A house divided: Tragedy and evil in realist theory

Security Studies

Volumn 5, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 385-423

  Spirtas, Michael ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 22444447289     PISSN: 09636412     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09636419608429284     Document Type: Article

References (212)

1. See, for example, Richard Ned Lebow, "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism," International Organization 48, no. 2 (spring 1994): 249-77;
2. Robert Jervis, "A Usable Past," Diplomatic History 16, no. 1 (winter 1992): 76-84;
3. John Lewis Gaddis, "International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War," International Security 17, no. 3 (winter 1992/3): 5-58;
4. Paul W. Schroeder, "Historical Reality vs. Neo-realist Theory," International Security 19, no. 1 (summer 1994): 108-48;
5. James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era," International Organization 46, no. 2 (spring 1992): 467-91;
6. R. B. J. Walker, "Realism, Change, and International Political Theory," International Studies Quarterly 31, no. 1 (March 1987): 65-86;
7. Friedrich Kratochwil, "The Embarrassment of Change: Neo-realism as the Science of Realpolitik without Politics," Review of International Studies 19 (January 1993): 63-80, esp. 70-71;
8. and John Gerard Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis";
9. Robert O. Keohane, "Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond";
10. Robert W. Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory";
11. and Richard K. Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," all in Neorealism and its Critics, ed. Robert O. Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 131-300.
12. For a response to some of these attacks, see William C. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International Security 19, no. 3 (winter 1994/95): 91-129.
13. See, for example, John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International Security 15, no. 1 (summer 1990): 5-56;
14. and Benjamin Frankel, "The Brooding Shadow: Systemic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation," Security Studies 2, nos. 3/4 (spring/summer 1993): 37-78.
15. Some of these scholars, for example, Helen V. Milner and Alexander Wendt, are outside of the realist tradition. Others are within realism. See, for example, Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?" Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 92-124. I discuss Schweller's article in more detail later.
16. Also see Randall L. Schweller, "Bandwagoning for Profit Bringing the Revisionist State Back In," International Security 19, no. 1 (summer 1994): 72-107;
17. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War";
18. Robert G. Kaufman, "E. H. Carr, Winston Churchill, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Us: The Case for Principled Democratic Realism," Security Studies 5, no. 2 (winter 1995/96): 307-45;
19. Miriam Fendius Elman, "The Foreign Policies of Small States: Challenging Neorealism in Its Own Backyard," British Journal of Political Science 25, no. 2 (April 1995): 171-217;
20. Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politic and Strategic Ideology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
21. For reviews of Innenpolitik which include work both outside and inside realism, see Ethan B. Kapstein, "Is Realism Dead? The Domestic Sources of International Politics," International Organization 49, no. 4 (autumn 1995): 751-74;
22. and Fareed Zakaria, "Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay," International Security 17, no. 1 (summer 1992): 177-98.
23. Zakaria's argument suggests that Snyder's Myths of Empire and other works which focus on domestic politics violate some of the lessons of realism (p. 196). It is also important to note that much of the scholarship of Stephen Van Evera and Jack Snyder predate the critical theorists, the epistemic communities literature, and literature on the role of ideas. See, for example, Van Evera, "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War," International Security 9, no. 1 (summer 1984): 58-107;
24. Snyder, "Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984," International Security 9, no. 1 (summer 1984): 108-46;
25. Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984),
26. and Snyder, "Science and Sovietology: Bridging the Methods Gap," World Politics 40, no. 2 (January 1988): 169-93.
27. Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1962), 83-84.
28. For some other examples from Greek tragedy, one may consider Oedipus, who murders his father and sleeps with his mother not because he is bad, but because of the circumstances in which he finds himself; and Kreon, who sentences his would-be daughter-in-law Antigone to death, which leads to the suicides of his own son and wife. Yet Kreon is not evil. I am grateful to Dale Copeland for pointing out the latter example to me.
29. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 88-93.
30. Joseph M. Gricco, Cooperation Among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 36-49.
31. For another explanation of unintended consequences see Robert Jervis, "System and Interaction Effects," in Coping with Complexity in the International System, ed. Robert Jervis and Jack Snyder (Boulder: Westview, 1993), 31-32.
32. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 84.
33. Also see Herbert Butterfield, History and Human Relations (London: Collins, 1951), 9-36.
34. John H. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism: A Study in Theories and Realities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 3.
35. See, for example, Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 159;
36. and Dale C. Copeland, "Resolving the Normative Ambiguities in Thucydides' Realism: Consequentialism and the Tragedy of Greek Civilization" (qualifying paper, University of Chicago, March 1990), esp. 19-20.
37. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (New York: Random House, 1982), 14;
38. Peter J. Fliess, Thucydides and the Politics of Bipolarity (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966), 24-26.
39. Marc Cogan, The Human Thing: The Speeches and Principles of Thucydides' History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 189-96.
40. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (London: Penguin, 1985).
41. Laurie M. Johnson, Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Interpretation of Realism (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1993), 205.
42. For a discussion of Rousseau's stag hunt and its implications for international relations theory, see Waltz, Man, the State and War, 167-71.
43. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 65;
44. and Waltz, "Theory of International Relations," International Politics: Handbook of Political Science, vol. 8, ed. Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley, 1975), 1-86.
45. Waltz writes that "[a] reductionist theory is a theory about the behavior of parts, not of the whole that they constitute." "Theory of International Relations," 66;
46. also see Theory of International Politics, 18.
47. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chap. 5, esp. 100-101.
48. Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 51. Buzan et al. present a different view of Waltz's concept of structure from the one I present here. Buzan et al., for example, see the distribution of capabilities as arising from the organizing principle of anarchy, while I depict anarchy as a theme which is often stressed by the inheritors of the tradition of tragedy. Buzan et al. assert that there are three dimensions, or paths (they use both terms) by which we can understand international politics: power, authority, and organization (35-36). They argue that Waltz's concept of the distribution of capabilities discount authority and organization and focuses on power alone. I agree that the distribution of capabilities discounts authority, but question why authority is so important in international politics as long as the international system is anarchic. I disagree, however, that the concept of the distribution of capabilities ignores organization, because it relates directly to the organization of actors within the system. The purpose of Buzan et al. is to transform Waltz's neorealism into a new structural realism. I seek to show how Waltz fits into the wider tradition of realism, and take a much broader view than Buzan et al. This paper is similar to The Logic of Anarchy in that both argue for theory that can draw from both the structure- and unit level.
49. Robert O. Keohane, "Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Politics," in Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics, 14-15.
50. Waltz himself admits that his theory does not explain the policies of specific states. Stephen M. Walt adapts balance-of-power theory into balance-of-threat theory in order to explain international alliances in The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).
51. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 79.
52. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 40;
53. Waltz, "Theory of International Relations," 67.
54. Waltz Theory of International Politics, 80.
55. Buzan et al., The Logic of Anarchy, 28.
56. For a discussion of theory construction in a complex world, see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chap. 1;
57. and Glenn H. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 169-94.
58. Ted Hopf, "Polarity, the Offense-Defense Balance, and War," American Political Science Review 85, no. 2 (June 1991): 475-93;
59. R. Harrison Wagner, "What Was Bipolarity?" International Organization 41, no. 1 (winter 1993): 77-106.
60. Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Make of It," International Organization 46, no. 2 (spring 1992): 391-425;
61. Nicholas Onuf and Frank F. Klink, "Anarchy, Authority, Rule," International States Quarterly 33, no. 2 (June 1989): 149-73, esp. 166-67;
62. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 46-51.
63. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 13, 65-74, 295;
64. Alexander Wendt, "Collective Identity Formation and the International State," American Political Science Review 88, no. 2 (June 1994): 389.
65. Walt's modified structural neorealist explanation of alliance formation expects states to ally when they perceive a common threat to their security (Walt, The Origins of Alliances). Unless tragedy theorists are willing to take up the argument that French perceptions of the Soviet threat to French security decreased in 1966, but that British perceptions of the Soviet threat to British security remained constant, they would be hard pressed to explain the differences in French and British policy toward NATO. Tragedy theory is unable to explain why states in similar international positions would follow different policies.
66. For good accounts of the British and French relationships with NATO, see John Baylis, The Diplomacy of Pragmatism: Britain and the Formation of NATO, 1942-1949 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1993);
67. Escott Reid, Time of Fear and Hope: The Making of the North Atlantic Treaty 1947-1949 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977);
68. Irwin M. Wall, "France and the North Atlantic Alliance";
69. and Peter Foot, "Britain, European Unity and NATO, 1947-1950," both in NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe, ed. Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 45-72;
70. Philip H. Gordon, A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 23-52;
71. and Michael Harrison, The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), esp. chap. 4;
72. For accounts of the formation of the EMS see Peter Ludlow, The Making of the European Monetary System: A Case Study of the Politics of the European Community (London: Butterworth Scientific, 1982);
73. Jonathan Story, "The Launching of the EMS: An Analysis of Change in Foreign Economic Policy" Political Studies 36, no. 3 (September 1988): 397-412;
74. and Jocelyn Statler, "The European Monetary System: From Conception to Birth," International Affairs 55, no. 2 (April 1979): 206-25.
75. For an account of the Maastricht treaty see Wayne Sandholtz, "Choosing Union: Monetary Politics and Maastricht," International Organization 47, no.1 (winter 1993): 1-39.
76. For an account of this crisis see David Cameron, "British Exit, German Voice, French Loyalty: Defection, Domination, and Cooperation in the 1992-1993 ERM Crisis" (paper prepared for delivery at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1993).
77. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), chap. 7, 66-76.
78. Thomas J. Christensen, "Conclusion: System Stability and the Security of the Most Vulnerable Significant Actor," in Snyder and Jervis, Coping with Complexity, 332.
79. Tragedy in literature and drama often deals with people's inner drives, especially tragic flaws. Bradley writes that "[A]s a tragedy advances to its close...the calamities and catastrophe follow inevitably from the deeds of men, and...the main source of these deeds is character."see Bradley, 8. International relations theorists Hans Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr considered the role of tragedy as well as the role of evil, but neither successfully translated their musings into theory that could incorporate both themes. Thus, the international relations meaning of tragedy used here, following John Herz, refers to the role of the external environment rather than internal drives found in women and men.
80. Mark V. Kauppi, "Thucydides and the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: Character and Capabilities," Security Studies 5, no. 2 (winter 1995/96): 142-68;
81. Daniel Garst, "Thucydides and Neorealism," International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 1 (March 1989): 3-27, esp. 22;
82. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 96;
83. Steven Forde, "Varieties of Realism: Thucydides and Machiavelli," Journal of Politics 54, no. 2 (May 1992): 376;
84. and Thomas J. Johnson, "The Idea of Power Politics: The Sophistic Foundations of Realism," Security Studies 5, no. 2 (winter 1995/96): 208-10. Johnson argues that the sophists created the concept of human nature, and that a pessimistic view of human nature is present in Thucydides' work.
85. On motives see Clifford Orwin, The Humanity of Thucydides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 139-41.
86. On Thucydides' view of human nature, see Peter R. Pouncey, The Necessities of War: A Study of Thucydides' Pessimism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), chap. 9.
87. For an argument that Thucydides' consideration of a wide range of motives, especially other-regarding motives, makes him different from realists, see Laurie M. Johnson, Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Interpretation of Realism, 201-202, 213-15;
88. and Laurie M. Johnson Bagby, "The Use and Abuse of Thucydides in International Relations," International Organization 48, no 1 (winter 1994): 131-53.
89. Pouncey, The Necessities of War, 149-50.
90. Pouncey, The Necessities of War, 151-57.
91. For a contrasting view see Johnson, Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Interpretation of Realism, chap. 1.
92. Hobbes, Leviathan, 185.
93. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1976), 66;
94. Waltz, Man, the State and War, 27.
95. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 83-84.
96. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace 6th ed. (New York: Knopf, 1985), 39.
97. Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (London: Latimer House, 1947), 16.
98. Morgenthau, Scientific Man, 167.
99. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense (New York: Scribner's, 1944), 9-11.
100. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Scribner's, 1960), 93 (emphasis in original).
101. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 84.
102. Waltz, Man, the State, and War, 16.
103. Waltz, Man, the State and War, 81.
104. On the importance of deductive theory, see Jack Snyder, "Richness, Rigor, and Relevance in the Study of Soviet Foreign Policy," International Security 9, no. 3 (winter 1984/85): 89-108, esp. 92-95.
105. On the difference between induction and deduction, and between empirical and theoretical explanation, see Daniel Little, Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science (Boulder: Westview, 1991), 6-8.
106. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 5.
107. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 187, n. 1.
108. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 201-17. In contrast, Stephen Walt's approach to alliances consists of clear definitions of key concepts such as balancing and bandwagoning, and clearly drawn, falsifiable hypotheses about when and with whom states will ally (Walt, Origins of Alliances, 17-49, esp. 32-33, 40, 46, 49). Clearly drawing hypotheses also makes the task of hypothesis testing easier.
109. Unit-level approaches arc not usually associated with realism because they tend to present an important variable rather than a fully developed theory. For state-centered analyses see Peter Hall, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986);
110. and Peter Katzenstein, "Conclusion: Domestic Structures and Strategies of Foreign Economic Policy," in Between Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States, ed. Peter Katzenstein (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 295-336.
111. For society-centered approaches, see Helen V. Milner, Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988);
112. Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986);
113. and Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and Coalitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
114. On cognitive psychology, see Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception;
115. and Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, Morningside Edition, 1989), xii-xiii;
116. on personality, see Alexander L. George, "The 'Operational Code': A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision Making," International Studies Quarterly 13, no. 2 (June 1969): 190-222;
117. Steve Smith, "Belief Systems and the Study of International Relations," in Belief Systems and International Relations, ed. Steve Smith and Richard Little (New York: Blackwell, 1988): 11-36;
118. and Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study (New York: Mineola Publications, 1964);
119. on learning, see Lloyd Etheridge, Can Governments Learn? American Foreign Politics and Central American Revolutions (New York: Pergamon, 1985).
120. Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).
121. Joseph M. Grieco, "State Interests and Institutional Rule Trajectories: A Neorealist Interpretation of the Maastricht Treaty and European Economic and Monetary Union," Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 280.
122. Grieco, "State Interests and Institutional Rule Trajectories," 277.
123. This places Grieco in opposition to a recent essay by John Mearsheimer. Using a more traditional neorealist approach than Grieco, Mearsheimer defends neorealism against the claims of three variants of institutionalist theory: liberal institutionalism, collective security, and critical theory (in Mearsheimer's categorization). According to Mearsheimer, institutions do not affect state behavior, except at the margins. see Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions." International Security, 19, no. 3 (winter 1994/95): 7.
124. Grieco, "State Interests and Institutional Rule Trajectories," 295-98.
125. See, for example, Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 72-73.
126. This is Robert A. Dahl's classic definition of power. See Robert A. Dahl, "The Concept of Power," Behavioral Science 2 (July 1957): 201-15.
127. Grieco, Cooperation Among Nations, 28;
128. and Grieco, "Understanding the Problem of International Cooperation: The Limits of Neoliberal Institutionalism and the Future of Realist Theory," in Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, ed. David Baldwin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 315.
129. For arguments to this effect see Wayne Sandholtz and John Zysman, "1992: Recasting the European Bargain," World Politics 42, no. 1 (October 1989): 95-128;
130. and Michael Spirtas, "Groups Are Great: British and French Policies Toward Economic and Security Cooperation" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, forthcoming).
131. Grieco mentions this as a possible realist explanation, but argues that French and Italian cooperation with Germany constitutes bandwagoning and is an anomaly for realist theory. See Grieco, "Understanding the Problem of International Cooperation," 330. Space limitations prevent me from making more than a brief argument here that French and Italian cooperation with Germany might not be bandwagoning, but could very well be the epitome of balancing against perceived threats (the United States and Japan).
132. Dale C. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 49.
133. Copeland gleans elements from three prominent realist traditions to build his approach. First, his focus on structure, the organization of the system, echoes neorealism. Second, he considers power differences between great powers, borrowing from classical realism. Third, from hegemonic stability theory he appropriates the idea of shifts in power differentials.
134. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 35 n. 10.
135. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 79.
136. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 50; see also 56-57.
137. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 56.
138. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 57.
139. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 73.
140. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 60.
141. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 60.
142. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability," 32.
143. See Steve Weber, "Realism, Detente, and Nuclear Weapons," International Organization 44, no. 1 (winter 1990): 55-82.
144. For arguments to this effect see Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989);
145. and Robert Jervis, "The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons: A Comment," International Security 13, no. 2 (fall 1988): 80-90;
146. John L. Gaddis, "The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System," International Security 10, no. 4 (spring 1985): 99-142.
147. For an argument that incorporates nuclear technology and system structure, see Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict Among Nations: Bargaining Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 450-58. Copeland responds that he specifies the variables in his theory, and acknowledges that nuclear weapons arc important, but separate from his theory (Dale Copeland, letter to author). My point is that including nuclear weapons in dynamic differentials theory would strengthen it without too much of a loss of parsimony. A useful theory will not include every available variable, but it should include the most important variables. Copeland agrees that nuclear weapons have played an important role in preventing major war since the Second World War, and his dynamic differentials approach would benefit from its inclusion. Theoretical purity should be sacrificed for theoretical power.
148. For two arguments that Copeland seeks to refute see John Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future";
149. and Waltz, Theory of International Politics;
150. and Waltz, "The Stability of a Bipolar World," Daedelus 93, no. 3 (summer 1964): 881-909. Copeland, Mearsheimer, and Waltz all focus primarily on the effects of structure on stability and peace.
151. See, for example, Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World Politics 30, no. 2 (January 1978): 167-214;
152. Stephen Van Evera, "Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War," in The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace, ed. Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993): 197-200;
153. and Hopf, "Polarity, the Offense-Defense Balance, and War." Copeland cites these and other works that make similar claims (see his nn. 25, 39), but he fails to incorporate their insights into his theoretical approach.
154. For the role of ideas related to military doctrine, see Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive;
155. and Stephen Van Evera, "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War."
156. For the relationship between political ideology and war, see Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993);
157. Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science Review 80, no. 4 (December 1986).
158. For a more recent claim for the importance of ideas, see Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
159. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias."
160. Schweller makes a similar argument in "Bandwagoning for Profit," 99-106.
161. One scholar closely identified with the tradition of evil, Morgenthau, cautions against studying motives (see Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 5-10). (I am grateful to Joseph Grieco for pointing this out to me.)
162. Among those agreeing with Schweller that motives should be studied is Wolfers, who writes that "if one fails to inquire why actors choose their goals, one is forced to operate in an atmosphere of such abstraction that nothing is revealed but the barest skeleton of the real world of international politics." Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 70.
163. For a realist approach that studies motives, see Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 25-26.
164. Schweller points to Alexander the Great, the Romans, seventh and eighth century Arabs, Charles V, Philip II, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolph Hitler as revisionist leaders. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias," 109.
165. A similar argument can be found in Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Make of It."
166. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias," 119.
167. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias,"106.
168. Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 66-67.
169. In an article which argues that, preemptive wars rarely occur, Dan Reiter codes the outbreak of the First World War as a preemptive attack. "Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never Happen," International Security 20, no. 2 (fall 1995): 5-34.
170. Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War (New York: Norton, 1967).
171. Paul W. Schroeder, "World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak," Journal of Modern History 44 (1972): 319-45.
172. For an argument that the Russians and Germans acted deliberately, which supports Schweller's interpretation, see Marc Trachtenberg, "The Meaning of Mobilization in 1914," in Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War, ed. Steven E. Miller, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Stephen Van Evera (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991): 195-225.
173. See, for example, Melvin Leffler, A Preponderance of Power (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).
174. For thoughts on the phenomenon of overreaction under bipolarity, see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 172.
175. For an argument disputing realist reliance on the importance of the anarchic structure in determining international politics, see Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Make of It." Like Wendt, Schweller has a similar problem with realism, which leads him to question the importance of the security dilemma.
176. For a similar argument to mine see Daniel H. Deudney, "The Philadelphian System: Sovereignty, Arms Control, and Balance of Power in the American States-Union, circa 1787-1861," International Organization 49, no. 2 (spring 1995): 225 n. 127.
177. Interestingly, Schweller's dissertation and related article, "Tripolarity and the Second World War," International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 1 (March 1993): 73-104, use structure to explain, in part, international outcomes, This makes his refusal to include structure (and his related attack on the concept of the security dilemma) in his contribution to this volume all the more puzzling.
178. Charles L. Glaser, "Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help," Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 125-66.
179. A slightly different version of the article appeared under the same title in International Security 19, no. 3 (winter 1994/95): 50-90.
180. For another attempt to add security dilemma variables to Waltz's theory see Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks" International Organization 44, no. 2 (spring 1990): 137-68.
181. For other implications of the offense-defense balance and offense-defense differentiation, see Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," 186-214.
182. Glaser, "Realists as Optimists," 163.
183. Joao Resende-Santos, "Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems: Military Strategies and Organizations in South America, 1870-1914," Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 195-254.
184. Charles Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-making,"in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. Charles Tilly (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 42.
185. Resende-Santos, "Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems," 212.
186. Resende-Santos, "Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems,"198-99. Waltz and others, who define structure as the arrangement of states within the system based on the distribution of power, disagree.
187. Resende-Santos, "Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems," 253.
188. Tilly's approach draws upon both external and internal factors. Tilly also argues that state formation after the Second World War has been more of an externally driven process than state formation in Europe. Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990-1990 (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990), 181. Resende-Santos explains state formation during 1870-1930, and his focus on external factors places him in direct opposition to Tilly.
189. For two approaches that show how domestic forces affect state policy, see Michael Barnett, "High Politics is Low Politics: The Domestic and Systemic Sources of Israeli Security Policy, 1967-1977," World Politics 42, no. 4 (July 1990): 529-62;
190. and Alan C. Lamborn, "Power and the Politics of Extraction," International Studies Quarterly 27, no. 2 (June 1983): 125-46.
191. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," 171.
192. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," 172.
193. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," 174. He also attempts to systematize the dependent variable by introducing the concept of interactions, but this topic is beyond the scope of this paper, which focuses on the relationship between the essays in this volume to the concepts of tragedy and evil in realist theory.
194. Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 91-195.
195. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," 177-78.
196. For an attempt to incorporate interdependence as a structural factor (from outside the realist perspective), see Helen V. Milner, "The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique," Review of International Studies 17, no. 1 (January 1991): 81-85.
197. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory,"182-84. The quote is from p. 182 (emphasis in original).
198. Waltz, Theory of International Politics.
199. Waltz, Man, the State and War.
200. Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 15;
201. James Rosenau, "Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy," in Approaches to Comparative and International Politics, ed. R. Barry Farrell (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966), 27-92.
202. J. David Singer, "The Level of Analysis Problem in International Relations," in The International System: Theoretical Essays, ed. Klaus Knorr and Sidney Verba (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 77-92.
203. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chaps. 4 and 5.
204. Kapstein, "Is Realism Dead?"
205. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 13-19.
206. For an argument that individual traits still matter at such a time, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 19-21.
207. Reiter, "Exploding the Powder Keg Myth."
208. Benjamin Miller, When Opponents Cooperate: Great Power Conflict and Collaboration in World Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
209. Christensen and Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks." See Copeland's contribution to this volume for criticism of some of their arguments.
210. Christensen and Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks," 142.
211. Michael Mastanduno, David A. Lake, and G. John Ikenberry, "Toward a Realist Theory of State Action," International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4 (December 1989): 457-74.
212. Also see Ikenberry, "Conclusion: An Institutional Approach to American Foreign Economic Policy," International' Organization 42 (winter 1988): 427-60.