Realism - Alive or Dead?

All,

I’ve personally enjoyed our discussion on realism and its relevance to the world we currently find ourselves in. After reading through all the posts I wanted to organize some of the thoughts I took away. To do so I’d like to analyze whether some of the “Key Concepts of Realism”, found on page 158 of Baylis and Smith, effectively explain IR.

1. Anarchic international system: I still think this is essentially true but with some qualifications. A supra-national authority that is able to enforce accepted international norms of behavior across the board still does not exist. However, there are organizations that do so for particular regions or for particular aspects of IR. The EU can determine certain policies for its member states and is able to produce consequences for non-conformers. The WTO is an example for economic relations. Perhaps the more these types of organizations order relations for certain issues or areas the more this realist principle becomes less true. One key note here though is that physical security, the primary concern/motivator in realist theory, still is not effectively ordered by any of these regional/issue entities. So for the most important aspect of IR this principle is still true.

2. Self help: this is directly tied to an anarchic system. So for certain issues/regions this concept may be losing significance, but when speaking of physical security this still seems primarily true.

3. Duality of Morality: I think this concept is becoming less salient. Not necessarily because it was never true, but because as international affairs evolve there seems to be growing consequences for immoral actions at the international level. Clearly examples such as camp X-ray and Abu Ghraib show that morality matters at the domestic and international levels.

4. Survival: still the primary concern for international actors. However, certain developments in IR, such as democratic peace and issue/regional organizations mentioned earlier, do make the world less austere, and do ease this concern somewhat.

5. Primacy of the state: still the primary actor but clearly there needs to be some room made for other types of organizations which are able to wield a degree of power internationally. National groupings that exist across state borders, religious based groups, some terrorist groups, multi-national corporations and I’m sure many others are able to impact IR. Therefore realism needs to adjust to include these in order to keep its explanatory power. To be fair though several neo-realist theorists are far less state-centric in their thinking.

Overall I think realism retains a great deal of its ability to explain international interactions. This unit has been a pleasure and I am very much looking forward to future discussions in this new group.

Best,

Sean