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Understanding Global
Politics
Lecture 3: Classical Realism

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What is realist about realism?
 Avoids the ‘hopeless utopianism’
of idealism
 Based on empirical analysis of
the human condition and the
way the world works
 Some aspects of behaviour are
universal and eternal.

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Sun Tzu
 The Art of War (written
in the 6th century BC)
 One of the oldest and most
successful books on military
strategy in the world
 National interests should be
the top priority
 There is no place for ethics in
inter-state relations
 Statesmen who pay too much
attention to ethical principles
would do so at their peril

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Thucydides (471-400 B.C.)
 The first Western writer in the
realist tradition.
 The Peloponnesian War
(between Athens and Sparta in
the fifth century B.C.).
 A study of the struggle for
military and political power.
 The cause of the War—fear, a
dominant characteristic and a
motivating factor for arms races
and war itself.

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Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)
 The Prince
 Power, balance of power,
formation of alliances, and
causes of conflicts
 The end—security of the
state—is understood to
justify any means necessary
to achieve the end
 The world as it is, not the
world as it should be—ethics
and politics are separated

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
 The Leviathan (1660)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302
/texts/hobbes/leviathan-
contents.html

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Hobbes and his ideas
 A creature of his time: Concerned
with nature of political power, basis
of order, and origin of state.
 ‘State of nature’ which was ‘nasty,
brutish and short’
 Mutual vulnerability and self-
preservation mean setting up of
sovereign body.
 But only in domestic context: an
international Leviathan is impossible.

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E.H. Carr
 The Twenty Years’ Crisis (1939)
 Events of 1930s demonstrate
fragility of international institutions and
the underlying struggle for power.

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Main assumptions
 Sovereign states are key actors—
unitary and rational
 States are motivated by self-interest
(drive for power and survival)
 Main problem = anarchy (lack of
central sovereign authority to
regulate state relations)
 Therefore, conflict is an ever-present
reality of international relations.

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Therefore …
 The history of global relations is a
struggle for power: ‘every state for
itself’.
 This means leaders have little freedom
to organise the world and solve its
problems.
 Respect for law is only achieved if it is
reinforced by the threat of force.
 Conflict is inevitable, so must be
strong in face of aggression;
preparation for war is the main
concern of states.

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Classical Realism
… is an attempt to understand the world
from the point of view of
statesman/diplomat forced to operate in
dangerous and uncertain world.
… provides a guide to action based on
realpolitik (power and power politics
among states) in the interests of the
preservation of nation-states.

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Criticisms
 Too simple
 Fails to allow for possibility of
change
 Centrality of state
 No room for co-operation
 Rationality