When realists observe the world system, they primarily see states struggling for power,

each trying to consolidate its relative gain in a zero-sum game. The structure of the
international system is thus rooted in this struggle, which is why realists contemplate
little or no change in the structure of the international system.

REALISM

Definition: A paradigm based on the premise that world politics is essentially and

unchangeably a struggle among self-interested states for power and position under anarchy,

with each competing state pursuing its own national interests.

Main Ideas

1. People are by nature narrowly selfish and ethically flawed and cannot free themselves
from the sinful fact that they are driven to watch out for themselves and compete with
others for self-advantage.
2. Of all people's evil ways, none are more prevalent, inexorable, or dangerous than their
instinctive lust for power and their desire to dominate others.
3. The possibility of eradicating the instinct for power is a utopian aspiration.
4. International politics is - as Thomas Hobbes put it - a struggle for power, "a war of all
against all".
5. The primary obligation of every state - the goal to which all other national objectives
should be subordinated - is to promote its national interest and to acquire power for
this purpose.
6. The anarchical nature of the international system dictates that states acquire sufficient
military capabilities to deter attack by potential enemies and to exercise influence over
others.
7. Economics is less relevant to national security than is military might; economic growth
is important primarily as a means of acquiring and expanding state power and
prestige.
8. Allies might increase a state's ability to defend itself, but their loyalty and reliability
should not be assumed.
9. States should never entrust the task of self-protection to international security
organizations or international law and should resist efforts to regulate international
behaviour through global governance.
10. If all states seek to maximize power, stability will result by maintaining a balance of
power, lubricated by shifts in the formation and decay of opposing alliances.

Summary

Key Units: Independent states

Core Concern: War and security

Major Approach: Balance of power

Outlook on Global Prospects: Pessimistic/stability

Motives of Actors: National interests; zero-sum competition; security; power

Central Concepts: Structural anarchy; power; national interests; balance of power; polarity

Prescriptions: Increase national power; resist reduction of national autonomy

Criticisms of Realism

1. Lack of precision and even contradictions in the way classical realists use concepts
such as "power", "national interest" and "balance of power".
2. Contradiction between the central descriptive and prescriptive elements of classical
realism: on the one hand it claims that nations and their leaders think and act in terms
of interests defined as power, but on the other, diplomats are urged to exercise
prudence and restraint as well as to recognize the legitimate national interests of other
nations.
3. No clarification of exactly what policies best serve the national interest. Are states
more prone to act aggressively when they are strong or weak?
4. Offers no criteria for determining what data is significant and what epistemological
rules to follow to interpret relevant information.
5. Does not explain significant new developments in world politics, such as the creation of
new liberal trade and political institutions in Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. If
humankind is unchanging, how do we explain the observable evolution and
transformation of the international system: the growth of collaborative multilateral
institutions, economic expansion, and states' observable willingness to abide by ethical
principles and agreements rather than to exploit others ruthlessly when the
opportunity arises?
6. Worrying tendency to disregard ethical principles.
7. Some of the policy prescriptions of realism seem to impose high material and social
costs, e.g. retarded economic growth resulting from unrestrained military
expenditures. Do arms promote national security or provoke costly arms races and
wars? Do alliances encourage peace or instability? Are the interests of states better
served through competition or through cooperation?

2. A liberal, on the other hand, sees interdependence in the world system, a system
in which every state cooperates on some level with other states. This cooperation is
facilitated by institutions and established norms and ensures that every state
maximizes its gain. Absolute gains, therefore, rather than relative gains, are the
focus of liberals.

LIBERALISM

Definition: A paradigm predicated on the hope that the application of reason and universal

ethics to international relations can lead to a more orderly, just, and cooperative world, and
that international anarchy and war can be policed by institutional reforms that empower

international organizations and reforms.

Main Ideas

1. Human nature is essentially "good" or altruistic, and people are therefore capable of
mutual aid and collaboration through reason and ethically inspired education.
2. The fundamental human concern for others' welfare makes progress possible.
3. Sinful or wicked human behaviour, such as violence, is the product not of flawed
people but of evil institutions that encourage people to act selfishly and to harm
others.
4. War and international anarchy are not inevitable and war's frequency can be reduced
by strengthening the institutional arrangements that encourage its disappearance.
5. War is a global problem requiring collective or multilateral, rather than national, efforts
to control it.
6. Reforms must be inspired by a compassionate ethical concern for the welfare and
security of all people, and this humanitarian motive requires the inclusion of morality
in statescraft.
7. International society must reorganize itself in order to eliminate the institutions that
make war likely, and states must reform their political systems so that democratic
governance and civil liberties within states can protect human rights and help pacify
relations among states.

General Streams of Liberalist Thought

Liberal idealists generally fall into one of three groups:

1. Those who advocate creating international institutions to replace the anarchical and
war-prone balance-of-power system with a new one based on collective security.
(Collective security: A security regime that keeps peace guided by the principle that an
act of aggression by any state will be met by a collective response from the rest.)
2. Those who emphasize the use of legal processes such as mediation and arbitration to
settle disputes and avoid armed conflict.
3. Those who seek disarmament as a means to ending war.

Corollary Ideas

1. The need to replace nationalist loyalties with attitudes that stressed the unity of
mankind.
2. The importance of individuals, their essential dignity and fundamental equality
throughout the course of history.
3. The need to protect and promote human rights and civil liberties.
4. The use of the power of ideas through education to arouse world public opinion against
warfare.
5. The promotion of free international trade in place of states' economic competition.
 6. The replacement of secret diplomacy by a system of "open covenants, openly arrived
at."
7. The termination of interlocking bilateral alliances and the power balances they sought
to achieve.
8. The promotion of the ideal of self-determination - giving nationalities the right through
voting to become independent states.
9. The need for democratic domestic institutions to make the world secure and free from
war, because democracies historically have almost never urged war against one
another.

Summary

Key Units: Institutions transcending states

Core Concern: Institutionalizing peace

Major Approach: International law; international organization; democratization

Outlook on Global Prospects: Optimistic/progress

Motives of Actors: Collaboration; mutual aid; meeting human needs

Central Concepts: Collective security; world order; law; integration; international

organization

Prescriptions: Institutional reform

Criticisms of Liberalism

1. Its legalistic and moralistic assumptions about the possibility of peace and progress
through human aspiration are naive.
2. Neglects the harsh realities of power politics and humans' innate compulsion to put
their personal welfare ahead of the welfare of others.
3. Little of the liberal reform program has ever seriously been attempted, and even less
of it has been achieved.

NEOREALISM

Definition: A theoretical account of states' behaviour that explains it as determined by

differences in their relative power instead of by other factors, such as their values, types of

government, or domestic circumstances.

Main Ideas

1. In order to systematize political realism into a rigorous, deductive systemic theory of

international politics, explanations at the individual and state levels must be dismissed
 - explanations at the global system level are sufficient to account for the main trends
in world politics.
2. Anarchy or the absence of central institutions above states is the most important and
enduring property of the structure of the system.
3. States are the primary actors, acting according to the principle of self-help and seeking
to ensure their own survival.
4. States do not differ in the tasks they face, only in their capabilities. Capabilities define
the position of states in the system, and the distribution of capabilities defines the
structure of the system and shapes the ways the units interact with one another.
5. Power is a central concept, but the quest for power is not considered an end in itself,
nor does it derive from human nature. Instead, states always pursue power as a means
of survival.
6. The means fall into two categories: internal efforts (moves to increase economic
capability, to increase military strength, to develop clever strategies) and external
efforts (moves to strengthen and enlarge one's own alliance or to weaken and shrink
an opposing one).
7. Because the instinct for survival drives states, balances of power form automatically,
regardless of whether some or all states consciously aim to establish and maintain a
balance, or whether some or all states aim for universal domination.
8. Although states' goals do sometimes fluctuate with the changing currents of domestic
politics, the foreign policies of all states are basically driven by the same systemic
factors - "they are like so many billiard balls, obeying the same laws of political
geometry and physics." (Harries 1995) "Structural constraints explain why the [same]
methods are repeatedly used despite differences in the persons and states who use
them."(Waltz 1979)
9. The anarchical structure of the international system compels states to be sensitive to
theirrelative position in the distribution of power. Impediments to global cooperation
result not from the parties' attitudes toward potential collaborative efforts, but rather
from the insecurity that the anarchical system breeds. ("Will both of us gain?", "Who
will gain more?", "Even if we both gain the same amount, how will the other party use
its increased capabilities?")

Summary

Key Unit: The international system's structure

Core Concern: Struggle for position and power under anarchy

Major Approach: Balance of terror; military preparedness and deterrence

Outlook on Global Prospects: Pessimistic

Motives of Actors: Power; prestige, and advantage (relative gains) over other states

Central Concepts: Structural anarchy; rational choice; arms races

Prescriptions: Preserve nuclear deterrence; avoid disarmament and supranational

organizations

Criticism of Neorealism
Neorealists offer a very dim view of the prospects for international cooperation. The record

suggests that patterns can change and that increased interdependence can lead to even

higher levels of cooperation.

NEOLIBERALISM

Definition: A perspective that accounts for the way international institutions promote global

change, cooperation, peace, and prosperity through collective programs for reforms.

Main Ideas

1. The anarchical nature of the international system can be reformed through the
creation of strong and effective institutions for global governance.
2. International cooperation can be expected because collaboration produces rewards
that reduce the temptation to selfishly compete.
3. States are motivated by the search for opportunities to cooperate that will produce
absolute gains for all parties to the cooperative exchange.
4. National security and national economic prosperity are both important state goals, but
states place a greater priority on economic welfare.
5. States' intentions, interests, information and ideals are more influential in determining
their behaviour than is the distribution of capabilities in the international system.
6. States have created a variety of new international regimes and institutions to regulate
their relations since World War II. These institutions create norms that are binding on
their members and that change patterns of international politics.
7. States are becoming increasingly dependent on, sensitive to, and mutually vulnerable
to one another in ways that are eroding their sovereign control and independence.
While realism accounts only for state-to-state relations, any true conception of world
politics must highlight the multiple channels through which both state and nonstate
actors (such as multinational corporations and international organizations) are visibly
engaging in active transnational contact and communication worldwide.
8. Intense relationships of mutual influence exist between countries, but the use of force
is irrelevant and unimportant as an instrument of policy.

Summary

Key Units: Individuals; "penetrated" states and nonstate transnational actors

Core Concern: Fostering interstate cooperation on the globe's shared economic, social and

ecological problems

Major Approach: Complex interdependence and regimes

Outlook on Global Prospects: Expectation of cooperation and creation of a global

community
Motives of Actors: Global interests (absolute gains); justice; peace and prosperity; liberty;

morality

Central Concepts: Transnational relations; law; free markets; interdependence; integration;

liberal republican rule; human rights; gender

Prescriptions: Develop regimes and promote democracy and international institutions to

coordinate collective responses to global problems

Lecture Notes: The Three S's of Realism

1. Statism
 Statism is the centrepiece of realism.
 The state is the preeminent actor and all other actors in world politics are of lesser
significance.
 State 'sovereignty' signifies the existence if an independent political community,
one which has juridicial authority over its territory.
2. Survival
 The primary objective of all states is survival; this is the supreme national interest
to which all political leaders must adhere. All other goals, such as economic
prosperity, are secondary (or 'low politics').
 In order to preserve the security of their states, leaders must adopt an ethical code
which judges actions according to the outcome rather in terms of a judgement
about whether the individual act is right or wrong.
3. Self-Help
 No other state can be relied upon to guarantee your survival. In international
politics, the structure of the system does not permit friendship, trust, and honour;
only a perennial condition of uncertainty generated by the absence of a global
government.
 Coexistence is achieved through the maintenance of the balance of power, and
limited cooperation is possible in interactions where the realist state stands to gain
more than other states.