Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Neoclassical realism, the state, and foreign policy
- 2 Threat assessment, the state, and foreign policy: a neoclassical realist model
- 3 Neoclassical realism and strategic calculations: explaining divergent British, French, and Soviet strategies toward Germany between the world wars (1919–1939)
- 4 Neoclassical realism and identity: peril despite profit across the Taiwan Strait
- 5 Neoclassical realism and the national interest: presidents, domestic politics, and major military interventions
- 6 Neoclassical realism and domestic interest groups
- 7 Neoclassical realism and resource extraction: State building for future war
- 8 Neoclassical realism and state mobilization: expansionist ideology in the age of mass politics
- 9 The limits of neoclassical realism: additive and interactive approaches to explaining foreign policy preferences
- 10 Conclusion: The state of neoclassical realism
- Index
- References
10 - Conclusion: The state of neoclassical realism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Neoclassical realism, the state, and foreign policy
- 2 Threat assessment, the state, and foreign policy: a neoclassical realist model
- 3 Neoclassical realism and strategic calculations: explaining divergent British, French, and Soviet strategies toward Germany between the world wars (1919–1939)
- 4 Neoclassical realism and identity: peril despite profit across the Taiwan Strait
- 5 Neoclassical realism and the national interest: presidents, domestic politics, and major military interventions
- 6 Neoclassical realism and domestic interest groups
- 7 Neoclassical realism and resource extraction: State building for future war
- 8 Neoclassical realism and state mobilization: expansionist ideology in the age of mass politics
- 9 The limits of neoclassical realism: additive and interactive approaches to explaining foreign policy preferences
- 10 Conclusion: The state of neoclassical realism
- Index
- References
Summary
Despite important differences between the chapters, most of the contributors to this volume have expressed strong preferences for an approach to international politics that stresses the primacy of the international system, but that also acknowledges the importance of domestic political arrangements and the perceptions of leaders in the selection and implementation of foreign policy responses to the international environment. The question remains, however, how important this enterprise of neoclassical realism is as a research agenda and whether, in practical terms, it truly represents an improvement on existing theoretical approaches. In order to place our discussion in a broader context, therefore, our purpose in this chapter is threefold: (1) to map out the scope of neoclassical realism as understood in this volume; (2) to compare its performance in the cases covered in this volume to other popular approaches to international politics and foreign policy (principally neorealism, liberal theory, and other Innenpolitik approaches); and (3) to identify directions for future research.
The scope of neoclassical realism
A central theme of this volume has been that neoclassical realism is a more coherent approach to foreign policy than has been previously appreciated. In particular, we have articulated a common conception of the state that underlies disparate neoclassical realist theories, uniting them into a single, coherent body of theory. For neoclassical realists, the state exists as a potentially autonomous actor that is distinct from any societal group.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy , pp. 280 - 299Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
, “The Progressiveness of Neoclassical Realism,” in and , eds., Progress in International Relations Theory: Appraising the Field (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003)Google Scholar
, Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar
, “Unanswered Threats: A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Underbalancing,” International Security 29, no. 2 (fall 2004), pp. 159–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789–1989 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005)Google Scholar
, “Both Guns and Butter, or Neither: Class Interests in the Political Economy of Rearmament,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 2 (May 2003), pp. 203–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “The Preventive War that Never Happened: Britain, France, and the Rise of Germany in the 1930s,” Security Studies 16, no. 1 (January 2007), pp. 32–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? A Reinterpretation of British Appeasement in the 1930s,” International Security 33, no. 2 (fall 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Interest Groups and Foreign Policy: Clinton and the MFN Debates,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 29, no. 2 (June 1999), pp. 280–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49, no. 3 (1995), pp. 379–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, part 1,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12, no. 3 (1983), pp. 205–35Google Scholar
“Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, part 2,” Philosophy and Public Affairs. 12, no. 4 (1983), pp. 323–53
, “Transnational Liberalism and US Primacy,” International Security 26, no. 3 (winter 2001/2), pp. 117–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Soft Balancing in the Age of US Primacy,” International Security 30, no. 1 (summer 2005), pp. 46–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “International Liberalism Revisited,” in , ed., The Economic Limits to Modern Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar
, “Realist Environment, Liberal Process, and Domestic-Level Variables,” International Studies Quarterly 41, no. 1 (March 1997), pp. 1–25, at p. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Commercial Liberalism under Fire: Evidence from 1914 and 1936,” Security Studies 6, no. 2 (winter 1996–7), pp. 4–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” International Security, 19, no. 2 (fall 1994), pp. 5–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Pressure, Power, and Policy: State Autonomy and Policy Networks in Britain and the United States (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993)Google Scholar
, The State and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Militarism as a Province of Accumulation,” in , ed., Women on War: An International Anthology of Women's Writings from Antiquity to the Present (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2003)Google Scholar
, The Age of Imperialism: The Economics of US Foreign Policy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969)Google Scholar
, “Making Military Might: Why Do States Succeed or Fail?” International Security 28, no. 2 (fall 2003), pp. 49–91, at p. 153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar
, , and , “The Effectiveness of Military Organizations,” in and , eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. I: The First World War (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988)Google Scholar
, “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War,” American Political Science Review 86, no. 1 (March 1992), pp. 24–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and III, “Democracy and Battlefield Military Effectiveness,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 3 (June 1998), pp. 259–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Democracy, War Initiation, and Victory,” American Political Science Review 92, no. 2 (June 1998), pp. 377–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “War Initiators and War Winners: The Consequences of Linking Theories of Democratic War Success,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, no. 3 (June 2000), pp. 378–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar
For criticisms of this literature see , “Making Military Might”;
, “Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly Matters,” International Security 27, no. 2 (fall 2002), pp. 5–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Societies and Military Power: India and its Armies (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996)Google Scholar
, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002)Google Scholar
, “New Weapons for Old Problems: Conventional Proliferation and Military Effectiveness in Developing States,” International Security 23, no. 4 (spring 1999), pp. 119–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Technology, Civil–Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World: Conventional Proliferation and Military Effectiveness in Developing States,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 2 (June 1996), pp. 171–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “European Union Security and Defense Policy: Response to Unipolarity?” Security Studies 15, no. 2 (April–June 2006), pp. 149–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “The Future of US–China Relations: Is Conflict Inevitable?” International Security, 30, no. 2 (fall 2005), pp. 7–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , eds., Rising China: Theoretical and Policy Perspectives (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008)
, “New Fighting Power! Japan's Growing Maritime Capabilities and East Asian Security,” International Security, 32, no. 3 (winter 2007/8), pp. 84–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007)Google Scholar
, “The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment,” International Security 31, no. 2 (fall 2006), pp. 7–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The End of the American Era: US Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)Google Scholar
, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” in , ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003)Google Scholar
, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003)Google Scholar
, “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security 30, no. 1 (summer 2005), pp. 7–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Soft Balancing.” For rejoinders, see
, , “Hard Times for Soft Balancing,” International Security 30, no. 1 (summer 2005), pp. 72–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Waiting for Balancing: Why the World is Not Pushing Back,” International Security 30, no. 1 (summer 2005), pp. 109–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , and , “Correspondence: Striking the Balance,” International Security 30, no. 3 (winter 2005/6), pp. 177–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Fostering Stability or Creating a Monster? The Rise of China and US Policy toward East Asia,” International Security 31, no. 1 (summer 2006), pp. 81–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)Google Scholar
, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America's Anti-Statism and its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions during the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993)Google Scholar
, Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar
and , “Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War: Reevaluating the Landmark Case for Ideas,” International Security 25, no. 2 (winter 2000/1), pp. 5–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “The Progressive Power of Neoclassical Realism,” in and , eds., Progress in International Relations Theory: Appraising the Field (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), p. 347Google Scholar
- 10
- Cited by