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Beyond National Interest: A Critical Evaluation of Reinhold Niebuhr's Theory of International Polities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Kenneth W. Thompson
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Extract

Until more or less recently, few students of international affairs have been preoccupied with the theoretical aspects of their field. To the extent that theory is distinguished from history, law and science, this is especially true. Historians have sought to uncover the facts and recite them with the most fastidious regard for the circumstances of time and place. Lawyers have tried to detect in the case law of international agreements and treaties the normative structure of international society. Political scientists have increasingly turned to new scientific methods and statistical techniques designed to measure public opinion and its influence on foreign policy. Few scholars have concerned themselves with the fundamental characteristics of international society or of good or bad foreign policy. In this intellectual environment any explicit, systematic theory of international relations has had to await a threefold development. It has required a broader conception of the proper methods for studying international affairs, a clearer identification of basic concepts and “laws,” and a more serious discussion of fundamental theoretical problems like the relation of theory to concrete problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1955 , pp. 167 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1955

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References

1 Niebuhr, Reinhold, Christian Realism and Political Problems (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), p. 4.Google Scholar

2 Christianity and Society, vol. X, no. 2 (Spring 1945), p. 4.Google Scholar

3 Niebuhr, Reinhold, Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949), p. 53.Google Scholar

4 Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. I: Human Nature (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945), p. 1.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 3.

6 Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944), p. 20.Google Scholar

7 Christianity and Society, vol. XI, no. 3 (Spring 1945), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., vol. X, no. 2 (Spring 1944), p. 7.

9 Ibid., vol. XII, no. 1 (Winter 1946), p. 8.

10 Niebuhr, Reinhold, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935), p. 140.Google Scholar

11 Human Destiny, op. cit., p. 259.Google Scholar

12 Niebuhr, Reinhold, “Human Nature and Social Change,” Christian Century, vol. L (1953), p. 363.Google Scholar

13 Christianity and Crisis, vol. IX (12 12, 1949), p. 162.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., vol. X, no. 2 (February 20, 1950), p. 10.

15 Radical Religion, op. cit., vol. IV, no. 3 (Summer 1939), p. 7.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., vol. IV, no. 4 (Autumn 1939), p. 2.

17 Christianity and Society, vol. XII, no. 4 (Autumn 1947), p. 3.Google Scholar

18 Radical Religion, vol. I, no. 1 (Autumn 1935), p. 7.Google Scholar

19 Christianity and Crisis, vol. IX, no. 17 (10 17, 1949), p. 132.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., vol, XII, no. 3 (March 2, 1953), p. 20.

21 “The Cultural Crisis of Our Age,” Harvard Business Review XXXII, no. 1 (01–02 1954), p. 34.Google Scholar

22 Christianity and Crisis, vol. XL, no. 1 (02 5, 1951), p. 3.Google Scholar

23 Ibid.

24 “Christianity and the Moral Law,” The Christian Century, vol. LXX, no. 48 (12 2, 1953), p. 1386.Google Scholar

25 The concept of distributive justice as developed by Niebuhr involving the rights and interests of rivals on opposite sides of a line or fence probably deals with our criticism even though he has not always made this application.

26 Christianity and Society, vol. X, no. 4 (Autumn 1945)Google Scholar