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Lakatos and Neorealism: A Reply to Vasquez

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Colin Elman  and
Miriam Fendius Elman
Colin Elman
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Miriam Fendius Elman
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
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Abstract

We disagree that our correspondence (Elman and Elman 1995) regarding Schroeder (1994) supports Vasquez's (1997) verdict that the neorealist scientific research program is degenerating. We argue that Vasquez's conclusion is based on a misstatement of the Lakatosian criteria of appraisal and a mistaken conflation of the neorealist research program with the proposition that balancing is a common foreign policy. We do, however, welcome Vasquez's attempt to apply Lakatosian metatheory to international relations theory, and we hope that this conversation will encourage others to follow his lead.

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Forum
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 91 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 923 - 926
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

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