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Waltz Neorealism Confusions and Criticisms
political science hons
Creighton University
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NEOREALISM: CONFUSIONS AND CRITICISMS
Kenneth Waltz
C
ry as a mental picture of a domain – a picture showing how thefailure to comprehend what they can and cannot do. I define a theoonfusion begins with misunderstanding how theories are made and that states act to ensure their survival is an example of structural theory are economic maximizers is a similar example in microeconomics andexample of a simplifying assumption made in Newtonian physics. That peoassumptions incorporated in a theory. That mass concentrates at a point is andepicting it in highly abstract terms. Simplification often comes throughgressed by taking long steps away from direct experience of the world andYet the development of science, whether in physics or economics, has prosomething should be added to a theory in order to bring it closer to reality odd because theories are mostly omission. One is sometimes told thathappens in a defined realm of activity. To criticize a theory for its omissionssystem. A theory is an instrument intended to be useful in explaining whatmost everything that goes on in an economy or in an international-politicalresentation. To display important causes and effects, the picture has to omitnational economy or of an international-political system, is a simplified repin order to deal with it intellectually. A mental picture, for example of adomain is organized and how its parts are connected. Theory isolates a realm The structure or international politics is sparsely defined by anarchy, Waltz iselement of a coherent and effective theory. If that were easy to do we wouldhas been unduly omitted requires showing how it can take its place as onenot a collection of variables. To add to a theory something that one believesfrom a theory, adding it will make the theory stronger. A theory, however, isMany critics of structural theory seem to believe that if a variable is omittedrelations, technological change, and demographic patterns are omitted have complained that such obviously important matters as economicry that explains gravity a warning that it is unwise to fall from high buildings? To ask the questions is like asking whether we should add to a theohave complained that normative considerations are omitted. Should they bebilities across states. Should we not add something to the definition? Somewhich is the ordering principle of the realm, and by the distribution of capa an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University. This article is an excerpt from his introduction to a new edition of The Theory of International Relations. Journal of Politics & Society be blessed with a wealth of strong and comprehensive theories. The matters omitted are not neglected when a theory is used. Theories predict, people do information, along with a lot of good judgment, is needed. Theories don’tperhaps to make some predictions about it. In using the instrument, all sortsed in a theory? A theory is an instrument used to explain “the real world” andsidered in making predictions or fashioning explanations can not be includfrom it. How could that be done when the empirical mater that must be contheory and inferring something about particular behaviors and outcomesugly. Predictions are not made, nor explanations contrived, by looking at aare sparse in formulation and beautifully simple. Reality is complex and often Another criticism claims that new realism is simply old realism made rig tion of the structure within which their actions occur only, and often not mainly, on the qualities of states, but also on variacomes; bad states, bad ones. The new realism is structural: outcomes dependupside down. The old realism is behavioral: good states produce good outagreed merely on how to define good and bad. New realism turns old realismliberal democrat agreed on how to explain international events. They diswith one another, and bad states would make war. The communist and theZedong like Woodrow Wilson believed that good states would live at peaceway of thinking. Socialists as well as liberals are examples of this. Maothe outcomes their behaviors supposedly produce. This has been the usualCausations goes in one direction, from the internal composition of states totional outcomes are determined by the decision of states, the behaving units saying. Traditional realists are behavioralists; they believe that internaorous. The validity of that judgment depends on what one thinks old realists Perhaps the most common criticism of structural theory is that is fails to foreign policy and international politics can be understood without considwith which it is made. Obviously nobody, realist or otherwise, believes thattheir accounts. The peculiarity of this criticism is matched by the frequencyadmit that unit-level causes are important, they refuse to include them inThe help is found outside the theory. Yet it is said that although neorealistshappens. When they do not, a theory of international politics needs help pressures dominate the internal disposition of states, which seldomicy. An international political theory can explain states’ behavior only whensufficient, and cannot be made sufficient, for the explanation of foreign polforces. Under most circumstances, a theory of international politics is notforces shape states’ behavior, but says nothing about the effects of internalpolicy. A neorealist theory of international politics explains how externalafter all, a theory about international politics and not a theory about foreigninternational politics. True, states are omitted from structural theory. It is,include consideration of the effects of the policies and behaviors of states on
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Waltz • Neorealism Reappraised ry not theories. Much is included in an account, little is included in a theoaccounts. Accounts, stories about what happens and speculations about why, ering what goes on inside states. The critics have confused theories and States matter, and the structure of international politics matters. Which and abroad produce that result. Disparity of power spawns despotic rule at homesuperior to those they rule, may claim to aim at uplifting the natives but selthat the compromises of democracy impede. Similarly, imperial countries,the governed. Ideally, a benevolent despot is able to fashion the wise policiesdestructive governance that works for the benefit of the governors rather thandictability when rulers establish their dominance, the result is arbitrary andlike a political system without checks and balances. With depressing precombination of states is unable to balance the might of the most powerful isof comparable capability. An international system in which another state orin arbitrary and high-handed fashion are constrained by the presence of statesa political system of checks and balances. The impulses of a state to behaveimportance of its internal qualities. An international system in balance is likeenlarges the field of action of the remaining great power, and heightens theone great power drop drastically. Unipolarity weakens structural constraints,and balance each other. In a unipolar world, checks on the behavior of themoved from bipolarity to unipolarity. In a bipolar world, two states checkAnyone who had failed to notice this could hardly fail to see it as the worldmatters more varies with changes in the structure of international politics. Different structures permit and cause the units of a system to change Bipolarity reduces uncertainties about who will oppose whom, but the uncer-Soviet Union would have been hard to start, harder than World War I and II great destructive power. War between the United States and theeach other. Yet through history wars have been fought among countriesof continental size armed with modern conventional weapons can wreak onshied away from fighting each other because of the great damage that statesnuclear weapons the United States and the Soviet Union would still haveshared the credit. Just what caused what was hard to say. In the absence ofchanged, one could hardly say more than both structure and weaponrywas peace the byproduct of the system’s structure? Until the system’s structureweaponry some states wielded. Was peace the product of nuclear weapons orproduced by the structure of international politics and how much by theone many wonder how much of the peace that marked the Cold War wastheory that bipolar systems are more peaceful than multipolar systems. Yetand system-level causes is a problem of neorealist theory. It follows from thealso have far reaching effects. The difficulty of distinguishing between unit-their behavior and produce different outcomes. Changes at the unit level may Journal of Politics & Society tainties of outcomes in contests between conventionally armed states promise and make it a near guarantee. Bipolarity offers a promise of peace; nuclear weapons reinforce thesuperior weaponry or a cleverer strategy would bring victory at supportableremained and would in time have lead one side or the other to believe that Among states armed with nuclear weapons peace prevails whatever the low its fancies the only superpower left in the field is free to act on its whims and folanced the might of the other and moderated the behavior of both of them the long years of the Cold War the might of each superpower balerate behavior, with moderation the product of the fear that balance instills may also have system-wide effects. The system was marked by modtion of nuclear weapons shows that, like structural changes, unit-levelaffect the behavior of states and alter international outcomes. The introducduring the past century well illustrate how strongly differences in polaritystructure of the system may be. The shifts from multi- to bi- to unipolarity The disappearance of one great power left the effects of nuclear weapon the story that resides in the heart of nations and international-political outcomes without revealing the part oftranscend the processes of history. Polarities tells us much about nationalal aspiration, whether of ruler or country, is to perpetuate supremacy and toremaining great power. Superiority fosters the desire to use it. The dictatoriintact, but the disappearance of balance unleashed the impulses of the Structural theory has two main competitors: liberal institutionalism and Theory for Today and Tomorrow its security, and Western Europe, which has enjoyed American protection,tries like the United States, which has few good reasons to worry much aboutitself as bets it can. Constructivism enjoys some popularity mainly in councertainty on other states to come to its aid in adversity, it has to take care ofsistently behaved in other-regarding fashion. Unless a state can reply withsake of others. A nice thought; neither people nor states, however, have conmainly to serve their own interests, people and states may begin to act for theand states can be replaced with other-regarding impulses. Instead of actingseemingly hopeful view of the world. The self-regarding concerns of peopleTo say what constructivism explains is difficult. What it offers instead is ais not a theory at all. If a so-called theory does not explain, it is not a theory its theoretical core, which they have tried to broaden. And constructivismry. Keohane and Nye have stressed that institutionalism has structural realismAlexander Wendt of the latter. Liberal institutionalism is not a distinct theoconstructivism. Robert O. Keohane is the major proponent of the former;
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Waltz • Neorealism Reappraised and among individuals who dwell in such safe havens as universities. The disappearance of the Soviet Union greatly changed the world. How end only when that system collapsed had predicted. The Cold War rooted in the bipolar system and wouldthe failure of the Soviet Communist System. The Cold War ended exactly ascaused not by the triumph of liberal forces operating internationally but byreceived significant amounts of capital. The collapse of the Soviet Union waseling. The Soviet Union traded little outside its bloc and neither supplied norinterdependence of states have anything to do with the Soviet Union’s unravof Andropov, Gorbachev, and Ryzhkov. Nor did the increasing economicnot by a bunch of aspiring democrats but by old Soviet appratchiks, the likesor constructivists. The undoing of Russia’s communist system was contriveddid the change come about? It did not happen in ways imagined by liberals After the Cold War, does realism still reign? As the title of an essay by Realism is best left without an adjective to adorn it too little power may tempt other states to take advantage of it other states into uniting against it and thus become less secure. A statestrategies varies as situations change. A state having too much power maybest way to provide for one’s security is by adopting offensive or defensivewhatever combination of internal effort and external alignment. Whether theneither offensive nor defensive. States have to take care of themselves byneed more power, in order to be secure. Realist theory, properly viewed, isasserts that more is always better. States want more power, and they alwaysrealism –offensive or defensive- is the more useful one. Offensive realisminternational political events. One may, however, wonder which version ofendures, realist theory remains the most useful instrument for explainingduced by units existing in a condition of anarchy. As long as that conditionnations as the most useful comprehensive one for explaining outcomes proantiquity to the present, realism has emerged from the competition of explaRobert Gilpin has it, “Nobody Loves a Realist.” Yet time and again, from Realism is age old. Putting realism into the form of theory is recent. Englandmajor influences emanating from Greece (Thucydides), Italy (Machiavelli),Over the ages, the development of realism has been a world enterprise with (Hobbes and alter E. Carr), Germany (Meinecke and parts of the world) and America. We may now hope for contributions from other
Waltz Neorealism Confusions and Criticisms
Course: political science hons
University: Creighton University
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