AUFB5102 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

NEO-REALISM - Survival or the maintenance of

sovereignty is the basic motive
2. INTRODUCTION driving states.

How to Define and Discuss Neo- Generally, accepted opinion is that there is
Realism not one Realism, but many, in attempt to
delineate different types of Realism. The
Discussion on Neo-Realism as a simplest distinction is dividing by historical
theory in the field of International periods:
Relations cannot be relevant without
consideration that Neo-Realism is the part - Classical Realism (up to the
or branch of realism as broader twentieth century);
theoretical approach to International - Modern Realism (1939-1979);
Relations. Because of that, before - Neo-Realism (1979 onwards).
discussion on neo-realism it is needed to -
be given general review of realism theory An alternative form of classification is
in purpose of better understanding of Neo- thematic which R. B. Walker establishes
Realist approach. and it is one of the most convincing. This
division is presented below:2
Realism has been the dominant theory
of world politics since the beginning of a. Structural Realism I (Human
academic International Relations in 1919, nature)
because it has provided the most powerful
explanation for the state of war which is Key thinkers: Thucydides (c. 430-400 BC)
the regular condition of life in the and Morgenthau (1948)
international system. Outside of the Key texts: The Peloponnesian War
academy, Realism has a much longer and Politics Among Nations
history. Skepticism about the capacity of Idea: International politics is
human reason to deliver moral progress driven by an endless struggle for power,
appears through the work of classical which has its roots in human nature.
political theorists such as Thucydides, Justice, law, and society have either no
Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau.1 place or are circumscribed.
Actually, Realism is a particular view of the
world, or paradigm, defined by the b. Historical or Practical Realism
following assumptions: Key thinkers: Machiavelli (1532) and
Carr (1939)
- The international realm is Key texts: The Prince and
anarchic and consists of The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939
independent political units Idea: Political realism recognizes
called states; that principles are subordinated to
policies; the ultimate skill of the state
- States are the primary actors leader is to accept, and adapt to, the
and inherently possess some changing power political configurations in
offensive military capability or world politics.
power which makes them
potentially dangerous to each c. Structural Realism II
other; (International System)
Key thinkers: Rousseau (c. 1750) and
- State can never be sure about Waltz (1979)
the intentions of other states; Key texts: The State of War and
Theory of International Politics
1
Idea: It is not human nature, but
Timothy Dunne, “Realism”, John Baylis and
the anarchical system, which fosters fear,
Steve Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World
Politics, New York: Oxford University Press Inc.,
2
1997, p. 112. Ibid. p. 113

0
 AUFB5102 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
jealousy, suspicion, and insecurity.
Conflict can emerge even if the actors
have benign intent towards each other.
d. Structural Realism II
(International System)
Key thinkers: Hobbes (1651) and Bull
(1977)
Key texts: Leviathan and The
Anarchical Society
Idea: The international anarchy can
be cushioned by states who have the
capability to deter other states from
aggression, and who are able to construct
elementary rules for their coexistence.
3. DISCUSSION
Neorealism
Neo-Realism is essentially, a
systemic, balance of power theory
developed by Kenneth Waltz in which
states do not seek to maximise power, but
simply balance it. In addition, because the
international system is regarded as
anarchic and based on self-help, the most
powerful units set the scene of action for
others as well as themselves. These
major powers are referred to as poles;
hence, the international system (or a
regional subsystem), at a particular point
in time, may be characterized as unipolar,
bipolar or multipolar.
In the face of these challenges,
and of the rising importance of economic
issues on the international agenda, the
school of realists previously confined to
historical and philosophic reflection
generated a new body of work, 'neo-
realism'. If the 'neo-' served in some
measure to conceal the reassertion of
traditional themes - on state, power, and
conflict - it also reflected two important
revisions of the earlier agenda. Firstly, a
much greater attention to the role of the
economic in inter-state relations, as a
mercantilist and competitive instrument of
state power. Secondly, a theoretical
revision, in an attempt to make the theory
more rigorous and to exempt it from the
methodological assaults to which the
previous generation had been subjected.
Perhaps the most influential of these
1
statements of neo-realism was Kenneth
Waltz's Theory of International Politics.3
Waltz's reputation in the field of
international relations was established
with the publication of Man, the State, and
War in 1959. In that work he compared
three 'images' of the origins of war - the
nature of man, the domestic constitution of
states, and the international system. He
concluded that it was the third image,
which provided the basis for a theory of
the causes of war. Yet, Man, the State,
and War, a lucid statement of the realist
position, achieved its apparently
inexorable conclusions at the expense of
two issues. First, its distribution of
interpretations of conflict between three,
apparently separate, compartments did
violence to the way in which many
provided explanations that straddled
Waltz's divide: thus most theories based
on image one, human nature, provided a
'nurture'- socialization, account of human
personality and behavior; more
importantly, Waltz's theories based on
image two, liberalism and Marxism, both
contained an international dimension as
an essential part of their explanation.4
Secondly, as in his 1979 work, Waltz
contrasts what he terms 'reductionist' with
'systemic' theories, those which explain
international relations in terms of the
internal as opposed to those who look
only at the international system. The
argument he adduces to support this is
that there is a regularity of outcomes in
international relations that persists despite
changes in the character of actors.5 The
consequence Waltz draws is, therefore,
that it is no more necessary to study the
character of states in international
relations that it is necessary, when
analyzing markets, to study the internal
workings of firms. As will be discussed
below, this is a questionable conclusion.
Theory of International Politics
begins with an assertion of the need for,
3
Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations,
London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1994, p. 31.
4
Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A
Theoretical Analysis, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1959, pp. 52-57.
5
Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations,
p. 32.
 AUFB5102 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
and possibility of, theory in the study of
international relations, and of the
importance of analyzing the structure o
inter-state relations. By structure he
means 'a set of constraining conditions'
and he exemplifies this in the international
realm b' reference to two processes:
socialization (i.e. the acceptance h states
of certain behavior) and competition.
The structure of the international political
system is in Waltz's view characterized by
three features above all:6
- by the fact that it is anarchic,
in the sense of their being no
higher authority;
- that there is no
differentiation of function
between different units, i.e.
all states perform roughly
the same functions; and
- by an unequal distribution of
capacities, i.e. the distinction
between great and small
powers.
From these general propositions he
derives a number of other conclusions:
that the central mechanism of the
international political system is the
balance of power, and that the nature of
an inter-state system at any one time is
given by the character and number of its
great powers. The world since 1945 had
been constituted by relations between two
great powers and is therefore one of
bipolarity, in contrast to the multipolarity of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Waltz takes the opportunity of his
retelling of realism to apply his theory to a
number of contemporary issues in
international relations. For Waltz, the
post-1945 bipolar system was desirable,
since it reduced the risks of conflict. In the
international system, he claims, small is
better. Turning to the question of
managing international relations, Waltz
argues, against those stressing
international institutions or diffusion of
power that the key lays in constructive
management of international relations by
the great powers.
6 arguments Waltz advances for this are
Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International
Relations, Ontario: Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, 1979, p. 66.
2
If Waltz's statement about the low
death of states is taken as characteristic
of the structure he is discussing, then that
structure is a very recent creation indeed,
post-dating not only the emergence of an
international system in Europe in the
seventeenth century, but also the end of
colonialism.
This ahistorical perspective is
reinforced by the absence of any history of
the system itself, and in particular of the
origins of the contemporary state system
in the post-mediaeval period, and its
relation to the rise of capitalism. Since
Waltz aspires to a strictly 'political'
analysis of international relations, and has
a corresponding 'national-territorial'
concept of the state, there is no room in
his view for the concept of capitalism and
for a study of the relationship of the rise of
distinct states to the international spread
of capitalism.
Indeed, for all its concern with
international process, and, more recently
with international economic processes, the
literature on international relations seems
remarkably shy of using the term
'capitalism' at all. One of the
consequences of this neglect is that realist
theory, and the history it implies, has a
distinctive account of how states and the
international system interrelate. Military
competition and the expansion of a
market, together with the existence of a
shared culture, were not the results of, but
the preconditions for, the emergence of
the state system. The orthodox view that
states arose first and then began to
interrelate to constitute an international
system bears about as much relation to
reality as the myth of the social contract,
or the stork.
The confusion about the history
and definition of states is evident in the
second major difficulty with Waltz's
analysis, namely the claim that
international relations can and should be
studied at a purely systemic level. The
rudimentary: that there is sufficient
regularity in inter-state relations to enable
 AUFB5102 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
us to dispense with examinations of the
internal workings of states, and the, more
general, claim that 'elegance' of theory is
desirable. Waltz's formulations on this
again, are revealing. His argument that
systemic factors must be taken into
account in analyzing international
relations, i.e. that states are not simply
free to do what they want and are
constrained by the
system as a whole is unexceptionable.
This is, however, quite different from
arguing that the internal processes of
states can be excluded altogether from a
theorization of international relations: the
move from saying international relations
cannot be studied 'simply' by looking at
the internal workings of states to saying
that the internal workings can be ignored
is an important, and invalid, one.
Perhaps, under the influence of
other uses of the term 'structure', such as
those in anthropology or linguistics, Waltz
is drawn to a usage that is deterministic
and denies the relevance of differences
between individual units: but, in so doing,
he conflates objects of analysis where
internal workings may well be irrelevant to
the workings of structure, such as
linguistics can be, with ones in which the
external and internal do interrelate to a
greater degree. States are not analogous
to morphemes, planets, or kinship
structures. Waltz is, of course, helped in
this denial of the relevance of 'internal
workings' by the standard International
Relations confusion about what the word
'state' means: in the first, legal-political,
sense of state it is strictly speaking
impossible to ask about their internal
workings, given the fact that all that is
internal is comprised by definition in the
concept of state. Instead, however, of
taking this as a good reason for
abandoning this conventional and
confusing concept of the state. Waltz
takes the national-territorial concept to its
logical conclusion and produces an
unbalanced theory of international
relations.
In his reply to critics, Waltz seems
willing to give some ground on this point,
but not to the extent of abandoning his
preference for a strictly 'systemic', as
3
opposed to 'reductionist', theory. In so
doing, however, he provides an example
which is at least as open to interpretation
by 'reductionist' as by 'systemic' theory:
France and Germany, he says, are no
longer at all likely to go to war, because of
their changed situation in the international
system, i.e. they are no longer great
powers.7 However, there are plenty of
medium and small powers in the world
that can and do go to war: Iran and Iraq,
or India and Pakistan, are hardly greater
powers than France or Germany. What
determines their option is not structural
position as such, but the combination of
this with internal factors - the kind of
historic experience they have had in the
twentieth century (not least two world
wars), the kind of political and socio-
economic regimes they maintain, and the
consequent alliances they have
developed. Based on this example, one
could well argue the opposite of Waltz's
case: that international relations cannot be
understood simply by looking at relations
between states.
The alternative Waltz poses -
either a reductionist or a systemic theory -
is not necessary: what is needed, as
several contributors to Neo-Realism, is a
theory that combines the internal and
external levels. As Ruggie points out, the
emergence of the modern state system
rested upon quite distinct kinds of state-
society relation that had considerable
impact on the workings of international
relations.
It is similarly evident that a study of
the international dimensions of revolution
can show both how international factors
affect the internal workings of states and
how these internal changes then, as a
result of revolutions, have effects on the
international system. Waltz, in common
with most realists, seeks to underplay the
international effects of revolutions and
takes pleasure in telling the story of how
the Bolshevik Revolution had, by 1922,
come to accept the norms of international
behavior: had, in other words, been
'socialized' by the structure. Socialization,
in the sense of accepting the prevailing
7
Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations,
p. 36.
 AUFB5102 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

norms of the system and the legitimacy of Bibliography

other major actors within it, had certainly
not occurred, any more than it had when
Chou En-Lai arrived in Geneva in 1954
and had tea with Anthony Eden. After the
Bolshevik Revolution, a long-run conflict,
one that acquired new life during and after
the Second World War, had begun: it
could not be explained merely by resort to
balance-of-power theory and the
abstractions of realism, but involved an
incompatibility of social and political
systems.8
Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International
Relations, Ontario: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company, 1979.
Waltz, Kenneth N., Man, the State and
War: A Theoretical Analysis, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1959.
Halliday, Fred, Rethinking International
Relations, London: The Macmillan Press
Ltd, 1994.

3. CONCLUSION Dunne, Timothy, “Realism”, John Baylis

and Steve Smith (eds.), The Globalization
Today, in post-cold war era of World Politics, New York: Oxford
Structural Realisam I seems not to be University Press Inc., 1997.
enough and to give predicable opinion for
further changing environment of
International Relations. That means that
Neo-Realism as Rationalists Theory has
fully approach to International Politics
theory together with Neo-Lieralism which
is leading theory in Iternational Politics,
today.

The Neo-Realism giving new dimension to

Globalization in World Politics with
following features:

- Neo-realists see anarchy as

placing more severe
constraints on state behavior;
- Neo-realists see international
co-operation as harder to
achieve, more difficult to
maintain and more dependent
on state power;
- Neo-realists assume that
international anarchy requires
states to be preoccupied with
issues of security and survival;
- Neo-realists concentrate on
capabilities rather than
intentions;
- Neo-realists do not think that
international institutions and
regimes can mitigate the
constraining effects of
international anarchy on co-
operation.

8
Ibid., p. 37