Realism, Change, and International Political Theory RB. J. Walker International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1. (Mat., 1987), pp. 65-86. Stable URL htp:/flinks.jstor-org/sicisici=( 120-8833% 28198703%2931%3A 1% 3C65%3ARCAIPT%3E2,0.CO%3B2-U International Studies Quarterly is currently published by The International Studies Association. Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor.org/journals/isahum ch copy of any part of'a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Fei Jun 16 12:21:17 2006Intemational Studies Quarterly (1987) 31, 65-86 Realism, Change, and International Political Theory RB. J. Waker University of Vitoria ‘Much recent commentary onthe theory ofinternational politics has focused on the analysis of change and the continuing vitality of politcal realism. ‘This paper argues that the philosophical dilemmas posed by the concern with change and by the claim to political realism are intimately related. The argument 8 pursued in the context of contrasting traditions of political realism, of the antithesis between strcturalism and historiism in contemporary social and political theory, and of recent tendencies and controversies in the literature on neorealst theories of international polities. "The paper concludes that politcal realism ought to be understocd Tess as coherent theoretical position in its own right than as the site ofa great many interesting claims and metaphysical disputes. As there is no single tradition of political realism, but rather a knot of historically constituted tensions and ontradietions, these tensions and contradictions might be reconstituted in a ‘more critical and creative manner. This involves an examination of the way the core categories of international political theory depend upon a particular formulation of the relationship between identity and difference—a formula tion which must be reused. 1. Introduction ‘Once again liberal optimism has receded in the wake ofa harsher international environ- ‘ment, and the American science of international relations offers to console us with an old but appropriately mournful tune. This time pessimism comes in a more thoroughly modern idiom, derived variously from structuralist social theory, hypothetico- deductive methodologies, and utilitarian microeconomics. But whatever the idiom, and whatever the connection between global events and the fashions of sociopolitical research, the political and philosophical doctrines identified by the singularly provocative label of “political realism" have certainly revitalized their powers of ‘enchantment. It is not surprising that in reflecting critically on this trend, Richard Ashley is. reminded of the returning ghost of old revolutions; tragedy returns once again as farce (Ashley, 1984; Cf. Marx, 1973a), But this in turn is to risk invoking a view of history deeply at odds with one held by many of those who think of themselves as realists. For them, the returning ghost merely reflects the inevitable return of tragedy itself. Against (020-8833/87/01 0065-2 $05.00 © 1967 International Sudies Association66 Realism, Change, and Intemational Political Theory the view of history as qualitative progression we are offered the claim that the “yealities” of international politics are enduring. It is precisely this quality that many commentators take to be the crucial factor distinguishing international polities from civil society (Wight, 1966). But even when the progressivist view is abandoned, the character of this enduring, of this sense of continuity which is also a form of change through time, remains highly problematic, It is even less surprising, therefore, that the reinvigoration of political realism has been accompanied by a renewed concern with the analysis of change in international polities. In fact, this paper will suggest that the way in ‘which change is conceptualized provides the most powerful point of entry into a critical analysis of claims to political realism in general, and of recent forms of structural or “neorealism”” in particular.’ The most obvious difficulties that have arisen in this context are readily apparent in the writings of some of the most influential recent exponents ofa realist position. Those, like Kenneth Waltz (1979), who’ cling most tightly to the promised certainties of temporal structuralismas and positivist method, are taken to task for being unable “to ‘account for, or even to describe the most important contextual change in international politics in this millennium: the shift from the medieval 10 the modern international system” (Ruggie, 1983: 273). Those, like Robert Gilpin (1981, 1984), who work on the basis of a much greater sensitivity to the historicity of our existence, tempt us with the paradox that the world of humankind isin a state of constant flux and change, and yet a ‘Thucydides reborn would have litle difficulty in explaining our contemporary agonies. Unfortunately, itis not immediately obvious in this case that an appeal to an ahistorical theory of rational choice, on the one hand, and a broad cyclical theory of hegemonic ‘wars on the other, does much to confront this paradox in a sufficiently serious way. ‘These difficulties underlie much of the recent debate about realism and neorealism in international political theory. This debate has centered on a confrontation between defenders of various forms of structuralism and several kinds of historicism, The erities of neorealism argue that the structures ofthe international system that neorealists treat as more or less universal and eternal are in fact the specific consequences of particular historical conditions, Against Waltz, for example, John Ruggie (1983) recommends greater attention to “diachronic processes” as well as ‘‘synchronic articulations.”” Robert Cox (1981) draws on a variety of historicist writers to insist that the study of international politics itself, including the form taken by realist theories in different eras, be analyzed more critically in terms of the historical context in which it arose, Ashley (1981, 1984) sees in the more historicist or classical” version of political realism amore authentic, that is, more hermeneutical and practical approach to the study of inter- "This theme has ecived surprisingly lite attention in the rteal response to Ashley's critique. Of the three immediate responses to Ashley, Bruce Andrews (1984) and Friedrich Kratochi (1964) do raise some the sues to be addressed here. Andrews focuses is attention priarty (and quite correctly) onthe aly of the coneepuslisation of the state in interational pola theory, bu aki rather ight over the theoretical nd ideological origin ofthe problems he identifies. Kratochwl confi once again the limited epateme- logical resources ofthe would-be posivsts, but doesnot pursue the debate much beyond the bounds of ‘epistemology. As T sugges bel, the mos interesting aspect of Robert Gilpn's (1988) response isis silence ‘on precisely those teatheoretcal arumption hat sre to problematic in his own empirical ork, Ii the ‘quatonsabacured by this sence and ther connection wit the maim thrust of Abley's critique that are of Primary interes inthis paper. Tam less concerned with recent tendencies n empirical theory formation ax {hey ars from two recent volumes on change in international relations edited by Hols, tl. (1900), and Busan and Jones (198), although K. J. Holt (1980) has been particularly suggestive also donot pursbe ‘the conpeciion between the argument pursued inthis paper an dhe large Iterature on reali and moral {theory represented mos recently bye, Cohen (1984) and Spegele (1985)RB. J. WALKER a national politics. At a more general level, R. N. Berki’s (1981) extended discussion of political realism also derives its critical force from writers with strong historicist sympathies, ‘This paper explores the terrain that has been opened up by the recent confrontation between structuralist and historicist forms of political realism. It seeks to clarify the theoretical and philosophical issues that are at stake inthe critical response to neorealism in particular. It argues that political realism must be understood less as a coherent theoretical position in its own right than as the site ofa great many contested claims and metaphysical disputes. Whether situated against the carly 20th century crisis of historicism, analyzed as a reworking of dilemmas originating between Judeo-Christian and Hellenic civilizational impulses, or taken as yet another benighted footnote to dualisms inherited from classical Greek philosophy, claims to realism in international political theory carry meanings and implications from a much broader discourse about politics and philosophy. In all these contexts, the conceptualization of “change” has been crucial ‘The interest in change among analysts of international politics, realist or otherwise, does raise a number of daunting theoretical and philosophical problems. John Vincent (1983) is undoubtedly right to warn us that the study of change in the abstract, without some idea of what it is that is supposedly changing, isa rather fruitless exercise. It does not help us to know very much, if anything. Yet the plain common sense of this view depends primarily on an epistemological interest. A number of other complex issues are at stake here, puzzles that have more of an ontological than an epistemic character. Moreover, to speak of change at all, whether abstractly or with reference to some particular social process, is to do so within theoretical and philosophical categories that have been constituted in historically specific ways. We have become especially attached to treating stasis and change, being and becoming, structure and history as mutually exclusive oppositions. These oppositions are central to the claims, metaphysical disputes, and, L will argue, mystifications around which our understanding of political realism has coalesced? ‘The analysis developed here is primarily critical in intention. It explores the way claims to political realism in international politics have drawn on quite different and fundamentally conflicting philosophical traditions, To the extent chat such differences have been ignored or covered over, realism becomes less a hard-headed portrayal of international realities than a systematic evasion of the critical skills necessary for a scholarly analysis of those realities. ‘This analysis is most emphatically not an attack on realism from a utopian stand- point. On the contrary, it takes the position that realism and utopianism as we have 2 The literature which speaks to various aspects ofthe hstry/strucureantinomy in modern socal and political cheory is simply enormous. Useful secondary iterarur llustating is significance in quite diverse {adiions, include Seung (1982), Schmidt (1981), Shapto (1984), Descombes (1980), Havathorn (197), Giddens (1979), Bernstein (1983), Dreyfus and’ Rabinow (1983), and Polan (1984). ‘The atinomny 1 ‘currently portant i the wide ranging debates about modernity and potmvdernity that ae perhaps Dest "ymbolined bythe works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foocavt. Inthe background lesa Nietrchean "assault on the philosophies of history asocated with Kant, Hegel, and Mars. The complexities and nuances ‘fthisiterature are obviously beyond the scope a this paper. Tam primarily concerned to resis relevance in very general terms fr inses fined in recent dscursons of piel realism The necessary involves both 4 degree of oversimplieation and the use of phlowphial vocabulary that some international relations ‘Scholar ight ind rather esoteric on fra reading In tying to minimize cach of thee pital without iing into the other, a numberof responses oan earlier draft—partculary by Kal Holt, Richard Ashley, John Dunn, and the anonymous telercs of Imation! Stade Quarerh-—have been very sell68 Realism, Change, and Intemational Poltial Theory ‘come to know them in international political theory reflect similar difficulties. However, the analysis is concerned with the conditions under which any resistance to realist claims is $0 frequently condemned for its utopian tendencies. Nor is i an attack on realism for its fixation on the state. On the contrary, it takes the position that the state has not been treated seriously enough, Nor is it a complaint that realism glorifies power at the ‘expense of ethies. This may well be true, but the rea difficulties on this score concern the more general conditions under which’ power and ethics can be treated as mutually ‘exclusive in the first place. ‘The discussion begins with some general remarks about the connection between political realism and the other primary categories of international political theory. This is followed by an analysis of the way that realism shows an ambivalent attachment to structuralist and historicist accounts of political life. This involves, first, an account of the fundamental contrast that must be drawn between Machiavelli and Hobbes as prototypical realists; and second, a brief indication of the philosophical issues that are at stake in this distinetion. Here an attempt is made to establish a connection between the way these issues are posed in the study of international polities and the way they appear in wider currents of contemporary social and political theory. ‘This discussion then ‘moves on to consider how an understanding of these issues clarifies the major thrust of current debates about neorealism in international politics. Finally, accepting the general argument that a revitalization of realism depends on a greater sensitivity pluralism and history, and particularly to the problems of conceptualizing historical change, the analysis concludes first by raising a number of difficulties that stand in the way of such an enterprise, and second by noting how a number of contemporary research strategies do in fact show signs of recognizing and avoiding these difficulties. In pitching the analysis at the level of philosophical or metatheoretical dilemmas, this paper does not claim that any magical resolution of the major philosophical problems that are at stake here isin the offing. In particular, it does not seek to resolve the major contradiction on which the main argument of the paper itself depends: on the one hand, the claim that it is possible to identify the philosophical discourse that underlies the specific theoretical dilemmas of international political theory; and on the other, the claim that the only way to resolve these dilemmas is to refuse any such appeal to an unchanging discourse about identity and difference. Rather, this paper seeks to make use of this contradiction in order to discourage premature closure of debate on important philosophical and theoretical questions. It argues that a renewal of realist interests does not necessarily have to result in yet another return of old tragedies. For as there is no single tradition of realism, but rather a knot of historically constituted tensions and contradictions, these tensions and contradictions might be reconstituted in ‘a rather more critical and creative fashion. IL, Political Realism and Political Realisms ‘To begin to analyze the philosophical problems posed by recent concerns with political realism and change in international politics it is necessary to examine the way they emerge from a clearly defined pattern of thinking about this subject as it has developed. in Europe and North America, On one level itis undoubtedly misleading to treat inter- national political theory as a more ot ess unified enterprise. It would be more accurate to point to a web of fragmented discourses, a mosaic of analyses and commentaries on the global and international aspects of modern life. Much of the strength of the discipline comes from the plurality of its theoretical orientations, Economists, anthro-RB. J. WALKER 9 pologists, sociologists, historians, cultural and literary critics, physical scientist, and students of polities all contribute relevant perspectives. Nevertheless, itis possible to find a faisly well entrenched if opaque sense of historical continuity, of important txts, of great debates, of discontinuities with other forms of social and politcal theory, and so "The most obvious way of understanding the overall coherence of international political heory isin terms ofa sevies of specific conceptual and philosophical diferentia- tions, posed for the most part in oppositional form (Walker, 1980, 1981; Clark, 1980; Linkiater, 1982). Its afield that has shown a distinct penchant for framing its concepts and debates within very sharp dichotomies. These dichotomies are particulany striking in the realist literature; they are more muted in more recent literatures on international palitical economy, depenclency, and incerdependence. At the most superficial level they Appear in various controversies about method and epistemology. But, ax always, disputes about method disguise disputes about more passionately held commitments ‘Thus we find one of the most fundamental differentiations taking the form of a sharp distintion between polities and economics, whether this sin terms of contrasts between “igh"" and “low'” politics, international politics and international relations, or inter~ national politics and international political economy. [tis a distinction that is related both to wider doctrinal differences and to competing conceptions of the relative autonomy of the state “This distinction is in turn related to the perhaps even more fundamental dfferentia- tion between international political theory and the politcal theory of civil society. Here we confront one of the most remarkable but least remarked aspects of our inherited understanding of the history of politcal thought in general. In effect we have received too radically separate traditions which have taken each other more or less for granted, With the connections between them remaining relatively unexplored. International political cheory has become the taken-for-granted silence against which the political theory of civil society has come to be heard. The political theory of civil society, by contrast, has become the voice of authenticity against which the silence has been vindicated (Wight, 1966). Against che cunning of reason, against theories of progress and linear development we get contingency, eternal return, and the play of power. Civil society, the conventional argument goes, nay be the site of progress and the pursuit of justice, but international politics simply i the realm of contingency and conflict. This distinction has had enormous consequences for the way theories of international politics have developed. Yet where the distinction is conventionally framed as a sharp dichotomy, the most interesting characteristic ofthese two realms of discourse is their historically constituted complementarity. Perhaps the most important theme here is the way the predominantly universalistic aspirations expressed inthe political theory of civil society have been matched by the predominantly pluralistic assumptions of inter~ national politieal theory. This complementarity requires more systematic attention than ithas 50 far received in the conventional “history of political thought.” ‘The most powerful differentiation, and one that is closely related to those between polity and economy and between civil society and international politis/relations! Anarchy, is that between “realism” and “idealism.”” Not only have the major theoretical disputes in the discipline been couched explicitly in these terms, but the history of thinking about international politics in this century is conventionally organized within these categories. As something like a founding myth, this polarity has come to be treated as a relatively unproblematic ground on which major theoretical disputes can be, if not resolved, at least codified and left in peace. It has become the70 Realism, Change, and International Poitial Theory point beyond which metatheoretical disputes need be pursued no further. Yet this codification reduces a vast array of complex historical traditions and philosophical positions to a very simple opposition, as some of the more philosophically inclined theorists are quite aware. Indeed, once unpacked, this opposition quickly reveals the embalmed remains of many of the most fundamental disputes that have exercised, philosophers in the West for a considerable period. To the extent that the meaning of the term political realism as it has been used in the analysis of international polities in this century can be successfully specified in any clear ‘way al all itis less in terme ofits substantive claims than as one pole of this condensed. antinomy. But just as the antinomy as a whole can be taken apart to reveal a much more ‘complex texture, so also the realist pole is open to varying degrees of articulation. As it informs a rather large and influential literature on geopolitics and military affairs, realism has often degenerated into little more than an antipolitical apology for cynicism, and physical force. To the extent that deeper roots are sought, the search often comes to a rather abrupt halt with an arbitrary theology of the fall of man or the ritual invocation of some seemingly incontestable ancient text. But beyond this, there is clearly a much ‘more serious struggle with important philosophical issues visible in some of the writings ‘of some of the more prominent realists, The problem of change lies right at the heart of these struggles. ‘This was particularly the case with writers like Hans J. Morgenthau, E. H. Carr, John Herz, and Raymond Aron who all wrote in the shadow of the early 20th century ‘risis in German historicism, More recently, the connection between realism and. historicism is brought out in a particularly useful way in R. N. Berki’s (1981) study of political realism in general. In Berki’s analysis, the term political realism is taken to ‘encompass a very wide array of themes, with classical and medieval, as well as more modern, formulations. But itis the general problematic of historicista that forms the main backdrop for discussion. Even the names ofthe theorists who are taken to be most important for the reconstruction of a more viable orientation—Aristotle, Augustine, Machiavelli, and Hegel—are enough to remind us that political realism has to a large extent been informed by deeply rooted conceptions of time, change, and history. There are, for example, a number of grounds on which one can dispute the claim that Hegel provides the “sil valid standpoint of political realism, in need only of marginal updating and some terminological revision” (Berki, 1981: 69), but nor the least of them concerns Hegel's transformation of earlier concepts of time and change into a particu- larly powerful vision of progressivist history. Yet this continuity of historicism and political realism is obviously not all there is tit. ‘Some of the most powerful forms of realist analysis in international political theory draw upon traditions that are less concerned with change and history than with stasis and structure. It is just this structuralist orientation that has tended to predominate in the more recent literature. Indeed, it has become quite apparent that not only ean realism be understood as one pole of a broader discourse about international politics, in which idealism is posed as the opposite pole, but that political realism contains polarities and contradictions of its own. These polarities and contradictions have been seriously obscured by a continuing appeal to a single tradition of realism located somewhere among the classic texts of the history of political thought. Such an appeal must be refused. IIL, Political Realism, Machiavelli and Hobbes Although it is not difficult find international relations textbooks that conflate a long.RB. W, LER n litany of names from the history of political thought into a simple category of political realism, there is also a fair degree of disagreement about who exactly ought to be included in this category. Even Thucydides is highly contentious in this respect. The Peoponnesian War has been mined bath for its alleged lessons about the primacy of power over justice, and as a highly moral text, one which reflects a view much closer to that represented by Socrates than by Thrasymachus in Plato’s theatrical characterization of classical debate, But itis with two other ritual authorities—Machiavelli and Hobbes— that the ambiguities of realism emerge most forcefully Superficially, Machiavelli appears as merely a theorist of cynical and pragmatic power politics, a codifier of maxims for the tyrant, the enemy of morality. In this guise he may be famous but he is without much importance, A deeper analysis recognizes a ‘number of tensions that undermine this reading, not least the differences between the Prince and his other writings, and the distinetion between Virti and wickedness in chapter B of the Prince itself. Hence the scholarly focus on the way Machiavelli undermines the ‘universalistic conventions of his age, whether this is framed as a distinction between morality and polities, between two different but equally ultimate forms of morality, ot in terms of the assertion of the autonomy of politics—a fundamental reversal of priorities in the sundered world of St. Augustine. Contrary to those who seek to flee from polities into the world of forms or the Gity of God, Machiavelli appears as someone who is prepared to take seriously the world of fleeting impressions, of flux, becoming, and illusions, Political reality is then seen to have been rescued from its subordination to eternity and transcendence. It becomes redefined in terms of time: time as the context of political life; temporal images as the source of new vocabularies of political thought ‘within a discourse dominated by universals; and maxims about how to cope with time, change, and illusions as the distillation of political knowledge. Even where he appeals to the possibility of fixing political life within a spatial form—lo stato—it is a spatial form ‘with its own temporal contingency. Atbest, he appeals to the possibility of establishing a temporary home for man, one that even the greatest efforts of republican virti are tunable to insulate from inevitable decay over time.> In taking its cue from Machiavelli, political realism resonates with all those other discourses that have also given priority to temporality, to difference through time, and. Which also attract the indictment of relativism. The Sophistic movement is perhaps relevant here, but it isthe historicists of late 19th century Germany who have been most important for the specific forms of realism that have been influential in international political theory in this century. Temporality became history. History became the ‘cunning of reason. But by the late 19th century, the cunning of reason no longer seemed. persuasive, History collapsed into historicism, and the stress on temporality and process ‘once again generated the specter of relativism. Whether in terms of the Nietzschean challenge to prevailing theories of progress, or ofthe barbarities of a war to end all wars, the seminal sources of realism in international political theory were acutely aware that the clash between “Enlightenment and Despair” (Hawthorn, 1976), between philosophies of history grounded in Enlightenment optimism and their radical rejection, constituted the starting point for almost any serious diseussion of polities. International politics provided a particularly compelling case for despair, but the general problematic had a much wider application, Resistance to this trend took many forms, including the 3 "The imporance of time in Machiaveli's thought i aly obvious from even the most cursory reading: and muh ofthe critical Iteratre pays some attention tot. Both Pocock (1973) and Skinner (1978) particularly useful inthis respect. Bora more sucinet and explict account se, e+ Or (1972)2 Realism, Change, 1d International Political Theory various attempts to re-establish the ground for epistemology in different genres of neo- Kantian natural science. From the point of view of international political theory, the ‘most interesting move was to take the nation-state—the German nation-state in particular—as the absolute value by whch the dilemmas and mysteries of relativism could be resolved, The most important figures here are Friedrich Meinecke and especially Max Weber. They are arguably the most significant figures through whom the Machiavellian stress on time and change as the essential political reality has been passed on to the contemporary realist traditions of international political theory. Both Meinecke and Weber took up the Machiavellian problematic directly and explictly.* This has been rather obscured in Weber's case by the rather selective way ‘which his work has been received into the conventional sociological canon, although it thas not been lost on two of the most influential of modern realist writers, Hans J. Morgenthau and Raymond Aron. Morgenthau himself did not explicitly acknowledge his debt to Weber until late in life, but the fairly obvious connection has usefully been underlined in a recent study of the way Weber's work has been received and reinterpreted by later commentators.> Aron’s writings are rather more explicit, and reflect his own influential interpretations of Weber's nationalism and power polities (Aron, 1979). Similarly, E. H. Carr's influential formulation of the realism—utopian polarity is strongly influenced by Karl Mannheimn’s struggles with historicism, whieh in turn drew on the quite different responses to this issue made by Weber and Georg Lukacs.® In short, it is not difficult to trace the Machiavellian thematic as a major ‘current in contemporary international political theory to the crisis of German historicism, The sometimes visible angst and despair that in part elevates the classic realist texts to somehing more than tracts for the times flows from a rich heritage. Their attack on idealism and utopianism is to be understood not only in terms ofthe limits of universalist aspirations in foreign policy and world affairs, but also, and perhaps even ‘more fundamentally, in terms of the wholesale challenge to Enlightenment thought that historicism represented. Of course, this particular form of historicism must be under- stood within its own specific historical (Cold War) context. Buc there i also some kind of continuity here with the challenge to universalist pretentions represented by a Machiavelli. It is a continuity which is explicitly stressed by both Meinecke and. Weber and one which centers on a recognition of time, flux, and contingency as the essence of political reality. The most interesting question that arises in this contexs concerns the way political realism in international political theory has so easily transformed time, flux, and contingency into an eternal theory of international structures and the behavior of states, If itis this line of continuity that is understood to be the core of the realist tradition in international political theory, then the problematic of change, time, and becoming is in fact constitutive ofthe realist position itself. In fact this is not the only line of continuity ‘he overall development of Meinecke's writings it elevant here, but see especially hi (1957) and Pois (1972). On Weber, see eepcilly the well known esay on "Politics ata Vocation” (1346) This usellly Compared with hs Inaugural Lecture given at Peiburg in 1895 (1980) Se also Beetham (1985). 5 See Morgenthau (1977), Mongenhau's debt to Weber i explored in Turner and Factor (1986; 168-179) snd ies paralaly important key ta understanding the way that historic themes were translated io the ‘more spi variants of international reali that became neil afer 1985, ® Gare(1946}can be ead as farther dilution othe eiial edge associated with historicism alecay visible in Mannibeim's wtigs, ora least in he way in which these writings have Become influential. Pasticlary tefl guides to Mannticim are provided by Keilor eal (1984) and Pri (1983),R.B. J. WALKER 2 that can be identified. A rather different set of ideas is often implied by an appeal to political realism, one linked less to Machiavelli than to ‘Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes has been the subject ofa rather large recent literature in international political theory, and there isa commonly identified "Hobbesian tradition" in this field, even though Hobbes himself wrote very litle explicitly on international polities as such, “The usual focus is inevitably on the proposition that relations between states are analogous tothe relations between individuals in Hobbes’ state of nature, Hedley Bull (1981: 720-721) for example, has reiterated the feeling that we are “entitled to infer {hat all of what Hobbes says about the ie of individual men in the state of nature may be read as a description of the condition of states in relation to one another.""” On this account, states are led to war because of competition for material possessions, mistrust, fear, and the pursuit of glory, with fear being the prime motive in chat it supposedly leads to a concern to secure what we already have. In this “international state of nature,” there is, therefore, only the natural right of self preservation among equals. But Hobbes has not been accepted asa genuine realist without considerable equivoca tion. To begin with there are the general problems that there is a good deal more 10 Hobbes than his evocation ofa state of nature, and that his overall positon is susceptible toradicaly dllerent interpretations. But even those who are content to stress the state of nature argument acknowledge that there are some problems in applying it to inter- national politics. After all, Hobbes does remark (1968: 188) that war between sovereigns is relatively tolerable: “there does not follow from it, that misery which accompanies the iberty of particular men.”” Indeed the institution of the contract itself implies that relations between stats are necessarily quite different from relations between individuals. Thus it can be argued that states are less vulnerable than individuals and cannot be s0 casly removed with a single blow. The sovereign is able «0 make reasonable calculations about relative strategic forces, and can at least ensure some security from the subjects for whom he isthe source of justice and right. The state of war can even stimulate the domestic economy and thus in some way “improve” life in evil society. Furthermore, the central assumptions of Hobbes’ state of nature concern the autonomy and equality ofthe individuals in it, an assumption which makes little sense in the international context where inequality and hegemony, in the form of the pro- rogatives and obligations of“ great powers," is itself seen as principle of order Tis posible to go even further with this line of reasoning. Given that states are not as vulnerable as individuals, prudence and fear suggest not the necessity of a global Leviathan but the need for some rules of coexistence, principles of sovereignty and non- intervention, for example, or mechanisms like the balance of power. In teasing out these themes, Hobbes begins to slide out ofthe realist camp and becomes aprime example ofa theorist of the international system as a kind of society, rather than an anarchy (Bull, 1981; Vincent, 1981), “There is, however, more to i¢ than even this degrece of ambiguity. In moving away from the early chapters of Leviathan, away from the predicament of fallen man in @ competitive proto-capitalst universe, itis the discontinuity with the position associated with Machiavelli that becomes most striking. It is perhaps enough to recall only his nominalism, his contractarian legalism, and his concern to distinguish beeween legitimate and illegitimate power in order to come to the position that Hobbes offers a 7 The stress here, ofcourse, in on Chapters 11 and 13 of Leahon From a dillerent direction, Murray Foryth (1970) has challenge the reliance on Hobles version ofa state of nature by stein the abricted character of hat concept7 Realism, Chang, and International Politial Tieory Vision of polities which is in many ways directly opposed to that offered by Machiavelli (Hanson, 1984; and especially Navari, 1982). To place them both in some undifferen- ed category of realism is seriously misleading, particularly with respect to the issue of change. For here Hobbes is an archetype of those thinkers for whom time and change constitute a problem to be overcome, not by learning to live with the times as with ‘Machiavelli, but by attempting to abandon time entirely. The image of the state of nature does draw on a view of politics posed in terms of the despair of man in time. But the geometrical method, the appeal to reason and to artifice based on reason, the concern with order, the architechtonic impulse which gives the Leviathan such rhetorical power, are all informed by a spatial and structuralist consciousness. The historicity of the contract is one of the perennial puzzles associated with Hobbes’ argument. Itis even possible to trace the way in which Hobbes’ own writings exhibit a gradual abandonment of history, the contrast between the introduction of his translation of Thucydides and his treatment of memory and the past in the early chapters of Leviathan being particularly interesting in this respect ‘The interpretation of writers like Machiavelli and Hobbes is a notoriously difficult enterprise, and the contrast being drawn here is admittedly rather crude and schematic. ‘The intention is merely to suggest that if both Machiavelli and Hobbes are still to be understood as archetypal realists, then itis at the very least necessary to recognize that the issue of change enters into their analysis in quite distinet ways. This is not just a specific contrast between Machiavellian fortuna and a mechanistic ot inertial notion of movement, although this is important. Nor is it just a contrast between a premodern and an early modern cosmology, although it is necessary to try to understand both writers in their historical context, both political and intellectual. It is more that where ‘Machiavelli's conception of politics depends on a view of the world as essentially changing and becoming, Hobbes’ view is constructed primarily around a metaphysics ‘of being. In this sense the realist tradition of international political theory has managed. encompass one of the deepest rifts within Western thought since the classical period. rift underlies many of the contrasts that are to be found in the recent literature on realism in international relations. It lies at the heart of the debate about the poverty of neorealism. ‘The appropriate response to this debate, therefore, is neither to insist on some reified catechism of classic texts nor to engage in polemics as to who is the legitimate heir of the more ‘‘authentic’” tradition. Te is rather to begin unpacking the assumptions and contradictions which lie buried in the claim to political realism itself. IV. Political Realism, History and Structure There is hardly a theoretical orientation in the modern human sciences that has not been chastised for its conservative bias, for its neglect of change, and its consequent reification of the status quo. The argument has usually turned on the inadequacy of some particular understanding of the nature of change, especially those which have been rooted in analogies drawn from the physical or biological sciences. The history of ‘modern social and political thought can be partly written as a review of the way specific images, metaphors, and models from, say, physics or theories of biological evolution have guided analyses of social and political change. In this sense, international relations theory has been particularly susceptible to mechanistic analogies, not least in balance of power theories and in the versions of systems analysis that have been influential in this discipline. In most other fields, contention has centered on the explicit stress onR. B,J. WALKER Fa continuity and gradual evolution found in so much functionalist sociology and its derivatives.® In the more recent literature on social and political theary, the problem of change is increasingly posed in a much more general way. Here the distinction between Machiavelli ancl Hobbes may be understood at least partly as one aspect ofthe broader contrast between history and structure. The debate is framed not around the merits of any particular model of change, but around the underlying metaphysical principles of being and becoming from which our conceptions of structure and history have been derived. In one form or another this contrast has come to dominate recent thinking ‘about sociopolitical phenomena ‘The main themes that are at play here are complex. I would like to suggest that the ‘most incisive way of approaching them is in terms of their most abstract formulation: as variations on the general problematic of identity and difference as this has come to be framed in our conventional understanding of the philosophical legacy of classical Greece. Things in a class are different, but as a class they are similar. Hence the problem of universalism and pluralism. From the paradigmatic formulations of Athens to the recurring rationalisms that have dominated so much of Western thought, this antinomy has provided the most fundamental way of distinguishing between truth and ‘error, reality and illusion, beauty and ugliness, good and evil. The general problem has a more specific version: all things become other than they were, yet remain somchow enduring. The problem of identity is raised in terms of time and change. It is with Plato in particular that we conventionally locate the crystallization of a fundamental difference between metaphysical universals and a realm of becoming, between being and being-in-the-world, the latter having identity and reality only through participation in the former. ‘This momentous formulation of a radical opposition between eternity and history, between identity and difference in time, continues to haunt contemporary social and political theory in its search for new horizons. Here structuralism, like the great Cartesian and Kantian rationalisms before it, has inherited the claim (o transtemporal, tansspatial abstract universalisms, Structural invariables are distinguished from the mere succession of events, and, in the more extreme versions we then get a vision of the synehronic structure of universal mind in which the lived meaning of history is excluded. Not surprisingly, it is just this lived meaning of history that is then championed as the alternative ground on which to construct, and reconstruct, a more appropriate account of human affairs. In some forms, history itself becomes the antithesis of structure; Hegelian or post-Hegelian temporality opposes the atemporal structuralisms of Kant. In other forms, the stress is on the historically constituted ‘meaning of human experience, and hermeneutics or understanding comes to oppose the reifying methodologies of positivistic science (von Wright, 1971; Ricoeur, 1978; Gadamer, 1981). More recently, structuralism has mutated into post-structuralism, ‘The absolute priority of universal structure has given way to an absolute priority of temporal process, of “trace” and ‘‘difference.””? But whether on the ground of history, © The nature and limitations ofthe accounts of socal change developed within stuctural~functionalist, and yetem-theoetical assumptions have been treated in Smith (1976), Buckley (1967), and Lilienfeld 978). 9 These are terms from Jacques Derida’s attempt to deconstruct the persistent centering of Western metaphysis fom Pato to LeviStrause, a project which develops certain insights from Dictache and Heeger among others. See especialy Deri (19672, 1967b). My own debt to this genera ine of thinking begine with Foucault (1966, 1977)16 Realism, Change, and Intemational Poitical Theory meaning of praxis, or of the deconstruction of Western “‘logocentricism,”” modern social and political theory has become intimately concerned with the dilemmas and horizons set up by a discourse about change organized as a specific form of an ‘opposition between identity and difference. Neither the more arcane intricacies of contemporary debate about structure and. history, nor even the more familiar problems of interpreting long dead political thinkers are usually of much interest to analysts of modern world polities. Both enterprises seem, and in some senses certainly are, remote and abstract, divorced from the pressing concerns of state policy and global conilict. Yet in another sense, the very refusal to take the issues that arise from these two contexts seriously is of at least some minor signifi- cance in the processes through which the “reality”” of modern international politics has come to be, and continues to be reproduced. The key issue here is ideology Insofar asi ia eritieal category, rather than a descriptive term, our understanding of ideology is also rooted in the underlying problematic of identity and difference. The truth ofthe one is opposed by the illusions of difference, whether of the many or of the realm of becoming; hence, many of the characteristic moves of ideology-critique. In one direction, the standpoint of identity can be used to judge the illusory nature of the plural ‘world of change. This is the typical pose of rationalism, structuralism and positivistic science. Here the analysis of change tends towards a reification into ahistorical and universal laws. In another direction, the claim to universality is itself challenged as a ‘mere parochialism, whether in space or in time. Here the many eritiques of Enlighten- ment science or Marx's critique of the pretentions of the bourgeois economists are fairly typical. These moves are central tothe tension between structuralism and historicism in modern social and political theory. Structuralist positions generally aspire to scientific status, to ahistorical laws and explanations. Historicist positions lean towards the categories of hermeneutics and practice. For poststructuralists, the real problem is the prior framework in which truth and illusion are assumed to guarantee each other. V. Structuralism and Neorealism ‘These issues are crucial for a proper understanding of what is at stake in current controversies over the latest revamping of political realism in the analysis of inter- national affairs. For all that Richard Ashley's critique of “‘neorealism”” appeals to some lof the most recent eurrents in modern social and politieal theory, the underlying themes are quite old. And for all that Ashley describes his own position as controversial, most of the points he makes draw on well established conventions. Ashley objects to the newer forms of realism on a variety of grounds, but the main cones have to do with the “‘structuralist turn" thac informs writers like Waltz and Gilpin, Ic isnot only that an appeal to structures has been used to overcome perceived problems with older traditions informed by historicism, ‘the subjectivist veils and dark meta- physics of classical realist thought’; it is also that this structuralism has come in highly specific forms, ‘These either compromise the coherence of structuralist principles as such, as with the ontological priority given to the state, which results in an ‘‘atomist’” or “reductionist” style of structural analysis. Or else they re-enforce the static and reifying potentiality of structuralism, as with the use of various kinds of utilitarianism and rational choice theories, as well as the appeal to positivistic method I is fair to say that as a general movement, structuralism has demonstrated con- siderable difficulty in dealing with diversity and difference. It has been guided by a fundamental attachment to the principles of identity and resemblance. By ignoringRB J. WatKER 7 diversity and particularity, it is possible to establish uniformity and universality in, say, all human myths. But this has led, for example, to Claude Levi-Strauss’ alleged failure to account for the diachronic, and thus the difference between, say, Homeric and ‘Theban myths.!" The suppression of difference in time is a special case of the suppression of difference in general. It isnot that the classic structuralist writers ignore the dimension of change as such, In Ferdinand de Saussure’s conception of language, for example, change is something that affects the clements of a language and can thus only indirectly affect the whole, which would then reorganize itself to accommodate disturbances. In this way, even diachrony can be studied synchronically. The history of a system is itself treated as a system, History is curned into structure. Becoming is sub= ordinated to being. Or else, change becomes a radical discontinuity, a leap from structure to structure without any benefit from the cunning of reason. This latter conception of change and history is indeed not without interest, especially insofar as it challenges the familiar stories of progressive historical development and the cumulative nature of science. But itis interesting precisely because ofthe way it focuses attention on the highly problematic nature of the relationship hetween structure and history. It generates a philosophical puzzle rather than a sciemtifie posture, Kenneth Waltz's approach to international systems is resolutely concerned with structural continuity. Diachrony is studied synchronistically; process is a matter of ‘ongoing relations constrained by structure. As long as the analysis is primarily concerned with the abstract modelling of continuity, this is perhaps as it should be. Critical attention can then be directed to the substantive contributions of the particular structural models that are employed. Except, of course, as John Ruggie correctly but rather politely points out with specific reference to Waltz's work, what can be a useful ‘methodological principle turns into a rigid ontology. ‘The most decisive part of Ruggie’s analysis (1983: 273-281) is quite simply that the structures that Waltz treats as continuous are in fact a product of historical dis- continuity, For Waltz itis the structures of differentiation that are themselves under- stood as having identity through time. For Ruggie on the other hand, its the form taken by this differentiation that has changed radically. On this argument, the pattern of political differentiation in post-Renaissance Europe is historically specific. It took the form of a double movement of territorial exclusion. In the political theory of civil society ‘we can find a fairly sharp textual expression of this in the chapter on property in John Locke's Second Treatise. In international political theory a parallel appears in the consecration of secular sovereignty in, say, the Treaty of Westphalia or the writings of Emmerich de Vattel. Each of these reflect moments in a longer process.!! Each participates in a restructuring of political space, a transformation in the mode of differentiation, a reconstruction of the relationship between universal and. plural. Legitimations of identity gave way to legitimations of difference, with difference here becoming a matter of absolute exclusions. The principle of identity embodied in Christian universalism was challenged by the principle of difference embodied in the emerging territorial state. This was perhaps not much more than a change in emphasis, Bur this change in emphasis had enormous repercussions. From then on, the principle 1 Fora bie isuaron ce Seung (1982: 43-61). Quite apart ram the complementary perspectives adopted by writers like, sy, Anderson (1974) and Wallerscn (2974/80), the farther pursuit of Ragie’s speci laos terms ofthe emergence of modern polical theory might wally be explored nthe conten ofthe 18th century debater on “interests andthelr Connections both with “propery” in cil society and territorial sovereignty inthe international sphere8 Realism, Change, and International Political Theory of identity, the claim to universalism, was pursued within states. International politics became the site not of universalist elaims but the realm of difference itself. Here lies, I think, the essential ground of the relationship between civil and international political theory ever since. Here lies also the point at which it becomes possible to understand the specific emergence of the modern state as the crucial mediator between the claims of idemtity and those of difference. Not the least of the implications of the double movement of the Renaissance is the ‘emergence of the modern form of the state. And not the least significant characteristic of Waltz’s analysis isthe absence of any serious theory of the state. It offers merely some- thing like a theory of the structures of oligopolistic competition in which states become “‘units”” and units become synonomous with firms operating within some kind of market. This analogy may fit in quite well with the view that one can understand the state as little more than a territorial entity possessing some kind of “‘capability.”’Itis not convincing portrayal of our central political category. It is precisely because of a refusal to come to terms with the historical specificity of the state, and particularly with its participation historically in both political and economic activity, that structuralist forms of realism are so prone to portray the state in such an empty fashion. Waltz, and all those who would understand such phenomena only from within a structuralist analysis, confront historically specific patterns of identity and difference on the ground of identity alone. Moreover, it is the pattern of differentiation that is treated as having identity through time, Difference itself is elevated to a permanent ontological principle. Scructuralism becomes a philosophy of eternity, and eternity becomes history as a form of forgetting. The most appropriate critical image here is less the returning ghost of old revolutions than the “‘unimaginative conceits of the cighteenth-century Robinsonades” (Marx, 1973b: 83), To understand the way in which structuralism reflects the heritage of the philosophy of identity is thus to grasp the close connections between the structuralist emphasis on continuity, the typical critique of structuralist theories on the ground of difference in ‘general and difference through time in particular, and the critique of structuralism in terms of its capacity for ideological mystification. Much of the debate about the “poverty of neorealism'” is most appropriately understood as yet another replay of a venerable theme. This debate is important not for its novelty but for the way in which it begins to open out this knot of tensions and metatheoretical controversies. It is not that these tensions and difficulties have been entirely ignored within international political theory, Rather, we find a numberof partial resolutions through which the need for further reflection is put into abeyance, Two strategies have been particularly important here. They might be called the strategy of ambivalent juxtaposition and the strategy of reductionism respectively One form of ambivalent juxtaposition has characterized much of the literature that has been heavily indebted’ to positivistic and behavioristie conceptions of scientific method. On the one hand, we might find a moral theory that stresses pluralism, difference, and conflict as the characteristic values of international politics. On the other we find an epistemology that, in its claim to a universalistically designated model of science, affirms the principle of identity. ‘The desire to resolve this rather fundamental ‘contradiction ean be traced back at least as far as Weber. But where Weber struggled with this dilemma, the neorealist or systems analytic emphasis on the identity of structures of difference through time becomes an effective way of ignoring it. The pluralist or historicist moral theory then becomes a mere backdrop to theories framed in ‘quasi-positivistic terms. Moral relativism is resolved in epistemological certainties. AsR.B.J. Watxen 9 with the Hobbesian model of the state of nature and utilitarian models of rational choice, an appeal to science legitimizes the transformation of radical pluralism into an eternal theory of human behavior. Robert Gilpin's work provides a particularly interesting example of ambivalences of this kind. While his work shares some of the struccuralist predispositions of Waltz, his analysis is also full of historical insight, is deeply influenced by writers associated with historicist traditions, and is quite modest in its appeal to positivist method. Difficulties arise from the invocation of a particularly narrow conception of microeconomic theory ‘and rational choice and the resigned ‘pessimism regarding moral progress and human possibilties.”” He also tends to define realism so as to reify it into a single (and even arbitrary) category, and thus to rule out any serious discussion of the assumptions and contradictions which are thereby covered over. This is particularly the case in his response to Ashley's critique (Gilpin, 1984). Here Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Carr miraculously become “‘scientists,”” as if neither the highly problematic nature of our understanding of science nor the methodological intricacies of anachronism are of any real concern. That Morgenthau’s writings exhibit two quite distinct tendencies— historicist and structuralist~positivist—in different texts, is seen not as raising any problems about the intellectual coherence (and ideological consequences) of ‘Mogenthau's work, but precisely as evidence of the unproblematic nature of the category of realism. Treated in a more limited way—as specific hypotheses about specific historical structures—many of Gilpin’s analyses are quite suggestive. But they do not by themselves necessarily lead either to an Augustinian metaphysics of earthly despair nor to a thesis about international politics as a realm of inevitable, though cyclic recurrence. Where Waltz exhibits a fairly consistent attachment to various forms of structuralism, Gilpin exhibits an eclectic attachment to both structuralism and historicism. Contrary to his explicit appeal to a single realist tradition, his own intuitions and commitments point to a complex set of problems and the need for a much ‘more critical appraisal of what these commitments entail ‘The strategy of ambivalent juxtaposition slides easily into the strategy of reduction, ‘One value is reduced to the other. The way in which forms of realism that begin on historicist principles then mutate into structuralisms of one kind or another is particu- larly interesting in this respect. ‘The flux of human existence is turned into an ahistorical human nature, The groundlessness of human values becomes a manichean choice between two absolute alternatives: the City of Man or the City of God; the state of nature or state sovereignty; idealism or realism. It is in this context that one can also locate the characteristic resort to the leap of faith. Where the dilemmas of historical contingency have often been at least partly resolved by the appeal to the prince (Machiavelli), the proto-existentialist hero and the nation-state (Weber), or a class (Lukacs, Mannheim), the final paragraphs of so many realist texts in this century simply resort to an appeal to hope itself. Slated in this way, the tensions within realism are clearly related to the issues at stake in the claimed opposition between political realism and idealism or utopianism. Realism defends a variety of positions rooted in the affirmation of difference, whether of the plurality of competing units in a fragmented world or the constant flux of becoming. Idealism, by contrast, encompasses a variety of universalistic claims, whether in terms of the essential unity of humankind or the possibility of establishing an ordered global ‘community at some future time. Beyond all the dubious propositions about the innate aggressiveness of human nature or the pursuit ofa mysterious national interest, realism does express the important ontological principles of pluralism, becoming, and0 Realism, Ohange, and International Paitzal Thsry difference. Historicist forms of realism thus confront two temptations. They may try 10 ceternalize the structures of difference in the manner of Waltz, or they may hope for the future abolition of difference and the ultimate priority of the moment of identity. In taking this latter move, many realists simply imitate their idealist crities despite the greater degree of pessimism with which their hopes ate tinged This formulation of the available alternatives has had a tremendous impact on our understanding of what “change” in international politics might mean, The either/or ‘choice between the same old game played again and again, on the one hand, and some version of the move towards world governmnent, the centralization of power and the integration of previously autonomous units, on the other, still seems to provide the most prevalent way of formulating the options before us. Change, in short, has come to be understood in terms of the desirability or the impossibility of a move from difference to identity, from pluralism to universalism, from conflict to peace. This certainly provides fa powerful and familiar ground on which to argue that, because universal human ‘community is not in sight, the world remains more or less the same. It is an under standing that has been re-enforced by the way the temporal dimension has been effectively abandoned in favor of categories that are primarily spatial in nature, as has been the case where the state has been understood mainly in territorial rather than political terms (Walker, 1984). It underlies much of the ritualistic character of so much ‘contemporary public debate about peace and security (Walker, 1983, 1986). In the strategy of reduction, time can be turned into space, history turned into structure, phiralism turned into the hope for universalism. Ambivalence is cancelled, but the central insight of historicist forms of realism islost. The temptation to abolish the ‘moment of difference can thus be understood as part ofa larger project of escaping from history; and from polities. VI. The Ambivalences of Historicism ‘These considerations suggest that there is rather more to political realism than might appear from the rather erude doctrine into which it has often degenerated. In fact, the renewed claim to realism must be understood as less a return to a simple uncontested tradition of thinking about international relations than a renewed encounter with complex philosophical and political difficulties. The eclipse of pseudoidealistic tendencies does not render the analysis of international polities any more coherent. Tt ‘merely shifts attention to contradictions within the claim to political realism itself. From this it follows that we cannot usefully make any simple essentialist appeal to the given “realities” of international polities; nor to an anachronistic tradition of great texts; nor engage in yet another ‘great debate” between realists and idealists; nor focus only on more purely epistemological and methodological problems. Something more than these conventional refusals of eritical analysis is called for. ‘The most persistent line of constructive thinking about the revitalization of political realism has been to stress insights associated with historicism (Ashley, 1981, 1984; Cox, 1981; Berki, 1981; Lite, 1981). The real force of political realism, it has been widely argued, lies in the centrality of difference in political affairs: of pluralism and diversity, ‘of change and becoming. Nevertheless, it is at just this point that the most pressing problems begin, After all, the structuralist movement of the postwar era arose in the context of widely perceived limitations of a purely historicist orientation (Descombes, 1980: 75-135). ‘The historicist critique cannot simply end with the indictment of structuralism’s failure to deal with change, for its innate conservatism masquerading as,RB. J. WALKER a science or perpetual tragedy, But it is far from clear on what grounds history and historicism can provide an adequate alternative tothe structuralist turn, Whether caught between twin historicisms—the cunning of reason and the despair of contingeney—or pitted against its supposed opposites—structuralism and positivism—our understand: ing of history as a concept is, to say the very least, essentially contested. The attempt 10 place history at the center of the analysis of international polities, whether as the appropriate ground on which to understand ‘‘change’” empirically, or as the key ‘moment of a properly realist orientation, has to come to terms with the terrain on which the dilemmas of historicisms have been framed. ‘One line of approach to this problem has been taken by R. N. Berki in what is undoubtedly the most sustained attempt to re-inject political realism into contemporary political theory. It is particularly concerned to preserve realism both from a false bifurcation with idealism and from kinds of realism that themselves turn into various kinds of false idealism. He envisages a more authentic realism not as counterposed 10 cone simple idealism, but as somehow located between an “idealistic nostalgia” for the past, and an “idealism of imagination” that sees the future through the abstract possibilty of eliminating a pernicious and contingent present in favor of a world that is somehow more ‘‘natural.”” The key theme is distinctly historicist in flavor: the importance of preserving a sense of contingency, possibility, and necessity in time from the false refications of the past, on the one hand, and the fature conceived as a radical transcendence of polities on the other. This historicist emphasis is perhaps even clearer in a subsequent more specialized treatment of the problem of communism in Marx’s writings (Berki, 1983), in which Marx's entire project is analyzed as riven with a tension between “insight” and between insight into actual events, secular histories, and a communism. tunderstood as a concern of actual existing people with worldly secular aspirations, on the one hand, and a vision of moral perfection and finality, on the other. Again, Berki ‘comes down on the side of the temporal, the existential, the dynamic and plural. But in ‘this text Berki also makes a further very telling move that, although advanced in a more tentative and speculative manner, illuminates the central thrust of his overall analysis of political realism. ‘The original ground of the tension between insight and vision in Marx is sought in the “largest appropriate canvas available, namely in the Western intellectual tradition as such”” (172). The problem that arises here, of course, concerns how that large canvas, how those founding fathers and their message, are to be identified and interpreted Berki’s interpretation is a fairly conventional one, and focuses on “the original, primal duality of Western civilization, namely its Hellenic and Judeo-Christian components” (173). In this Hegelian contrast, it is the Judeo-Christian tradition that is identified with the eschatological view of history as the working out of God's purpose, while in the Hellenic view history is identified with mere cosmic movement and eternal return. There is no doubt that many realist approaches to international polities have been defined against the eschatological view of history, whether in its theological or secular versions. Machiavelli is often analyzed in these terms; it can be seen behind Weber's distinction between an ethic of responsibility and an ethic of ultimate ends; and there has been a very significant neo- Augustinian school of realism that has treated inter~ national polities more or less explicitly as a consequence ofthe “fallen"” nature of life on earth ‘Although this distinction between ‘Heaven and Hellas” is conventional, tis particu larly suspect in its essentializing of the Hellenic option. It obviously clashes with another82 Realism, Change, and International Political Theory conventional reading of the larger canvas—the one that has been followed in this paper—that stresses the way the Greek heritage itself contains its own dualises, with the tension between identity and differences playing the central role, To argue that itis necessary to avoid the eschatological transcendence of politics is one thing. To suggest that the Greek heritage offers a more appropriate anchorage is quite another. ‘The return to classical Greece involves not a decision on behalf of politics as against trans- cendence, but a recognition of the way that this polarity was itself central to the problems posed within the Greek context. The return to Greece, whether to Aristotle, ‘Thucydides, or the Myth of Prometheus, offers not so much a path to the solution of problems posed by political realism as a clearer recognition of the historically constituted nature of those problems. Within a discourse that pits universalism against pluralism, structure against history, and identity against difference, the counter assertion of one against the other makes considerable sense, The key mystery remains why this discourse is itself treated as the great unchanging given in the first place. After all, the categories of classical Greek philosophy did not spring out of thin air; and our understanding of them is mediated by the interpretive categories of our own history. However one comes to terms with these large and perhaps intractable questions of historical interpretation, one fairly prosaic lesson can be drawn. The real problem confronting the reinvigoration of realism in historicist terms is that in opting for difference rather than identity, it i in danger of retaining the prior framework in which identity and difference are counterposed as mutually exclusive opposites in the first place. ‘The major insight of political realism does lie in an emphasis on pluralism, change, and difference. This does not imply that an understanding of structures is, unimportant; on the contrary, one can readily affirm that much of human existence, international and otherwise, is constrained in highly deterministic structures of one kind for another. But itis to insist on the priority of the historical human practices through ‘which such structures eame to be, Difliculties arise not {rom an insistence on difference as such, but from the way in which this principle has been formulated as the simple negation of the principle of identity. This is why it has been so easy to turn history into structure, pluralism into a projected universalism. More seriously, once difference is assumed 10 be the simple opposite of identity, a theoretical universe of manichean dualisms ensues: order versus justice; national interest versus human interest; inter- national polities versus civil society; community zersus anarchy. Whether we think of E. H. Carr's formulation of Realism and Utopianism, John Herz’s Realism and Idealism, Reinhold Niebuhe's Children of Light and Children of Darkness, or Hans J Morgenthau’s Scientific Man and Power Politics, the most influential formulations of the realist position in international political theory all depend on the negation of identity. In the language used in Richard Ashley’s (forthcoming) particularly incisive discussion of this point, these formulations simultaneously accept and reject the dominant form of Western rationality. Whatever insight the classic historicist realist texts offer on particular themes, the overall framework in which these insights are cast offers litte guidance for the future. Not only are they texts that are caught within the temporal and ideological interests of their own era, they are also texts in which the essential insight of the historicism of that era is surrendered VIL. Conclusion ‘This paper has examined some of the philosophical, theoretical, and ideological issuesR.B.J. WatKER 83 that are at stake in the contrast between historicist and structuralis forms of political realism in the recent literature on international politics. It has argued that the most powerful entry into these issues isto see them as emerging from a broader, historically constituted discourse embodying a sharp opposition between identity and difference, with priority accorded to the moment of identity. Influenced by the posibiltes offered by this broader discourse, the dominant urge has been to portray change in inter- national life as either the perpetuation of difference and fragmentation or a move towards identity and integration. The extraordinary effect ofthis urge is felt in the way in which research traditions are classified, textbooks are organized, concepts are shaped, and futures predicted. “The claim to politial realism has to beyin by rejecting this asa false move. It might then be possible to escape from the constant framing of future options as either the reproduction ofthe present, on the one hand, or the glorious transcendence ofa central- ized global community (or global extermination) on the other. The moment of difference isnot necessarily something tobe feared, the dark shadow of universal reason Which justifies the claim to relpois. Ie is rather the necessary counterpoint to the moment of identity. The possiblity thatthe future might just as easily involve greater pluralism, greater fragmentation, greater difference does not necessarily imply the impossibility of global community, or the other way around. Its just as possible that forces of change in international politics might arise from fragmented and peripheral- ized local and grassroots movernents around the world as from states or transnational ceonomie structures. Nor does a move in either direction necessarily imply that the state is either obstinate or obsolete. That this may now be something like common sense in ‘many circles does not negate the fact thatthe characteristic categories of international political theary do not help us to think in this way. This is especially the case in those rescarch strategies which fall back on the entrenched distinetions between polities and economics, international polities and civil society and between realism and idealisa Reflection on the origins of these distinctions suggests that they seriously prejudice our understanding of international realty and the way in which it has changed and might change. Insofar as they merely reproduce an historically specific form ofthe identity— difference relation, they are unlikely to da more than participate inthe reproduction of the present. “The most obvious way of avoiding these tendencies isto recognize thatthe claims of identity and those of difference are not mutually exclusive, This is, of course, a move that almost every theoretical orientation can make some claims to have made. On the argument advanced here, such claims are rarely convincing, particularly on the part of the more influential realist texts. The claims of identity may be accepted as legitimate, bout they are deferred. Difference and identity remain divided as present and future." But there are at leat two general lines of analysis that emerge from the recent literature that do take a more ereaive direction. Both of these are implicit inthe way the critical argument of this paper has been posed ‘One line involves taking the claims of difference seriously, rather than as just the negation of identity. It requires an account ofthe way international polities is not amere absence of community, an anarchy to be contrasted with the authentic community of 7 more plausible case might even be made on behalf of research trations that reals are prone to ismigs as utopian. The World Order Model Projet fr example, sore appropriately ch ‘ongoing dialogue between universalist and pluralist than a simple wopian projet we order predicated on the principle of denty alone Walker,a Realiom, Chang, and International Politial Theo civil society. In the language of contemporary poststructuralist social and political theory, it requires a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the urge to treat the moment of identity as the ground against which to analyze and judge all forms of pluralism and contingency. The most powerful statement ofthis postion is Ashley’s recent insistence that international politcal community is already present inthe dispositions, techniques, skill, and rituals of power polities. This position is perhaps not too far removed from those analyses that, whether in the name of Hume or Grotius, analyze the rules, conventions, tacit agreements, and habits that constitute a kind of “society” of states (Bull, 1977; Kratochwil, 1981; Cohen, 1981). Infact, it implies that such analyses be freed from the conventional tripartite classification system in which they are situated at 4 point midway between the poles of identity (Kant) and difference (Hobbes and Machiavelli). As Ashley argues, this immediately opens up the possibilty of a properly artical analysis of international politic rather than the ritual deflection of all ertique as cither utopian or as something without any basis in human community ‘A second line involves the analysis ofthe way the claims of identity and difference hhave been mediated in specific historical structures. Here the analysis of the sate becomes crucial. The central interest becomes not the reproduction of structures of conflict, nor the possibility of a quasi-transcendental abolition of political fragmentation in favor of global unity, but an historial understanding ofthe complementary pressures towards both fragmentation and integration and the role of the state in mediating these tensions. This is reflected, for example, in Rugaie’s insistence of the specificity of the transition from feudalism to capitalism; in Cox's attempt to draw on both historicst realism and various Marxian ideas in his aecount of the relationship between states, social forces, and specific historical structures; and in the broad literature that seeks to understand the logic of the states-system in terms of its integral connections with the logic ofthe world economy. From this direction, the crucial weakness of so much realist analysis has not been its preoccupation with the state but the way that the state has not been taken seriously enough as an historically complex form of political life. Here the key theme is not whether the statis or isnot autonomous, whether the state is or is not the only major actor in international polities, or whether the alternative o “state-cenrie realism" is some kind of “globalism.” Ic is rather that states have shown highly variable patterns of relative autonomy both from civil society and from the broader political and economic structures in which they have been embedded. Such patterns and the transformations they have undergone require rigorous historical specification rather than realist reification or globalist transcendence. ‘There are interesting tensions between these two lines of analysis, but they are not ‘obviously incompatible. Whatever their promises and problems in their own right, they at least reestablish the possibility of refusing the mystilying oppositions on which the claim to realism has trated for 0 long. 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