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Is realism dead? The domestic sources of international politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Ethan B. Kapstein
Ethan B. Kapstein
Affiliation:
Director of Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, New York.
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Type
Review essay
Information
International Organization , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , Autumn 1995 , pp. 751 - 774
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1995

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References

1. In this review I use the terms “realism,” “neorealism,” and “structural realism” interchangeably; when I refer to the realism expressed, for example, by Morgenthau, I call it “classical realism.” See Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948Google Scholar; New York: Grosset and Dunlop, 1964).

2. Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962Google Scholar). For an account from the “sophisticated falsificationist” perspective, see, for example, Lakatos, Imre, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), especially pp. 31–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. The language is borrowed, of course, from Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It should be noted that Kuhn did not refer to the social sciences in this work, instead limiting his claims to what he called “normal science.”

4. Mesquita, Bruce Bueno de and Lalman, David, War and Reason: Domestic and International Imperatives (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 9Google Scholar.

5. Rosecrance, Richard and Stein, Arthur A., eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 12Google Scholar.

6. Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 19–20Google Scholar.

7. For further elaboration of realism's explanatory and predictive failures, with special reference to the end of the cold war, see Gaddis, John Lewis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” in Lynn-Jones, Sean and Miller, Steven, eds., The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), pp. 323Google Scholar–88; and Lebow, Richard Ned, “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism,” International Organization 48 (Spring 1994), pp. 249–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Russett, Bruce, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony: Or is Mark Twain Really Dead?” International Organization 39 (Autumn 1985), pp. 207–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Russett, Bruce, “Processes of Dyadic Choice for War and Peace,” World Politics 47 (01 1995), pp. 268–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quotations are drawn from p. 269.

10. Maoz, Zeev, National Choices and International Processes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 548CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quoted in Russett, “Processes of Dyadic Choice for War and Peace,” p. 269.

11. Gourevitch, Peter, “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics,” International Organization 32 (Autumn 1978), pp. 881–911CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 881.

12. For one promising contribution, however, that focuses on international negotiations, see Evans, Peter, Jacobson, Harold, and Putnam, Robert, eds., Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993Google Scholar), which contains a number of case studies of bargaining in both economics and security.

13. On political structures, see Katzenstein, Peter, ed., Between Power and Plenty (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978)Google Scholar. On bureaucracies, see Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971Google Scholar). On beliefs, see Larson, Deborah Welch, Origins of Containment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

14. For a critical review of democratic peace theory, see Layne, Christopher, “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” International Security 19 (Fall 1994), pp. 5–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Kapstein, Ethan B., Governing the Global Economy: International Finance and the State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994Google Scholar). For a criticism of liberal institutionalism, see Mearsheimer, John J., “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security 19 (Winter 1994/1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar), reprinted in Michael Brown, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Steven Miller, eds., The Perils of Anarchy: Contemporary Realism and International Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), pp. 332–76.

16. Rosecrance, Richard, The Rise of the Trading State (New York: Basic Books, 1986)Google Scholar.

17. For a good review of these inside-out approaches, see Schweller, Randall L., “Domestic Structures and Preventive War: Are Democracies More Pacific?,” World Politics 44 (01 1992), pp. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar–69. For a skeptical view of liberalism in the European context, see Mearsheimer, John J., “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Putnam, Robert, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), pp. 427–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 430.

19. Rosecrance and Stein, The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, p. 5Google Scholar.

20. Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. Two useful recent works on social science theory are Rosenberg, Alexander, Philosophy of Social Science (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988Google Scholar); and Little, Daniel, Varieties of Social Explanation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991)Google Scholar.

22. For a model of how social scientists should compare competing theories, see Sagan, Scott D., The Limits of Safety (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993Google Scholar), chap. 1.

23. On this point, see Keohane, Robert, “Realism, Neorealism, and the Study of World Politics,” in Keohane, Robert, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 1–26Google Scholar and p. 13 in particular. Important exceptions such as Knorr and Baldwin have made significant efforts to clarify the meaning of the term “power.” See Knorr, Klaus, The Power of Nations (New York: Basic Books, 1975Google Scholar); and Baldwin, David, “Power Analysis and World Politics,” World Politics 31 (01 1979), pp. 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar–94.

24. For perhaps the most influential rendering of this term, see Peter Katzenstein, “Conclusions,” in Katzenstein, Between Power and Plenty.

25. Young, Oran, “The Perils of Odysseus: On Constructing Theories of International Relations,” in Tanter, Raymond and Ullmann, Richard, eds., Theory and Policy in International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 181Google Scholar.

26. I thank John Odell for highlighting this point. For more on theorizing in the social sciences, see Keohane, Robert, King, Gary, and Verba, Sidney, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

27. Young, , “The Perils of Odysseus,” p. 182Google Scholar.

28. On this point, see Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; and Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.

29. Mesquita, Bueno de and Lalman, , War and Reason, p. 3Google Scholar. On the definition of welfare, see ibid., p. 12.

30. Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 117Google Scholar.

31. Ibid., p. 17.

32. Ibid., p. 40.

33. Mesquita, Bueno de used many of the same assumptions as the basis for his earlier book, The War Trap (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981Google Scholar), and at that time a number of fundamental criticisms were raised. See, for example, Khong, Yuen Foong, “War and International Theory: A Commentary on the State of the Art,” Review of International Studies 10 (01 1984), pp. 41–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank Scott Sagan for bringing this article to my attention.

34. Schweller, Randall, “Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In,” International Security (Summer 1994), pp. 72–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Christensen, Thomas J. and Snyder, Jack, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization 44 (Spring 1990), pp. 137–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. For a discussion of the standard realist response and views on this subject, see Walt, Steven, “Alliances, Threats, and U.S. Grand Strategy,” Security Studies 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 448–82 and p.449 in particularCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. I thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this point.

38. On the bandwagon effect, see Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit.” The bandwagoning hypothesis, of course, opposes the neorealist hypothesis that the international system tends towards balance.

39. For a penetrating review essay on Snyder, see Zakaria, Fareed, “Realism and Domestic Politics,” International Security 17 (Summer 1992), pp. 177–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40. See, for example, Layne, Christopher, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993), pp. 5–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41. Snyder, , Myths of Empire, p. 12Google Scholar.

42. Ibid., p. 07.

43. Zakaria, “Realism and Domestic Politics.”

44. Schweller, Randall, personal communication, 28 03 1994Google Scholar.

45. On Japan's economic dependence and its related military strategy, see Milward, Alan S., War, Economy and Society: 1939–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 30–36Google Scholar. See also Barnhart, Michael, Japan Prepares for Total War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

46. On Anglo–American friction over the sterling bloc, see Kapstein, Ethan B., The Insecure Alliance: Energy Crises and Western Politics Since 1944 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990Google Scholar), chap. 2.

47. Zakaria, “Realism and Domestic Politics.”

48. See, for example, Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War.

49. Ibid., p. 151.

50. On the role of rearmament in economic growth, see Kindleberger, Charles, A World in Depression: 1929–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973Google Scholar); and Milward, Alan S., War, Economy and Society: 1939–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

51. Mueller, John, “The Impact of Ideas on Grand Strategy,” in Rosecrance, and Stein, , The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, pp. 48–64Google Scholar, and pp. 54–55 in particular.

52. Ibid., p. 48.

53. Stein, Arthur, “Domestic Constraints, Extended Deterrence, and the Incoherence of Grand Strategy, 1938–1950,” in Rosecrance, and Stein, , The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, pp. 96–123Google Scholar. The quotation is drawn from p. 97.

54. Rosecrance, Richard and Steiner, Zara, “British Grand Strategy and the Origins of World War II,” in Rosecrance and Stein, The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, pp. 124–153Google Scholar.

55. I thank Randall Schweller for highlighting this point.

56. Ibid., p. 126.

57. Evangelista, Matthew, “Internal and External Constraints on Grand Strategy: The Soviet Case,” in Rosecrance, and Stein, , The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, pp. 154–78Google Scholar.

58. See Waltz, Kenneth, “On the Nature of States and Their Recourse to Violence,” United States Institute for Peace Journal 3 (06 1990), pp. 6–7Google Scholar; Waltz, Kenneth, “Another Gap,” Policy Papers in International Affairs, Institute for International Affairs, Berkeley, Calif., 1981, pp. 79–80Google Scholar, cited in Evangelista, , “Internal and External Constraints on Grand Strategy” pp. 157 and 160Google Scholar.

59. Ibid., pp. 157–60.

60. Ibid., p. 170.

61. Larson, Deborah Welch, Origins of Containment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985Google Scholar), On the firing of Wallace, see pp. 288–94.

62. National Security Council document number 68 (NSC-68), written in 1950, provided the rationale for a new American military buildup in the wake of the rapid demobilization that had followed the end of World War II. According to historian John Lewis Gaddis, “What NSC-68 did was to suggest a way to increase defense expenditures without war, without long-term budget deficits, and without crushing tax burdens.” NSC-68 has been viewed by historians as a founding document of U.S. cold war strategy. See Gaddis, John Lewis, Strategies of Containment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 93Google Scholar.

63. For a critical review of the literature on rationality, see Snyder, Jack, “Rationality at the Brink,” World Politics 30 (04 1978), pp. 345–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a sympathetic overview, see Rhodes, Edward, Power and MADness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), pp. 47–81Google Scholar. For competing treatments of the balance of power, see, among others, Gulick, Edward Vose, Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York: Norton, 1955Google Scholar); Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993 orig. 1948), pp. 183–216Google Scholar; Walt, Steven, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987Google Scholar); and Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit”.

64. See Waltz, Theory of International Politics; and Walt, Origins of Alliances.

65. I thank Jack Levy for highlighting this point. See Levy, Jack, “Theories of General War,” World Politics 37 (04 1985), pp. 344–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66. Schweller, , “Bandwagoning for Profit,” p. 24Google Scholar.

67. Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, p. 118Google Scholar.

68. Waltz, Theory of International Politics. Zakaria, also accepts the value of this analogy in “Realism and Domestic Politics,” pp. 193–95Google Scholar. See also Buzan, Barry, Jones, Charles, and Little, Richard, The Logic of Anarchy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 192–94Google Scholar.

69. Gulick, Edward Vose, Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York: Norton, 1955)Google Scholar.

70. For the debate, see Lynn-Jones and Miller, The Cold War and After.

71. See, for example, Gilpin, War and Change; and Kapstein, The Insecure Alliance.

72. See Baldwin, “Power Analysis.”

73. For an optimistic view of the rationality assumption, see Snidal, Duncan, “The Game Theory of International Politics, in Oye, Kenneth, ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

74. For one compelling study along these lines, see Levi, Margaret, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

75. Keohane, Robert, “Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond,” in Keohane, , ed., Neorealism and Its Critics, pp. 158–203Google Scholar. The quotation is drawn from p. 159.

76. Kuhn, , Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 77Google Scholar.