Realism: Its Limitation and Contributions

Realism: Its Limitation and Contributions
{…}Fundamental to the critique of realist theory was the questioning,
rejection or modification of the traditional paradigm of international
relations on which realism in its classical formulation was based.
Politics, defined as a struggle of power in a state-centric system
based on actors whose foreign polemics could be clearly separated from
domestic politics, had given way by the 1960s to a newer and more
complex paradigm, or model, of the international system. In place of
the Eurocentric realist paradigm came and international system global
in scope and containing an unprecedented number of states and nonstate
actors. To the extent that domestic politics shapes foreign policy, the
clearly defined separation assumed in realist theory became at least
blurred and at most a gross distortion of the complex process by which
state action takes place. According to John A. Vasquez, “realpolitik
explanations do not provide a theory of world politics, but merely an
image that decision makers can have of the world. Power politics is not
so much an explanation as a description of one type of behavior found
in the global political system. If this is correct, then power politics
behavior itself must be explained; it does not explain.” Reflecting
on other research of the 1970s as well as his own effort to test
propositions derived from realist theory, Vasquez concluded that those
that are “based on realist assumption do not do as well as those that
reject realist assumptions.”
For several reasons, the “national interest” concept has been the
object of criticism. According to one critique, “That national
interest is a necessary criterion of policy is obvious and
unilluminating. No statesman, no publicist, no scholar would seriously
argue that foreign policy ought to be conducted in opposition to, or
disregard of, the national interest.” Moreover, it is difficult to
give operational meaning to the concept of national interest. Statesmen
are constrained, or given freedom, by many forces in interpreting the
national interest. They are often the captive of their predecessors’
policies. They interpret the national interest as a result of their
cultural training, values, and the data made available to them as
decision-makers. According to Stanley Hoffman, “The conception of an
objective and easily recognizable national interest, the reliable guide
and criterion of national policy, is one which makes sense only in a
stable period in which the participants play for limited ends, with
limited means, and without domestic kibitzers to disrupt the players’
moves. In a period when the survival of states is at stake to a far
greater extent than in former times, the most divergent course of
action can be recommended as valid choices for survival. Ordinarily
less compelling objectives, such as prestige, or an increment of power
in a limited area, or the protection of private citizens abroad, all
become tied up with the issues of survival and the most frequent
argument against even attempting to redefine the hierarchy of national
objectives so as to separate at least some of them from survival is the
familiar fear of a “chain of events” or a “row of dominoes.”
Therefore, in the absence of empirically based studies, it is difficult
to determine what “national interest” means at any specific time.
According to Michael Joseph Smith, realists, having adopted Weber’s
ethic of responsibility, have not presented a competent set of criteria
for judging responsibility. Although, and perhaps because, they
minimize the relevance of ethics to international relations, they
appear no to recognize that “their judgment of morality and their
definition of the national interest rested on their own hierarchy of
values.” Among the focal points of neorealist analysis is an effort
to reformulate and refine the national interest concept with a
perceived calculus of benefits and losses in accordance with
alternative posited goals for the state. Specifically, the regime
concept includes an attempt to adapt national interest to a theoretical
framework related to state motivation in the formation of what are
defined as international regimes for collaboration or cooperation.
Realist writers, it has been noted, have been criticized for their
efforts to draw from the Eurocentric system of the past a series of
political concepts for the analysis of a vastly different contemporary
global international system. The pursuit of limited national
objectives, the separation of foreign policy from domestic politics,
the conduct of secret diplomacy, the use of balance of power as a
technique for the management of power, and the pleas for nations to
place reduced emphasis on ideology as a conditioner of international
conduct have little relevance to the international system today. By
urging that nations return to the practices of an earlier period, some
realist writers overestimate the extent to which such change in the
present international system is possible. If nations obey laws of
nature, which the realist purports to have discovered, why is it
necessary to urge them as realists do, to return to practices based on
such laws? Although history provides many examples of international
behavior that substantiate classical realist theory, historical data
offer deviant cases. In calling upon statesmen to alter their behavior,
the realist becomes normative in theoretical orientation and fails to
provide an adequate explanation as to why political leaders sometimes
do not adhere to realist tenets in foreign policy.
In emphasizing power as the principal motivation for political
behavior, realists have made themselves the object of criticism.
Critics have suggested that realist writers, for the most part, have
not clearly conceptualized power. {…}
Neorealism and, specifically, structural realism have encountered
several criticisms, including an alleged disregard for history as a
process that is continually undergoing redefinition, in which
individuals contribute to the molding of each successive era. In this
respect, the neorealist is considered to have departed from classical
realism, which held that the statesman was shaped by but also had an
important influence on history. Far from being captives of a particular
system---itself a reification---the individual person holds the
potential to be the master of structures, not simply the object.
Moreover, neorealism is faulted for having presumably reduced politics
to those dimensions that are conducive to interpretation by reference
to rational behavior under various structural constraints. Because of
its own focus on structure, neorealism is said to have ignored the
social basis and social limits of power. Power cannot be reduced to
capabilities; instead power consists also of psychological factors such
as public morale and political leadership, as well as situational
factors and the extent to which power is exercised within a consensual,
contrasted with a conflictual, framework. The “state as actor”
world of neorealism is faulted for having imputed to the state the role
of unitary actor whose behavior is shaped by the structure of the
international system. Neorealism, it is suggested, was statist before
it was structuralist. In response, neorealists deny that realism is, in
fact, structural determinism. Although structural elements exert a
powerful constraining influence on political behavior, the neorealist
does not consider all of the human political conduct to be determined
by the structure within which the polity is organized nor does the
neorealist accept the criticism that the “state as actor” world
represents a negation of the role of those individuals or groups who
act as the actual decision makers. {…}
Contending Theories of International Relations. James Dougherty and Robert Pfaltzgraff, Jr.