Page 29 - Global Political Economy_Understanding The International Economic Order

CHA PTER O NE
analytic perspective, Professor George Little of the University of Ver-
mont, was a Quaker pacifist; yet, when I was an undergraduate, Little
once chided me for my naive and unrealistic views on a particular
development in international politics. Martin Wight, the author of
one of the most important tracts on realism in this century, Power
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Politics (1986), was also a Christian pacifist. Even Hans Morgenthau
in his influential Politics Among Nations, havingAdolf Hitler in
mind, condemned “universal nationalism,” that is, imperialistic be-
havior, as immoral. One of his basic messages was that states should
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try to respect the interests of other states. It is possible, I believe, to
analyze international economic affairs from a realist perspective and
at the same time to have a normative commitment to certain ideals.
As Michael Doyle reminds us in his Ways of War and Peace (1997),
there are many varieties of realist thought. 10 Yet all realists share a
few fundamental ideas such as the anarchic nature of the interna-
tional system and the primacy of the state in international affairs.
However, one should distinguish between two major realist interpre-
tations of international affairs, that is, between state-centric and sys-
tem-centric realism. State-centric realism is the traditional form of
realism associated with Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Morgenthau,
as well as many others; it emphasizes the state (city, imperial, or na-
tion-state) as the principal actor in international affairs and the fact
that there is no authority superior to these sovereign political units;
this position asserts that analysis should focus on the behavior of
individual states. Systemic realism, or what is sometimes called struc-
tural realism or neorealism, is a more recent version of realist thought
and is primarily associated with Kenneth Waltz’s innovative and in-
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fluential Theory of International Politics (1979). In contrast to state-
centric realism’s emphasis on the state and state interest, Waltz’s sys-
temic version emphasizes the distribution of power amongstates
within an international system as the principal determinant of state
behavior.
The state-centric realist interpretation of international affairs
makes several basic assumptions regarding the nature of international

8
Wight’s essay can be found in the collection of his writings edited by Hedley Bull
and Carsten Holbraad, Power Politics (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books,
1986).
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Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1972).
10
Michael W. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
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Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley, 1979).
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