Realism and the Left: The case of Hans J. Morgenthau

Review of International Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 29-51

  Scheuerman, William E ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 38149004176     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210508007894     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. Campbell Craig, Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in The Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 54-73.
2. See, for example, Marcus Raskin, 'Morgenthau: The Idealism of a Realist', in Thompson and Myers (eds.), Truth and Tragedy: A Tribute to Hans J. Morgenthau (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1984), pp. 85-94.
3. Richard Rosecrane, 'The One World of Hans Morgenthau', Social Research, 48 (1981), pp. 749-65.
4. On Nietzsche and Morgenthau, see Christoph Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2001);
5. on Weber, Hans-Karl Pichler, 'The Godfathers of "Truth": Max Weber and Carl Schmitt in Morgenthau's Theory of Power Polities', Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 185-200;
6. Michael Joseph Smith, Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1986);
7. on Schmitt, see Jan Willem Honig, 'Totalitarianism and Realism: Hans Morgenthau's German Years', in Benjamin Frankel (ed.), Roots of Realism (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 283-313;
8. Martti Koskienniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 412-509;
9. William E. Scheuerman, Carl Schmitt: The End of Law (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 225-51.
10. More generally on Morgenthau and the German Right, also Alfons Söllner, 'German Conservatism in America: Morgenthau's Political Realism', Telos, 72 (1987), pp. 161-72.
11. In his helpful study, on which I rely for a number of biographical details, Frei discusses Sinzheimer's influence, but he downplays the impact of Sinzheimer's ideas on Morgenthau (Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography, esp. pp. 39, 168).
12. Koskienniemi similarly mentions Sinzheimer and the left-wing jurists with whom Morgenthau worked, but claims, without much evidence, that Morgenthau remained a conservative (Gentle Civilizer of Nations, p. 447).
13. The Referendariat entailed a legal apprenticeship undertaken under the auspices of a senior lawyer. It was a required component of professional legal training.
14. For example, in the Vietnam War, when his vocal opposition made him the object of a vicious smear campaign by the Johnson Administration.
15. Sinzheimer was an outspoken critic of traditional German 'power polities'. In 1917, he published an extensive monograph on international law and foreign policy in which he defends unabashedly Kantian reforms of the interstate system, criticises power politics and 'reason of state' approaches to foreign affairs, and urges a movement towards a united pacific Europe (Völkerrechtsgeist. Rede zur Einführung in das Programm der Zentralstelle 'Völkerrecht' [Leipzig: Verlag Naturwissenschaften, 1917]). His views on such matters seem to have been very close to those which the mature Morgenthau - as a prominent 'classical realist' - generally excoriated. For an overview of Sinzheimer's views on international relations,
16. see Susanne Knorre, Soziale Selbstbestimmung und individuelle Verantwortung.Hugo Sinzheimer (1875-1945). Eine politische Biographie (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1991), pp. 1-69.
17. In his early writings, Morgenthau cautiously cites Sinzheimer's international law writings (for example, his Die internationale Rechtspflege, ihr Wesen und ihre Grenzen [Leipzig: Universitätsverlag von Robert Noske, 1929], p. 166), but he does not, interestingly, openly criticise them, in part because he at least initially identified with some of Sinzheimer's aspirations for a reformed international order. Other references to Sinzheimer's works are scattered throughout Morgenthau's writings.
18. For a useful survey of Weimar social democratic legal theory, see Wolfgang Luthardt, Sozialdemokratische Verfassungslehre in der Weimarer Republik (Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986).
19. Knorre plausibly underscores the Kantian strands in Sinzheimer's thought. See Soziale Selbstimmung und individuelle Verantwortung.
20. For a discussion of Heller and Kelsen, see David L. Dyzenhaus, Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
21. Morgenthau, 'Fragment of an Intellectual Autobiography: 1904-1932', in Kenneth Thompson and Robert J. Myers (eds.), Truth and Tragedy, p. 10.
22. See also the extensive correspondence between Morgenthau and Sinzheimer as well as various members of Sinzheimer's family (Hans J. Morgenthau Papers, Containers 54 and 197, Library of Congress, Washington, DC [HJM-B54, B197]). As Frei correctly notes, '[t]heir relations must in fact have been very close, as their shared professional life occasionally carried over into private life. At times, Morgenthau stayed entire days in the house of his boss, not infrequently also as a baby sitter' (Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Autobiography, p. 168).
23. Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, p. 61.
24. Ernst Fraenkel to Gertrud Mainzer [Sinzheimer's daughter], 25 February 1975, HJM-54, Library of Congress. It is not clear that Morgenthau was able to attend, however.
25. 'Bernard Johnson's Interview with Hans J. Morgenthau', in Thompson and Myers (eds.), Truth and Tragedy, p. 349. As noted, Ernst Fraenkel (1898-1975) became a prominent political scientist in postwar Germany; Otto Kahn-Freund (1900-53) became a leading figure in labour and comparative law in the UK; Franz L. Neumann (1900-1953) was the resident political and legal theorist of the 'Frankfurt School' when in New York exile, and then an influential professor of political theory at Columbia University. All, like Morgenthau, were Jews; all seem to have shared a deep admiration for Sinzheimer and described their years under his mentorship as decisive for their intellectual development.
26. See, for example, Fraenkel, 'Hugo Sinzheimer', in Falk Esche and Frank Grube (eds.), Reformismus und Pluralismus (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1973), pp. 131-42.
27. Knorrie, Soziale Selbstbestimmung und individuelle Verantwortung, pp. 116-17.
28. Cited in Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, p. 168.
29. Morgenthau, 'Fragment of an Intellectual Autobiography', pp. 9-10.
30. Sinzhemier's writings are unavailable in English. My brief summary is drawn from the useful collection available in German: Hugo Sinzheimer, Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziologie. Gesammelte Aufsaetze und Reden, Otto Kahn-Freund and Thilo Ramm (eds.), vols. I-II (Frankfurt: EVA, 1976).
31. Otto-Kahn-Freund, 'Hugo Sinzheimer 1975-1945', in Roy Lewis and Jon Clark (eds.), Labour Law and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), p. 103.
32. Franz L. Neumann, 'The Change in the Function of Law in Modern Society', in William E. Scheuerman (ed.), The Rule of Law Under Siege: Selected Essays of Franz L. Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 101-41.
33. For a spirited defence of Sinzheimer's position in this debate, see Ernst Fraenkel, Deutschland und die westlichen Demokratien (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1991), pp. 95-136.
34. Knorre, Soziale Selbstbestimmung und individuelle Verantwortung, p. 116.
35. This quote, taken from Marx, appears repeatedly in Sinzheimer's writings. More generally on this point, see Kahn-Freund, 'Hugo Sinzheimer 1875-1945', p. 78.
36. A similar movement towards the sociology of law can be identified during the same period in other national settings. It is not clear how familiar Sinzheimer or his young students were with them. It is important to note that Sinzheimer was probably chiefly influenced by Weber's Sociology of Law, and not, as often appears to be the case in Morgenthau's mature version of realist theory, Weber's political ethics or hard-headed normative political theory. This important difference in the reception of Weber, I believe, also sets Morgenthau apart from Sinzheimer's left-wing followers (such as, Fraenkel, Kahn-Freund, and Neumann). Sinzheimer also does not appear to have shared Morgenthau's occasional youthful interest in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
37. Karl Renner, The Institutions of Private Law and Their Social Functions, ed. Otto Kahn Freund (London: Routledge, 1949).
38. Kahn-Freund, 'Hugo Sinzheimer 1875-1945', p. 98.
39. Ibid., p. 99.
40. On Fraenkel, see Scheuerman, 'Social Democracy and the Rule of Law: The Legacy of Ernst Fraenkel', in Peter Caldwell and Scheuerman (eds.), From Liberal Democracy to Fascism: Legal and Political Thought in the Weimar Republic (Boston, MA: Humanities Press, 200), pp. 74-105.
41. Kahn Freund translated Renner into English, and the impact of Weber on his work is profound. See the many essays collected in Lewis and Clark (eds.), Labour Law and Politics in the Weimar Republic, as well as the appreciative discussions of Kahn-Freund's work in Lord Wedderburn of Charlton,
42. Roy Lewis and Jon Clark (eds.), Labour Law and Industrial Relations: Building on Kahn-Freund (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
43. On Neumann, see William E. Scheuerman, Between the Norm and the Exception: The Frankfurt School and the Rule of Law (London: MIT Press, 1994).
44. Neumann, 'The Change in the Function of Law', p. 126. For Fraenkel's version of the argument, see 'Die Krise des Rechtsstaats und die Justiz', Die Gesellschaft, 8 (1931), pp. 327-41.
45. Hugo Sinzheimer, 'Theorie der Gesetzgebung', in Kahn-Feund and Ramm (eds.), Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziolgie, vol. II, pp. 245-309.
46. Kahn-Freund, 'Hugo Sinzheimer 1975-1945', pp. 75-7.
47. On Sinzheimer's worries about judicial discretion, see Knorre, Soziale Selbstbestimmung und individuelle Verantwortung, pp. 15, 71, 157.
48. Recent scholarship has confirmed this view. See Ingo Mueller, Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
49. See Scheuerman, Between the Norm and the Exception.
50. This untitled piece appears to have been unsuccessfully submitted to a legal journal (HJM-B110, Library of Congress). The translation here, as of other German texts unless otherwise noted, is my own.
51. Two detailed discussions of Morgenthau's early work stand out: Niels Amstrup, 'The "Early" Morgenthau: A Comment on the Intellectual Origins of Realism', Cooperation and Conflict, 3 (1978), pp. 163-75;
52. Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer of Nations, pp. 436-73.
53. Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege. The book garnered strong endorsements from major figures in the field. See, for example, the comments by Hersch Lauterpacht, who praised Morgenthau's first book in a review of Morgenthau's closely related 1933 La Notion du 'politique' et la theorie des differends internationaux (Paris: Libraire du Recueil Sirey, 1933): 'Dr. Morgenthau has won for himself through his book [from 1929] a prominent place among international lawyers engaged in clarifying the character of disputes among states and in enquiring into the limits of their compulsory settlement' (Zeitschrift fuer Sozialforschung, 3 [1934], p. 461).
54. Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege, p. 75.
55. Ibid., p. 148.
56. In Völkerrechtsgeist, Sinzheimer similarly drew a parallel between the 'juridical abstraction' of individual freedom within the context of private law and the 'juridical abstraction' of absolute state sovereignty (p. 6). In both cases, law tends to obscure the existence of relations of social dependence and inequality.
57. Hans J. Morgenthau, Genfer Antrittssvorlesung (Geneva, unpublished, 1932) (HJM-B110, Library of Congress).
58. Hans J. Morgenthau, 'Die Wirklichkeit des Völkerbunds', Neue Zuercher Zeitung (2 April 1933). p.3.
59. Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege, p. 150.
60. Even well after the mature Morgenthau subsequently abandoned this dream of a dynamic system of adaptable international norms, the original egalitarian impulses behind his critique of international law occasionally remained in place. A central criticism of ambitious models of international law remained the claim that they often worked to the advantage of powerful states and undermined the sovereignty of weaker rivals.
61. Morgenthau, 'Fragment of an Intellectual Autobiography', p. 13.
62. Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege, esp. pp.2, 14, 89-90, 98-130.
63. Morgenthau also occasionally echoes his teacher's ideas about the autonomous (that is, non-statist) origins of labour law, according to which legal regulation first emerged among non-state actors. At the very least, Morgenthau argues forcefully against those who directly link the concept of international jurisdiction to the sovereign state, noting that international juridical and arbitral bodies operate effectively despite the lack of a shared sovereign (Die internationale Rechtspflege, pp. 17-19).
64. This is also a theme in his later work. In a 1940 article, for example, he criticises the mainstream of international lawyers for a 'monistic statism' that leads them to limit the scope of international law to the express written law of the state, according to which the only valid rules are those found in court decisions and formally ratified treaties. However, 'all rules embodied in written documents are not valid international law, and, on the other hand, there are valid rules . . . other than the rules embodied in written documents' ('Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law', American Journal of International Law, 34 (1940), p. 265.
65. Sinzheimer's other disciples published frequently there as well.
66. Hans J. Morgenthau, 'Stresemann als Schöpfer der deutschen Völkerechtspolitik', Die Justiz, 5 (1929/30), pp. 169-76.
67. Hans J. Morgenthau, 'Die Völkerrechtlichen Ergebnisse der Tagung der deutschen Gesellschaft fuer Völkerrecht', 4 (1929), pp. 621-4.
68. Hans J. Morgenthau, Selbstmord mit gutem. Gewisssen. Zur Kritik des Pazifismus und der neuen deutschen Kriegsphilosophie (Frankfurt, unpublished manuscript, 1931) (HJM-B96, Library of Congress). The manuscript - which includes a detailed critique of both prewar German pacifism and the 'new bellicose philosophy' of Ernst Jünger - was submitted unsuccessfully for publication to the major German publisher Rowohlt Verlag, whose representative informed Morgenthau that he was unable to publish it because of the bad economic times which had impacted the publishing business. Morgenthau rather diplomatically failed to include Sinzheimer's prewar pacifistic ideas as part of his critique. At the same time, the critique of pacifism is a sympathetic one: Morgenthau's general point was that 'old' prewar or traditional pacifism had failed miserably, and that it should be jettisoned for a new (more realistic) theory and practice that might prove more successful at warding off the horrors of war. It is also worth recalling that many of the mature Morgenthau's writings suggest an abiding commitment to social and economic reform, though not along the radical lines arguably suggested here.
69. See, for example, the neglected Purpose of American Politics (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1960).
70. Knorre, Soziale Selbstbestimmung und individuelle Verantwortung, pp. 125-7. According to Knorre, Sinzheimer soon abandoned this pessimistic interpretation of his own Weimar undertaking, however.
71. Franz L. Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 3-39.
72. Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer of Nations, p. 455.
73. The study in question is La Notion du 'Politique' et la Theorie des Differends Internationaux (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1933).
74. See, for example, Hans J. Morgenthau, 'The Problem of Neutrality', University of Kansas City Law Review, 7 (1938/39), p. 111.
75. Morgenthau, 'Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law', pp. 281-2.
76. To be sure, the rise of fascism and collapse of the League were closely related in many ways.
77. Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 1946), pp. 116-17.
78. Morgenthau, 'Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law', p. 269. In this essay, realism is described as 'functionalism' in order, Morgenthau notes, to avoid any possible misunderstanding: his approach shares little with legal realism or what is commonly associated with realism in contemporary legal thought. When addressing political scientists, his primary audience in later years, he reverts to the 'realist' label. The term 'functionalism' is also revealing, since a primary concern in left-wing Weimar German-speaking sociology of law (for example, in Renner's sociology of law), where the term was common, was the 'changing social functions' of law - a theme in Morgenthau's theory as well, though he uses different terminology to describe it. An important difference between this essay and Morgenthau's early work, however, is that he no longer believes that international law can be rendered dynamic.
79. Morgenthau, 'Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law', p. 273.
80. This analysis, furthermore, would have to be scientific. Morgenthau's model of social science seems to have been influenced by Max Weber. See, for example, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics, where Weber is a major, albeit inadequately acknowledged, source.
81. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 2nd edn. (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1954), p. 4.
82. Not surprisingly, many critics of Morgenthau's postwar work have worried about its purportedly conservative overtones: it tends to reify the most unfortunate features of contemporary international politics and rests on an exaggerated hostility to even modest forms of international reform. Richard Falk, for example, refuses to group Morgenthau among the 'critical realists' presumably because of a failure to grasp international relations as 'a matter of historical evolution arising from the play of social, economic and ideological forces': 'The Critical Realist Tradition and the Demystification of State Power: E. H. Carr, Hedley Bull and Robert W. Cox', in Stephen Gill (ed.), Innovation and Transformation in International Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 39-55.
83. See the brief references to this idea in Die internationale Rechtspflege, p. 74.
84. Morgenthau's early engagement with Freud was undoubtedly another product of the eventful years in liberal-minded Frankfurt, where Freud, in contrast to many other German cities and universities, was taken seriously. Morgenthau likely encountered the young Erich Fromm, who lectured at the Institute for Social Research in the late 1920s and 1930s. Fromm, like Morgenthau, was centrally interested in understanding what he also described as a psychologically-rooted 'lust for power'. See, for example, Escape from Freedom (New York: Henry Holt, 1969 [1941]), p. 4, and at least for a period of time, Morgenthau, like Fromm, hoped to build on Freud to explain the origins of this 'lust for power'.
85. See especially Über die Herkunft des Politischen aus dem Wesen der Menschen (Frankfurt, 1931, unpublished, HJM-B151, Library of Congress), where Morgenthau undertakes to build a Freudian-inspired political theory.
86. Think, for example, of his many comments about the 'world state', which he described typically as morally desirable yet politically unrealistic.
87. Morgenthau, Der Selbstmord mit gutem Gewissen, pp. 44-6.
88. Scheuerman, Carl Schmitt: The End of Law, pp. 225-51.
89. See especially La Notion du 'politique' et la theorie des differends internationaux (Paris: Libraire du Recueil Sirey, 1933).
90. Schmitt uses the 'concept of the political' to criticise liberal international law in his The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996 [1932]).
91. On the debate between Morgenthau and Schmitt, see Scheuerman, 'Carl Schmitt and Hans J. Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond', in Michael Williams (ed.), Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans J. Morgenthau in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
92. Morgenthau's argument on this score (see, for the example, his 1932 Geneva Inaugural Lecture [Genfer Antrittsrede, HJM-B110, Library of Congress]) echoes a similar interpretation of Kelsen found in many writings of Sinzheimer's former students. During the 1930s, Morgenthau devoted significant energy to criticizing Kelsen.
93. See, most notably, La Realite des Normes. En particulier des norms du droit international (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1934). For his part, Sinzheimer was clearly familiar with Kelsen's work, yet he does not seem to have engaged its philosophical fundaments as deeply as Morgenthau during the early and mid-1930s.
94. Franz L. Neumann, The Rule of Law: Political Theory and Legal System, in Modern Society (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1986 [1936]);
95. also, Fraenkel, The Dual Slate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).
96. See especially Neumann, 'Types of Natural Law' in Neumann, The Democratic and Authoritarian State (Glencoe: Free Press, 1957 [1940]), pp. 69-95.
97. See Scheuerman, 'Carl Schmitt and Hans J. Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond'.
98. Morgenthau, Purpose of American Politics, pp. 172-8.
99. Craig, Glimmer of a New Leviathan.
100. However, Friedrich Hayek early on observed that realism had roots in socialism. See Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1944), pp. 204-5.
101. See Danilo Zolo, Cosmopolis: Prospects for World Government (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997).
102. Richard K. Ashley, 'Political Realism and Human Interests', International Studies Quarterly, 25 (1981), pp. 204-36;
103. 'The Poverty of Neorealism', International Organization, 38 (1984), pp. 225-86.
104. Ken Booth, 'Security in Anarchy: Utopian Realism in Theory and Practice', International Affairs, 15 (1989), pp. 527-45.
105. Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
106. David Held is the most important representative of this genre. For a critical survey of recent Frankfurt-inspired critical theory work on globalisation and democracy, see William E. Scheuerman, 'Critical Theory Beyond Habermas', in John Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 85-105.
107. One exception is the work of Andrew Linklater, which builds on the Frankfurt School tradition while engaging deeply with mainstream realist theory. See, for example, his The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).
108. On Habermas in this context, see Scheuerman, 'Critical Theory Beyond Habermas'.
109. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics, p. 98.
110. Ibid., p. 98.
111. In a separate essay, I try to address the possibility of a coherent 'critical realism' within Morgenthau's work. See 'A Theoretical Missed Opportunity? Hans J. Morgenthau as Critical Realist?' in Duncan Bell (ed.), Tragedy, Power, and Justice: Variations on a Realist Theme (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).