communal
bonds are fragile and easily undermined by the unrestrained pursuit of unilateral
advantage by individuals, factions and states. When this happens, time-honoured
mechanisms of conflict management like alliances and the balance of power may not only
fail to preserve the peace but may make domestic and international violence more likely.
o Like Greek playwrights, classical realists tend to regard history as cyclical, in the sense
that efforts to build order and escape from fear-driven worlds, while they may succeed for
a considerable period of time, ultimately succumb to the destabilizing effects of actors
who believe they are too powerful to be constrained by law and custom.
o Classical realists understand great powers to be their own worst enemies when success
and the hubris it engenders encourage them to see themselves outside of and above their
1
, community. Such a self-understanding blinds them to the need for self-restraint and
prompts aggressive and self-defeating foreign policies.
o Thucydides & Morgenthau - Their belief that theoretical knowledge is not an end in itself,
but a starting point for actors to work their way through contemporary problems and, in
the process, come to deeper forms of understanding.
Classical realison on order and stability
Community, order, and stability
Most realists have a straightforward answer to the problem of order: effective central authority.
Governments that defend borders, enforce laws and protect citizens make domestic politics more
peaceful and qualitatively different from international politics. The international arena remains a
self-help system, a ‘brutal arena where states look for opportunities to take advantage of each
other’ (Mearsheimer, 1994–5). Survival depends on a state’s material capabilities and its alliances
with other states (Waltz, 1979: 103–104).
For classical realists, all politics is an expression of human drives and subject to the same
pathologies.
Morgenthau’s understanding of the relationship between domestic and international politics
mirrors that of Thucydides. He makes a sharp distinction between international and domestic
politics which he then sys-tematically undermines.
o All politics, he insists, is a struggle for power that is ‘inseparable from social life itself’
(1948a: 17–18). In many countries, laws, institutions and norms direct the struggle for
power into ritualized and socially acceptable channels. In the international arena, the
struggle cannot so readily be tamed.
Morgenthau recognized the same variation in domestic politics.
o In strong societies like Britain and the United States, norms and institutions muted the
struggle for power, but in weak societies like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union,
they broke down. Politics in these latter countries was every bit as violent and
unconstrained as in any epoch of international relations.
For Morgenthau, as for Thucydides, communities and the identities and norms
they help to create and sustain are the most critical determinants of order, at home
and abroad.
Balance of power
Contemporary realists consider military capability and alliances the foundation of security.
For Morgenthau, the universality of the power drive means that the balance of power was ‘a
general social phenomenon to be found on all levels of social interaction’ (1958: 49, 81). Indi-
viduals, groups and states inevitably combine to protect themselves from predators.
o At the international level, the balance of power has contradictory implications for peace. It
might deter war if status quo powers outgun imperialist challengers and successfully
demonstrate their resolve to go to war in defense of the status quo. Balancing can also
intensify tensions and make war more likely because of the impossibility of accurately
assessing the motives, capability and resolve of other states. Leaders understandably aim
to achieve a margin of safety, and when multiple states or alliances act this way, they
2
