Session 19: Beefing Up Realism.

‘The Poverty of Neorealism’ is beautifully scripted by Richard K. Ashley, who is a postmodern political scientist. The title itself is self explanatory and the reading basically explains how and why realism has failed as a theory. The author has questioned whether realism has significant influence among International Relations scholar.

Richard Ashley has given a balanced analysis about the pros and cons of realism as a major preference to comprehend international politics. A number of reasoning is seen in his article about how realism is perceived as a dominant international relations thinking. He has mentioned the similarities and differences between the two branches of the same school of thought.  For example, Classical realists and Neorealists have the same opinion about the anarchic nature of the states. This is one of their fundamental assumptions. However, prominent classical realists such as Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger contradict the idea of utilitarian commitments in realism whereas Structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz and Robert O. Keohane use precisely these ideas to build their structural realism theory.

Verdinand Robertua, while doing a critical analysis of realism expressed his disagreement by saying that it bows down to objectivist approach i.e. the social and economic factors, and it tries to reduce human subjectivity i.e. elements of human nature as much as possible. Robert Ashley has also criticized multiple arguments put forward by Kenneth Waltz about statism, utilitarianism, positivist discourse and structuralism. He gives a detailed explanation as to why his view is not the same as that of the ‘Godfather of Modern Theory’.

Although Richard Ashley’s essay is a difficult read, it is probably one of the best short introductions to post structuralist international relations. He points out that human behavior can only be interpreted as ‘surface practice’ generated in turn by a ‘deeper independently existing structure’.  Ashley’s paper attempts to explain why realism has gained popularity and dominance among IR scholars and also exposes the flaws in this prevalent school of thought.

Link: https://v3rd1n2nd.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/the-poverty-of-neorealism/