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s the only way to ensure their own security other states in the system are incentivised to prevent the emergence of a hegemon through balancing states employ the rational model of decision making by obtaining and acting upon complete and accurate information the state is sovereign and guided by a national interest defined in terms of power since the only constraint of the international system is anarchy there is no international authority and states are left to their own devices to ensure their own security realists believe that sovereign states are the principal actors in the international system international institutions non governmental organizations multinational corporations individuals and other sub state or trans state actors are viewed as having little independent influence states are inherently aggressive offensive realism and obsessed with security defensive realism territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing powers this aggressive build up however leads to a security dilemma whereby increasing one s security may bring along even greater instability as an opposing power builds up its own arms in response an arms race thus security becomes a zero sum game where only relative gains can be made moreover the relative gains notion of the realist school implies that states must fight against each other to gain benefits 20 realists believe that there are no universal principles with which all states may guide their actions instead a state must always be aware of the actions of the states around it and must use a pragmatic approach to resolve problems as they arise a lack of certainty regarding intentions prompts mistrust and competition between states 21 rather than assume that states are the central actors some realists such as william wohlforth and randall schweller refer instead to groups as the key actors of interest 10 11 finally states are sometimes described as billiard balls or black boxes this analogy is meant to underscore the secondary importance of internal state dynamics and decisionmaking in realist models in stark contrast to bureaucratic or individual level theories of international relations citation needed realism in statecraft edit the ideas behind george f kennan s work as a diplomat and diplomatic historian remain relevant to the debate over american foreign policy which since the 19th century has been characterized by a shift from the founding fathers realist school to the idealistic or wilsonian school of international relations in the realist tradition security is based on the principle of a balance of power and the reliance on morality as the sole determining factor in statecraft is considered impractical according to the wilsonian approach on the other hand the spread of democracy abroad as a foreign policy is key and morals are universally valid during the presidency of bill clinton american diplomacy reflected the wilsonian school to such a degree that those in favor of the realist approach likened clinton s policies to social work some argue that in kennan s view of american diplomacy based on the realist approach such apparent moralism without regard to the realities of power and the national interest is self defeating and may lead to the erosion of power to america s detriment 22 others argue that kennan a proponent of the marshall plan which gave out bountiful american aid to post ww2 countries might agree that clinton s aid functioned strategically to secure international leverage a diplomatic maneuver well within the bounds of political realism as described by hedley bull realists often hold that statesmen tend towards realism whereas realism is deeply unpopular among the public 23 when statesmen take actions that divert from realist policies academic realists often argue that this is due to distortions that stem from domestic politics 24 however some research suggests that realist policies are actually popular among the public whereas elites are more beholden to liberal ideas 25 abrahamsen suggested that realpolitik for middle powers can include supporting idealism and liberal internationalism 26 at the 2026 world economic forum canadian prime minister mark carney s speech framed international relations through the lens of realism outlining an approach called values based realism a concept he attributed to finnish president alexander stubb quoting thucydides carney stated that the strong do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must to describe what he called a brutal reality where the post world war ii rules based international order no longer applied 27 historical branches and antecedents edit main article realpolitik while realism as a formal discipline in international relations did not arrive until world war ii its primary assumptions have been expressed in earlier writings 28 realists trace the history of their ideas back to classical antiquity beginning with thucydides fl 5th century bce historian jean bethke elshtain traces the historiography of realism the genealogy of realism as international relations although acknowledging antecedents gets down to serious business with machiavelli moving on to theorists of sovereignty and apologists for the national interest it is present in its early modern forms with hobbes s leviathan 1651 29 modern realism began as a serious field of research in the united states during and after world war ii this evolution was partly fueled by european war migrants like hans morgenthau whose work politics among nations is considered a seminal development in the rise of modern realism other influential figures were george f kennan known for his work on containment nicholas spykman known for his work on geostrategy and containment herman kahn known for his work on nuclear strategy and e h carr 30 classical realism edit main article classical realism international relations classical realism states that it is fundamentally the nature of humans that pushes states and individuals to act in a way that places interests over ideologies classical realism is an ideology defined as the view that the drive for power and the will to dominate that are held to be fundamental aspects of human nature 31 prominent classical realists e h carr hans morgenthau reinhold niebuhr christian realism raymond aron george kennan liberal realism or the english school of rationalism edit main article english school of international relations theory the english school holds that the international system while anarchical in structure forms a society of states where common norms and interests allow for more order and stability than that which may be expected in a strict realist view prominent english school writer hedley bull s 1977 classic the anarchical society is a key statement of this position prominent liberal realists hedley bull argued for both the existence of an international society of states and its perseverance even in times of great systemic upheaval meaning regional or so called world wars martin wight barry buzan neorealism or structural realism edit main article neorealism international relations neorealism derives from classical realism except that instead of human nature its focus is predominantly on the anarchic structure of the international system states are primary actors because there is no political monopoly on force existing above any sovereign while states remain the principal actors greater attention is given to the forces above and below the states through levels of analysis or structure and agency debate the international system is seen as a structure acting on the state with individuals below the level of the state acting as agency on the state as a whole while neorealism shares a focus on the international system with the english school neorealism differs in the emphasis it places on the permanence of conflict to ensure state security states must be on constant preparation for conflict through economic and military build up prominent neorealists robert j art neorealism robert gilpin hegemonic theory robert jervis defensive realism john mearsheimer offensive realism barry posen neorealism kenneth waltz defensive realism stephen walt defensive realism neoclassical realism edit main article neoclassical realism neoclassical realism can be seen as the third generation of realism coming after the classical authors of the first wave thucydides niccolò machiavelli thomas hobbes and the neorealists especially kenneth waltz its designation of neoclassical then has a double meaning it offers the classics a renaissance it is a synthesis of the neorealist and the classical realist approaches gideon rose is responsible for coining the term in a book review he wrote in 1998 32 the primary motivation underlying the development of neoclassical realism was that neorealism was only useful to explain political outcomes classified as being theories of international politics but had nothing to offer about particular states behavior or theories of foreign policy the basic approach then was for these authors to refine not refute kenneth waltz 33 by adding domestic intervening variables between systemic incentives and a state s foreign policy decision thus the basic theoretical architecture of neoclassical realism is distribution of power in the international system independent variable domestic perception of the system and domestic incentives intervening variable foreign policy decision dependent variable while neoclassical realism has only been used for theories of foreign policy so far randall schweller notes that it could be useful to explain certain types of political outcomes as well 34 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 prominent neoclassical realists 32 aaron friedberg randall schweller william wohlforth fareed zakaria realist constructivism edit some see a complementarity between realism and constructivism samuel barkin for instance holds that realist constructivism can fruitfully study the relationship between normative structures the carriers of political morality and uses of power in ways that existing approaches do not 35 similarly jennifer sterling folker has argued that theoretical synthesis helps explanations of international monetary policy by combining realism s emphasis of an anarchic system with constructivism s insights regarding important factors from the domestic level 36 scholars such as oded löwenheim and ned lebow have also been associated with realist constructivism regional neorealism edit an international relations theory proposed by anthony heron 37 it builds on classical and structural realist traditions by arguing that states respond primarily to security pressures within their regional environment rather than to the global system as a whole the framework 38 suggests that regional security structures possess their own polarity threat hierarchies and power distributions that can diverge from global level dynamics heron s approach departs from traditional neorealism which treats the international system as a single uniform structure defined by global anarchy regional neorealism instead conceptualises the system as a set of overlapping regional security architectures that exert distinct constraints on state behaviour according to the theory geography resource distribution and the density of local institutions create region specific structural logics states experience incentives produced by both global and regional structures but regional pressures are considered more immediate and behaviour shaping the theory conforms with both concepts of defensive and offensive realism suggesting that regional factors alone determine whether conflict between states exhibits traits of each school heron developed the framework in response to empirical cases during his scholarly work on the arctic where states acted contrary to predictions derived from global level structural incentives particularly in medium power regions criticisms edit democratic peace edit advocates of democratic peace theory argue that realist thought does not apply well to relations between democratic states they point to empirical studies suggesting that mature democracies rarely if ever go to war with one another 39 realist scholars and others have challenged this conclusion they argue that findings of no wars between democracies depend heavily on how researchers define key terms such as war and democracy and that these definitions are often calibrated in ways that produce the desired result realists argue there are also counter examples such as ongoing conflicts between democratic countries such as india and pakistan and israel and lebanon as well as the falklands war between the united kingdom and argentina and the second nagorno karabakh war of 2020 between armenia and azerbaijan though each of these is also subject to debate the interactive model of democratic peace theory suggests a gradual influence of democratic norms and levels of democratic difference on the likelihood of war and militarized interstate disputes 40 some scholars add that even within a realist framework a democratic government may simply judge most potential conflicts as offering too little strategic gain to justify the costs which means that realism does not necessarily imply a general propensity for inter state warfare 41 hegemonic peace and conflict edit some advocates of hegemonic stability theory argue that realist theories centered on hegemonic stability offer an incomplete account of how great powers shape international order historian niall ferguson contends that the concept of hegemony obscures crucial distinctions between economic leadership and the broader military administrative and cultural mechanisms historically associated with empire he argues that anglo american power is poorly captured by a narrow economic model and that hegemonic stability theory underestimates both the coercive and institutional apparatus of past empires and the limits of contemporary american power in his view analysing the united states solely as a hegemon risks overstating its capacity to generate global order and understating the scale and character of earlier imperial systems 42 daniel deudney and john ikenberry challenge the common claim among academic realists that the 2003 iraq war was driven chiefly by liberal internationalism they argue that the war is more convincingly explained by hegemonic realism according to their analysis leading advocates of the invasion sought to preserve american primacy neutralise a perceived regional challenger and demonstrate us military dominance 43 these aims they contend followed a pattern of hegemonic statecraft rather than liberal idealism liberal internationalists who supported the...