The course aims to introduce the key assumptions of the international relations theory as a part of social science and as an analytic tool, focusing on the problems of war and peace, foreign policy decision-making, etc. The course combines historic approach and analysis of the modern political problems. The historic part shows the evolution of the international relations theory from being a part of political philosophy to its emergence as a special branch of political science, which is essential to understand the key ideas of the IR science. The lectures also include broad outline of the modern concepts and debates in the context of the contemporary political problems, such as rise of China and other emerging powers, threat of terrorism, US-Russia confrontation, etc. The lectures of the two outstanding Russian scholars and political analysts – Timofey Bordachev and Dmitry Suslov - cover such fields as the problems of international security and conflict resolution, international economic relations, foreign policy decision-making, global governance, the role of power in the IR.
Neoclassical realism
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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics
Understanding International Relations Theory
18 ratings
National Research University Higher School of Economics
18 ratings
From the lesson
Back to classics: the Realist Paradigm in the XXI century
The most ancient concept emerges again in the XXI century: with new conflicts, hybrid wars and power struggle between the key states realism seems to be the best to explain international politics. Does it mean that the mankind never changes and the modern world is not so different from the world of Thucydides? Or the realist theories just adapt themselves to the modern world?
Meet the Instructors
Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
There are two major trajectories of the development of
realism after the end of the Cold War and
the two major ways of its adaptation to the profound changes
that occurred in the international system in 1980s and 1990s.
The major dimensions of classical realism or of the pre-post Cold War realism,
to put it that way,
were classical political realism and structural realism,
classical political realism of Hans Morgenthau and structural realism of Kenneth Waltz.
And both, these dimensions gained new development after the end of the Cold War.
The classical political realism,
the realism of Edward Carr and Hans Morgenthau,
was updated and became a neoclassical realist theory.
And there was also the emergence of new concrete concepts,
more specific concepts of realism,
which were based on the structural realist theory of Kenneth Waltz.
Let's start with the neoclassical realism,
which was a certain return or revision of
the classical political realist writings of Hans Morgenthau and Edward Carr.
The founding father of neoclassical realism is a prominent American scholar,
former editor of Foreign Affairs Journal,
member of the Council on Foreign Relations,
and former Clinton Administration Official, Gideon Rose.
In 1998, Gideon Rose published
an article called "Neoclassical Realism and Theories of International Policy",
which became the foundation of neoclassical realist approach.
And the major point of Gideon Rose's concept is that
domestic politics and conditions of states must
be taken into account while analyzing drivers of their behavior,
not just national interests or systemic factors.
And this is a completely new development and conditions to
the previous realist concepts because before,
both Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz
argued that domestic politics simply doesn't matter.
That it doesn't matter what is the nature of political regime.
It doesn't matter what is the system of decision making over foreign policy.
It doesn't matter who really occupies the presidential chair or who is the head of state,
what are his aides,
and what does the decision making process inside the country.
It simply doesn't matter.
Well, because classical realism and
neorealism claims that these domestic issues didn't matter,
Gideon Rose claims it is this ignorance of domestic politics which
resulted in the analytical inability
of realism to explain the collapse of the Soviet Union,
which was driven by domestic issues, not systemic issues.
And the introduction of domestic politics,
domestic issues into the Foreign Policy Analysis allows to explain irrational behavior,
such as the irrational behavior from
the realist perspective of Mikhail Gorbachev in late 1980s.
Similar argument was made by another prominent American scholar and journalist,
and another co-founder of neorealism, Fareed Zakaria.
Fareed Zakaria published two works related to neoclassical realism,
"From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of American World
Role" and "Realism and Domestic Politics",
where basically, Fareed Zakaria, as Gideon Rose,
combined domestic politics and
realism and claimed that domestic politics must not be ignored.
So, what is general and what is usual for neoclassical realism for
both Zakaria and Gideon Rose is that they both combined classical realism and neorealism.
They were talking about the importance of national interest,
domestic drivers of national interests, and systemic factors.
They both added domestic factors and irrationality into the behavior of states.
They both claim that we need to explain foreign policy decisions,
and these theories allow us to explain foreign policy decisions,
which seem irrelevant from the classical realist perspective.
They both explain false predictions of
structural realism inability to
explain the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union.
And the Neoclassical realism also argues that perceptions matter.
Perceptions of one's place in the system is the important variable,
perhaps even more important variable than the actual place of this or that actor,
in the international system.
So, they involve even the constructivist element into the realist thinking.
And let's combine how
classical realism and neoclassical realism explain the behavior of states.
Classical realism, Hans Morgenthau's realism,
claims that the states behave just like billiard balls,
that they're driven by external shocks only,
and their national interests are predetermined by geography,
participation and alliances, capabilities, and so on, and so forth.
Thus, inner conditions of states could be ignored from the perspective of
classical realism and all states behave in similar way, in similar consequences.
States have a permanent national interest
predetermined by their geography, economy, and power.
States face external impulses,
external shocks from the global environment
and reacts to these external shocks rationally.
And this rationality of classical realism is exactly the reason why it failed,
for instance, to explain the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev in late Soviet time.
And this is how a neoclassical realism explains foreign policy behavior.
It assumes that domestic factors,
such as the nature of political regime,
the nature of political system, decision making process,
values, culture of this country,
narrative of this country,
they all matter and influence state behavior.
So, we have not just global strategic environment,
and not just the geography of the country and the objective national interests,
but we also have domestic factors that transcend
these objective factors and basically result into the actual policies that states pursue.
And while external threats are still considered
as key drivers of foreign policy in a structure,
domestic factors is also a very, very important variable.
So, neoclassical realism really managed to explain why both classical and
neorealism failed to explain the 1980s and 1990s.
But despite these successful attempts to overcome the weaknesses of the old realisms,
neoclassical realist theory has not become an independent grand strategy.
It still can be put at the level of Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz.
Indeed, neoclassical realism is more perceived as a theory of foreign policy,
rather than theory of IR.
They explain why states behave in a certain way in certain situations,
not how international system evolves in general.
And the major weaknesses of neoclassical theory are the
following: By including domestic factors into their analysis,
by including even some constructivists and liberal elements,
this neoclassical realism reduces and destroys
the analytical purity which was present in the classical realism.
And secondly, neoclassical realism is
unable to explain international processes at systemic level.
Here, it just follows the structural realism.
There is no fundamental difference between structural realism and
neoclassical realism in terms of explanation of what's going on in the world in general.
As a result, neoclassical theory is able to
give a better explanation to the behavior of state,
which means to foreign policy,
but it is unable to predict and explain the origins of war and peace.
So the conclusion that we can make is the following: Neoclassical realism puts
the focus of analysis back from the global system to the behavior of states,
but the behavior of states was explained in
a slightly different way than the classical realism of Hans Morgenthau,
which also was talking about the behavior of states,
and the major difference was introduction of domestic issues,
domestic politics and thus, irrationality.
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