Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:55:46.804Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2004

Michael C. Williams
Michael C. Williams
Affiliation:
Michael C. Williams is Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales. He can be reached at [email protected].
Get access

Abstract

Debates over how ideas matter in international relations have come to occupy a key place in the field. Through a reexamination of the thinking of Hans Morgenthau, this article seeks to recover a tradition of classical realism that stressed the role of ideas in both the construction of action and in political and ethical judgment. Locating Morgenthau's understanding of politics against the background of the oppositional “concept of the political” developed by the controversial jurist Carl Schmitt shows how Morgenthau's realism attempts to recognize the centrality of power in politics without reducing politics to violence, and to preserve an open and critical sphere of public political debate. This understanding of Morgenthau's realism challenges many portrayals of his place in the evolution of international relations, and of the foundations of realist thought. However, it is also of direct relevance to current analyses of collective identity formation, linking to—and yet providing fundamental challenges for—both realist and constructivist theories.For helpful and insightful comments on this article in its wide variety of previous incarnations, I would like to thank Michael Barnett, James Der Derian, Randall Germain, Alexandra Gheciu, Stefano Guzzini, Jef Huysmans, Oliver Jutersönke, Jennifer Mitzen, Vibeke Schou Pedersen, and especially Rita Abrahamsen and Richard Wyn Jones. Previous drafts were presented at the 2002 meetings of the British International Studies Association, and at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. My thanks also to the participants at those sessions.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 633 - 665
Copyright
© 2004 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adler, Emmanuel. 1997. Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics. European Journal of International Relations 3 (3):319–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amstrup, Niels. 1978. The ‘Early’ Morgenthau: A Comment on the Intellectual Origins of Realism. Cooperation and Conflict 13 (3):163–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashley, Richard. 1981. Political Realism and Human Interests. International Studies Quarterly 25 (2):204–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashley, Richard. 1984. The Poverty of Neorealism. International Organization 38 (2):225–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkawi, Tarak. 1998. Strategy as a Vocation: Weber, Morgenthau, and Modern Strategic Studies. Review of International Studies 24 (2):159–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, Michael, and Raymond Duvall. Forthcoming. Power and International Politics. International Organization 59.
Bucklin, Steven J. 2001. Realism and American Foreign Policy: Wilsonians and the Kennan-Morgenthau Thesis. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Burch, Kurt. 1997. Constituting IPE and Modernity. In Constituting International Political Economy, edited by Kurt Burch and Robert A. Denemark, 21–40. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner.
Buzan, Barry. 1996. The Timeless Wisdom of Realism? In International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, edited by Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marysia Zalewski, 47–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Campbell, David. 1998. National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Claude, Inis L. 1962. Power and International Relations. New York: Random House.
Copeland, Dale. 2000. Social Theory of International Relations. International Security 25 (2):187–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copeland, Dale. 2003. A Realist Critique of the English School. Review of International Studies 29 (3):427–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Der Derian, James. 1997. A Reinterpretation of Realism: Geneology, Semiology, and Dromology. In Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations, edited by Francis A. Beer and Robert Harriman, 277–304. East Lansing: University of Michigan Press.
Der Derian, James. 1998. Post-Theory: The Eternal Return of Ethics in International Relations. In New Thinking in International Relations Theory, edited by Michael Doyle and John Ikenberry, 54–76. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
Der Derian, James. 2000. The Art of War and the Construction of Peace: Toward a Virtual Theory of International Relations. In International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration, edited by Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams, 72–105. London: Routledge.
Desch, Michael C. 1998. Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies. International Security 23 (1):141–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desch, Michael C. 2003. It Is Kind to Be Cruel: The Humanity of American Realism. Review of International Studies 29 (3):415–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deudney, Daniel. 1995. The Philadelphia System: Sovereignty, Arms Control, and Balance of Power in the American States-Union circa 1787–1861. International Organization 49 (2):191–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deudney, Daniel. 2000. Regrounding Realism: Anarchy, Security, and Changing Material Contexts. Security Studies 10 (1):1–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diggins, John M. 1994. The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Donnelly, Jack. 1995. Realism and the Academic Study of International Relations. In Political Science in History: Research Programs and Political Traditions, edited by James Farr, John S. Dryzek, and Stephen T. Leonard, 175–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Donnelly, Jack. 2000. Realism in International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dyzenhaus, David. 1997. Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller in Weimar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ebata, Michi, and Beverly Neufeld, eds. 2000. Confronting the Political in International Relations. London: Palgrave.
Edkins, Jenny. 1999. Poststructuralism and International Relations: Bringing the Political Back In. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner.
Feaver, Peter. 2000. Brother Can You Spare a Paradigm (Or, Was Anybody Ever a Realist?) International Security 25 (1):165–69.Google Scholar
Frei, Christoph. 2001. Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana State University Press.
Gilpin, Robert. 1986. The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism. In Neorealism and Its Critics, edited by Robert Keohane, 301–21. New York: Columbia University Press.
Glaser, Charles L. 2003. Structural Realism in a More Complex World. Review of International Studies 29 (3):403–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Judith, and Robert Keohane, eds. 1993. Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Goodnight, G. Thomas. 1996. Hans J. Morgenthau In Defense of the National Interest: On Rhetoric, Realism, and the Public Sphere. In Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations, edited by Francis A. Beer and Robert Harriman, 143–65. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Grieco, Joseph M. 1997. Realist International Theory and the Study of World Politics. In New Thinking in International Relations Theory, edited by Michael Doyle and G. John Ikenberry, 163–201. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
Guzzini, Stefano. 1998. Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy. London: Routledge.
Hanssen, Beatrice. 2000. Critique of Violence: Between Poststructuralism and Critical Theory. London: Routledge.
Haslam, Johnathan. 2002. No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations Since Machiavelli. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Hindess, Barry. 1996. Discourses of Power: From Hobbes to Foucault. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hobden, Steven. 2001. Historical Sociology: Back to the Future in International Relations? In Historical Sociology of International Relations, edited by Steven Hobden and John M. Hobson, 42–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hobson, John M., and Leonard Seabrooke. 2001. Reimagining Weber: Constructing International Society and the Social Balance of Power. European Journal of International Relations 7 (2):239–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holsti, Ole. 1998. Models of International Relations: Realist and Neoliberal Perspectives on Conflict and Cooperation. In The Global Agenda, 5th ed., edited by Charles W. Kegley and Eugene Wittkopf, 131–44. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Honig, Jan Willem. 1996. Totalitarianism and Realism: Hans Morgenthau's German Years. In Roots of Realism, edited by Benjamin Frankel, 283–313. London: Frank Cass.
Hopf, Ted. 1998. The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory. International Security 23 (1):171–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huysmans, Jef. 1998. The Question of the Limit: Desecuritization and the Aesthetics of Horror in Political Realism. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 27 (3):569–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huysmans, Jef. 1999. Know Your Schmitt: A Godfather of Truth and the Spectre of Nazism. Review of International Studies 25 (2):323–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, John Kurt. 2003. Duelling Constructivisms: A Post-Mortem on the Ideas Debate in IR/IPE. Review of International Studies 29 (1):39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1998. Realism in the Study of World Politics. International Organization 52 (4):971–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahler, Miles. 1997. Inventing International Relations: International Relations Theory After 1945. In New Thinking in International Relations Theory, edited by Michael Doyle and G. John Ikenberry, 20–53. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
Katzenstein, Peter J., Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen D. Krasner. 1998. International Organization and the Study of World Politics. International Organization 52 (4):645–85.Google Scholar
Kegley, Charles, and Eugene Wittkopf. 1999. World Politics: Trend and Transformation. 7th ed. New York: St. Martins.
Keohane, Robert, and Joseph Nye. 1977. Power and Interdependence. Boston: Little Brown.
Koselleck, Reinhart. 1988. Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society. Oxford: Berg.
Koskenniemi, Martti. 2002. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Laffey, Mark, and Jutta Weldes. 1997. Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations. European Journal of International Relations 3 (2):193–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lapid, Yosef. 1996. Culture's Ship: Returns and Departures in International Relations Theory. In The Return of Culture and Identity in International Relations Theory, edited by Yosef Lapid and Fredrich Kratochwil, 3–20. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner.
Lebow, Richard Ned. 2001. Thucydides the Constructivist. American Political Science Review 95 (3):547–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legro, Jeffrey W., and Andrew Moravscik. 1999. Is Anybody Still a Realist? International Security 24 (2):5–55.Google Scholar
Linklater, Andrew. 1998. The Transformation of Political Community: Ethical Foundations of the Post-Westphalian Era. Cambridge: Polity.
Little, Richard. 2003. The English School vs. American Realism: A Meeting of Minds or Divided by a Common Language? Review of International Studies 29 (3):443–60.Google Scholar
McCormick, John M. 1997. Carl Schmitt's Critique of Liberalism: Against Politics as Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mearsheimer, John. 1995. A Realist Reply. International Security 20 (2):82–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercer, Johnathan. 1995. Anarchy and Identity. International Organization 49 (2):229–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitzen, Jennifer. 2003. Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma. Unpublished manuscript, University of Chicago.
Moravscik, Andrew. 1997. Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics. International Organization 51 (4):513–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1933. La Notion du ‘Politique’ et la Théorie des Différends Internationaux. Paris: Librarie du Recueil Sirey.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1946. Scientific Man vs. Power Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1959. The Nature and Limits of a Theory of International Politics. In Theoretical Aspects of International Relations, edited by William T. R. Fox, 15–28. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1960. The Purpose of American Politics. New York: Knopf.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1962. Politics in the Twentieth Century, Volume One: The Decline of Democratic Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1967. Politics Among Nations. 4th ed. New York: Knopf.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1970. Truth and Power: Essays of a Decade, 1960–70. New York: Praeger.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1977. Fragment of an Intellectual Autobiography: 1904–1932. In Truth and Tragedy: A Tribute to Hans Morgenthau, edited by Kenneth Thompson and Robert Myers, 1–17. Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books.
Murray, A. J. H. 1996. The Moral Politics of Hans Morgenthau. Review of Politics 58 (1): 81–107.Google Scholar
Murray, Michelle K. 2003. Recognition and the Logic of Security. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, February, Portland, Oregon.
Neumann, Iver B. 1999. The Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Onuf, Nicholas G. 1998. The Republican Legacy in International Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Owen, David. 1994. Maturity and Modernity: Nietzche, Weber, Foucault, and the Ambivalence of Reason. London: Routledge.
Petersen, Ulrik Enemark. 1999. Breathing Nietzsche's Air: New Reflections on Morgenthau's Concepts of Power and Human Nature. Alternatives 24 (1):83–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philpott, Daniel. 2001. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Pichler, H. K. 1998. The Godfathers of ‘Truth’: Max Weber and Carl Schmitt in Morgenthau's Theory of Power Politics. Review of International Studies 24 (2):185–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Richard, and Christian Reus-Smit. 1998. Dangerous Liaisons?: Critical International Theory and Constructivism. European Journal of International Relations 4 (3):259–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rengger, Nicholas. 2000. International Relations, Political Theory, and the Problem of Order. London: Routledge.
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2001. The Idea of History and History with Ideas. In Historical Sociology of International Relations, edited by Steven Hobden and John M. Hobson, 120–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Risse, Thomas. 2000. “Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics. International Organization 54 (1):1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Gideon. 1998. Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy. World Politics 51 (1):144–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosecrance, Richard. 2001. Has Realism Become Cost-Benefit Analysis? International Security 26 (2):132–54.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Justin. 1994. The Empire of Civil Society: A Critique of the Realist Theory of International Relations. London: Verso.
Rosenthal, Joel. 1991. Righteous Realists: Political Realism, Responsible Power, and American Culture in the Nuclear Age. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Ruggie, John G. 1998. Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalism. New York: Routledge.
Ruiz, J. M. 1995. Political Realism as an American Tradition: A Comparison of Hans Morgenthau and the Federalists. Revue Tocqueville 16 (1):201–15.Google Scholar
Scheuerman, William. 1994. Between the Norm and the Exception: The Frankfurt School and the Rule of Law. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Scheuerman, William. 1999. Carl Schmitt: The End of Law. Lanham, Md.: Rowan and Littlefield.
Schmitt, Carl. [1922] 1985. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Translated by George Schwab. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Schmitt, Carl. [1926] 1988. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. Translated by Ellen Kennedy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Schmitt, Carl. [1932] 1996. The Concept of the Political. Translated by George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schweller, Randall. 1998. Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler's Strategy of World Conquest. New York: Columbia University Press.
Shapcott, Richard. 2001. Justice, Community, and Dialogue in International Relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Michael J. 1986. Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Spirtas, Michael. 1996. A House Divided: Tragedy and Evil in Realist Theory. In Realism: Restatements and Renewal, edited by Benjamin Frankel, 385–423. London: Frank Cass.
Sterling-Folker, Jennifer. 2002. Realism and the Constructivist Challenge: Rejecting, Reconstructing, or Rereading. International Studies Review 4 (1):73–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thayer, Bradley. 2000. Bringing in Darwin: Evolutionary Theory, Realism, and International Politics. International Security 25 (2):124–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Stephen P., and Regis A. Factor. 1984. Max Weber and the Dispute over Reason and Value. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Underhill, Geoffrey. 1999. Conceptualizing the Changing Global Order. In Political Economy and the Changing Global Order, edited by Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey Underhill, 3–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vasquez, John. 1998. The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to Neotraditionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wæver, Ole. 1996. The Rise and Fall of the Inter-Paradigm Debate. In International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, edited by Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marysia Zalewski, 149–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wæver, Ole. 1998. The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations. International Organization 52 (3):687–728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, R. B. J. 1995. International Relations and the Possibility of the Political. In International Political Theory Today, edited by Ken Booth and Steve Smith, 306–27. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Warren, Mark. 1988. Max Weber's Liberalism for a Nietzschean World. American Political Science Review 82 (2):31–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Scribners.
Wendt, Alexander. 1995. Constructing International Politics. International Security 20 (1):71–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wendt, Alexander. 2001. What Is IR For?: Notes Toward a Post-Critical View. In Critical Theory and World Politics, edited by Richard Wyn Jones, 205–24. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner.
Williams, Michael C. 2003. Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics. International Studies Quarterly 47 (4):511–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wohlforth, William. 1995. Realism and the End of the Cold War. In The Perils of Anarchy, edited by Sean Lynn-Jones, 3–41. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Wolin, Richard. 1992. Carl Schmitt: The Conservative Reactionary Habitus and the Aesthetics of Horror. Political Theory 20 (3):424–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, Benjamin. 2000. Hans Morgenthau's Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29 (2):389–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zakaria, Fareed. 1999. From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.