Realist Theories of International Relations

Class restricted to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students. "Realism" is often invoked in international relations to mean many different things. By policymakers, it is often cited as a source of support for--and opposition to--the use of force by the U.S. in world politics. By scholars, the term realism has been deployed as a rhetorical weapon (implying opponents are "unrealistic"), as a challenge to well-intended but "utopian" foreign policies, and, often, in an academic context, as a synonym for "structuralism," which it need not be. In this course, we will look closely and critically at the tradition of realism in International Relations Theory, both to find out exactly what realism does stand for and to see how it can help us better understand world politics more generally.