Desperately Seeking Someone Who Knows Something About IR Theory
I’m at best a dabbler in IR theory, so anyone who knows more than I do should probably just read Charli Carpenter’s post discussing an article claiming that “neo-realism is actually most consistent with classical liberalism” and make their own conclusions.
My impression is that Daniel Deudney, in his book Bounding Power, made the argument that realism and liberalism aren’t as opposed as certain scholars make them seem. Instead, Deudney talked about “Republican Security Theory” which is supposed to cover up the shortcomings of both realism and liberalism. His notion, as described by the book’s website is that “The main ideas of realism and liberalism are but fragments of republican security theory, whose primary claim is that security entails the simultaneous avoidance of the extremes of anarchy and hierarchy, and that the size of the space within which this is necessary has expanded due to technological change.”
Anyway, if you want to know more about Duedney and his work, his bloggingheads with Michael Lind is a good place to start.
PS – Ten points for the first person to explain the connection between Bounding Power and Non-Zero…
I honestly and truly despise semantical debates like this. Look, classical liberals like Norman Angell made a set of arguments back in the day, those arguments inspired those of contemporary neoliberals like Robert Keohane, who wrote in response to neorealists like Kenneth Waltz, who built off of classical realists like Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr, who were responding to Angell, and so the circle continues. Now, is Waltz similar to Angell? I’d say no; Angell was almost Panglossian in his optimism about the pacifying effects of globalization, whereas Waltz doesn’t think economic affairs matter much at all. Indeed, Keohane’s critique of Waltz was built around the potential for economic relations to lead to cooperation in an anarchic international system. But regardless, this isn’t what matters. I don’t care if Waltz is a closet liberal; I care if Waltz is right. Same goes for Angell, Keohane, and all the rest of them. While it may be an interesting parlor game to go around accusing people of incorrectly labeling themselves (though the piece Carpenter quotes seems to not understand that liberalism in political theory and IR theory are two completely different things), the labels aren’t the important element here. The theories are.
Minipundit
December 29, 2007 at 6:22 pm