Realism’s Timeless Wisdom and its Relevance for the Global South

Year 2024, Volume: 13 Issue: 1, 1 - 19, 24.01.2024

Nicolas Alexander Beckmann Onur Erpul

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.1413433

Abstract

Since the numerous calls for developing a truly global and plural IR discipline,
a growing spate of IR studies have sought to contextualize and critique the
Euro-centeredness of the field. One of the most significant problems scholars
have pointed out is the hegemonic status of Anglo-American IR theories, which
seemingly assert an ontological preeminence and universality at the expense of
local knowledge and homegrown theories. While the present article shares many
of global IR’s concerns, it nevertheless proposes that in our quest to teach IR
and develop homegrown theories, we should not lose sight of the importance
of traditional contributions to the field. Our argument is based on a series of
reflections about the relevance of realist scholarship for the developing world.
Through an analysis of the major criticisms of classical IR theories, we seek to
show that classical and, to a lesser extent, structural and neoclassical realism
contain several and diverse arguments that speak directly to audiences in
the global South. Classical realism, in particular, shares some interesting
commonalities with postcolonial theory, which could pave the way for a more
systematic engagement between the two approaches. Therefore, we argue that
a global IR founded primarily on critiquing classical theories would be an
impoverished IR, and “the thousand small steps” to a globalized discipline ought
not neglect the valuable insights and reflections of traditional theory.

Keywords

IR theory, global IR, realism, postcolonialism

References

• Acharya, Amitav, and Barry Buzan. “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory? Ten Tears On.” International Relations of the Asia Pacific 17, no. 3 (2017): 341-370.
• Acharya, Amitav. “Global International Relations and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies.” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 4 (2014): 647-659.
• Acharya, Amitav. “How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism.” International Organization 58, no. 2 (2004): 239-275.
• Acharya, Amitav. “International Relations Theories and Western Dominance: Reassessing the Foundations of International Order.” In Rethinking Power, Institutions and Ideas in World Politics: Whose IR?, 23-43. London: Routledge, 2013.
• Agathangelou, Anna M., and L. H. M. Ling, “The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poesies of Worldism.” International Studies Review 6, no. 4 (2004): 21-49.
• Allison, Graham T., and Phillip Zelikow. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Pearson, 1999.
• Aydinli, Ersel, and Onur Erpul. “The False Promise of Global IR: Exposing the Paradox of Dependent Development.” International Theory 14, no. 3 (2022): 419-459.
• Aydinli, Ersel. “Methodology as a Lingua Franca in International Relations: Peripheral Self-reflections on Dialogue with the Core.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 13, no. 2 (2020): 287-312.
• Ayoob, Mohammed. “Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism.” International Studies Review 4, no. 3 (2002): 27-48.
• Biersteker, Thomas J. “The Parochialism of Hegemony: Challenges for ‘American’ International Relations.” In International Relations Scholarship Around the World, edited by Arlene Tickner and Ole Wæver, 308-341. London: Routledge, 2009.
• Booth, Ken. Strategy and Ethnocentrism. New York: Routledge, 1977.
• Buzan, Barry. “The Timeless Wisdom of Realism.” In International Theory: Positivism and beyond, edited by Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marilya Zelewski, 47-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Carr, E. H. “Part Two: The International Crisis.” In The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939, 22-94. London: Palgrave MacMillan, [1939, 1946, 1981, 2001] 2016.
• Colgan, Jeff D. “American Bias in Global Security Studies Data.” Journal of Global Security Studies 4, no. 3, (2019): 358-371.
• Colgan, Jeff D. “American Perspectives and Blind Spots on World Politics.” Journal of Global Security Studies 4, no. 3 (2019): 300-309.
• Colgan, Jeff D. “Where Is International Relations Going? Evidence from Graduate Training.” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2016): 486-498.
• Copeland, Dale. “The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism.” International Security 25, no. 2 (2000): 187-212.
• Cox, Michael. “A New Preface from Michael Cox, 2016.” In The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939, ix-xxii. London: Palgrave MacMillan, [1939, 1946, 1981, 2001] 2016.
• Cox, Michael. “Introduction.” In The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939, xxv-lxxiv. London: Palgrave MacMillan, [1939, 1946, 1981, 2001] 2016.
• Cox, Robert W. “Social Forces, States, and World Order: Beyond International Relations Theory.” Millennium 10, no. 2 (1981): 126-155.
• Cox, Robert W. “Towards a Post-Hegemonic Conceptualization of World Order: Reflections on the Relevancy of Ibn Khaldun.” In Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics, edited by. James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, 132-159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Dar, Arshid I. “Beyond Eurocentrism: Kautilya’s Realism and India’s Regional Diplomacy.” Humanity Social Sciences Community 8, no. 1 (2021): 1-7.
• Darby, Phillip. “A Disabling Discipline.” In The Oxford Handbook of International Relation, edited by Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, 94-105. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Desch, Michael C. “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy.” International Security 32, no. 3 (2007/08): 7-43.
• Deudney, Daniel, and Ikenberry, G. John. “Realism, Liberalism, and the Iraq War,” Survival 59, no. 4 (2017): 7-26.
• Diesting, Joshua Foa. “Pessimistic Realism and Realistic Pessimism.” In Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme, edited by Duncan Bell, 159-176. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Folker-Sterling, Jennifer. “All Hail to the Chief: Liberal IR Theory in the New World Order.” International Studies Perspectives 16, no. 1 (2016): 40-49.
• Fonseca, Melody. “Global IR and Western Dominance: Moving Forward or Eurocentric Entrapment?” Millennium, 48, no. 1 (2019): 45-59.
• Fortin, Carlos, Jorge Heine, and Carlos Ominami, eds. Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World: The Active Non-Alignment Option. New York: Anthem Press, 2023.
• Foulon, Michiel, and Gustav Meibauer. “Realist Avenues to Global International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 26, no. 4 (2020): 1203-1229.
• Griffiths, Martin. “Introduction: Conquest, Coexistence, and IR Theory.” In Rethinking International Relations Theory, 18-36. London: Palgrave, 2011.
• Grovogui, Siba N. “Postcolonialism.” In International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, 247-265. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Grovogui, Siba N. “Regimes of Sovereignty: International Morality and the African Condition.” European Journal of International Relations 8, no. 3 (2002): 315-338.
• Grovogui, Siba N. “Sovereignty in Africa: Quasi Statehood and Other Myths of International Theory.” In Africa’s Challenge to International Theory, edited by Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw, 29-45. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
• Henderson, Errol A. “Chapter 2: Africa’s Wars as New Wars – Dubious Dichotomies and Flattening History.” In African Realism? International Relations Theory and Africa’s Wars in the Postcolonial Era, 68-111. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
• Higgott, Richard. “Toward a Non-Hegemonic IPE: An Antipodean Perspective.” In The New International Political Economy, edited by C. Murphy and R. Tooze, 97-127. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991.
• Hobson, John J. “Constructing Civilization: Global Hierarchy, ‘Gradated Sovereignty’ and Globalization in International Theory, 1760–2010.” In The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010, 313-344. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Hobson, John J. “Part 1: Traditional Theories of the State and International Relations.” In The State and International Relations, 17-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Hoffman, Stanley. “An American Social Science: International Relations.” Daedalus 106, no. 3 (1977): 41-60.
• Kirshner, Jonathan. “Offensive Realism, Thucydides Traps, and the Tragedy of Unforced Errors: Classical Realism and US-China Relations.” China International Strategy Review 1 (2019): 51-63.
• Kirshner, Jonathan. “The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Classical Realism and the Rise of China.” European Journal of International Relations 18, no. 1 (2012): 53-75.
• Krippendorff, Ekkehart. “The Dominance of American Approaches in International Relations.” Millenium 16, no. 4 (1987): 207-214.
• Kristensen, Peter M. “How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-Officials in International Relations Discourse.” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2015): 637-653.
• Kristensen, Peter M. “Revisiting the ‘American Social Science’—Mapping the Geography of International Relations.” International Studies Perspectives 16, no. 3 (2015): 246-269.
• Laiz, Álvaro Morcillo. “The Cold War Origins of Global IR. The Rockefeller Foundation and Realism in Latin America.” International Studies Review 24, no. 1 (2022): 1-26.
• Lake, David A. “Theory is Dead, Long Live Theory: The End of the Great Debates and the Rise of Eclecticism in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 3 (2013): 567-587.
• Lake, David A. “White Man’s IR: An Intellectual Confession.” Perspectives on Politics 14, no. 4 (2016): 1112-1122.
• Ling L. H. M., and Carolina Pinheiro. “South-South Talk.” In International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference, 317-340. London & New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Ling L. H. M., and Carolina Pinheiro. The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalian, Worldist International Relations. London & New York: Routledge, 2014.
• Maliniak, Daniel, Amy Oaks, Susan Peterson, and Michael J. Tierney. “International Relations in the US Academy.” International Studies Quarterly 55, no. 2 (2011): 437-464.
• Mamdani, Mahmood. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2018.
• Mearsheimer, John J. “A Global Discipline of IR? Benign Hegemony.” International Studies Review 18, no. 1 (2016): 147-149.
• Mearsheimer, John J. “China’s Unpeaceful Rise.” Current History 105, no. 690 (2006): 160-162.
• Mearsheimer, John J. “The False Promise of International Institutions.” International Security 19, no. 3 (1994): 5-49.
• Mearsheimer, John J. The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
• Meibauer, Gustav, Linde Desmaele, Tudor Onea, Nicholas Kitchen, Michiel Foulon, Alexander Reichwein, and Jennifer Sterling-Folker. “Forum: Rethinking Neoclassical Realism at Theory's End.” International Studies Review 23, no. 1 (2021): 268-295.
• Mijares, Victor M. “Soft-Balancing the Titans: Venezuelan Foreign-Policy Strategy Toward the United States, China and Russia.” Latin American Policy 8, no. 2 (2017): 201-231.
• Morgenthau, Hans J. “The Political Science of E. H. Carr.” World Politics 1, no. 1 (1948): 127-134.
• Morgenthau, Hans J., and Kenneth W. Thompson. “Part Two: International Politics as a Struggle for Power.” In Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 13-72. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
• Niebuhr, Reinhold. “The Morality of Nations.” In Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, 83-112. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015.
• O’Neill, Barry. “Nuclear Weapons and National Prestige.” Cowles Foundation, Discussion Paper No. 1560 (2015).
• Pape, Robert A. “Soft Balancing against the United States.” International Security 30, no. 1 (2005): 7-45.
• Posen, Barry. Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015.
• Powel, Brieg. “Blinkered Learning, Blinkered Theory: How Histories in Textbooks Parochialize IR.” International Studies Review 22, no. 4 (2020): 957-982.
• Querejazu Escobari, Amaya. “Violencias encubiertas de la gobernanza global [Covert violence of global governance].” Estudios Políticos 49, (2016): 148-166.
• Rajogopalan, Rajesh. “Realist Approaches to the International Relations of South Asia.” In Routledge Handbook of the International Relations of South Asia, edited by Sumit Ganguly and Frank O’Donell, 7-19. London & New York: Routledge, 2022.
• Rathbun, Brian C. “Chapter 1: The Nature in and Nature of International Relations.” In Right and Wronged in International Relations: Evolutionary Ethics, Moral Revolutions, and the Nature of Power Politics, 1-30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• Ripsman, Norrin M., Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell. “Methodology of Neoclassical Realism.” In Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics, 99-138. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Rösch, Felix. “Realism, the War in Ukraine, and the Limits of Diplomacy.” Analyse & Kritik 44, no. 2 (2022): 201-218.
• Rose, Gideon. “Review Article: Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy.” World Politics 51, no. 1 (1998): 144-172.
• Sagan, Scott D., and Kenneth N. Waltz. “Is Nuclear Zero the Best Option?” The National Interest, no. 109 (2010): 88-96.
• Schenoni, Luis L. “Subsystemic Unipolarities? Power Distribution and State Behavior in South America and Southern Africa.” Strategic Analysis 41 (2017): 74-86.
• Schenoni, Luis L., and Carlos Escudé. “Peripheral Realism Revisited.” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 51, no. 1 (2016): 1-18.
• Schmidt, Brian C., and Michael C. Williams. “The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: Neoconservatives Versus Realists.” Security Studies 17, no. 2 (2008): 191-220.
• Schuett, Robert. “The End of Open Society Realism?” Analyse & Kritik 44, no. 2 (2022): 219-242.
• Schweller, Randall L. “Fantasy Theory.” Review of International Studies 25, no. 1 (1999): 147-150.
• Schweller, Randall L. “The Balance of Power in World Politics.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. 9 May. 2016. https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-119
• Schweller, Randall L. “The Problem of International Order Revisited.” International Security 26, no. 1 (2001): 161-186.
• Sil, Rudra, and Peter Katzenstein. Beyond Paradigms: Analytics Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
• Smith, Nicholas Ross, and Grant Dawson. “Mearsheimer, Realism, and the Ukraine War.” Analyse & Kritik 44, no. 2 (2022): 175-200.
• Snyder, Jack L. “The Soviet Strategic Culture. Implications for Limited Nuclear Operation.” Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1977.
• Spivak, Gayatri. “Can the Subaltern Speak.” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271-313. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
• Steans, Jill. “Engaging from the Margins: Feminist Encounters with the ‘Mainstream’ of International Relations.” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 5, no. 3 (2003): 428-454.
• Tickner, Arlene B. “Core, Periphery and (Neo) Imperialist International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 3 (2013): 627-646.
• Tickner, Arlene B., and Karen Smith, eds. “Preface.” In International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference, xvi-xvii. London & New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Tickner, Arlene B., and Karen Smith. “Introduction: International Relations from the Global South.” In International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference, 1-14. London & New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Turton, Helen L. “Locating a Multifaceted and Stratified Disciplinary ‘Core’.” All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace 9, no. 1 (2020): 177-210.
• Vale, Peter, and Vineet Thakur. “IR and the Making of the White Man’s World,” in International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference, 56-74. London & New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Vitalis, Robert. White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015.
• Vukovich, Daniel. China and Orientalism: Western Knowledge Production and the PRC. London: Routledge, 2013.
• Wæver, Ole. “Waltz’s Theory of Theory.” International Relations 23, no. 2 (2009): 201-222.
• Walt, Stephen M. Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
• Waltz, Kenneth N. “America as a model for the world? A foreign policy perspective.” PS: Political Science & Politics 24, no. 4 (1991): 667-670.
• Waltz, Kenneth N. “Chapter 5: Political Structures.” In Theory of International Politics, 79-101. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1979.
• Waltz, Kenneth N. “More may be better.” In The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, edited by Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, 3-45. New York: Norton, 1995.
• Wemhauer-Vogelaar, Wiebke, Peter M. Kristensen, and Mathis Lohaus. “The Global Division of Labor in a Not So Global Discipline.” All Azimuth 11, no. 1 (2022): 3-27.
• Wolfers, Arnold. “The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference.” World Politics 4, no. 1 (1951): 39-63.