1984 the Poverty of Neorealism

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The Poverty of NeorealismAuthor(s): Richard K. AshleySource: International Organization, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Spring, 1984), pp. 225-286Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706440 .

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The povertyof neorealism RichardK. Ashley

The theory of knowledgeis a dimension of politicaltheory becausethespecificallysymbolic power to impose the principlesof the constructionof reality-in particular, ocial reality-is a majordimensionof politicalpower.

PierreBourdieu

It is a dangerousthing to be a Machiavelli. It is a disastrousthing to bea Machiavelliwithout virtu.

Hans Morgenthau

Almost six years ago, E. P. Thompson fixed his critical sights across the

EnglishChanneland let fly with a lengthypolemic entitled The Poverty ofTheory. Thompson's immediate targetwas Louis Althusser.His strategicobjective was to rebut the emergentContinental orthodoxy that Althusserchampioned: structuralMarxism, a self-consciously scientific perspectiveaiming to employ Marxiancategorieswithin a structuralist rameworktoproducetheoreticalknowledgeof the objectivestructuresof capitalistreality.

The chargesThompson hurleddefy briefsummary,but some key themescan be quickly recalled. Althusser and the structuralists,Thompson con-

This articledevelopsideas froma draftpaper,"The Hegemonyof Hegemony,"and"RealistDialectics"(Presentedat the September1982 meetingof the AmericanPoliticalScienceAs-sociation,Denver, Colo.).My thinkingon this topichas benefitedenormously rom commentsandcriticismsgenerouslyprovidedby GordonAdams,HaywardR. AlkerJr.,AlbertBergesen,ChristopherChase-Dunn, RichardDagger,Felicia Harmer,Robert0. Keohane, StephenD.Krasner,Ivy Lang,DickinsonMcGaw, GeorgeModelski,CraigMurphy,Robert C. North,Mark Reader,John G. Ruggie,KennethN. Waltz,and David Winters,and the editorsof 10.The argumenthere is controversial. t is thereforeall the more noteworthy hat,despitedeepdifferences,communicationswith diverse audiencesrepresenting llegedlyincommensurablepointsof view have been so intelligentand, for me at least, rewarding.To all concerned offerthanks-and my exoneration.

1. E. P. Thompson, The Povertyof Theoryand OtherEssays (New York:MonthlyReviewPress,1978). SeealsoPerryAnderson's ejoinder,ArgumentswithinEnglishMarxism London:New Left Books, 1980).

InternationalOrganization38, 2, Spring1984 0020-8183/84/020225-61 $1.50C 1984 by the Massachusetts nstituteof Technologyand the World PeaceFoundation



226 InternationalOrganization

tended, were guilty of an egregiouslyselective, hopelessly one-sided repre-sentationof the Marxian egacythey claimed to carryforward.In the name

of science, Althusser had purgedthe legacy of its rich dialectical contentwhile imposinga deadening ahistoricalfinalityupon categoriesstolen fromMarx'swork. To producethisbackhandedhagiography,Thompsoncharged,Althusserhadsuperimposeda positivist understanding f scienceuponMarxeven as he claimed to surpassthe limits of positivism. What is worse, hisstructuralMarxism had to ignore the historical context of Marx's work,subordinate he dialectical"YoungMarx"to the objectivist"MatureMarx"of the Grundrisse, ast disrespecton old Engels,"the clown," and system-

atically forgetmuch ofthe Marxist literaturesince Marx, includingLenin.

In Thompson's view, this readingof Marxproduceda mechanistictheoryof capitalist society-a machine-like model comprised of self-contained,complete entities or parts connected, activated, and synchronizedby allmannerof apparatuses.t was,Thompsoncomplained,"an orreryof errors."2

Thompson'sattack was by no means a plea for fidelity to Marx'soriginaltexts. Rather, t was primarilyconcernedwithrestoringa respectforpracticein history.In Thompson'sview, structuralMarxismhad abolishedthe roleof practicein the constitution of history, includingthe historicalmakingof

social structures.It had produced an ahistoricaland depoliticizedunder-standingof politics in which women and men are the objects, but not themakers,of theircircumstances.Ultimately, t presenteda totalitarianproject,a totalizing antihistoricalstructure,which defeats the Marxianproject forchange by replicating he positivist tendencyto universalizeand naturalizethe given order.

Repeated in the context of currentEuropeanand LatinAmerican socialtheory, non-Marxistas well as Marxist,Thompson's assault might todayseem anachronistic.The fortresshe attacked is already n ruins.In Europe,

at least,the unquestioned ntellectualparamountcyof structuralism as seenits day. True,Europeansocial theoryremains very much indebted to struc-turalistthought-that set of principlesand problematicsdifferently eflectedin, say, Saussure's inguistics,Durkheim'ssociology,Levi-Strauss'sculturalanthropology,or Piaget'sdevelopmental psychology.Yet today, that debtis honored not by uncriticaladherenceto structuralistprinciplesbut by thepoststructuralistquestioningof their limits.

On this side of the Atlantic, however, the themes of Thompson'sattackare still worth recalling.Forjust as the dominance of structuralist hought

is waning elsewhere, North American theorists of internationaland com-parative politicsclaim to be at last escapingthe limits of what Piagetcalled"atomisticempiricism."Just as the United States'position of hegemonyin

2. Also called a "planetarium,"n orrery s a mechanicaldevice used to illustratewithballsof varioussizes the relativemotions and positionsof the bodies in a solarsystem.It takesitsname fromCharlesBoyle,the Earlof Orrery, or whom one was made.



The poverty of neorealism 227

the world economy is called into question, North American theorists of

internationalelationsareproudlyproclaimingheirown belated"structuralist

turn."The proponentsof this North American structuralismncludesomeof the last two generations'most distinguishedand productivetheoristsofinternationalrelations and comparative politics: Kenneth Waltz, RobertKeohane,StephenKrasner,RobertGilpin,RobertTucker,GeorgeModelski,and CharlesKindleberger,mongmanyothers.Themovementthey representis known by many names: modem realism, new realism, and structuralrealism, to name a few. Let us call it "neorealism."3

LikeAlthusserand otherproponentsof structuralMarxism,NorthAmer-

ican proponents of neorealism claim to carry forwarda rich intellectualtraditionof longstanding.The neorealist ypicallydefineshis or herheritage,as the name implies, in the Europe-born radition of "classical realism"the tradition associated in the United States with Morgenthau,Niebuhr,Herz, and Kissinger.Like Althusser'sstructuralism, oo, neorealiststruc-turalism claims to surpass its predecessorsby offeringa "truly scientific"renderingof its subject matter-an objective, theoreticalrendering,whichbreaksradicallywith its predecessors' llegedlycommonsensical, ubjectivist,atomistic, and empiricist understandings.Like Althusser's structuralism,

neorealismclaimsto graspa structural otalitythat constrains,disposes,andfinally limits political practice. Like Althusser's structuralism,neorealismhas achievedconsensusaboutthe categoriesdefining he dominantstructuresof the totalityexamined: n the case of neorealism,these categoriesrefernotto social classes and the arenas and instrumentsof class strugglebut tomodern states, their struggles or hegemony,and the instrumentsby whichand arenasin which they wage it. And like Althusser'sstructuralMarxism,neorealism has very quickly become a dominant orthodoxy. In Franceofthe late 1960s and 1970s, Althusserianstructuralismprovidedthe pivotal

text upon which the intellectualdevelopmentof a generationof radicalphi-losopherswould turn. In the United States of the 1980s, neorealismand itsstructural heory of hegemonyframesthe measureddiscourseand ritual ofa generationof graduatestudents in internationalpolitics.

It is time foranotherpolemic.Settingmy sightson neorealist tructuralism,I offer an argumentwhose main themes closely parallelThompson'sattackon structuralMarxism. I want to challengenot individual neorealistsbut

3. In speakingof a "neorealismmovement,"it is necessary o confrontseveral ssues.First,

the name "neorealism"s not universallyrecognizedby those I am callingneorealists.Someno doubt assumethat their workreflectsno largermovementor trendtheythemselvesdid notconsciouslyset into motion;theythusreject he application f general abels to theirown work.Second,I recognize hat the scholarshereregarded s neorealisthave manyseriousdifferencesand quarrelsamongthemselves.Third,I stressthat my treatmenthere is with respectto thestructureof an overall movement in its context and not the expressedpronouncementsorconsciousintentions of individual scholarswhose worksometimesmay, and sometimesmaynot, contribute o that movement.




theneorealistmovementas a whole.4LikeThompson'scritique,my argumenthas both negative and positive aspects:both its critical attackand its im-

plicationsfor an approachthat would do better. In spiritwith Thompson,let me phrasekey themes of that critique n deliberatelyexaggerated erms.

On the negative side, I shall contend that neorealism is itself an "orreryof errors,"a self-enclosed, elf-affirmingoiningof statist,utilitarian, ositivist,and structuralist ommitments. Althoughit claims to side with the victorsin two American revolutions-the realist revolution against idealism, andthe scientific revolution against traditionalism-it in fact betrays both. Itbetraysthe former'scommitment to politicalautonomyby reducingpoliticalpractice o an economic logic,and it neutersthe critical acultiesof the latter

by swallowingmethodologicalrules that render science a purely technicalenterprise.From realismit learnsonly an interestin power,from science ittakesonlyan interest n expanding he reachof control,and from thisselectiveborrowing t createsa theoreticalperspectivethat paradesthe possibilityofa rationalpowerthat need neveracknowledgepower's imits. Whatemergesis a positivist structuralism hat treatsthe given orderas the naturalorder,limits rather than expands politicaldiscourse,negates or trivializesthe sig-nificanceof variety across time and place, subordinatesall practiceto aninterest n control,bows to the idealof a socialpowerbeyondresponsibility,and thereby deprivespoliticalinteractionof those practicalcapacitieswhichmake social earning nd creativechangepossible.Whatemerges s anideologythat anticipates,legitimizes,and orients a totalitarianprojectof globalpro-portions:the rationalizationof globalpolitics.'

On the positive side, I shall suggestthat theoreticalalternativesare notexhaustedby the false choice between neorealism's"progressive" tructur-alism and a "regression" o atomistic, behavioralist,or, in Waltz's terms,"reductionist" erspectives n international olitics.Thisdichotomyofwholes

and parts,often invokedby neorealistorthodoxy,obscuresanothercleavageof at least equal importance. This is a cleavagethat pits early structuralist"compliance models" of action and social reality (physicalisticmodels asseenin earlyDurkheim, orinstance)againstdialectical"competencemodels"(as seen in poststructuralisthoughtover the last few decades).6Against the

4. As discussedhere, neorealismis not just an amalgamof individualscholars'traits oropinions,nor is it the lowest common denominatoramongthem. Rather,my contentionsarewith respectto neorealismas a collectivemovementor projectemerging n a sharedcontext,having sharedprinciplesof practice, and observingcertainbackgroundunderstandings nd

normsthatparticipantsmutuallyacceptasunproblematicndthat imitand orient hequestionsraised, he answerswarranted, ndthe conductof discourseamongneorealists- thisregardlessof the fact that the participantsmay not be conscious of (may merelytake for grantedtheuniversal ruthof) thenormsandunderstandingsntegratinghemasonemovement.InWaltz'snow well-known erminology,mine is a systemic, not a reductionist, ccountof the neorealistsystem.

5. The term "totalitarian"s, to say the least, provocative.As seen below, my usage isconsistentwith that of Hans Morgenthau.

6. This is John O'Neill'sterminology.The distinctionwill be elaboratedbelow.



The povertyof neorealism 229

neorealist endency to marchtriumphantlybackward o compliancemodelsof the 19thcentury,I shall be suggesting hat the rudimentsof an alternative

competence model of internationalpolitics, a model more responsive tocontemporary argumentsin social theory, are already present in classicalrealist scholarship.Drawingespecially upon the work of PierreBourdieu,Ishall suggestthat a dialecticalcompetence model would allow us to graspall that neorealism can claim to comprehendwhile also recoveringfromclassicalrealismthoseinsights ntopoliticalpracticewhichneorealism hreat-ens to purge.Such a model, fully developed,would reinstatethe theoreticalrole of practice. It would sharpen the depictionof the currentworldcrisis,includingdilemmas of hegemonic eadership.And it would shed light on the

role and limits of knowledge,including neorealism,in the production, ra-tionalization,and possible transformationof the currentorder.

A critiqueof this breadthnecessarily inds ts inspiration n severalquarters.In addition to Thompson, I should single out two poststructuralistources,one Frenchandone German. The Frenchsourceof inspiration,as indicated,is primarilyBourdieu'sdialecticalOutlineof a Theoryof Practice.7The Ger-man source of inspiration is the critical theory of JuirgenHabermasand,more distantly, the whole traditionof the FrankfurtSchool.8 Habermas'stheme of the "scientizationof politics" is more than faintlyechoed in mycritiqueof neorealism. His diagnosisof a "legitimationcrisis"in advancedcapitalist society complementsmy discussion of the historicalconditionsofneorealist orthodoxy.9

At the same time, the studied parochialism of American internationalpolitical discourse would make it too easy to deploy alien concepts fromEuropean ocial theoryto outflank,pummel, and overwhelm thatdiscourse.Such a strategywould be self-defeatinggiven my intentions.My argumentshere, intentionally phrased in provocative terms, are like warningshots,

meant to provoke a discussion,not destroyan alleged enemy. Thus, I feelan obligationto present my position in "familiar" erms, that is, in a waythatmakesreference o thecollectiveexperiencesof NorthAmerican tudents

7. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theoryof Practice, trans. by Richard Nice (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1977). See also MichelFoucault,Power/Knowledge:electedIn-terviewsand Other Writings,1972-1977, ed. and trans. by Colin Gordon et al. (New York:Pantheon, 1980); Foucault, Language,Counter-Memory, ractice Oxford:Blackwell,1977);Foucault,TheArchaeology f KnowledgeNewYork:Pantheon,1972);and Foucault,TheOrderof Things(New York: Pantheon, 1970).

8. Jiirgen Habermas, Towardsa Rational Society, trans. by Jeremy J. Shapiro (London:

Heinemann, 1971); Habermas, Theoryand Practice,trans.by John Viertel (Boston:BeaconPress, 1974); Habermas, Communicationand the Evolutionof Society, trans. by ThomasMcCarthy Boston: Beacon Press, 1979).

9. JuirgenHabermas,LegitimationCrisis, rans.by Thomas McCarthy London:Heinemann,1976). Of course, the figurescited can hardlybe said to occupy one school;in fact, there arevery sharpdifferences mong them. Thompson,forinstance,would be among the last to alignhappilywith Foucault, "Althusser's ormer student";Habermas'srationalismwould set himapart romBourdieu.On thethemeof the"economization"f politics,seealso HannahArendt,TheHuman Condition Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1958).




of internationalrelations.As it turns out, this is not so hard to do. For thoseexperiencesare not nearlyso impoverishedas the keepersof neorealist ore

would make them seem.

1. The lore of neorealism

Everygreat scholarlymovementhas its own lore,its owncollectivelyrecalledcreationmyths, its ritualizedunderstandingsof the titanic struggles oughtand challengesstill to be overcome in establishingand maintaining ts par-amountcy. The importanceof this lore must not be underestimated: o a

very considerable degree, the solidarity of a movement depends upon themembers' abilities to recount this lore and locate their every practice n itsterms. Smallwonder, therefore, hat rites of passage,such as oralqualifyingexaminations,put so much stress on the student'sabilityto offera satisfyingreconstructionof the movement's lore and to identifythe ongoing strugglesthat the student,in turn,willcontinueto wage.Two generationsago, aspiringNorth Americanstudentsof internationalrelationshad to show themselvesready o continueclassicalrealism'snoble waragainstan entrenchedAmericanidealism. A generation ago, they had to internalizeanother lore: they hadto sing the battlehymns of behavioralsciencetriumphantagainsttradition-alism. Today, thanks to the emergenceof a neorealistorthodoxy, studentsmust preparethemselves to retell and carryforwardyet anotherlore.

a. The triumphof scientific realism

The lore of neorealism might be retold in several ways, and each tellingmight stress differentheroes, but a central theme is likely to remain the

same. Neorealism, accordingto this theme, is a progressivescientific re-demption of classical realist scholarship.It serves the interests of classicalrealism under new and challengingcircumstancesand as advantaged by aclearer grasp of objective science's demands and potentialities.As such,neorealism s twice blessed. It is heir to and carries orwardboth of the greatrevolutions that preceded it: realism against idealism, and science againsttraditionalist hought.

A fullerrecountingof the lore would begin by diagnosingsome lapses inthe classical realistscholarshipof, say, Morgenthau,Kissinger,and Herz. In

neorealist eyes, and for reasonsconsideredbelow, these and other classicalrealists werequite correct n theiremphasis on power, nationalinterest,andthe historically effectivepolitical agency of the state. Unfortunately,whenheld up to modem scientific tandards f theory,theseclassicalrealistscholarsseemed to fall woefully short. Four lapses in the classicalheritagemightbestressed.

First, classical realist concepts, arguments,and knowledgeclaims might




be said to be too fuzzy, too slippery,too resistant to consistent operationalformulation, and, in application, too dependent upon the artful sensitivity

of the historicallyminded and context-sensitivescholar. Somehow, classicalrealistconcepts and knowledgeclaimsnever quite ascend to Popper's"thirdworld of objective knowledge,"becauseclassical realists hold that the truthof these concepts and claims is to be found only through he situation-boundinterpretationsof the analyst or statesman.10

Second, and closely related, classicalrealists might be said to distinguishinsufficiently etweensubjectiveand objectiveaspectsof international oliticallife, thereby undermining the buildingof theory. Such a concern is to befound, for example, n Waltz'scomplaintsabout Morgenthau's nd Kissinger's

understandingsf the international ystem.They are,forWaltz,"reductionist"because hey tendto accord o the "attribute" f actors'subjectiveperceptionsan importantrolein constitutingandreproducinghe "system."They therebydeny the system a life of its own as an objective social fact to be graspedby theory."

Third, it might be claimed that, in Gilpin's words, classicalrealistscholar-ship "is not well groundedin social theory."'2For all its strengths,classicalrealism could be claimed to exhibit a lamentable lack of learningfrom the

insights of economics, psychology, or sociology.The fourth lapse, however, is the most salient from the neorealistpointof view, for it marksbotha failureof realistnerveand a pointof considerablevulnerability n the defense of a key realist principle: he principle of "theautonomy of the political sphere." Classicalrealists limited themselves tothe domain of political-military elations,where balanceof powercould begranted the status of a core concept. As a result, realism was naive withrespectto economic processesand relations; t left them to the power-blindeyes of liberalinterdependence hinkers and the questioningeyes of radical

theoristsof dependencyand imperialism.As neorealistssee it, this was notjust a matterof rivalrybetweenscholarlyparadigms.Sinceeconomicprocessesand relationshave definitepower-political amifications ver the longer erm,and since these same processesare badlydescribedby reference o balance-of-power logics, classical realism'sblindness with respectto economics hadseveral relatedeffects: t situated interstatepoliticsin a reactive"superstruc-tural"pose vis-a-vis economicdynamics,rendered lassicalrealism ncapable

10. Karl Popper, "On the Theory of Objective Mind," and "Epistemology without a Knowing

Subject," in Objective Knowledge (London: Oxford University Press, 1972). As Morgenthausays again and again, the application of every universalizing formulation "must be filteredthrough the concrete circumstances of time and place." Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics amongNations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed. (New York: Knopf, 1978), p. 8.

1 1. See Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979), pp. 62-64.

12. Robert Gilpin, "Political Change and International Theory" (Paper presented at theannual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 3-6 September 198 1),p. 3.




of graspingpolitical-economicdilemmas, and limited realism's capacitytoguide state practiceamidst these dilemmas. Given all of this, and given a

period of world economic crisis that increasinglycalls into question states'capacities ojustifythemselvesas managers f economicdysfunctions, ealismwas in dangerof failing n one of its foremost functions:as a framework hatcould be deployed to legitimizeand orient the state.

This situationand the neorealistresponse can be phrased n more definiteterms. In a periodof worldeconomiccrisis, wellingtransnationalist utcriesagainstthe limitsof the realistvision, andevidently politicizeddevelopmentsthat realismcould not comprehend,the classicalrealisttraditionand its keyconceptssuffereda crisisof legitimacy, specially n the United States.Sensing

this crisis, a number of American scholars, most of whom are relativelyyoung and very few of whom are steeped in the classic tradition, more orless independentlyundertook to respond in a distinctlyAmerican fashion;that is, scientifically.3 They set out to develop and historically to corroborate

scientific theories that would portrayor assume a fixed structureof inter-national anarchy;'4 rim away the balance-of-powerconcept's scientificallyinscrutable deological onnotations; educebalanceof power'sscientific tatusto that of a systemic propertyor a situational ogic undertakenby rational,calculating, elf-interested tates;and, most importantly,disclose the power-political strugglefor hegemony behind the economic dynamics that liberaland radicalanalystshad too often falselytreated n isolation from interstatepolitics.'5More than that, they set out to construct theoriesthat would laybare the structuralrelations-the causal connections between means andends-that give form to the dynamicsof hegemonicrise and decline and inlightof which a hegemon might orientits effortsboth to secure ts hegemonyand to preserve cooperative economic and ecological regimes. Political-economic order follows from the concentrationof political-economicpower,

say these theories. Power begets order. Orderrequirespower. The realistemphasis on the role of state power had been saved.

13. As I shall indicatebelow, neorealismholds to a very definite,highlyrestrictivemodel ofsocial science.

14. A few neorealistsare extremely hostile to the use of the wordanarchy e.g., as used inWaltz'swork),even though hey accept he absenceof central ule(Waltz'sdefinitionof anarchy)as a hard-coreassumption.GeorgeModelski akes "world eadership" s his "central oncept."Thus, he writes, "we make it clear that we do not regard he modern world as some sort ofanarchical ociety.To the contrary,our analysis clarifies he principlesof order and authoritythathavegoverned hat world for the pasthalf millenniumandthat,while familiar o historians

in each particular nstance, have not been previouslyput togetherin quite this mannerandhave been generallyunfamiliar o students of international elations.Anarchycould be in theeye of the beholder."Modelski,"LongCyclesand the Strategyof U.S. InternationalEconomicPolicy," nWilliamP. Avery and David P. Rapkin,eds.,America n a ChangingWorldPoliticalEconomy (New York: Longman, 1982), p. 99.

15. Again, neorealistsdiffer,and the wordsthey choose to use is one of the differences.Onemight speakof order,anotherof stability,and still anotherof leadership.Theword "hegemony"itself is certainly n some dispute, even though all agreethat hegemony whateverone choosesto call it) follows from poweror the distributionof the attributesof power.




According to neorealistlore, this rescue of realist power politics was byno means a paltry act. It was, if anything,heroic. For it depended,above

all, upon one bold move: a move of cunningand daring againststiff oddsand in opposition to the mass of sedimentedsocial-scientifichabits.In orderto bringscience to bearin saving and extendingrealism, neorealistshad firstto escape the limits of logical atomism, then prevailingamong "scientific"approaches o the study of internationalrelations.To do this, they adopteda critical stance with respect to "reductionist"arguments,arguments thatwould reduce "systems" to the interactionsamong distinct parts. In theirplace,neorealistserectedwhat have come to be called "systemic,""holistic,"or"structuralist"arguments.

For the neorealist rescueof realist powerpolitics, this structuralistmovewas decisive. By appeal to objective structures,which are said to disposeand limit practicesamong states (most especially,the anarchicstructureofthe modernstatessystem),neorealistsseemed to cut through he subjectivistveils and dark metaphysicsof classical realistthought. Dispensingwith thenormatively laden metaphysics of fallen man, they seemed to root realistpower politics, includingconcepts of power and national interest, securelyin the scientificallydefensible terrain of objective necessity. Thus rooted,realist powerpolitics could be scientificallydefended against modernistandradical critics. Without necessarily denying such tendencies as economicinterdependence r unevendevelopment,neorealists ould argue hat power-politicalstructureswould refractand limit the effectsof these tendenciesinways securingthe structures hemselves.

Such is the stuff of legends. Even in neorealistlore, to be sure, this rev-olutionary structuralisturnis only partof neorealism'sstory.The graduatestudentgoing throughneorealistritesof passagewould have to graspa gooddeal more. As will become clearlater,the aspiringstudent would also haveto come to gripswith neorealistperspectiveson internationalcollaborationand the role of regimes, on the role and limits of ideology, and on thedynamicsof hegemonicsuccession and "systemchange."Most of all, he orshe would have to demonstrate an ability to interpretstate practices inneorealistterms, which is to say as calculating,"economically"rationalbe-haviors under constraints.Still, it is the structuralist urn that is decisive,the sine qua non of neorealism'striumph.Let us take a closer look at thisvaunted structuralistaspect.

b. Thestructuralistpromise

As John Ruggie has been among the first to point out, the promise ofneorealism,like the promiseof Immanuel Wallerstein'sworld systems per-spective, is in very large measure attributableto its structuralistaspect.'6

16. John G. Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a NeorealistSynthesis," World Politics 35 (January 1983), especially pp. 261-64.




Ruggie is right.There are indeed certainisomorphisms between aspects ofneorealist argumentand elements of structuralistargument(as seen in thework of, say, Saussure,Durkheim,Levi-Strauss,and Althusser).Noting theisomorphisms, ne can letneorealismbask n the reflected loryof yesteryear'sstructuralist riumphsin fields such as linguistics,sociology, anthropology,and philosophy.One can say that structuralism's uccesses in other fieldssuggestneorealism'spromise for the study of internationalrelations.'7

At the risk of oversimplification, t is possible to abstracta number ofmore or less continuous "elements" of structuralist hought. Five of theseelements-overlapping aspects,really-are especially mportant ormy pres-

ent purposes.They suggestsome of theparallelsbetweenneorealistargumentand structuralistargument n general.1. Wherever it has emerged, structuralistargumenthas taken form in

reactionagainstphenomenologicalknowledgeand speculative,evolutionarythought.'8Structuralisthoughtbreaksradicallywith the formerbecause ofphenomenology'sdebt to a conscious subjectivity hat, in structuralist yes,is always suspect. It poses precisely the question that phenomenologicalknowledgeexcludes: how is this familiarapprehensionof the given order,and hence the community itself, possible?Structuralismalso breaks with

speculative, evolutionary thought, regarding t as nothing more than the"other side" of phenomenology.Evolutionary houghttoo often fails to seethat what pretendsto promisechangeis but an expressionof continuityinthe deeperorderof things.

2. Structuralistrgumentaims to construct heobjectiverelations linguistic,economic, political,or social) that structurepracticeand representations fpractice, ncluding primaryknowledgeof the familiarworld. I Human con-duct, includinghumanbeings'own understandings,s interpretedas surfacepracticegeneratedby a deeper, independentlyexistinglogicor structure. n

strivingto comprehendthis deeper logic, structuralismbreakswith individ-ualist perspectiveson social subjectivity,as in the Cartesiancogito. In thesame stroke,it attemptsto transcendthe subject/objectdualism.For struc-turalism,to simplify, social consciousnessis not "transparent o itself." Itis generatedby a deep socialintersubjectivity-linguisticrules,for example-which is itselfregardedas theobjective structureof society.In Paul Ricoeur'swords, "Structuralisms predicatedon a Kantian ratherthan a Freudian

17. See Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975); Edith

Kurzweil, The Age of Structuralism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); AnthonyGiddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979),especially chap. 1; Paul Ricoeur, "Structureand Hermeneutics," and "Structure, Word, Event,"in Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1974); and Miriam Glucksman, Structuralist Analysis in Contemporary Social Thought(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974).

18. Giddens, Central Problems, p. 9.19. Bourdieu, Outline, p. 3.




unconscious,on structural mperativesthat constitutethe logicalgeographyof mind."20

3. Thus, structuralism hifts towardthe interpretation f practicefrom asocial, totalizing,or "systemic"point of view. Ferdinandde Saussure'sdis-tinction between speech and language (parole et langue) is paradigmatic;

what concernedhim was not speech per se but the logical conditionsof itsintelligibility an inherentlysocial or "systemic"concern).2'What concernsstructuralistsn generalis not practiceper se but the logicalconditionsthataccountforthe significanceand significationof practicewithina community(again,a social or "systemic"relation).Saussure ocatedhis logicalprecon-ditionsfor the intelligibility f speech n language:peechbecomestheproduct

of language.Structuralistsn general ocate theirexplanations n deep socialstructures:practicebecomesthe productof structure.For Saussure, anguagecontainedpossiblespeech,that is, speechthatwill be understoodwithinthelanguagecommunity.For structuralistsmoregenerally,structure s a systemof constitutive rules"whichdo not regulatebehaviorso much as createthepossibilityof particular orms of behavior."

4. Consistentwith its totalizing nclinations,structuralism resupposesnotonly the priorityof structureover practicebut also the "absolutepredom-

inance of the wholeover the parts."22 tructuralistsmphasizethe "system"

not only in contrastto but also as constitutiveof the elementsthat composeit. The overall structureexists autonomously,independentof the parts oractors, and the identitiesof the constituentelements are attributednot tointrinsicqualitiesor contents of the elements themselves but to the differ-entiationamongthem suppliedordeterminedby the overallstructure.Thus,the units have no identity independentof the structuralwhole. Saussure'sposition is again exemplary:"In language,"he wrote, "there are only dif-ferences.... [A] differencegenerally mplies positive terms betweenwhich

the difference s set up; but in languagethere are only differenceswithoutpositive terms."23

5. In their treatmentsof time and change,structuralist rguments end topresupposean absolutedistinctionbetween synchronic static)anddiachronic(dynamic)viewpoints,and they tend to accentuate he one-way dependenceof diachrony(dynamics)upon synchrony(statics).24Change,for the struc-turalist,is always to be graspedin the context of a model of structure-anelaboratedmodel whose elements are taken to be fixed and immutableinthe face of the changesit conditionsand limits.

Cursorythough it is, this listing suggestssome obvious correspondences

20. Ricoeur,"Structure nd Hermeneutics," . 79.21. Bourdieu,Outline, pp. 23-24.22. BertellOllman,Alienation:Marx'sConception f Manin CapitalistSociety,2ded. (Cam-

bridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1976), p. 266.23. Quoted in Giddens,CentralProblems,p. 12.24. Ibid., p. 46.




between neorealistargumentandsome of the fundamentalsof structuralism.Consider the first "element":neorealism'scriticism of classical realism's

subjectivist endencies(the tendenciesof Morgenthauand Kissinger,amongothers, to adopt the postureof an ethnomethodologistof a diplomaticcom-munity) closely parallelsstructuralism's eactionagainstphenomenologicalknowledge.The neorealistreactionto the writingsof transnationalistsandmodernistssimilarlyparallelsstructuralism'sattitude with respect to spec-ulative, evolutionary thought. The shallow analysis behind such writings,neorealists end to feel,mistakestheephemeral or the eternaland too eagerlyseizes upon epiphenomenalchangeas evidence of system change.

The second, third,andfourth"elements"areequallysuggestiveof parallels.It mightbe argued, or example,that the central mportanceof Waltz'swell-known work lies in its attempt to realizethese "elements" for the study ofinternationalpolitics. Waltz's argumentagainst"attribute heories"and onbehalf of "systemic" heoriesmightseem to locatetheproperobjectof theorynot in "parts,"andnot inexternalrelationsamongthem,butin independentlyexistingobjective "wholes,"which, as orderingand orientingpropertiesofa system, constitute partsandgeneraterelationsamongthem. His argumentclearly adopts a totalizingstance in that he focuses not on explainingthe

variety of foreign-policybehavior per se (such behavior remains indeter-minate) but on uncoveringthe objective structures hat determine the sig-nificanceof practicewithin the contextof anoverall system.And whileWaltzallows that there may be considerablevariety among "actors," only thoseforms of differentiation ignificantwithin the overall structure,namely dis-tributionsof capabilities,are of concernto his theory.

Finally, the fifth "element" of structuralistargument,having to do withtime andchange,findsexpression n neorealism:RobertGilpin'srecent Warand Change in WorldPolitics offers one example, George Modelski'sim-

portant "long-cycle"argumentanother.25 ndeed, the preoccupationwithcycles of hegemonicrise and decline would seem near-perfectly o illustratethe structuralist endency to emphasize synchronyover diachrony.As instructuralist hought,dynamicsof changeare of concernto neorealistspri-marilyinsofar as their structuraldeterminantscan be theoreticallygrasped.

In view of these isomorphisms,it is easy to see why neorealismmightbeviewed as a "welcomeantidote"to the "prevailingsuperficiality" f muchinternationalrelations discourse. If nothing else, neorealists, like Waller-steinians,have illustrated hat scientific nternational elationsdiscoursecan

entertainstructuralist rguments,can transcendempiricist ixations,andcanin principleescapethe limits of logical atomism.At least, researchprogramsnow purportto try. In turn, the field is encouraged o recognizethat reality

25. RobertGilpin, War and Change in WorldPolitics(New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1981); GeorgeModelski,"The Long-Cycleof Global Politicsand the Nation-State,"Comparative tudies in Societyand History20 (April 1978), pp. 214-35.




is not all "on the surface,"that it has, or might have, depth levels, that anadequatesocial or political analysiscannot be reduced to a concatenation

of commonsense appearances,and thatone can look for a unitybehindandgeneratingevident differences.Herein is the neorealistpromise.

If neorealism is to bathe in the glow of structuralistaccomplishments,however, it must also be prepared o suffer criticismsas to structuralism'slimits. Above all, such critiques stress the troublingconsequencesof struc-turalism'stendencyto "putat a distance, to objectify,to separateout fromthe personal equation of the investigatorthe structureof an institution,amyth, a rite."26 n trying to avoid "the shop-girl'sweb of subjectivity"or"theswampsof experience," o use Levi-Strauss'swords,structuralists dopta posturethat denies the role of practice n the making and possible trans-formationof socialorder.In part,of course,such critiquesareanimatedbyrevulsionat structuralism's scandalousanti-humanism."27 utin part,also,they areanimated by a concernfor the disastrousconsequencesforpoliticaltheory and the possibly dangerous consequencesfor political practice.Anadequate critiqueof neorealism must develop these themes.

2. The structure of neorealist structuralism: an orrery of errors

I am, however, a step or two ahead of myself. I have so far spoken only ofthe neorealist ore, includingthe structuralistpromiseneorealismoften pur-ports to bear. I have tried to assay that promise by drawingout parallelsbetween neorealistargumentand the now classic positions of structuralism.Still,suchcomparisonsare more than a triflemisleading.For there is at oncemore and less to neorealismthan might be inferredfrom its isomorphismswith structuralistargument.There is more to neorealism in that it exhibits

three furthercommitments: statist, utilitarian,and positivist. There is lessto neorealismin that, thanks to the priority given to these commitments,neorealist "structuralism"akes a shallow, physicalisticform-a form thatexacerbatesthe dangerswhile negatingthe promiseof structuralism.

Within neorealism, I suggest, structuralism,statism, utilitarianism,andpositivism are bound together in machine-like, self-enclosing unity. Thismachine-like oiningof commitmentsappearsas if designedto defycriticismorto drawallopposition nto its own self-centeredarc. Herein s neorealism'sanswer to Althusser's"orrery"-an orreryof errors.Far from questioning

commonsenseappearances,he neorealistorreryhypostatizes hem. Farfromexpanding nternationalpolitical discourse,the neorealistorreryexcludesallstandpointsthat would expose the limitsof the given order of things.Before

26. Ricoeur, as quoted in Paul Rabinowand William M. Sullivan,eds., Interpretive ocialScience:A Reader (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1979), pp. 10-11.

27. Giddens, Central Problems, p. 38.




returning o the matter of neorealist "structuralism," et me take up eachof the other elements of this orrery-neorealism's statist, utilitarian,and

positivist commitments-in turn.

a. Statism

Neorealism is bound to the state. Neorealist theory is "state centric"or"statist,"as Krasnerhas labeled the position.28 t offers a "state-as-actor"model of the world. So long as one proposesto be understoodamong neo-realists, one must work within this model. At a minimum, this means thatforpurposesof theory,one mustview the stateas an entity capableof having

certainobjectivesorinterestsandof decidingamonganddeployingalternativemeansin their service.Thus,forpurposesof theory,the statemustbe treatedas an unproblematicunity:anentitywhoseexistence,boundaries, dentifyingstructures, constituencies, legitimations, interests, and capacities to makeself-regarding ecisions can be treatedas given, independentof transnationalclass and humaninterests,andundisputed except, perhaps,by otherstates).In all of these respects, the state is regardedas the stuff of theorists' un-examined assumptions-a matter upon which theorists will consensuallyagree,and not as a problematicrelationwhose consensualacceptanceneeds

explanation.The proposition hat the state mightbe essentiallyproblematicor contested is excludedfrom neorealisttheory. Indeed,neorealist heoryispreparedto acknowledgeproblemsof the state only to the extent that thestate itself,withinthe frameworkof its own legitimations,mightbe preparedto recognize problemsand mobilize resourcestoward their solution.

True, individual neorealists sometimes allow that the theoreticalcom-mitment to the state-as-actor onstruct nvolves a distortionof sorts.Waltz,forinstance,writesthat he "canfreelyadmit that states arein factnotunitary,purposive actors.""9Gilpin can acknowledge hat, "strictlyspeaking,states,as such, have no interests,or what economists call 'utility functions,'nordo bureaucracies,nterestgroups,or so-calledtransnationalactors,for thatmatter."He can even go on to say that "the state may be conceived as acoalitionof coalitionswhose objectivesand interestsresult from the powersand bargainingamong the several coalitions comprisingthe larger societyand politicalelite."30And Keohane, as coauthorof Power and Interdepen-dence, can certainly recognizethat the conditions of "complex interdepen-dence," including he factof transnationaland transgovernmental elations,fall well short of the "realist"assumptionthat states are "coherentunits"with sharp boundariesseparating hem from their externalenvironments.3'

28. See Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investmentsand U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1978).

29. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 91.30. Gilpin, War and Change, p. 18.31. Robert 0. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in

Transition Boston:Little, Brown,1977), especiallychap. 2.




The issue, however, is the theoreticaldiscourse of neorealismas a move-ment, not the protectiveclauses that individualneorealistsdeploy to preempt

or deflect criticismsof that discourse's imits. Onceone entersthis theoreticaldiscourse among neorealists, the state-as-actormodel needs no defense. Itstands without challenge.Like Waltz, one simply assumes that states havethe status of unitaryactors.32Or, like Gilpin, one refuses to be deterredbythe mountainous nconsistenciesbetweenthe stateas a coalitionof coalitions(presumably n opposition to the losing coalitions againstwhich the winningcoalition is formed) and the state as a providerof public goods, protectorof citizens' welfare, and solver of the free-rider problem in the name ofwinners and losers alike. Knowing that the "objectives and foreign policies

of statesare determinedprimarilyby the interestsof theirdominantmembersor rulingcoalitions,"3one nonethelesssimply oins the victors n proclaimingthe state a singularactor with a unified set of objectivesin the name of thecollectivegood.Thisproclamations thestartingpointof theoreticaldiscourse,one of the unexamined assumptions from which theoretical discourseproceeds.

In short, the state-as-actor assumption is a metaphysical commitmentpriorto science and exempted from scientificcriticism.Despite neorealism'smuch ballyhooedemphasis on the role of hard falsifying ests as the measureof theoreticalprogress,neorealism mmunizesits statist commitments fromany form of falsification.Excluded,for instance, is the historically establehypothesis that the state-as-actorconstruct might be not a first-ordergivenof internationalpoliticallife but partof a historical ustificatory rameworkbywhichdominantcoalitions egitimizeand secureconsentfor theirprecariousconditions of rule.

Two implications of this "state-centricity,"tself an ontological principleof neorealisttheorizing,deserve emphasis.The firstis obvious. As a frame-work for the interpretation f internationalpolitics, neorealist heory cannotaccordrecognition o-it cannoteven comprehend-those globalcollectivist

concepts that are irreducibleto logical combinationsof state-boundedre-lations.In other words,globalcollectivistconcepts-concepts of transnationalclassrelations, ay,or the interestsof humankind-can begrantedanobjectivestatus only to the extent that they can be interpretedas aggregationsofrelations and interests having logically and historically prior roots withinstate-boundedsocieties. Much as the "individual" s a prism throughwhichmethodological ndividualists comprehend collectivist concepts as aggrega-tionsof individualwants,needs, beliefs,andactions,so alsodoesthe neorealistrefractall global collectivist concepts through the prism of the state.34 m-

32. Waltz, Theoryof InternationalPolitics, p. 91.33. Gilpin, War and Change, p. 19.34. Popper understandsmethodologicalndividualismas the principle hat "all social phe-

nomena, and especiallythe functioningof all social institutions,shouldalways be understoodas resulting rom the decisions,actions, attitudes, etc. of humanindividuals.... [W]eshouldnever be satisfiedby an explanationn termsof so-called collectives.'" KarlPopper,The OpenSociety and Its Enemies, vol. 2 (London:Routledge, 1966), p. 98. Taking states as the livingindividualsof international ife, neorealiststatism is understandablen analogous erms.




portantly, this means that neorealist theory implicitly takes a side amidstcontending political interests. Whateverthe personal commitments of in-

dividualneorealistsmight be, neorealist heoryallieswith,accordsrecognitionto, and gives expressionto those class and sectoral interests(the apexes ofWaltz's domestic hierarchiesor Gilpin's victorious coalitions of coalitions)that areactuallyorpotentially ongruentwithstateinterestsandlegitimations.It implicitlyopposes and deniesrecognitiono those class and human nterestswhich cannot be reducedto concatenationsof state interestsor transnationalcoalitions of domestic interests.

The second implicationtakes longerto spell out, for it relatesto neorealist"structuralism"-the neorealist position with respect to structuresof the

international system. Reflectingon the fourth element of structuralistar-gument presented above, one might expect the neorealistto accordto thestructureof the international ystem an identity independentof the parts orunits(states-as-actorsn thiscase); he identitiesof the units wouldbe suppliedvia differentiation.The neorealistorrerydisappoints hese expectations,how-ever. For the neorealist, the state is ontologically prior to the internationalsystem. The system's structure s produced by defining states as individualunitiesand then by noting properties hat emergewhen several suchunitiesare brought into mutual reference.For the neorealist, it is impossible to

describe international structureswithout first fashioninga concept of thestate-as-actor.

The proper analogy, as Waltz points out, is classicaleconomic theory-microtheory,not macrotheory.As Waltzputs it, "International-politicalys-tems, like economic markets,are formed by the coaction of self-regardingunits." They "are individualistin origin, spontaneouslygenerated,and un-intended."35Other neorealists would agree. Gilpin, for example, followseconomists Robert Mundell and Alexander Swobodain defininga systemas "an aggregation f diverse entities unitedby regular nteractionaccordingto a form of control."36He then names states as "the principalentities oractors,"and he assertsthat controlover or governanceof the internationalsystem is a function of three factors, all of which are understoodto havetheirlogicaland historicalroots in the capabilities, nterests,andinteractionsof states: the distributionof power among states, the hierarchyof prestigeamong states,andrightsand rulesthathave their"primary oundation .. inthe powerandinterestsof thedominantgroupsorstatesin a socialsystem."37For Gilpin, as for other neorealists, the structureof internationalpolitics,far from being an autonomous and absolute whole that expresses itself inthe constitution of acting units, is an emergent property produced by thejoining of units havinga priorexistence.

35. Waltz, Theoryof InternationalPolitics, p. 91.36. Robert A. Mundelland AlexanderK. Swoboda, eds., MonetaryProblems n the Inter-

national Economy (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 343; Gilpin, WarandChange, p. 26.

37. Gilpin, War and Change, p. 25.




Ruggie'srecent review of Waltz's Theoryof InternationalPoliticsbringsthis point home by diagnosinga lapse in Waltz's"structuralism."nformed

by structuralistiteratures,Ruggieconsidersthe three analyticalcomponents(or "depth levels") of Waltz's political structure-organizationalprinciple,differentiationof units, and concentrationor diffusion of capabilities-andpinpointswhat he takes to be a problem:

... [A] dimension of changeis missing from Waltz'smodel. It is miss-ing because he drops the second analyticalcomponent of politicalstruc-ture, differentiationof units, when discussinginternationalsystems.And he drops this component as a result of giving an infelicitousinter-pretationto the sociologicalterm "differentiation,"akingit to meanthat which denotes differences ather than that which denotesseparateness.38

The allegedproblem, in other words, is that Waltz has misunderstoodthestructuralist ositionon identityand difference thefourthelementpresentedabove). Ruggiemoves to put it rightby restoring he second "depthlevel"of politicalstructure,now as principlesof differentiationhat tell us "onwhatbasis"actingunits are individuated. Specifically,he contendsthat there arecontrastingmedieval and modem variantsof the seconddepthlevel of struc-

ture:a "heteronomous" nstitutional ramework or the medieval versusthemoderninstitutional rameworkof "sovereignty."Ruggie'sargument s im-portant.From a genuine structuralistpoint of view, it is indispensable.

Ruggie introduceshis argumentas a contributionto a "neo-realist syn-thesis," it is true, and he couches it in an extremely generous nterpretationof Waltz's heory.By posingandtrying o repair heproblemof differentiationin Waltz's heory,however,Ruggie ndirectlyssues what is so farthestrongestcritiqueof the structuralistpretensions n Waltz's neorealism.By posingtheproblemof differentiationrom a structuralist tandpoint,Ruggie nvites us

to wonder why neorealists,most especiallyWaltz, had not consideredtheproblembefore.The answeris simple:neorealism s statistbeforeit is struc-turalist.From a neorealistpointof view, Ruggie'sargument s simply super-fluous because it treats as problematic,and hence in need of a structuralaccounting,what neorealists nsiston treatingas unproblematic-the identityof the state.

In neorealisteyes, there is nothing "infelicitous"about Waltz'sinterpre-tation of differentiation.When Waltz takes differentiation o refer to spec-ificationof the "functionsperformedby differentiatedunits," he is givingthe only interpretationpossible from a neorealiststandpoint.39There is noneed to decide the basis upon which units are individuated,because theessential individualityof states is alreadytaken for granted.It is embeddedin a definition of sovereigntythat neorealistsaccord to states independent

38. Ruggie,"Continuityand Transformation," p. 273-74, emphasisin original.39. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 93.




of the system. For Waltz, "To say that a state is sovereign means that itdecides for itself how it will cope with its internaland external problems."

For Gilpin, "The state is sovereign in that it must answer to no higherauthority n the internationalsphere."40Whetherit be one state in the loneisolation of universal dominion or many interacting,the definitionis thesame.

Ruggie'scritiqueof Waltz has a familiarring. His position vis-a-vis Waltzis not unlikethe critiqueof "utilitarianndividualism" n the work of Durk-heim, upon whom Ruggie draws."The clincherin Durkheim'sargument,"writes John O'Neill, "is his demonstration hat modernindividualismso farfrom creating industrial society presupposesits differentiationof the so-

ciopsychicspacewhich createsthe conceptsof personalityandautonomy.""4The clincherin Ruggie'sargument s his attemptto show that the sovereignstate, so far from creatingmodern internationalsociety, presupposes nter-national society's productionof the sociopoliticalspace within which sov-ereigntycould flourishas themodemconceptof international olitical dentityand liberty.

b. Utilitarianism

The aptness of the analogyis no accident. For if neorealism'sfirst com-mitment is to statism, its second commitment is to a utilitarianperspectiveon action, social order,and institutionalchange. By utilitarianism, do notmean the moral philosophy often associated with Bentham and Mill-aphilosophythat holds, for example, that the propermeasure of the moralworthof acts and policiesis to be found in the value of their consequences.My usageof the termisbroader,muchmoreinthesociological enseemployedby Durkheim, Polanyi, Parsons, and, more recently, BrianBarry,Charles

Camic,and MichaelHechter.i2As thesepeoplehave madeclear,sociologicaland utilitarianpositions stand sharply opposed. As Camic argues,modemsociologyemergedas the critiqueof utilitarianism.43till, the utilitarianpo-sition has refused to die. Indeed, the utilitarianperspective-first outlinedbyHobbesandMandeville,evolvingthrough he classicalpoliticaleconomists,and findingmore recentexpression n the writingsof von MisesandHayek-has "been making steady inroads into the territory hat sociologyhad tra-

40. Ibid., p. 96; Gilpin, Warand Change, p. 17.

41. John O'Neill, "The HobbesianProblem n Marx and Parsons," n O'Neill,Sociologyasa Skin Trade New York:Harper& Row, 1972),pp. 195-96.

42. SeeBrianBarry,Sociologists,Economists,andDemocracy Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1970);Talcott Parsons,TheStructure f SocialAction(NewYork:McGraw-Hill,1937);Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation1944; rpt. Boston:Beacon Press, 1957), and TheLivelihoodof Man (New York: AcademicPress, 1977); CharlesCamic,"The UtilitariansRe-visited,"AmericanJournalof Sociology85, 3 (1979), pp. 516-50; and MichaelHechter,"KarlPolanyi'sSocial Theory:A Critique,"Politics & Society 10, 4 (1981), pp. 399-429.

43. Camic, "UtilitariansRevisited."




ditionallystaked out as its own." Today it finds expressionin the form ofmicroeconomicheoriesof politics,gametheory,exchange heory,andrational

choice theory.Today, Hechtercan arguethat, "if currentsocial sciencecanboast anything remotely resemblinga paradigm,then utilitarianism s itsleadingcandidate."44Neorealism sharesin the "paradigm."

Broadlyconstrued,utilitarianism s characterizedby its individualistandrationalistpremises. Its individualismstipulatesthe theoreticalprimacyofindividualactorsrather han of social collectives.The individualactingunitis takento be essentiallyprivate.It exists prior to and independentof largersocial institutionsand is understoodas the autonomousgeneratorof its ownends. Socialreality s understoodas made upof manysuchindividualactors,inhabitinga world characterizedby scarcity-a worldin which not all goalscan be equally realized and, hence, choices have to be made. Utilitarianrationalismdefinesrationality n means-endsor instrumental erms:efficientactionin the serviceof establishedends whose valueor truth is properly heprovince of the individual actor and cannot be held to account in publicterms. Economic rationality s the archetype,the ideal form. What Webercalled"substantiverationality"or Habermascalled"practical eason"(bothof which can pass judgment on ends as well as means) are excluded from

the utilitariannotionof rationality. ndeed,insofaras substantiverationalityand practicalreason presupposenormative structures ranscending nd irre-ducible to individualwants and needs, the utilitarianwould hold them tobe scientifically ndefensiblemetaphysicalnotions.

Upon thesepremises,utilitariansoundtheirtheoriesof action,interaction,order, and change. Utilitarian theories of action hold that actors behaverationally, n the narrowinstrumentalist ense. Actors strive to serve theirintrinsic biologicallyorpsychologicallyproduced)desiresorendsinthe mostefficientmeanspossible.Social nteractions interpretable, ydirectextension,

as instrumentalcoaction or exchangeamong individualactors, each partyregardedas an external object or instrumentin the eyes of the rationallyacting other. Utilitariantheories also hold that, at base, social order is aderivative relation. It derives entirely from equilibria(dynamic or static,stable or unstable) in the instrumentalrelations and mutual expectationsamong rationalegoistic individuals.Social institutionsare taken to be theconsequenceof the regularization f mutualexpectations.As for its theoryof institutional change, utilitarianismproposes that changesoccur sponta-neously, as a consequence of relative changes in the competing demands

and capabilitiesof individual actors. Social order being a consequenceofinstrumentalrelationsamong individualactors, changesin actors' interestsand means give rise to demands for change and, among other things, newcoalitions.

It is importantto add that such modes of action, interaction,order,and

44. Hechter, "Karl Polanyi's Social Theory," p. 399.




changeare deemed ntrinsically bjective, nneedof neithernormativedefensenor historical accounting. Their realization n practice,while not always to

be observedhistorically, s takento be anessential,objective,andprogressivetendency of history. It follows that, for the utilitarian,modes of action fol-lowing he logic of economic rationality re inherently bjective.The existenceof an economy whose actors obey this form of rationality s interpretedasa realizationof universaland objective truthsexisting independentof anysocial-normativebasis. Hence, for the utilitarian, he marketpresentsitselfas an idealmodel of rational,objectiveaction, nteraction, rder,andchange-a framework or the interpretationof politicalas well as economic life.

Neorealism approachesthe internationalsystem from a utilitarianpoint

of view. The major difference,of course,stems fromthe neorealist's tatism.For the neorealist, states are the rationalindividual actors whose interestsand calculatingactions and coactions give form and moment to the inter-nationalsystem. Such a positioncould easily provoke engthycriticalanalysis.For presentpurposes,I shall confine myself to a brief,two-step commentary.

The first step is simply to note that the utilitarianmodel is indeed theeffectivemodel of internationalpoliticsin neorealistresearchprograms.Thisis not to say that neorealists systematicallyexclude insights or hypothesesfrom other points of view. Among neorealism'snoteworthy raits s an unex-celled eclecticism:many neorealistswill use an argument,a clause,a phrasefrom almost any sourceif it suits their purposes.45 he point, rather, s thatutilitarianpremises ogetherwith statistcommitmentsestablish heanchoring"purposes" hat all these borrowingsserve. To use Imre Lakatos'sfamiliarterminology,utilitarian tatismis the "hardcore" of the neorealist"scientificresearch programme."Around this hard core, neorealistsdevelop a "pro-tective belt" of "auxiliary hypotheses"derived from many sources.46

Thisclaim,whichgoesto theorienting tructure r "grammar" f neorealist

practice, cannot be demonstratedin a few pages. Two examples will haveto suffice.The first is the neorealist reatmentof power.In neorealism, hereis no concept of social power behind or constitutive of states and theirinterests. Rather, power is generally regarded n terms of capabilitiesthatare said to be distributed,possessed,and potentiallyused among states-as-actors. They are said to exist independentof the actors' knowingor will.They are regardedas finallycollapsible, n principle, nto a unique, objectivemeasure of a singular systemic distribution (as if there were one uniquelytrue point of view from which the distributioncould be measured).Waltz

puts it this way: "To be politically pertinent, power has to be defined in

45. What are we to make of a structuralism, or example, that deploys both Adam Smithand Emile Durkheimfor its authoritieswithout once stoppingto considerthe contrarietiesbetween the two?

46. Imre Lakatos,"Falsification nd the Methodologyof ScientificResearchProgrammes,"in Lakatos nd AlanMusgrave, ds., Criticism nd the Growth fKnowledgeLondon:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1970).




terms of the distributionof capabilities[amongagents or actors]; he extentof one's power cannot be inferred from the results one may or may not

get.... [A]nagentis powerfulto the extent that he affectsothersmorethanthey affecthim."47Gilpin's understandings not dissimilar.Power,he writes,"refers simply to the military, economic, and technologicalcapabilitiesofstates."As he is quickto add,"Thisdefinitionobviously eaves out importantand intangibleelements that affect outcomes of political actions, such aspublic morale, qualitiesof leadership,and situational actors.Italsoexcludeswhat E. H. Carr called 'power over opinion.' These psychologicaland fre-quently incalculableaspects of power and internationalrelations are moreclosely associatedwith the concept of prestige.... "48 Such understandingsof power are rooted in a utilitarianunderstandingof internationalsociety:an understandingn which (a) there exists no form of sociality,no intersub-jective consensual basis, priorto or constitutive of individualactors or theirprivate ends, and hence (b) the essential determinants of actors' relativeeffects on one another will be found in the capabilities they respectivelycontrol.Onlywithin such a conceptioncould one believe, as Waltzbelieves,that "power provides the means of maintainingone's autonomy." Onlywithin such a framework s one inclinedto join Gilpin in reducingmatters

of morale, leadership,and power over opinion to "psychological"actors.

The second is the neorealist conception of internationalorder. For theneorealist, there are no rules, norms, mutual expectations,or principlesofpractice prior to or independentof actors, their essential ends, and theircapabilities.In the lastanalysis,if not immediately,the evolutionof all rulesfollows from the regularizationand breakdownof mutual expectationsinaccordancewith the vectoringof powerand interestamongstates-as-actors.It follows that for the neorealist,a world of a multiplicityof actors havingrelatively equal power is a formula for chaos. The potentiality for order

increases as the hierarchicalconcentrationof power steepens. For Waltz,whois concerned estthe envisionedconcentration educe o a singledominantstate, therebyoverturning he fundamentalorganizationalprincipleof inter-national politics, the optimal concentrationis with two states. For otherneorealists,who somehow manage to ignoreWaltz's concernswhile citinghis "structuralist" uthority,the condition of maximalorder is a hierarchycenteringpowerwithin the graspof a singularhegemon,a state, in Keohaneand Nye's words, that is "powerful enough to maintainthe essential rulesgoverninginterstaterelations,and willingto do so."49 Even in the analysis

47. Waltz, Theoryof InternationalPolitics, p. 192.48. Gilpin, War and Change, pp. 13-14.49. Keohaneand Nye, Power and Interdependence,hap. 3. See also Robert0. Keohane,

"The Theoryof HegemonicStabilityand Changes n InternationalRegimes, 1967-1977," inOleR. Holsti,RandolphM. Siverson,andAlexanderGeorge,eds., Change n the InternationalSystem (Boulder,Colo.: WestviewPress, 1980);and Keohane,"HegemonicLeadershipandU.S. Foreign EconomicPolicy in the 'Long Decade' of the 1950s," in Avery and Rapkin,America in a ChangingWorld.




of internationalregimes, this emphasis persists.As Krasnerputs it, "Themost common proposition amongneorealists]s that hegemonicdistributions

of power lead to stable, open economic regimes because it is in the interestof a hegemonic state to pursue such a policy and because the hegemon hasthe resourcesto providethe collective goods needed to make sucha systemfunctioneffectively."'50nshort,neorealism egardsnternationalrderentirelyas a derivativerelation.Deriving from the rationalcoactionsof individualactors,orderis taken to be finally dependentupon theirrespective nterestsand relative means of influencingone another.5'

The second step in this two-step commentaryis to considersome of theobjectionswith whichneorealism,as an instanceof utilitarian hought,mustcontend. Threeestablishedcriticismsof utilitarian hought,all centeringonthe utilitarianconception of order, deserve mention. As will be seen, theobjections suggesta contradiction n neorealistthought,one that threatensto fracture he statist pillarsof neorealistinternationalpoliticaltheory.

The three objections can be briefly summarized.The first objectionhasits roots in sociology. It is found in Talcott Parsons's diagnosis(informedby Durkheimand Weber)of the so-calledHobbesianproblem: ntheabsenceof a frameworkof norms consensuallyaccepted by its members, it might

be possible momentarilyto establishan orderlysocial aggregate a "socialcontract,"for example) among instrumentallyrationalindividuals.Exceptunder conditionsof absolutestasis, however, it cannot be maintained.Thesecond objection to the utilitarianconceptionof order is developed withinthe utilitarian ramework tself. This is MancurOlson'scritique.52As aptlysummarizedby Hechter:

Rational self-interestedactorswill not join large organizations o pursuecollective goods when they can reapthe benefitof other people'sactiv-

50. Stephen D. Krasner,"Regimesand the Limits of Realism:Regimesas AutonomousVariables," nternationalOrganization36 (Spring1982), p. 499. Krasner n this paperdem-onstrates that he is amongthe most open-mindedand criticism-conscious f neorealists.Heexploresthe limits of neorealism;n fact, he goes rightto the brink of underminingts statistprops altogether.Exploringvarious relationshipsbetween regimes,stateinterests,politicalca-pabilities,and statepractices,he comes close to raising he possibility hatregimes principles,norms, and procedures hat have some autonomyfrom the vectoringof state behaviors)mightbe constitutive f states and their interests.

51. I am careful n my wordinghere, becauseneorealists, ike most utilitarian hinkers,areslipperyabout the positionthey in fact take regarding ationalaction and the productionoforder.In a recent review of MancurOlson's The Rise and Declineof Nations(New Haven:Yale University Press, 1982),BrianBarrymakesa similarpoint.He notes that Olsoncould be

offeringa "monocausalexplanation,"a primusinter pares explanation,or an explanation nterms of a factor that is not alwaysthe most importantbut that will always emergeon topwhen other factorsarenot too strong(whichis not sayingmuch). Barry ays that he is "not atall clearwhatpositionMancurOlsonhimself wants to take."Barry,"SomeQuestionsAboutExplanation," nternationalStudies Quarterly27 (March 1983). Considering he same threepossibilities n neorealistexplanationsof order,I am not at all sure what positionneorealistsmean to take.

52. See MancurOlson, TheLogic of CollectiveAction Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1965).




ity to pursuethose ends. This means that the rationalactor in the utili-tarianmodel will always be a free riderwhenevergiven the

opportunity.Thus, accordingto utilitarianbehavioralpremises,socialorganization s unlikely to arise even among those individualswho havea strongpersonalinterestin reapingthe benefits that such organizationprovides.53

Thethirdobjection,andno doubtthe most important, s Marx's.Anticipatingthe broad outlines of both Parsons'sand Olson's arguments,Marx wentbeyond them to try to draw out what utilitariansmust presupposeif theyareto hold to their "contractarian"i.e., instrumentalistor exchange-based)

understandings f orderin society. Marx arguedconvincinglythat the mythof the contract,put into practice,depends upon a dominant class's abilityto externalize hecosts of keepingpromisesonto a classthatlacksthe freedomto contract; he Hobbesian"stateof war"is thus held in checkthroughone-sided power in a "class war."54Utilitarianorderthus presupposesclass re-lations (and associatedpolitical,legal,and institutionalrelations),which itsconscious ndividualistpremisesprohibit t fromconfronting, omprehending,or explaining.

How do neorealistsdeal with these objections?The answer,quite simply,

is that they finesse them. In a bold stroke, neorealismembracesthese ob-jections as articles of faith. Turning problems of utilitariananalysis intovirtues,neorealismredefines he Hobbesianproblemof orderas an "orderingprinciple"of internationalpolitics.Struggles or poweramongstatesbecomethe normalprocessof orderlychangeandsuccession.The free-riderproblemamong states becomes a global "sociological"legitimationfor hegemonicstates, whose privateinterestsdefine the public"good"and whose prepon-derantcapabilitiessee to it that more "good"gets done. As for the Marxiancritique,it is accepted,albeit with a twist. It is acceptednot as globalclass

analysis per se but in the idea that orderamong the great powers,the greatstates, is ever dependenton the perpetuationof a hierarchyof dominationamong greatand small states. Inequality,Waltz says, has its virtues. Orderis among them.55

One has to have some grudgingadmiration or theoristswho would makesuch a move. They must have enormouscourage,and notjust becausesuchpositionsexpose neorealiststo a lot of self-righteousmoralizing.Neorealistsmust be courageousbecausetheir attemptto finesseobjectionsto utilitarianaccountsof orderinvolves a bluffof sorts. It counts on our failureto noticethat, at a certainmoment in makingtheir move, neorealistsare suspendedin thin idealist air.

That moment comes when, conceding objectionsto utilitarianaccounts,

53. Hechter, "Karl Polanyi's Social Theory," p. 403, note 6.54. O'Neill, "The Hobbesian Problem."55. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 131-32.




the neorealistembraces them to describe internationalorder among statesat the "level"of the international ystem.The rhetorical orceof thisconces-

sion, ironically, s to divert the criticof utilitarianconceptionsof order intomomentarycomplicitywith the neorealist'sown statism,a statismthat wouldcollapse on its face if the critic were to raisethe same objectionsat the levelof the state. That is to say, the neorealistcounts on our being so awestruckby the Hobbesianand free-riderdilemmas we confront at the "internationallevel" that we shall join in neglecting he same dilemmas at the level of thestate.The neorealist ountson our failure o noticethat theobjectionsacceptedat the level of the internationalsystem can equally well be turnedagainstthe metaphysicalprop uponwhichdependsthe reificationof an international

politicalsystemanalyticallydistinguishablerom domestic andtransnationalrelations:the conception of the state-as-actor.

The neorealistmove is, in short, a sleightof hand. For despiteits statism,neorealismcan produce no theoryof the statecapableof satisfying he state-as-actor premises of its internationalpolitical theory. On the contrary,byadoptinga utilitarianheoryof action,order,andchange,neorealists mplicitlygive the lie to their idkefixe, the ideal of the state-as-actorupon which theirdistinctionamong "levels" and their whole theory of internationalpoliticsdepend.

c. Positivism

I am being unfair.To suggest,as I have, that neorealists play a trick ofsorts is to imply some kind of intentionaldupingof an innocent audience.This is surely wrong. It is wrongbecause neorealistsare as much victims asperpetrators.And it is wrong because, in truth, the bedazzled audience isfarfrom innocent. We alreadysharecomplicityin the illusion.Neither neo-

realists nor we, the fawning audience, can imagine seeing the world in anyother way.Why should this be so? Why, for example, is it so difficult o see that the

utilitarianperspectiveneorealistsembraceat the "internationalevel" under-mines the state-as-actornotion upon which their whole theoreticaledifice,includingthe distinction between levels, depends?The history of utilitarianthought is, after all, largely he storyof philosophicalopposition o the "per-sonalist" concept of state requiredby neorealism's internationalpoliticaltheory. In part, surely,this refusalto see is due to the blindinglightof the

halo surroundinghe stateinneorealist hought.Butin part, oo, this blindnessis due to the third commitment of the neorealist orrery. Neorealist theoryis theory of, by, and for positivists. It secures instantaneousrecognition,Iwant to suggest, because it merelyprojectsonto the plane of explicittheorycertain metatheoreticalcommitments that have long been implicit in thehabits of positivist method. It tells us what, hidden in our method, we haveknown all along.




Born n struggle,"positivism" s of coursea disputed erm. Many Americanpolitical scientists are unaware of its rich currentsof meaning in recent

European,Latin American, and North Americansociology, philosophy,andanthropology.Many trivialize andthus evade the termby misequatingpos-itivism with "mindless number crunching,"brute empiricism, inductivistlogic, or narrow logical positivism of the Vienna Circle. And the term hassuffered at the hands of a number of silly or naive radicals who, havingencountered Lenin's indictment, use the term as a synonym for regime-supportingscholarshipor bourgeoissocial science. Many of these radicalsare positivists themselves.56

At the very minimum, positivism means two complementary hings. In

its most generalmeaning,positivism refers o the so-called "receivedmodel"of natural science.57At the same time, and aproposthe subject-object,man-nature dualisms implicit in this "received model," one can follow MichelFoucault in distinguishingpositivist from eschatologicaldiscourse.For es-chatologicaldiscourse (evident in phenomenology,ethnomethodology,andsome hermeneutical ciences)the objectivetruthof the discourse ies withinand is produced by the discourseitself. By contrast,for positivist discourse,with its naturalisticbias, the truthof discourselies in the external object.58

In general, positivist discourse holds to fourexpectations.The firstis thatscientificknowledgeaims to graspa realitythat exists in accordwith certainfixed structuralor causal relationswhich are independentof human subjec-tivity (hence their objectivity)and internallyharmoniousor contradiction-free (as if authoredfrom a single point of view). The second is that scienceseeks to formulatetechnicallyuseful knowledge, knowledgethat enhanceshuman capacities o make predictions, rientefficientaction,and exertcontrol

56. I hold that all social science aspiring to theory has a positivist aspect in the sense given

below. This is true of Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Bourdieu, Foucault, Morgenthau, Alker, and me.Following Bourdieu, even dialectical knowledge contains the objectivistic, the positivistic. AsI use the term here, however, a movement is "positivist" if it appears to be a one-dimensionalpositivism. The issue is not the purging of positivism-the positivist moment is an inescapablemoment of all inquiry-but the realization of a more adequate "two-dimensional" or dialecticalperspective by bringing the positivist moment into unceasing critical tension with the practicalmoment such that each side ever problematizes the other. Valuable readings on the subject ofpositivism and its limits include Gerard Radnitzky, Contemporary Schools of Metascience, 3denl. ed. (Chicago: Regnery, 1973); Richard Bernstein, The Restructuring of Political and SocialTheory (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976); the first chapter of Michael J. Shapiro,Language and Political Understanding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); HaywardR. Alker Jr., "Logic, Dialectics, Politics: Some Recent Controversies," in Alker, ed., Dialectical

Logics for the Political Sciences, vol. 7 of the Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciencesand the Humanities (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982); and Theodore W. Adorno et al., The PositivismDispute in German Sociology, trans. by G. Adey and D. Frisby (New York: Harper Torchbooks,1976).

In my present discussion, I am especially concerned with that strain, still predominant inAnglo-American sociology, anchored in Weberian solutions to the problem of human subjectivityand meaning in a naturalistic social science.

57. Giddens, CentralProblems,p. 257.58. Foucault, The Order of Things.




in the serviceof given human values.The third s thatsought-afterknowledgeis value-neutral.The fourth, consistent with the first three, holds that thetruth of claims and concepts is to be tested by their correspondence o afield of externalexperience as read via (problematic) nstrumentsor inter-pretative rules."9

When one turns to positive social science, at least one other expectationneeds to be added to the list. This is the expectationthat "the phenomenaof humansubjectivity .. do notofferany particular arriers o the treatmentof socialconduct as an 'object'on a parwith objectsin the naturalworld."60Obviously, his is a most troublesome xpectation.Makinggoodon it requires

overcominga double probleminherentin human subjectivity.On the oneside, human subjectivity raises a problem from the perspectiveof socialactors: the problemof meaningful,value-ladensocial action. On the otherside, there is a problemfrom the analyst's point of view: the analyst'sownnorms, values, and understandingspotentiallynegatethe analyst'sabilitytodetach himself or herself from the social world, to treat it, on a par withnature,as an external,objective,"dumb generality."Positivist social sciencehas had to "solve" this double problem.

As it turns out, the "solutions" are worth a few moments of our time.

For it is in these solutions that we encounter the social-theoreticalcom-mitments embeddedwithindominantconceptionsof socialscience itself. Inparticular,I have in mind positivist solutions to the problem of humansubjectivityanchoredin an unquestionedcommitmentto the objective,his-torical forceof instrumentalor technicalrationality.Let me brieflydescribethiscommitmentandthen consider ts rolein "solutions"o the dualproblemof subjectivityin positivist social science. As I shall indicate,the result is ametatheoreticaloutlook implicit in positivist method, which circumscribesscientific criticismand limits the rangeof theoriesabout society that can be

scientifically ntertained.As I shall also suggest, hese limits establishamongpositivists an uncritical receptivityto neorealists'conceptionsof the inter-national system.

Again, the commitment in question is a commitment to the essentialobjectivity of technical rationality.Accordingto this (typically unspoken)commitment, whichalso appearsat the centerof utilitarian hought,means-ends rationality s inherentlyobjective, value-neutral,void of normativeorsubstantive content. Technical rationality s said to inhabitthe domain ofthe "is"ratherthan the domain of the "ought,"and hence its truthrequiresno normative defense. Indeed, as exemplified by Max Weber'sresignationto the world historical"rationalization"of all modes of life, technicalra-tionality s takento be a necessaryprogressive orce nhistory.Rationalization

59. AnthonyGiddens,ed., Positivismand Sociology(London:Heinemann,1974),chap. 1.Comparewith the list in Alker, "Logic,Dialectics,Politics."

60. Giddens,Positivismand Sociology,p. 4.




involves the breakingdown of traditionalimitsand the progressive bsorptionof all institutionsof life within a mode of thought that aims to reduce all

aspectsof human action to mattersof purposive-rational ction-efficiencyin the service of pregiven ends. For Weber, this tendency was inexorable,its outcome inevitable: the "iron cage" of a totally bureaucratized ife.6'Science, committed to the objectivityof technicalreason, is on the side ofthis necessaryhistoricaltendency. It is at the leading edge.

Immediately one can see that this commitment replicates n a novel waythe classical ustificationof positivistscienceas a critical,even revolutionaryforce, a forcethat demystifiesall formsof romanticism,dispenseswithatav-istic myth, and establishes the "end of ideology." What may be harderto

see, especiallyfor positivists, is that this commitment ties positivismto anideology of its own. It endorses a metahistorical aith in scientific-technicalprogress that positivist science itself cannot question. Insofar as the com-mitment affords "solutions"to the dual problemof human subjectivity, tjustifies itself in its own technicalterms, enriching he theoreticalcontentofpositivist method qua political deology.HavingmentionedWeber'spositionas exemplary, it is appropriate o consider the role of this commitment inWeber's own (now conventional) solutions to the two sides of the problem.

In Weber,the firstsideof the problem,the sideconcernedwiththe mean-ingful characterof social action, could be reduced to this: how can there bea naturalistic ocial science, one that produces objective knowledgecapableof calculatingand predictingsocial outcomes, given that human action isnecessarily"subjective" n character?Weberconfronted his problem n thespecificcontext of the Germanhistoricalschool.62Authors like RoscherandKnies had concluded that, given the subjective quality of human action,human action is not calculableor predictablen the samewaythat one mightcalculateor predictevents in the naturalworld.Inthis sense, theyconcluded,

humanaction has an "irrational"quality.63n Weber'sview, this conflationof "subjectivism"and "irrationalism"presenteda serious obstacle to thereconciliationof naturalismand sociologicaland historicalmethod. He thussetout the classic synthesisto whichmuch of modernpositivistsocialscienceis indebted.

Premisedon the inherentobjectivityof technicalrationality, he synthesiswas this:if we abstractand regardas objectivelygiven an agent'ssubstantively

61. See Max Weber,From Max Weber.Essays in Sociology,ed. and trans.by H. Gerth and

C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 44-45. See also HerbertMarcuse,"Industrialization nd Capitalismn the Workof Max Weber," n Negations:Essaysin Critical Theory Boston:Beacon Press, 1968); JiurgenHabermas,"Technologyand Scienceas Ideology," n Towardsa Rational Society;and Anthony Giddens,Politicsand Sociology nthe Thoughtof Max Weber London:Macmillan, 1972).

62. Giddens,Positivismand Sociology, p. 5.63. Max Weber,"RoscherundKniesunddas Irrationalitatsproblem,"n Wissenschaftslehre

(Tilbingen: . C. B. Mohr),pp. 127-37, and translatedas "Subjectivism nd Determinism,"nGiddens, Positivismand Sociology, pp. 23-31.




empty logic of technical reason, then in interpreting he agent's action wecan assume that, from this objective standpoint, society will appearto the

individual agent as a subjectlessset of externalconstraints,a meaninglesssecond nature. We shall then be able to say that meaning enters societyprimarilythrough the autonomously generated ends of individual actingagents:meaningfulaction is merely motivatedaction. With that, we haveour objective, naturalisticsocial science. For with knowledgeof an agent'spregiven ends and "meaningless" ocial constraints,"meaningful"and "ra-tional" subjectiverelations become calculable, predictable,and susceptibleto causal accounts.64

Formost North Americantheoristsof internationaland comparativepol-

itics, Weber's solution is a "methodologicalprinciple"whose obviousnessprecludes any need for justification. Yet as recollection of the Weberianmoment makes clear, the methodologicalprinciple mplicit in this solutionrestrictsus to a particular onceptionof society.We may call this conceptionan actor model.Upon commencinganyanalysisof a socialsystem,thehabit-born principlepredisposesthe positivist to identify the irreducibleactorswhose rationaldecisionswillmediate the entryof meaning nto socialreality.Thanks to this "principle," he committed positivist knowsalmost "instinc-tively" that all explanationsof social action must ultimatelycome to restwith the interpretationof some frozen set of actors, their values and theirends. All analysiscomes to rest with actors who are capableof exercisingtechnical rationality;whose ends, values, and boundariesseparatingoneanother are taken to be given and independentof communicationand inter-action among the several; who accordinglymust appear to one another,individually and in aggregates,as externalconstraints;and who must relateto one another, in the last analysis, in strictlyinstrumental erms.65

Weber's solutionto the second side of the problemof humansubjectivity

is equally important.The problem,seen from the secondside, is the possibleconfoundingof scientificdetachment and objectivity owing to the fact thatthe social scientist'sown norms, values, and understandings mplicatehimor her in the social world examined.As Weber recognized,even one's cate-goriesof analysisand the meaningsone attachesto them depend upon nor-mative commitments that bind one to the social world. All knowledge hasits sociallyrooted presuppositions.

Weber's solution to this second side of the problem is also anchored n acommitment to the essentialobjectivityof technicalrationality.Thesolution

64. See ibid.65. I am sayingnot that the predispositionowardactor models reflects onsciousconformity

to a norm,but that social scientistsdo not conceiveof the principlebecause it is so faithfullyobserved that, in general,social scientistscannot conceive of thinkingabout the world in anyother ways. The principleat once exhaustsand limits the spanof active socialreasoning.Mythinkingregarding he irresistible ug of "actor models"is largelysparkedby a conversationwith Robert North, althoughI do not know that he would agreewith my characterization fthis predispositionas methodologically ooted.




involves radicalizinghe separationbetweenthe processbywhichthevalidityof scientificconcepts and knowledgeclaims may be scientificallydecided

and the process by which scientists take interest in, generate,or come torecognizeas meaningfultheir concepts and knowledgeclaims. In Weber'sview, socialscientificdiscoursewould centeron the formerprocess-a processwhose objectivitywould be assuredbecauseit could and shouldbe monop-olized by the logic of technical rationality.It would concentrateon issuesdecidable within technicalrationality'sown inherentlyobjective terms.66

Thus, while individualscientists'norms, values, and sociallyestablishedunderstandingsmay help decide the direction n which the scientificbeaconwill cast its light, science as an enterprise cannot pass judgment on the truth

of values, ethics, ends,or understandings,ncluding hoseat work n scientists'choices of what to study. Scientificdiscoursecannot criticallyexamine themeaningstructures t work n andaccountingor scientists'mutualrecognitionof the concepts they deploy. Scientific discoursecan speak decisively onlyto the efficiency of means. In sum, science as an enterprise preserves its

objectivity by excluding from its terrainall questions that cannot be for-mulatedand solvedwithintheallegedlyobjective ogicof technicalrationality.

This solution, like the first, is now widely taken for grantedas one of

science'sdelimiting eatures.Like the first,too,it buttresses he commitment

of positivist science to an actor model. It does so primarilyby limitingtherange of scientificcriticism.In particular, t excludesdiscussionof forms ofsocial consensus that might themselves be value-laden,that might be his-toricallycontingentand susceptibleto change,and that might nonethelesscoordinatehumanpracticesand distributionsof resources n ways that pro-duce and accord recognition o the consensuallyrecognizedactors(includingtheir boundariesand ends)whichpositiviststakeas the irreducible lementsof analyses.

Taken together,then, the two solutions establish a methodologicalpre-dispositionthat is anythingbut neutralwith respectto social orderingpos-sibilities.On the contrary,they implicateand profoundly imit the rangeofpossibilities hattheorycancontemplate f it is to findacceptanceas objective,scientific heory.Even beforethe firstself-consciously heoreticalwordpassesanyone'slips, a theoreticalpictureworth a thousandwords is alreadyetchedin the minds of positivist speakersand hearers.Born of long practicecon-formingto the solutionsjust described, his picture,a kindof scheme,ordersand limits expectationsaboutwhat explicittheoreticaldiscoursecan do and

say. In particular, t commits scientificdiscourse to an "actor model" ofsocialreality-a model withinwhich science itselfis incapableof questioningthe historical constitutionof social actors, cannot question their ends, butcan only advise them as to the efficiencyof means.

Here in this theory-masked-as-methodwe find a partial explanationof

66. See Shapiro, Language and Political Understanding, pp. 5-6.




the ease with which neorealistsare able to deludethemselves as well as us,theiradmiringaudience. Despite the contradictionbetween neorealists'util-

itarianconception of politics and their statist commitments,neorealistsareable to perpetuate he state-as-actor llusionin theirconceptionof the inter-nationalsystem. They are able to do so because, as positivists, we aremeth-odologicallypredisposed o lookforprecisely he kind of modelthey"reveal."Without an actor model, we somehow sense, we shall lack any scientificpoint of entryinto a meaningfulunderstanding f the international ystem;the systemwillappear o us,we worry,as a meaningless wirlof "disembodiedforces."They are furtherable to do so because,as positivists,we join themin excluding from the realm of proper scientific discourse preciselythosemodes of criticism that would allow us to unmask the move for what it is.At the very moment we begin to questionthis state-as-actor onception, weare given to feel that we have stumbled beyond the legitimate groundsofscience, into the realm of personal ethics, values, loyalties,or ends. We aregiven to feel that our complaints have no scientific standing. And so, asscientists, we swallow our questions.We adopt the postureof Waltz'sutterdetachment, Gilpin's fatalism, Krasner'swonderment,or Keohane's We-berianresignationwith respectto the powersthat be. We mightnot like it,

we say, but this is the world that is. As scientists, we think we cannot sayotherwise.

d. Structuralism

There is more to the story of neorealism'ssuccessthan this, however. Asnoted earlier, he decisive momentin neorealism's riumphwas its celebratedstructuralisturn. As also noted, this structuralist urn wouldappearto holdout a promise for a deepening of internationalpolitical discourse. Now,

having examined the other three aspects of the neorealist orrery, we canreturnat last to neorealist tructuralism nd consideronce again ts attractions.We can listen as it explodes the one-time limits of internationalpoliticaldiscourse.We can look to see how it penetratesbeneath commonsense ap-pearancesof the given order.We can sift throughthe arguments o find themany ways in which this structuralism ranscends the confines of utilitar-ianism, statism, and positivism-perhaps enriching hem by disclosing heirdeeper historicalsignificance.We can listen, look, and sift some more. Andwhat do we find? Disappointment,primarily.

The reason is now beginning o become clear:neorealists lide all too easilybetween two concepts of the whole, one structuralistn the sense describedearlierand one atomistandphysicalist.The structuralist ositsthe possibilityof a structuralwhole-a deep social subjectivity-having an autonomousexistence independent of, prior to, and constitutive of the elements. Froma structuralist ointof view,a structuralwholecannotbe describedby startingwith the partsas abstract,alreadydefinedentities,takingnote of theirexternal




joining, and describingemergentpropertiesamongthem. The standpointofthe structuralwhole affordsthe only objective perspective. By contrast, the

atomist conception describes the whole preciselyin terms of the externaljoinings of the elements, including emergent properties producedby thejoinings and potentially limitingfurther movement or relations among theelements.Clearly, n this conception,thewhole hasno existence ndependentof the parts taken together.But it may be possible that, from the point ofview of any one part (a point of view that remains legitimatewithin anatomistic perspective),the whole may exist independentof that partor itspossible movements. Fromthis standpoint,the standpointof the single part,the whole is an externalphysical relation-a "second nature" to be dealtwith, in the last analysis, only physically or instrumentally.It cannot beotherwise, for no priorintersubjectiveunity joins partand whole.67

Neorealism has managed to conflate these two concepts of the whole.Consider he one position,the misnamed"sociologicalposition,"thatmanyneorealists take to be exemplary:Waltz's position. As noted earlier,Waltzunderstands"international tructure"not as a deep, internalrelationpriorto and constitutive of social actors but as an externaljoining of states-as-actorswho have precisely he boundaries,ends,and self-understandingshat

theorists accord to them on the basis of unexamined common sense. Inturn-and here is the coup-Waltz grants this structurea life of its ownindependent of the parts, the states-as-actors;and he shows in countlessways how this structure imits and disposes action on the part of statessuchthat, on balance,the structure s reproducedand actors aredrawn into con-formity with its requisites.But how is the independenceof this structuralwhole established? t is not establishedndependent f the parts aken ogether,for it is never anythingmore than the logicalconsequenceof the partstakentogether. Nor is it establishedby anchoringit in any deep intersubjective

structureof the state-systemicwhole. Indeed, Waltz systematicallypurgesfrom the realist legacy all hints that subjective relations might be, in histerminology, "systemic";true to Waltz's atomism, all subjectiverelationsareinterpretedas psychologicalrelations,andpropositions hatrefer o themare thus banished as "reductionist."

Rather, Waltz establishes the independenceof the structuredwhole fromthe idealizedpoint of view of the lone, isolated state-as-actor,which cannotalone alter the whole and cannot rely on others to aid it in bringingaboutchangein the whole'sdeepest structures.We are encouraged o glimpseand

authenticate the independenceof this structure,in other words, from thestandpointof a frozen abstraction: he point of view of the single state-as-actor,or the pointsof view of any number of states-as-actors,one at a time.These, though, are precisely the states-as-actors or, more correctly,this isthesamefixed,abstract tate-as-actor ategory)withwhichthe theoristbegan.

67. See Ollman,Alienation,Appendix 2.




The autonomy of the neorealistwhole is establishedprecisely from the hy-postatized point of view of the idealizedpartswhose appearancesas inde-pendententitiesprovidedthe startingpoint of the analysis, hebasicmaterial,the propswithout whichthe whole physical structure ould never have beenerected.Fromstartto finish,we neverescapeorpenetrate heseappearances.From start to finish, Waltz's is an atomistic conceptionof the internationalsystem.

At the same time, once neorealistsdo arrive at their physicalisticnotionof structure, they do attributeto it some of the qualities of structureinstructuralisthought.Neorealistsdo tendto grant o the international olitical

system "absolute predominanceover the parts."In neorealism,as in struc-turalism,diachrony s subordinated o synchrony,andchange s interpretablesolelywithinthe fixedlogicof the system.And neorealists, ikestructuralists,do tend to regardthe structure hat they describe in the singular.Thus, asnoted earlier,there are definiteisomorphismsbetweenaspectsof neorealistthoughtand structuralistprinciples.

This, however, is no compliment. For what it means is that neorealismgives us the worst of two worlds. In neorealismwe have atomism's super-ficialitycombinedwith structuralism's losuresuch that,once we aredrawn

into the neorealistcircle,weare condemnedto circulate ntirelyatthe surfacelevel of appearances.And what an idealist circle it is! What we have inneorealism's so-called structuralism s the commonsense idealism of thepowerful, projectedonto the whole in a way that at once necessitatesandforgives that power. It is the statist idealism developed from the point ofview of the one state (or, more properly,the dominant coalition)that canaffordthe illusion that it is a finishedstate-as-actorbecause, for a time, itis positioned such that the whole world pays the price of its illusions.

With apologiesto E. P. Thompson, I would suggestthat there is a certain

"snake-like"qualityto neorealiststructuralism.The headof the snake is anunreflective tate-as-actor,whichknowsitselfonlyto relyon itselfandwhichwill not recognizeits own limits or dependenceupon the world beyond itsskin.It slithersaroundhissing"self-help"andprojectingts own unreflectivityonto the world. Findingits own unreflectivenessclearlyreflected n others,it gets its own tail into its mouth, and the system is thus defined.Asked todescribe the system so defined, the snake says that it reproduces tself, andit swallows more of its tail. What, though, of the values or norms of this

system?The values and norms, the snakeanswers,are those that reflectthe

power and interests of the powerfuland interested.What, then, of power?The snake-or what is left of it, for it is now a wrigglingknot- has an answerfor this, too. Power is rooted in those capabilitieswhich providea basis forthe state-as-actor'sautonomy. And what of autonomy?In a finalgulp, thesnake answers.Autonomy is the state-as-actor'sprivilegeof not having to




reflectbecause the whole worldbends to its unreflectedprojectionsof itself."Plop!The snake has disappeared nto total theoreticalvacuity."68

As Thompson says of another structuralism:"It is, of course, a highlyconservativevacuity;what isgovernswhatis whose first unction s to preservethe integrityof is-ness; what dominates has the functional imperative ofpreserving ts own dominance."Thompson'swords are apt.Neorealiststruc-turalism ends itself wonderfullywell to becomingan apologiafor the statusquo, an excuse for domination, and "an invective against 'utopian' and'maladjusted'heretics" who would question the givenness of the dominantorder.69

In The Poverty of Historicism,Karl Popper concernedhimself with thetotalitarian mplicationsof certainprogressivistversionsof structuralism owhich he gave the label "historicism."70What we find in neorealist struc-turalismis a historicismof stasis. It is a historicismthat freezesthe politicalinstitutions of the current world order while at the same time renderingabsolute heautonomyof technicalrationality s theorganonof socialprogressto which all aspects of this order,includingstates-as-actors,must bow. It isa historicism hat almostperfectlymirrorsHansMorgenthau's nderstandingof the "totalitarian tate of mind."7'

... Whereas perfectionismcreatesan abstract deal to which it tries toelevate political life throughforce or exhortationor reform,totalitarian-ism, that is, the totalitarianstate of mind, identifiesthe ideal with thefacts of politicallife. What is, is good because it is, and power is to thetotalitariannot only a fact of social life with which one must come toterms but also the ultimate standardforjudginghuman affairsand theideal sourceof all human values. He says "Yes" to his lust for power,and he recognizesno transcendentstandard,no spiritualconcept which

68. Thompson,Povertyof Theory,p. 77.69. Ibid., pp. 77, 73.70. Popper, ThePovertyof Historicism New York:Harper& Row, 1961).71. So dangerous s the term that I must once again hasten to stress that I am addressing

the logicof the neorealistmovement as expressed n its theoriesand not the consciouslyheldvalues, intentions, or ideals of individualneorealists.I readilystipulatethat Krasner;Gilpin,Keohane,Waltz,andother neorealistsare not championsof totalitarianismn theirconsciouslyheld personal values. I readilystipulate, oo, that someneorealists, ike Gilpinin his WarandChange,can moralizeat lengthin theirprofessionalwritingsand do express pluralistic aluesin their moralizing.The problem is-and this is my charge-that neorealistdiscoursegrantsabsolutelyno scientificstanding o moral norms.At best, the moralizingof neorealistscholarsis recognized s a proclamation f personal ommitments,belief,orfaithonthe partof individuals,

andnot as anargumentwhose truthcontent sdecidablewithinscientificdiscourseorgroundablewithin theory. The result s a scientific heory that says no to neorealists' xpressedvalues andyes to totalitarian xpectations-hence the auraof quiet despairing but not theoreticallyde-scribablerony)surroundingome neorealistarguments.Sadly,manyneorealistsnterpretheirownresignationo sucha situationas a kindof scientific ough-mindedness, formof "realism,"when in fact theirsituation s largelyattributableo unquestioning cceptance f a moralsystem:the moralnorms of economic reason and positivistscience.




might tame and restrainthe lust for powerby confronting t with anideal alien and hostile to politicaldomination.72

Of course, neorealism's otalitarian mplicationsareonly partlyto be dis-covered in its celebrationof power before order. They are also presentinneorealism'ssilences, in those aspects of history neorealismdenies, omits,or represses.As Aldous Huxley remindsus, the greatesttriumphsof total-itarian propagandahave been accomplished"not by doing something,butby refraining romdoing. Greatis the truth,but still greater, rom a practicalpoint of view, is silence about truth."73Neorealist structuralism s silentabout four dimensions of history. I will call these the "fourp's": process,

practice,power, and politics.First, neorealist structuralismdenies historyas process.Like other staticstructuralisms,neorealisttheory has two characteristics.One is a "fixityoftheoreticalcategories"such that each is a categoryof stasis even when it isset in motion among other moving parts.The other characteristic s that allmovement is confinedwithin a closed field whose limits are definedby thepregivenstructure.Thompson very clearlyarticulates he consequencesofsucha conception:"[H]istoryas process,as open ended indeterminate ven-tuation-but not for that reasondevoid of rationallogic or of determining

pressures-in which categoriesare defined in particularcontexts but arecontinuously undergoinghistoricalredefinition,and whose structure s notpre-givenbut protean,continuallychanging n form and in articulation-allof this . .. must be denied."74

Second,neorealism oins all modes of historicism n denyingthe historicalsignificanceof practice, the moment at which men and women enter withgreateror lesser degrees of consciousness into the making of their world.Forthe neorealist ntellectual,menandwomen, statesmenand entrepreneurs,appearas mere supportsfor the social process that producestheirwill and

the logics by which they serve it. In particular,people are reducedto someidealized homo oeconomicus, able only to carry out, but never to reflectcriticallyon, the limited rational logic that the system demands of them.They are reducedin the last analysisto mere objects who must participatein reproducing he whole or, as the enlightenedintellectualknows, fall bythe wayside of history. True, neorealistswould never admit that theory iswithout"practical elevance."Butforthem, relevancefinds its measureonlyin termsof the technicaladequacyof the theorists'adviceto agentsof power,and technicaladequacyconsists solely in the enhancementof the efficiencyof means underobjectivestructural onstraints.Nowherein neorealistcate-gories do we find room for the idea that men and women who are the

72. HansJ. Morgenthau,"The Escapefrom Power," n Morgenthau'sDilemmasof Politics(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1958), pp. 244-45.

73. Aldous Huxley,BraveNew World London:Vanguard,1952), p. 14. The forewordwasauthored n 1946.

74. Thompson,Povertyof Theory,pp. 83-84.




objectsof theorycan themselvestheorizeabouttheir ives; arein factengagedin a continuingstruggle o shape and redefinetheir understandings f them-

selves, theircircumstances, heir agenciesof collective action, and the verycategoriesof social existence;do indeedorienttheirpractices n lightof theirunderstandings; nd, thanks to all of this, do give form and motion to theopen-endedprocesses by which the materialconditionsof theirpracticesaremade, reproduced,and transformed.Neorealist structuralism annot allowthis to be sb. For to do so would mean that neorealisttheory would itselfbe a mere partof history,and not the intellectualmaster of historyit aspiresto be.

Third, for all its emphasis on "powerpolitics," neorealismhas no com-

prehensionof, and in fact denies, the socialbasis and social limits of power.For the neorealist,as we have seen, power must be ultimately reducibletoa matterof capabilities,or means,under the controlof the unreflectiveactorwhose statusas an actoris given from the start. No otherposition on powercouldpossiblybe compatiblewithneorealism'satomisticand utilitarian on-ceptionsof internationalorder. Yet such a positionstrictlyrules out a com-petence modelof socialaction. According o a competencemodel, the powerof an actor, and even its status as an agent competent to act, is not in any

sense attributable o the inherentqualitiesor possessionsof a given entity.Rather,the power and statusof an actor dependson and is limited by theconditionsof its recognitionwithin a communityas a whole.To have power,anagentmust firstsecure ts recognitionas anagentcapableof havingpower,and, to do that, it must first demonstrateits competence in terms of thecollective and coreflectivestructures thatis, the practicalcognitiveschemesand history of experience)by which the community confers meaningandorganizes collective expectations. It is always by way of performance nreference to such collectively "known" (but not necessarilyintellectually

accessible) enerative chemesthatactorsgainrecognition nd areempowered.Thus, according o a competencemodel, buildingpoweralways has a com-munity-reflective erformative spect.Thus, too, thepowerof anactoralwayshas its limits. Although an actor can play creativelyoff of given practicalschemes, and althoughan actor can sometimes offerup virtuoso improv-isations that elicit novel orchestratedresponses to new circumstances, heactor can neverexceed the limits of recognition.75 he authorof the "MelianDialogues"understoodthis dialecticof power and recognition.Neorealistshave forgottenwhatThucydidesknew,in favorof a notion of powerwedded

to the IndustrialRevolution's faith in humankind's limitless expansionofcontrol over nature.

Fourth,despite its spiritedposturingon behalf of politicalautonomyandin opposition to the alleged economism of other traditions, neorealisthis-

75. See especially Bourdieu, Outline, chap. 4, "Structure, Habitus, Power: Basis for a Theoryof Symbolic Power."




toricismdenies politics.Morecorrectly,neorealismreducespoliticsto thoseaspectswhich lend themselves to interpretation xclusivelywithin a frame-

workof economicaction understructural onstraints. nso doing,neorealismboth immunizes that economic framework rom criticism as to its implicitpoliticalcontentand strips politicsof any practicalbasis for the autonomousreflectionon andresistance o strictlyeconomicdemands.It thereby mplicitlyallies with those segments of society that benefit from the hegemony ofeconomic logicin concertwith the state. Politics in neorealismbecomes puretechnique:the efficientachievement of whatever goals are set before thepolitical actor. Political strategyis deprived of its artful and performativeaspect, becoming instead the mere calculationof instrumentsof control.

Absent from neorealistcategories s any hint of politicsas a creative,criticalenterprise,an enterpriseby which men and women might reflect on theirgoals and strive to shape freely theircollective will.

Takentogether,reflectionson these"fourp's" suggest hatneorealist truc-turalismrepresentsanythingbut the profoundbroadeningand deepeningofinternationalpoliticaldiscourse t is oftenclaimedto be. Farfrom expandingdiscourse, this so-calledstructuralism ncloses it by equatingstructurewithexternalrelationsamong powerfulentities as they would have themselvesbe known. Far from penetrating he surface of appearances, his so-called

structuralism's ixed categoriesfreeze the given order,reducingthe historyand futureof social evolution to an expressionof those interestswhich canbe mediatedby the vectoringof poweramongcompetingstates-as-actors.76Far from presentinga structuralism hat envisions political learningon atransnational cale,neorealismpresentsa structurenwhichpolitical earningis reducedto the consequenceof instrumentalcoaction among dumb, un-reflective,technical-rationalunities that are barragedand buffetedby tech-nologicaland economic changes they are powerlessto control.

Again, though, none of this is to say that neorealist"structuralism"s

withoutits attractions.For one thing, andmost generally, hereis somethingremarkably ongenialabouta structuralismhatpretendsto a commanding,objective portraitof the whole while at the same time leavingundisturbed,even confirming,our commonsense views of the world and ourselves. Ascomparedto Wallerstein'sconceptionof the modem world system, for in-stance, neorealist structuralism s far more reassuringas to the objectivenecessityof the state-as-unit-of-analysis onvention among studentsof pol-itics.77 t thus relievesthis particularniche in the academicdivisionof labor

76. Somegood examplesof the agenda-limitingffectof neorealist tructuralism re pointedup by CraigMurphynhis discussions f StephenKrasner's Transformingnternational egimes:What the ThirdWorld Wantsand Why,"InternationalStudies Quarterly25 (March1981),pp. 19-48; andRobertW.Tucker'sTheInequalityofNations(NewYork:BasicBooks,1977).See Murphy,"What heThirdWorldWants:An Interpretationf theDevelopmentand Meaningof theNew InternationalEconomicOrder deology," nternational tudiesQuarterly 7 (March1983).

77. As Wallerstein,Hopkins,and othersfrequentlyurge,the modern world system presentsitselfas only one unit of analysis,an N of 1.




of responsibility or reflectionon its own historicity.Its pose of Weberiandetachmentcan be preserved.

For anotherthing, this strange structuralism inds much of its appeal inthe fact that it complementsand reinforces he otherthree commitments ofthe neorealistorrery.As alreadynoted,neorealism'satomisticunderstandingof structuregives priority o-and then reconfirms-the commitmentto thestate-as-actor.One might also note that neorealismemploys the only formof structuralism hat could possibly be consistent with its utilitarianandpositivist conceptionsof internationalsociety. Anchored as they are in theideal of rational ndividualactionundermeaningless,quasinaturalonstraints,these conceptionswould be radicallychallengedby modes of structuralismthat questionthe dualismof subjectand object and thus highlight he deepintersubjective onstitutionof objectiveinternational tructures.Neorealismis able to avoid this radical challenge.It is able to do so by restricting tsconception of structureto the physicalistform of a clockwork,the philo-sophical mechanism so dear to the heart of the Industrial Revolution'sintelligentsia.

3. The ghost of the old revolutionThe "secretworld,"John le Carrewrites, "is of itself attractive.Simplybyturningon its axis, it can draw the weakly anchoredto its center."78Thesame, we can now note, might be said of the neorealistorreryof errors.Havingseenits severalelementswhiz by-statism, utilitarianism, ositivism,structuralism,and statism yet again-we sense that there is a strangeunityof contrarietieshere. We sense that the whole machineexerts a centripetalforce that is difficultto defy.

To be sure, when we slow and examine the elements we find that errorsand absurditiesabound.We find, for example, that the utilitarian nterpre-tationof internationalorderpresupposesa conceptionof the state-as-actor-a conception that a utilitarianwould want to disown. We find, too, thatneorealiststatismruns contrary o any genuinelystructuralist nderstandingof the international ystem. We findthat neorealismappealsto a Weberianinterpretationof positivist method, a method that paradesas the end ofideologyeven as it subordinatesall criticismto a scientifically ndefensiblecommitment to technical rationality'sobjectivity and neutrality.And we

find that despite neorealism'spretensionsto the status of a politicalstruc-turalism,neorealisttheory is as economisticas they come.

Yet the neorealistorrery s meant neverto be held at rest.It presents tselfonly in motion. And thanksto this, its countlesserrorsbecomenot damningindictmentsbut counterweights o other errors,balancingand perpetuating

78. Le Carre, The Little Drummer Girl (New York: Knopf, 1983).




the motion of the whole. The limits of positivism obscure the errors ofstatism in a state-as-actorconceptionof internationalorder,which reduces

systemicanalysisto a physicaliststructuralism,whichin turnpropelsus intothe utilitarianworldof technicalreasonand necessity,whichbringsus aroundto positivism once again. Around and around it spins, eroding and thenconsuming the ground upon which opposition would stand. Around andaroundit spins, until we lose sightof the fact that it is only motion. Like leCarres secret world, this neorealistorreryhas no centerat all.

A much earlierstudy of the emergenceof statist tendencies offers someclues as to how such a centerlessswirl could become so powerful.In TheEighteenthBrumaireof Louis Bonaparte,KarlMarx set out to discoverhowin Franceof 1848 through1852 itbecamepossible or "a grotesquemediocrityto playa hero'spart."His conclusionwasthatBonaparte'swieldingof powerwas occasionedby a crisis-bornbourgeoisreaction,but that it could not bewholly accountedfor by materialcircumstances.Nor could it be attributedto the intrinsic qualitiesof Louis Bonaparte.In largemeasure, Bonaparteattainedpower becausehe wasable to securerecognitionamongthe French,and he was able to secure recognitionbecause, amidst crisis, he helped tomake "the ghost of the old revolutionwalk about again."

... The French,so long as they were engagedin revolution, could notget rid of the memory of Napoleon, as the election of December 10,1848, proved. From the perilsof revolution their longingswent back tothe flesh-potsof Egypt,and December2, 1851, was the answer.Theyhave not only a caricatureof the old Napoleon, they have the old Na-poleon himself, caricaturedas he would inevitably appearin the middleof the nineteenthcentury.79

One may venturea similar nterpretationo account for the extraordinarypowerof the neorealistorrery.As in the ascentof Bonaparte, he emergenceof neorealismis no doubt partlyto be explainedas a reactionto crisis. Inparticular,a reasonablycomplete interpretation f neorealism n its contextwouldwant to considerthe current iscal and legitimationcrisis surroundingtheAmericanstatein its role as system-manager ndguardian f thecapitalistaccumulationprocess.Suchan interpretationmight comprehendneorealismas a crisis-promptedredeployment,from domestic to internationalpolitics,of the "economistic" deologicallegitimationshitherto evidenced primarilyand increasinglywith respectto the state's domestic performance.This ac-

count would graspneorealism asa

contributionto "statist

economism,"a

historicalsuccessor to international aissez-faireeconomism.80Another part of the explanation of neorealism's success looks beyond

79. Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," in Robert C. Tucker, ed.,The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1972), pp. 438-39.

80. I develop this interpretation at greater length in Richard K. Ashley, "Three Modes ofEconomism," International Studies Quarterly 27 (December 1983).




materialcircumstances o collective memories of the past. Despite its errors,its idealism, and its emptiness, neorealismsucceeds in its illusionof greatness

because it at once cues and caricatures he ghosts of revolutions past, mostof all the behavioral revolution in the Cold War study of internationalre-lations. Awakened is a remembranceof a naturalisticmodel of science, thevery model in whose name the behavioralrevolutionariesmarched. Awak-ened, too, is a one-time revolutionaryfaith that the light of science willilluminate the conditions of state action, thereby reducing the chances ofmiscalculation, overcommitment, and their sometimes disastrous conse-quences. Summonedforth once again is the sense of urgencyof the darkestdays of the Cold War.Objectivity,neutrality,detachment, "state-as-actor,"a "technologyof peace"-these were among the slogans. Recollecting thisheroic revolutionaryproject, neorealismennobles its followers.Never mindthat the faith in naturalisticscience and the harmonizingforce of reasonimplicit in these memories do violence to the very core of classicalrealism'sinternationalisthought, ncluding ts long-standing esistance o behavioralistmethods. Never mind that the darklypessimistic side of Morgenthau,Carr,Wight, and Herz does not square with the behavioralists'optimism. WithGilpin, one can remember classical realism not as an embodiment of a

continuing dialectical strugglebetween absolutist darkness and bourgeoisEnlightenmentbut only as a productof the latter:

Embeddedin most social sciences and in the study of internationalrelations is the belief that through science and reason the human racecan gain control over its destiny. Throughthe advancementof knowl-edge, humanitycan learn to master the blind forcesand construct a sci-ence of peace. Throughan understandingof the sourcesof our actionsand the consequencesof our acts, human rationalityshould be able toguide statesmen throughthe crisis of a decayingworld order to a reno-

vated and stable world order. The fundamentalproblem faced, this ar-gument continues, is not uncontrollablepassionsbut ignorance.Political realism is, of course, the embodimentof this faith in reason

and science. An offspringof modern science and the Enlightenment,re-alism holds that throughcalculationsof powerand nationalintereststatesmencan createorder out of anarchyand therebymoderate the in-evitable conflictsof autonomous, self-centered,and competitivestates.... [T]his faith that a 'scienceof internationalrelations'will ulti-mately save mankindstill lies at the heartof its studies.8'

Likethe FrenchgazinguponLouisBonaparte,neorealism's ollowersglimpsein this caricatureof past revolutions an image that reflects well on them,that calls to mind the best images of themselves.

Yet like the French, the followersquickly experiencea sickening erk asthe whole projectis yankedtoo soon into closure. The neorealistcaricature

81. Gilpin, War and Change, p. 226.




of science hasnot deployed ts revolutionarymagesto "fire he imagination,"or to "glorifythe new struggles,"but to seal discoursewithin a continuous"parodyof the old." Its discourseis now frozenin acquiescence o the ColdWar conditionsof the revolutionit recalled:competitionamong states mu-tually preparing or war. As Gilpinwrites,"The advanceof technologymayopen up opportunitiesfor mutual benefit, but it also increasesthe poweravailable for political struggle.The advance of human reason and under-standingwill not end this power struggle,but it does make possiblea moreenlightenedunderstandingndpursuitof nationalself-interest."82owpainfulthis is: the revolutionaryscience of peace has become a technologyof the

state! Was it always so? By the time this awful realizationcomes, it is toolate for such reflections.The neorealistorreryhas spun its followers nto itsarc. A "grotesquemediocrity"reigns.

Such reflectionssuggestthat a serious problem awaits the critic of neo-realism.Despiteits seriousflawsand totalitariannature,neorealistorthodoxywill not be dislodged from its lofty status by the force of logical criticismalone.Forneorealism'spoweris largelydue not to its truthorthe consistencyof its logic but to its capacityto elicit the collective recognitionof womenand men, scientistsmostly, who must somehow organizetheirexpectations

and coordinate heirpractices n lightof commonlyremembered xperiences.True, as I have noted, neorealisttheory is like all intellectualisttheory inthat it contains no terms that would allow it to reflect criticallyon thepracticalsocial basis and limits of its own power. Yet the fact remains,"theghosts of revolutions past" are neorealism's main allies. At least, so theyappear.Everywhere he collective remembranceof the studyof internationalpolitics is on neorealism's side.

4. Recovering a silenced realism

And then we spy an apparition n the shadows, lodged deep in the recessesof our rememberedexperience. When last we met these ghosts of classicalrealism, we were introducedvia neorealists' erse interrogations f their heri-tage. Neorealists asked the classicalghosts a few pointed questions:Is thestate the most important actor, yes or no? Is it not true that your centralconcept is "national interest defined as power," yes or no? They elicitedtestimony establishingneorealism'sstatus as classical realism'srightfulheir.

Then, as the ghosts werehurriedout of theprobatecourtroom, he neorealistinterrogators xplained o us why the interrogation ad to be so brief.Classicalrealists had a few sound ideas worth remembering, t seems. But they "areconsidered o be traditionalists- scholars urned owardhistoryandconcerned

82. Ibid.




more with policy than with theory and scientific methods."83Sadly, theirwork knew nothing of economic relationsand fell short of modern scientific

standards. They would often fall prey to the "analytic fallacy," engage in"circularreasoning,"get their explanations "inside-out," or even "drifttothe 'subsystem dominant pole.' "84 Hard as it is to believe, many classicalrealists did not even know, until helped along by neorealists,that the logicof their "framework s identical o thatusedin neo-classicaleconomictheorywhere it is assumed that firms act to maximize profits."85Worse, many hadbeen heardto echo Hans Morgenthau'snsistenceon realism's"emancipationfrom other standards of thought," including economics.86Why, some hadeven "insist[ed]that theorists'categoriesbe consonant with actors'motives

and perceptions."87Under the circumstances, surely, the classical realistlegacy is honored most and embarrassed east by retaining ts scientificallyredeemable statements and turninga deaf ear to its fatuities. Let the tiredold ghosts rest in peace.

As we edge closer to the dark corner, however, the haze lifts, and thevisages of classical realism appear, far more clear-eyed than we had beenled to believe. As their words become audible, we note that thereis a definitecoherence here, a coherence born of a sustained, disciplined, and richly

developed perspectiveon international

politics.Someof the wordsdo indeed

resonate with things that we have heard neorealists say. Others,however,do not. Eavesdropping n thisconversationof honoredghostswe learnmanythings that the neorealist keepersof the flame have somehow neglectedtobringto our attention. As we listen, it begins to become clearwhy.

a. Thepractical structureof classical realism

The firstthing we learn s in some respectsquiteobvious. Classicalrealism,

in its method, is not at all the intellectualistor technocratictradition thatneorealiststructuralismwould aspireto be. On the contrary,classicalrealismis very much animated by a practical interest in knowledge.88 t is, if youwill, the ethnomethodology of the modern traditionof statesmanship.Assuch, its approach s largely hermeneutical.Its realityis the reality familiarto those who are competent parties to the tradition of statesmanship.Itsremembrances f thingspast are the officialremembrances f this community,

83. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 63. In the quoted words, Waltz refers specifically

to Morgenthau and Kissinger.84. The quoted words are all Waltz's. He includes nonrealists as well as classical realists

among his targets.85. Krasner, Defending the National Interest, p. 37.86. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, pp. 12-14.87. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 62. Waltz refers specifically to "Aron and other

traditionalists" in this connection.88. See Richard K. Ashley, "Political Realism and Human Interests," International Studies

Quarterly 25 (June 1981).




the wayhistorywouldhave beenand perhapsshould havebeen had itofferedrecurringendorsement of this modern tradition of internationalpolitical

practice.Its problematicsare those that partiesto this tradition-competentstatesmen-are preparedto recognizeas problematic,not as economic in-dividualsand not as history-less tates-as-actors, ut as statesmenwho expectthat their understandingscan secure public recognitionwithin the overallcommunityof statesmenand againstthe background f collectivelyremem-bered experience.

What takes longerto see is that such an approach s above all systemic,althoughnot of a form that neorealistphysicalismcan comprehend.In fact,after a good deal of time watchingand listeningto neorealistcommentary

with an eye to elements of continuity,we begin to see that classicalrealistscholarship already has a definite "structuralist" aspect. It is not the struc-

turalismof clockworkmetaphysics,to be sure. It is not a structuralism,ikeWaltz's, anchoredin an atomistic conception of global society. Instead,asin competence models of social action, classicalrealismis enduringlycom-mitted to a simple generative scheme, a practicalcognitive structurethatorientsits discourse and in reference o which all politicalpractice s under-stood. Before I introducethis scheme, a few generalnotes on its qualitiesand its status in classical realistargumentare in order.

This scheme, it must be said, is a practicalscheme. At once subjectiveand objective, necessary and contingent, the scheme exists as a preliteralrelation,almosta posturalrelation,whichcan be graspedonlyin theobjectivecoherence of the actions it generates,in its unitingof otherwiseseeminglydisparatepractices.It is not producedas a scientificpostulate n some senseexternal to practice. Rather, it is learned, much as Thomas Kuhn wouldinsist a scientificparadigm s learned, throughthe practical ransferenceofquasiposturalrelations.89t can be graspedonly by reliving,via ritualandpractice, he conflicts,ritesof passage,and crisesthatbringthe schemeitselfstrategicallyntoplay,sometimesartfullyandsometimes neptly.Accordingly,the meaningof the scheme is in its practicalstate, and the scheme is mis-understoodat the very moment that it is objectifiedor "captured"withinsome conceptual system, formal logic, or set of rules external to practice.90

89. See Kuhn'sconcluding ontributiono Lakatosand Musgrave,Criticismandthe Growth.All socialscientistswho work with graduate tudents n their researchprograms re "familiar"with such schemes. The generative scheme of a researchprogram s what our "brightest"students-the ones who arereally ompetent-seem tograsp hrough kindof "fuzzyabstraction"from our own researchpractices. t is what allowsthem to do, withminimaldirection, he kind

of independentresearchwe instantlyrecognizeas exactly the kind of work we would havewanted to do but, for some reason, never thought to do. The generativescheme is also thatwhich our "second-rate" raduate tudentsnever quitegraspwhen, in trying o learnfrom ourown practices, hey embarrassus by mimickingour practices oo exactlyunderinappropriatecircumstancesor by followingour instructions oo much by rote. It is that whichwe spendhours tryingpatiently o explainto graduate tudentsbutwhich,we know, alwaysloses its lifeonce it is translated nto a rule.

90. SeeBourdieu's hapter,"Generative chemesand PracticalLogic: nventionwithinLimits,"in Outline.




For the classical realist, however, this generative scheme is no less realbecause it resists capture within a frozen category.On the contrary,this

scheme is graspedas the self-replicating"geneticcode of political ife."Em-bodiedin all aspectsof international olitics,from the sovereign tate throughthe internationalsystem, this scheme is the principle"whichallows [us] todistinguish he field of politicsfrom other socialspheres, o orient[ourselves]in the maze of empiricalphenomenawhich make up that field,and to establisha measure of rationalorder within it."9' For the classical realist, it is thegraspingof this scheme and the conditions of its successfulapplication hatmakes competent political practicepossible. It is the indispensableelementof internationalpoliticalsavoir aire.

In modern nternational ociety,the communityboundedby the consensualrecognition of this scheme defines the modern tradition of statesmanshipfor the classical realist. Within this tradition, statesmanship s not, as ob-jectivism would have it, the "executionof a rule,"or acting in accordancewith some externalobjectivenecessities,or mechanicalobedience o a timelessmodel for which all processes are reversible and time and tempo are nomatter.92 Nor is it reducible, as in neorealism, to rational choice, underconstraints, on the part of an actor whose status as such is pregivenandunquestioned.Rather, statesmanshiprefersto practice, playingoff the gen-

erative scheme in ways rangingfrom the awkwardand uninventiveto theartfuland creative-and alwayswith an eye to the problematicreproductionof the state itself. On the one hand, it allows for the possibilityof slips,mistakes, and clumsy moments on the part of the maladroit.On the otherhand, it involves virtuoso improvisations reflectinga perfectcommand ofthe "artof living"andplayingon "alltheresources nherent ntheambiguitiesand uncertaintiesof behavior and situationin order to producethe actionsappropriate o each case, to do that of which people will say, 'There wasnothing else to be done.' "'9

What, then, is this scheme? One possible way of answering s to referto"power,""interestdefined as power," or, better,"balanceof power."I shallrefer to it as a balance-of-power cheme.94All such labels are troubling,however. Theyconceptualize hat which functions o dispensewithconcepts.They invite a kind of fetishism among too-literal nterpreters, n ahistoricalreductionof the scheme to the manifest conditions and relationsthe labelsimmediatelyconnote.Forthe communicationof the classicalrealist raditionthis has been a difficultproblem.

91. HansJ. Morgenthau, The Commitmentof PoliticalScience," nhisDilemmasofPolitics(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1958), p. 39.

92. Bourdieu,Outline, p. 24.93. Ibid.,p. 8.94. 1will not defendthis choice of labelsat this point;my reasoningwill soon becomeevident.

RecallingErnst Haas's important 1953 paper, "The Balanceof Power:Prescription,Concept,or Propaganda?"WorldPolitics5, 4, it may be an interesting xerciseto explorewhether hebalance-of-power cheme discussedhere could (undervariouscircumstances) enerateall eightof the meaningsHaas abstracted romthe relevant iteratures.




Still,ananswer,however entative, s required.Groping owardan answer-and knowingthatany writtenanswerwill failas much as it succeedsbecause

it idealizes that which has its true meaning in its practicalsite-I wouldventure to introducethe balance-of-power cheme as a "dialecticalunityofplural otalities."An extremelysimple posturalscheme,it poisesinunceasingdynamictensiontwo opposed attitudesor interpretiveorientations.Lackingbetter alternatives,let me call these opposed aspects the "particularity fthe universal" and the "universalityof the particular."

Theparticularityof the universal.Accordingto this side of the dialec-tical relation,all universalizingclaims-all claims as to some universal

truth and objective necessityof law, morality, concept, theory,or politi-cal order-are inherently problematic.They are problematic n thatthey reflect and conceal particularpoints of view and particular nter-ests that cannotbe reconciledwith other points of view occupyingthesame totality. Put somewhatdifferently,all universalizing laims maskan implicit hierarchyof social control relations centeredon some par-ticularset of interestsand subordinatingother opposingand legitimateinterests.

The universalityof the particular.Accordingto this side, all claims oractions of a particularistic ort-interests expressed,actionsundertaken,

and commitments made on the basis of immediate,contingent,andspecificexperience-are inherentlyproblematic.They are problematicbecause they bear implicit universalizingprojects,implicitclaims onwhat the whole world might be. Claims as to the truthof action orcommitments based on a uniqueheritageor on unreflectedunderstand-ings of individualinterests,for example, imply limits on what other as-pects of the social totality can do, have, and be. They implicatethesocial whole.

Such a scheme,it should be clear, n no sense impliesa necessaryreduction

of politics to the interplayof instrumental ogics (as in utilitarianmodels).Quite the contrary.Among parties who recognize the scheme, includingclassicalrealists,the scheme at once generatesand unifies all practices n asystem of structuresthat are evaluative as well as cognitive. Against allpretensesand aspirationsas to the existence of the possibilityof a universalunity-be it the unityof unrestrainedeason, heanticipation f order oundedon law or morality, the expectation of logical unity implicit in positivistscience, the championingof universalempire, or a Cobdenitefaith in theharmonizing nfluenceof the market-the schemecommends recognitionofcountertendenciesowardpluralismor fragmentation,whichwillbe animatedin reaction to just these universalisticand unifying aspirations.Likewise,againstall claims as to the rightnessor truth of a particularexperienceorpoint of view, the scheme commends attention to the universeof opposingperspectives hat mightoppose or even negatethe first. In short,the schemelegitimatesa pluralityof perspectiveson all relationsin life, and it unifies




all political practicein opposition to all attempts to reducepolitical life tothe singularrationalunity that any one perspectivewould impose upon it.

It is not too much to say that the balance-of-power cheme,far from beinga logicalrelation deducedfrom a priorstructureof states in anarchy, s theconstitutiveprincipleof a pluralisticstates system. Practicesoriented withrespect o the scheme produceand transform he modern nternational rder.The reasoning,briefly summarized, is as follows.

Working amidst ever-shifting factors and forces, including all of thosetraditionallycalled "elementsof nationalpower,"statesmen never literallypossess powerand never trulyhold the reins of control. Rather, competentstatesmenare engaged n an unceasingstruggle,at once artfuland strategic,

to be "empowered."They succeed to the extent thatthey can strikebalancesamong all aspects of power-e.g., industrialcapacity, populationdemands,militarycapability,nationalist abor, nternationalist ankers,andthe consentandrecognitionof other statesmen-to establishan at leastmomentaryequi-librium that, in turn, defines the state and its interests.It is toward ust thisbalanceof forces, a balanceof power embeddedin and producing he state,that statesmen strive. This, and nothing else, is the national interest, the"national interest defined as power."95This equilibrium,and nothing else,is what defines the state's boundariesand secures the effectivedistinction,however momentary, between domestic and internationalpolitical ife. Thestate, to borrowfrom Foucault, is an "effect of power.96

Defining and achieving this balanceis the art of statesmen.Theirsis notthe task,as in neorealism,of securing he ends of an unproblematical, ivenstate.Theirs, rather, s the art of orchestratinghe (re)production f the statein a transnational ontext of other statesmen similarlyengaged.In theirart'swork, statesmen must of course pick their way through an overwhelmingmaze of problems, roadblocks,and dead ends, all of which are susceptible

to countless interpretations rom multiple points of view. Amidst all thesecomplexities, competent statesmenknow "instinctively" o interpretall re-lationswithreference o a scheme first nscribedon international nstitutionsas the earliest modern states established their precariousfootings in thedialectic of particulararistocratic and universalizing bourgeois interests.Through long practice, they have internalizeda predisposition o orientallpractices with referenceto the axial principle, the generative scheme, ofbalanceof power.Forstatesmen,this simpledialectical cheme has a genuineeconomy of logic (thoughit is not the logicof economy)thatwill make their

own practicescomprehensible n the eyes of othercompetentstatesmen,andthanks o whichtheycan understand heirpractices s well. More mportantly,

95. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, p. 6.96. Foucault,Power/Knowledge, p. 73-74. In the specificquotation,Foucaultrefers o the

individualas an "effectof power," but his overall argument s applicable o the empoweringor constitutionof all subjective agents,including he state. His "Two Lectures"address therelationbetween the two.




as judiciously applied by artful participants, he scheme orients the com-prehension of interests and the undertakingof practices that promise to

optimize power, in its fullest sense, on behalfof the state.

b. Thepolitical conceptionof political concepts

As we listenfurther o the conversationamongclassicalrealistghosts, andas we beginto geta feel for the balance-of-power chemeat workthroughoutclassicalrealistdiscourse,another nsightcomes.Ifclassicalrealists ometimesappear slipperyin their use of concepts, it is not always becauseof a lackof discipline, an inductivist bias, or a failure to think in systemic terms.Neorealists mistakenly read classical realism in this way because they donot understandthe traditionthey purportto carry forward.They do notunderstandthat, for the classical realist,the fruits of intellectual abors areno more immune to the dialectical ogic of the balance-of-power cheme-at once subjectiveandobjective-than arethe institutionsandpractices heystudy. They do not see that, thanksto classical realists'commitmentto thebalance-of-power cheme,classicalrealist heory nstitutionalizes persistentstruggle o overcome problemsnoted earlierwithrespect o neorealist heory.

Inparticular, lassicalrealist

theorizing ongsoughtto avoid the tendency,so evident in neorealism,to let the "impulseto theorize" manifestitself inthe productionof a lifeless, antihistoricalenclosure. Deeply committed tothe balance-of-powerscheme, classical realists such as Martin Wight areconsciousof "akind of recalcitrancef international olitics o being heorizedabout."97Hans Morgenthaucautions that there is "a rationalelement inpolitical action that makes politics susceptibleto theoreticalanalysis, butthere is also a contingentelement in politics that obviates the possibilityoftheoreticalunderstanding."98oth warn againstany attempt to arrive at a

complete,naturalisticaccounting n terms of finishedexternalstructures hatfinally contain the politicalworld. As both understand,to try to impose asingle conceptualorderon internationalpoliticallife, even if thatattemptisinspired by the dialecticalbalance-of-power cheme, is to deny the truthofthe scheme that inspiresthe attempt.

From the vantage point of classical realism,as from the vantage pointsof statesmen participatingn the traditionof the modern states system, allkey concepts-power, national nterest, hesovereignstate,the states system,and so on-must be understood n reference o thebalance-of-powercheme.

Seen as finding expression throughoutall levels and in all things of thepolitical universe, the balance-of-powerscheme dictates an understandingof all such concepts as reflecting (perhaps momentary) equilibriaamong

97. Martin Wight, "Why Is There No InternationalTheory?" n HerbertButterfieldandWight,eds., DiplomaticInvestigations London:Allen & Unwin, 1967).

98. Hans Morgenthau,"TheIntellectual nd PoliticalFunctionsof Theory," n Morgenthau,Truthand Power.Essays of a Decade, 1960-1970 (New York:Praeger,1970), p. 254.




opposed tendencies and opposed interests:monarchand church, nationalistand internationalist,ocal and global,regressiveand progressive, raditionalist

and rationalist, ragmentingand universalizing,aristocracyand bourgeoisie.Not even the structuresof the modern state or the states system, not eventhe practicalefficacyof the balance-of-power cheme itself, can be takenasgiven. They are essentially political conceptsbecause they are, in the wordsof a recentdebate, "essentially ontested"or"essentially isputed" oncepts.99And they are disputed not so much because of a lack of agreement butbecause,at a deeper evel, thereis an agreement o disagree.There is a more-or-less consensualrecognitionof the truth of a dialecticalscheme that bothdisallowsanyfinalclosureon a singular, ontradiction-freeruthand generates

the expectation that, for reasons unspoken,there will forever be pressuresto subsume the whole within a false unity.

In contrast to neorealism's closure, then, the tradition of practice repre-sented by classical realism (the tradition institutionalizedin the modernstates system) is never really "complete." Rather, it appearsto each newgeneration hatinherits t as a lively,difficult, mbiguous,and nevercompletedstruggle.Thisstruggle equireshe creative nterpretationf newcircumstancesand sometimes virtuosoperformance f system renewal, n lightof commonlyrecognizedorganizingschemes embedded in past experienceand embodiedin currentsocial structures.The compromisesamong contending orcesmusteverbewonagain.The balancesmusteverberestruck.Thestrategicallianceswith various factions having contesting nationalist and internationalistclaims-alliances without which statesmen mightnot secure the autonomyrequired o permit their competent participation ccording o classicalrealistexpectations-must ever be drawnanew. Alwaysand everywhere,balancesare in jeopardy; alwaysand everywhere,strategicartistry s required.

c. Power, recognition,and balance of power

At last we are beginning o graspthis balance-of-power cheme. Althoughwe are still no doubt quite clumsy in its application-overcoming this clum-siness does take practiceand a sense of history-it does at least enable usto make sense of the continuingconversationamong classicalrealists.Take,for instance, their discussionsof power. We can now see that the classicalrealist conception, when compared to the neorealistconception, is consid-erably richerand much more sensitive to power's social basis and limits.

We can sense that this is because the classical realistconception is founded

99. See W. B. Gallie, "Essentially Contested Concepts," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society56 (1955-56); StuartHampshire,Thought ndAction NewYork:Viking,1959);StephenLukes,Power.A Radical View London:Macmillan, 1974); K. I. Macdonald,"Is 'Power' EssentiallyContested?"BritishJournalof PoliticalScience6 (November1976), pp. 380-82; Lukes,"Replyto K. I. Macdonald,"bid. 7 (1977), pp. 418-19; JohnGray,"On the Contestability f Socialand PoliticalConcepts," bid.(August1977);and Shapiro,Languageand PoliticalUnderstanding.




on an implicitcompetence model of politicalpractice,a model anchored nthe balance-of-powerscheme. The scheme dictates a commitment to the

necessaryambiguityofpoliticalreality,andthisin turnestablishes hedialecticof recognition sa necessaryandirreducible spectof all socialpowerrelations.This becomesclearerwhenone takes note of the interpretiveunity at work

behindclassical realists'dual usageof the term "power,"both as a capacityto influence(to "havepower")and as a designationof competent,recognizedparticipants to "be a power").To be recognizedas a power, that is, as asovereignstate, a state must satisfycertainminimalrequisites e.g., effectivelypatrolledterritory); nd, in general,these requisitesreflecta state'scapacityto makegood on the claim that its statesmen'spartiallyunique nterpretations

of the whole need to be recognizedand granted a separate voice in thedialogue among mutuallyrecognizing tates.'00To "increasepower,"states-men must engagein practicesthat serve to move their own vantage pointson the whole, and within the eyes of other powers, toward the collectivelyrecognized"central"vantage point-the view from the center of a pluralityof political orbits. To become a "dominant power" is to become the onepower recognizedas the state whose vantage point, and interests definedtherefrom,defines the objective limits of politicaland socialpossibility; hatis, the limits that no power can violate without imperilingits status as apower.

Whethera state s a minoror a dominantpower, hough, tspowerconfrontsits own limit, as contained in the anchoringscheme of balance of powerrecognized by all competent parties to the system. Even among dominantpowers (perhapsespecially so) statesmen must make good on the claim,implicit in the modern concept of sovereignty,'?' hat their own vantage

100. However, before one leapsto the conclusionthat there is some fixed set of operationsby which one translatescertainobjective requisites nto "attributes f statehood," t must be

stressed that the requisitesof statehood themselves depend upon collectiverecognition,areessentiallyreinterpretable, re subjectto dispute, and have historically volved.

101. This is one of the pointswhere Ruggieand I part ways-or, perhaps, t is on this pointthat Ruggieneeds to make more explicitwhat remainsunclear,at least to me. In his reviewof Waltz, Ruggiedrawsinterestingparallelsbetween privateproperty ights,as conceptualizedby Locke, and sovereignty,as conceptualizedby Vattel. I agree that Vattel exhibits strongparallels o Locke's atomisticand contractarian iews;as Quincy Wrightnotes of Vattel,he"adheredo theatomistic heorywhich holdsthat internationalaw is merelya seriesof contractsbetween wholly independent tates"(Wright,A Study of War[Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1964], p. 230). I think,too, that the parallelsare provocative:Ruggie'sanalysiscausesme to wonder if there might be morethan an analogyat workhere, if perhaps hereis morethan a coincidencebetweenthe emergenceof new relationsof laborand property,as justifiedby Locke,and the new mode of sovereignty,as justified by Vattel.

It occursto me, however, hatRuggiemayhavebeendrawn ntoa scholasticargumentwhichcauseshimto exaggeratehesurfaceparallelsbetween ntellectual ationalizationst theexpenseof an understanding f a real differencebetween private propertyrightsand sovereigntyasactive principles f practice. would iketo offer heviewthatthemodernconceptof sovereigntydesignatesthe collectively recognizedcompetenceof entitiessubjectto international aw andsuperior o municipal aw. It thus involvesnot only the possessionof self and the exclusionofothers but also the limitationof self in the respectof others,for its authoritypresupposes herecognitionof others who, per force of their recognition,agree to be so excluded.In effect,




points on the wholeare indeterminate,ambiguous,andallow forthe pluralityof possible interpretationswithin the whole that they themselves interpret.

Playingoff the balance-of-power cheme, the powerfulstatesmanmust makegood on the claim that his interpretationof the whole allows room for theinterpretive antagepoints of even the lowliestof "minorpowers"recognizedby the system of states and from whom the dominant power expects rec-ognition in return.For to the extent that a power statesmanfails to makegood on this claim in the eyes of others-perhaps because he has becomecaptiveof moralzeal, forinstance,or becausehe has surrendered o "nationalinterests"in the most "egoistic" sense of the term-his practiceswill takeon a special significance when read in reference to the balance-of-power

scheme. His practiceswill signify the state's incompetenceas a partnertothe dialogueof internationalpolitics.The statesmanrepresenting he powerin question will be viewed as unwilling, or perhaps as structurallyunable,to learn from diplomatic interaction.His diplomatic practiceswill be seenas nothingmore than instrumentsof "nationalistuniversalism," he attempton the part of a single society to bend the whole world to the logic anddemands of its unique national experience.Such a state will actually losepower, or what we may call "symbolic capital."'02

In fact, there is a strong sense in which a master-slave dialecticof power

obtains: one in which the aspirationto absolute power yields absolute im-potence, and the demand for a totally gratifiedego negates being itself. Atthe extreme,the high-capability tatewhose leadersperform ncompetentlyand allow themselves to be understoodas attemptingto make globallyde-terminate their own univocal interpretationsof orderwill be denied recog-nition, and hence existencewithinthe community of states, altogether.Fromthepointof view of thetradition, uch statesmenwillbe seennotas competentpartnersn a communityof sovereignstates,andleast of all asworthy eaders,but as threats and dangersto be opposed, taughtto behave if possible,and

expelled or destroyedif necessary.

d. Rudimentsof a theory of internationalpolitical practice

The conversationamong classical realistghostscontinues. And as it does,classical realism'sstatus in internationalrelations discourse, and its impli-

sovereignty s a practicalcategorywhose empiricalcontentsare not fixed but evolve in a wayreflecting he active practicalconsensusamongcoreflectivestatesmenwho are ever struggling

to negotiate nternalandexternalpressuresandconstraintsandwho, if competent,orient theirpractices n respectof the balance-of-powercheme.Thus, one cannotsay flatlythatsovereignstates exhibit a "form of socialitycharacteristic f 'possessiveindividualists,' or whom thesocialcollectivity is merely a conventionalcontrivancecalculated o maintainthe basicmodeof differentiation nd to compensatefor the defects of a system so organizedby facilitatingorderlyexchangerelationsamong the separateparts"(Ruggie, p. 278). One has to say thatpracticeso normalizedmay be associatedwith a particularorm of sovereigntyunderspecifichistoricalcircumstancesyet to be explained.

102. See especially he last chapterof Bourdieu'sOutline.




cations for scientific theory, begin to be seen in a different ight. It is clearthat classical realism, owing to its practicalinterestsand its relianceon a

competence model, provides a richerpolitical frameworkthan does neo-realism: at once broaderin the scope of critical questions it can entertain(includingself-reflectivecriticism),superior n its generativepotential,moreelegant and less demanding in its assumptive and conceptual bases, andmore sensitive to the deep political imits and dilemmas of competent inter-national practice.At the same time, there is something troublingabout thisconversation-especially if we measureit as a scientific iscoursethat mightprovide a viable alternativeto neorealisttheory.Thanks to its commitment

to "the priorityof practice to theory,"classical realism is vulnerableto thecharge,advancedby neorealists,of circularity.03It is ensnared n the "her-meneutic circularity"of the tradition of practiceit interprets.

Evolving its theory while peering "over the shoulder of the statesmanwhen he writes his dispatches,"'04lassical realism can advance its theoryno farther han competentstatesmen, n the course of their practice,are ableto theorize about themselves and theircircumstances.Classicalrealism thuscannot pose questionsthat competentprofessionals n the traditionwill notrecognize, including those questions that they have a structured political

interest in not recognizing.Where competent statesmen are preparedtorecognizeproblems, classical realismwill give voice to problems. But wherecompetent statesmen have an interest in silence, classical realism will besilent, too. Among these problemsare those that would call into questionthe traditionwithin whose context statesmendemonstrate heircompetence,securerecognition,andorchestrate heempoweringof states.For theclassicalrealist,as for the competent statesman,such questionsare not literallyfor-gotten. Rather, they inhabit the domain of "that which must not be said."They are unspoken and unrecognizedby competent parties as a condition

of their competence.'05Consideringhistradition-bound ircularity f the classicalrealistdialogue,

we are forced to conclude that, as a theoreticalalternativeto the neorealistorreryof errors,classicalrealismfails. It fails as a theoryof world politics,in the firstplace, because it is so deeply immersed n the tradition t interpretsthat it lacks any independent theoreticalstandardsfor the criticismof thattradition's imits. It fails, in the second place, because it honors the silencesof the tradition t interpretsand thus contains no categories hat wouldallowone to specify,or even advance hypothesesabout, the historicalconditions

103. Martin Wight,"The Balanceof Powerand InternationalOrder," n Alan James, ed.,TheBases of InternationalOrder London:OxfordUniversityPress, 1973).

104. Morgenthau,Politics among Nations,p. 5.105. This interest n silence, it must be stressed, s not an instrumental nterest,not a relation

thatcompetentstatesmen onsciously onceptualizen logicalormeans-endserms.It is, instead,one that statesmen do not necessarilyconceptualize,one best served when it is universallyinternalizedwithoutconceptualization.




that makethat traditionpossible or the deep and transnational ocial powerstructuresthat tradition-boundpracticeat once presupposes,reproduces,and mystifies.It fails, in the third place,becauseit is unable to contemplatethe historicallyspecificdevelopmentsthat threaten he unspokenconditionsupon which the dominanceof that traditionhistoricallyrests. It is thereforeunableto graspthe deeperdimensions of crisis in the world polity. And itfails, in the fourth place, because in refusingto comprehendits own limitsit must refuse as well to engage and learn from opposing theoriesand ar-guments (includingtheories of imperialism,transnationalism,and interde-pendence) hat would calltheseconditions nto question.Thus,while classical

realism is rich with insights into political practice, it fares no better thanneorealismas a scientific theory of internationalpolitics. Though it closeson an understanding hat is far truer to the traditionalpracticeof worldpolitics, it is no less closed. Though it affirmsthe hegemonyof a balance-of-powerscheme ratherthan the hegemony of a logic of economy, it is noless self-affirming.

To say that classical realism should be denied the status of a scientifictheory, though, is not to say that it should be banishedfrom the theoreticaldiscourseof international elations.On the contrary, ts practical ignificance

should be accommodated withinany reasonablycomplete theory of inter-national politics. True to its own practicalcommitments, it should be con-ceptualizedwithin theory as the "organic ntellectuality"of a transnationaltradition of statesmanship.It should be conceptualizedas the ideologicalapparatusof a global professionalcommunity,the communityof competentstatesmen, which administersthe recognizedpublicsphereof internationallife, which is able to rememberand interpret ts past, which can learnfromits experiencesand theorizein limitedways aboutitself and its performance,and which can to some degreetransform ts practicesand its institutions n

light of its remembrancesand its theories.'06So viewed, classicalrealism'slapses, circularities, ilences, and omissions cannot be regardedas pretextsfor"rejecting" ndthenignoring lassicalrealistargument r,as inneorealism,fordevelopinga "new,improved,scientificallyested"version. Suchreactionsforgetthat classical realismand its lapsesand omissionsat once mirrorandideologicallyreproducea traditionthat constitutesimportantaspectsof theworld we study. Instead, classical realism, its generativepotential,and itslimits and distortions should be addressed,interpreted,explained,and de-ployed as part of the explanationwithin a theory of modern internationalpolitical practice.

To think of classical realism in this way is to begin to look beyond thesimple competence model implicit in the conversationamong ghosts. It is

106. The term "organic intellectual" is due to Antonio Gramsci in his path-breaking studiesof hegemony. See Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, eds., Selections from the PrisonNotebooks ofAntonio Gramsci (New York: International Publishers, 197 1), especially pp. 5-14.




to anticipatethe development of a dialecticalcompetencemodel-a modelthat would overcome classical realism'sfailingsand providea viable alter-

native to neorealism'seconomic model of choice under constraints.Severalfeatures of such a model merit notice.

First, such a model would be developed to account for the emergence,reproduction,and possible transformationof a world-dominantpublicpo-litical apparatus:a tradition or regime anchored in the balance-of-powerscheme and constitutive of the modern states system. The regime shouldnot be construedto organizeand regulatebehaviorsamong states-as-actors.It instead producessovereign stateswho, as a condition of theirsovereignty,embody the regime.So deeply is this regimebound withinthe identities ofthe participantstates that their observations of its rules and expectationsbecome acts not of conscious obedience to somethingexternal but of self-realization,of survival as what they have become.'07We may referto thisregimeas a balance-of-power egime.Wemay understandt to bethetraditionof statecraft nterpretedby classical realism.Again,classical realistsare the"6organicntellectuals"of this regime,the reigning ntelligentsia f the world-wide public sphereof modern global life.

Second,such a model would situatethisbalance-of-power egime n terms

of theconditionsmaking t possible: he social, economic,and environmentalconditions upon which its practicalefficacy depends. One such conditioncan be inferred romclassicalrealists'notorioussilenceon economicprocessesandtheirpower-political amifications.As HedleyBullsaysof MartinWight,so can it be said of classical realists and regime-boundstatecraft: hey are".notmuch interested n the economic dimension of the subject."''08 ow isit possibleforthebalance-of-power egime o maintainsucha silence?Underwhat historicalsocial, economic, andenvironmentalconditions s it possiblefor thebalance-of-poweregime,as thepublicpolitical phereof worldsociety,

to maintainsilenceon matterseconomic while at the sametime coordinatingand orienting practicesin ways reaffirming he regime itself?One possibleanswer is that the regime presupposescapitalistrelationsof productionandexchange.It presupposesa deep consensusgrantingcontrolover productionto a sphere of "private"decisions that are themselves immunized frompublicresponsibility-a practicalconsensus that thereby produces a sphereof "economy"operatingaccordingto technicalrationallogics of action. Inturn, such a consensus furtherpresupposes capitalist labor and propertyrelations. This consensus, togetherwith the worldwidepower bloc whose

dominance it signifiesand secures, might be called the modern global he-gemony.The balance-of-power egime s its publicpolitical ace. Thesilences

107. See RichardK. Ashley, The PoliticalEconomy of War and Peace: The Sino-Soviet-AmericanTriangleand the ModernSecurityProblematiqueLondon: FrancesPinter, 1980),pp. 38 and 279-86.

108. Hedley Bull, "MartinWightand the Theory of InternationalRelations:The SecondMartinWightMemorialLecture,"BritishJournalofInternational tudies2 (1976), pp. 101-16.




of the regimeon matterseconomicat oncereflectand reinforce he dominantpower bloc's control over production ndependentof publicresponsibility.

Third, such a model would necessarilyaccount for the balance-of-powerregime's orientation and coordinationof political practices such that, onbalance andas an unintended onsequence),hey tendto directcommitmentsof resourcesandthe developmentof ideologicalegitimationsn ways securingthe possibilityconditionsof the regime.The model mightshow, for example,how the competent statesman's interest in accumulatingsymbolic capital,or symbolic power, by playing off the balance-of-powerscheme, effects a"doublestandard"of politicalaction. Thatdouble standard, n turn,securesthe politicalpreconditionsof globaldominationon the partof a transnationalcapitalistcoalition,the dominant powerbloc of the modernglobalhegemony.

Fourth,such a model would explorethe learningpotentialof the balance-of-power regime. In particular,along the lines of Pierre Bourdieu'sargu-ment, 09it might furtherdevelop its specificationsof the processof symboliccapital accumulation.It might explore how symbolic capital, accumulatedthrough he ambiguousand "disinterested"performances f competentheg-emonic statesmen, providesa kindof "creativereserve,"a basisin authority,for the exerciseof leadership n the orchestration f collectiveimprovisations

in responseto crisis.Fifth, such a model would offeran accountof crisis. It would specifythetendenciesthreatening o undermineor transform he conditionsuponwhichthe practicalefficacyof the balance-of-power egime depends.It mightspe-cificallyconsiderthose tendenciesthat threatento eradicate he statesman'slatitude or ambiguous, ntrinsically quivocalpoliticalperformances onoringthe balance-of-power cheme and not immediatelyreducible o expressionsof economic interests.' ? Owing to this loss of latitude for ambiguousper-formances,it might be shown, the competent statesmanis deprivedof the

ability to accumulatesymbolic capital and, with it, a reserve capacity forlearningand change n response o systemcrisis.Suchreasoningwouldsuggestthe possibilityof a world crisis-not just one more cyclicaleconomic crisis,but an epochalcrisis of worldpoliticalauthority,a crisisinvolvinga degen-

109. Bourdieu,Outline,chap.4.110. A number of tendenciesare relevantin this connection.Most can be associatedwith

late capitalistdevelopment:"post-industrial"orms of statelegitimation ccordingo whichthestatelegitimates tself,not on traditional rounds,but increasingly s an economicdysfunctionmanager;he fiscalcrises of modem states strugglingo justify themselvesin these terms;the

internationalizationf capitalandthe emergenceof newlyindustrializedountries,resultingna malalignmentf world ndustrialapacitywithpolitical-coercive eansandtraditional ymbolsof politicalpower; he globalizationof the worldpolitysuch that hegemonic"responsibility"sostensiblyuniversal,with no "externalareas"remaining or the externalization f costs; thecontradictionsexposed throughencountering"limits to growth"; he emergenceof socialistmovementsaimingto institutionalizehe publicpoliticaldetermination f productionand ex-changebut which are also underpressureto rationalize heir politics;the Cold War,whichinstitutionalizeshe totalizationof politicalcompetition;and nuclearweapons,which institu-tionalizethe possibilityof totalized warfare.




eration in the learning capacityof the regime and, consequently, a loss ofpolitical control. Understoodin the contextof the modern global hegemony,

sucha crisismightbe expectedto be markedbythe economizationof politicsand the resultingloss of political autonomy vis-a-vis economic and tech-nological change. As if internationalpolitics were the last frontier of theprogressiveworld rationalization endency delineatedby Weber, hegemonicpractice might come under increasingpressuresto find its rationalenot byplayingequivocallyoff the balance-of-power cheme, but by measuring verygesturein terms of the ultrarationalisticogic of economy.

Sixth, such a model would not view the modernglobal hegemonyin iso-lation. Nor would it mistake it for thewhole of world politics."' It would

insteadregardt as the dominantworldorderamonga multiplicity f mutuallyinterpenetrating nd opposedworldorders,some of whichmight escape thelogicof the modern global hegemonyand assert alternativestructuringpos-sibilitiesundercircumstancesand by way of oppositionalstrategies hat canin principlebe specified.For example, the modernglobal hegemony mightbe understood o contestwith-and, as a kind of "pluralistic nsecuritycom-munity," to contain-totalitarian communist,collectivistself-reliance,Euro-communist, Muslim transnationalist,and corporatistauthoritarianworldorder alternatives."2Developingsuch a niodel would involve exploring hestrategies by which oppositional movements representing hese and otheralternativesmighttakeadvantageof the indeterminateandambiguousqual-ities of regime-boundstatecraft,while exploitingits traditionalsilences, totransform ts conditions of dominance, producethe conditions of theirownself-realization,and secure the widening recognitionof their own orderingprinciplesas the active principlesof practice."3

These anticipationsof theory are, of course, rudimentaryat best. Theydo, however, suggestsome possibilitiesforthe developmentof a model that

would preserve classical realism's rich insights into internationalpoliticalpracticewhile at the same time exposingthe conditions, imits, and potentialfor change of the tradition in which classical realism is immersed. Fullydeveloped,sucha model would morethansurpassneorealism.Itwould offeran interpretationof neorealism, findingin it a historicallyspecificreactionto crisisthat refusesto comprehend hat crisis because t cannotacknowledgethe richnessof thetradition hatis endangered. twouldinterpretneorealism,

11 1. Ashley, Political Economy of War and Peace, pp. 294-98; Hayward R. Alker Jr., "Can

the End of Power Politics Possibly Be Part of the Concepts with Which Its Story Is Told?" inAlker's "Essential Contradictions, Hidden Unities" (in progress).

1 12. See Hayward R. Alker Jr., "Dialectical Foundations of Global Disparities," InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 (March 1981).

1 3. As might be inferred from this description, the capitalist power-balancing order addressedin this dialectical competence model is not understood to exhaust the totality of internationalpolitical reality worthy of theoretical examination. On the contrary, while it is arguably thedominant mode of order, it is but one point of entry into the theoreticalanalysis of an internationalreality that consists of the dialectical interplay and interpenetration of multiple world orders.




in otherwords, as an ideologicalmove towardthe economizationof politics.And it would underscore he possibly dangerousconsequencesshould this

move succeed.For from the point of view of sucha model, theeconomizationof internationalpolitics can only mean the purgingof internationalpoliticsof those reflectivecapacitieswhich, however limited, make global learningand creativechangepossible.Itcanonlymean the impoverishment f politicalimaginationand the reductionof internationalpoliticsto a battleground orthe self-blind strategicclash of technical reasonagainst technical reasoninthe service of unquestionedends.

e. The classical realist repudiationof neorealismWe do not need to await a dialectical competence model's critical inter-

pretationof neorealism's lawsand dangers,however. Such a critiquealreadyexists. It is alreadypresentin the very literature o whichneorealismclaimsto owe its intellectual debts. In classical realism's revered texts, we findrecurringwarningsagainst the very practices that neorealism has made itsown. In the name of realism, neorealism commits specific errorsagainstwhich classical realists specificallywarned.

Listen, for instance, to the sixteen-year-oldwords of Hans Morgenthau,

whom Gilpin calls "the leading modem spokesmanfor politicalrealism.""4

What characterizes ontemporary heories of internationalrelations sthe attempt to use the tools of modern economic analysisin a modifiedform in order to understand nternationalrelations.... In such a theo-retical scheme, nations confront each other not as living historic entitieswith all their complexities but as rational abstractions,after the modelof 'economic man.' ...

Hear Morgenthau'swords of nineteen years ago:

... This theorizing s abstract n the extreme and totally unhistoric.Itendeavorsto reduceinternationalrelations to a system of abstractpropositions with a predictive function. Such a system transformsna-tions into stereotyped'actors'engaging n equally stereotypedsymmet-ric and asymmetric relations. What Professor[Martin]Wight has notedof international aw applieswith particular orce to these theories:thecontrastbetween their abstract rationalismand the actualconfigurationsof world politics. We are here in the presenceof still anothertype ofprogressivist heory. Its aim is not the legalizationand organizationof

internationalrelationsin the interestof internationalorder and peacebut the rationalmanipulationof internationalrelations .. in the inter-est of predictableand controlledresults. The ideal toward which thesetheories try to progress s ultimatelyinternationalpeace and orderto beachieved throughscientificprecisionand predictabilityn understandingand manipulating nternationalaffairs.

114. Gilpin, War and Change,p. 213.




A quarter-century go:

... [T]he contemporary political scene is characterized by the inter-

action between the politicaland economic spheres....Yet what political science needs above all changesin the curricu-

lum-even though it needs them too-is the restorationof the intellec-tual and moral commitment to the truth about matterspoliticalfor itsown sake. That restorationbecomes the more urgentin the measure inwhich the generalsocial and particularacademic environment tends todiscourage t....

And thirty-six years ago:

The very appearanceof fascism not only in Germany and Italy butin our very midst ought to have convinced us that the age of reason,ofprogress,and of peace, as we understood it from the teachings of theeighteenthand nineteenthcenturies,had become a reminiscenceof thepast. Fascism is not, as we preferto believe, a mere temporaryre-trogression nto irrationality,an atavistic revival of autocraticand bar-baric rule. In its masteryof the technologicalattainmentsandpotentialitiesof the age, it is truly progressive-were not the propa-ganda machine of Goebbels and the gas chambers of Himmlermodelsof technical rationality?-and in its denial of the ethics of Westerncivi-lization it reaps the harvestof a philosophywhich clingsto the tenetsof Western civilization without understandingts foundations.In asense it is, like all real revolutions,but the receiverof the bankruptagethat precededit."5

Other famous lines could be recalled, includingthe contrastatist heme in-troduced as part of Morgenthau'ssix-point manifesto of political realism:"While the realist indeed believes that interest is the perennialstandardbywhich political action must be judged and directed, the contemporarycon-

nection between interestand the nation state is a product of history, and isthereforebound to disappear n the courseof history."' 6

Now it is abundantly learwhy neorealist nterrogators ave beenso abruptin their questioningof theclassical radition.These extensive remarks uggestthat classicalrealists,given a chance to speak,would be amongneorealism'ssternest critics.As Morgenthau tressedon many occasions, utilitarian,pos-itivistic,and rationalist ommitments-commitments present nneorealism-tend to pitch social science on an unhistoric and apoliticalattitude towardpolitics, an attitude too often dangerouslyallied with the state. Such com-

mitments threatento producea form of pseudo-politicalunderstanding hatfalselyreduces he inherentlydialectical haracter f politics o the monotheticorientation of economic reason, an orientation in which all perspectives,

115. Morgenthau, "Common Sense and Theories," in Truth and Power, p. 244; "The Intellectualand Political Functions of Theory," p. 248; "The Commitments of Political Science," p. 48;Scientific Man versus Power Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), pp. 6-7.

1 16. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, p. 10.




even the measure of power and its changes, are thought to be ultimatelycollapsible into a singular, internally consistent scale of universally inter-

convertiblevalues. Such commitments permit no real sense of political di-lemmas, no real appreciationof the autonomy of the political sphere. Theytend toward a one-sided rationalism,a view tragically lawed for its lack ofa sense of the tragic,a half-truththat must ultimately be transformed ntothe opposite of itself and must produce its own ruin in the vain search fora universaldomain. These commitments are not just politicallynaive. Theyare positively dangerous.

I do not mean to glorify classical realism. It is, as I have said, a tragictradition. It is a tradition whose silences, omissions, and failures of self-

critical nerve join it in secret complicity with an orderof domination thatreproduces he expectationof inequalityas a motivating orce, and insecurityas an integratingprinciple.As the "organic ntellectuality"of the worldwidepublic sphere of bourgeois society, classical realism honors the silences ofthe tradition t interpretsand participates n exemptingthe "privatesphere"from public responsibility.It thus disallows global public responsibility or"economic forces" that will periodically disrupt and fragmentthe globalpublic sphere. Herein,I think, arethe seeds of realismas a traditionforever

immersed in the expectationof political tragedy,an expectationthat realistscan explain only euphemistically, n terms of the antinomiesof fallen man.My aim, rather, is to underline the fact that neorealism is not worthyof

its name. Neorealism scoffsat classicalrealism'swarningsand sense of limits,misstates its interests, deadens its ironies, empties its concepts, caricaturesits rich insights, reduces practice to an endless serial performanceof con-strained economic choices on the part of one-dimensionalcharacters,andcasts the whole of it upbeforea flathistoricalbackdropdevoidof perspective,contradiction,and life.Once again,the memoryof TheEighteenthBrumaire

comes to mind: "Hegel remarkssomewhere that all great,world-historicalfacts and personagesoccur,as it were,twice. He forgotto add: the firsttimeas tragedy,the second as farce.""7

5. A concludingself-critique

E. P. ThompsonconcludedThePovertyof Theorywith an "obligatory" uto-critique.I, too, sense the obligation.Having playedthe critic,I wantto offer

a few self-criticalremarks n conclusion.Much that I have said needs to becriticized-so much, in fact,that I fearthat the severalrespondentswillhaveneither the time nor the space to give me all the swats I deserve. Let meconcentrate on five criticisms that I think are important.

First, my argument may not have been sufficientlyattentive to the sig-

117. Marx, "Eighteenth Brumaire," p. 436.




nificance t will takeon when readagainst he background f the greatbattlesof the past. In particular,much of my argumenthas crossedthe venerable

battlegroundwhere once the entrenchedsoldiers of "tradition"confronted"science" on the march, and I may have left room for the conclusionthatI have enlisted n the ranksof "tradition" s overagainstneorealist"science."In fact, sucha conclusionwould be mistaken.Forthe burdenof myargumentin this respect is not to condemn science in favor of tradition.Nor is it tosuggest the dilution of scientific standardsby broadening iberal scientifictolerance to embrace traditionas partof science.What is calledfor, instead,is a methodologicallymore demandingscience: a science that expands therange of allowablecriticism, and sharpensthe standardsof theoreticalad-

equacy, by institutionalizinghe expectationof continuous criticalreflectionon the historicalsignificanceand possibilityconditions of our own attemptsto arrive at objectivist conclusions. That is, a dialectical science is calledfor."8

Second, I think there is some merit to the charge that I am engaging nthat sort of criticismwhich, if successful,leaves an achingvoid in the soulof a discipline.In attackingneorealism,I have moved not only againstneo-realisttheory but also againstpredominantunderstandingsof method thatdeflect criticismand obscure neorealism'smanytheoretical laws. Yet I haveonly brieflyoutlinedsome possibilitiesfor an alternative heory,and I havenot even begun to sketch the implicationsof my argument oran alternativemethod. I have failed to outline a dialecticalmethodologythat recognizesthe inevitableoppositionof theoryand practiceand attemptsto internalizethat opposition in its method. I have failedto stressadequately he need toapproachall aspects of internationalsystems not only as reflectionsof anobjective whole but also, and at the same time, as potentiallybearingcom-peting wholes, competing orderingprinciplesstruggling o find unfettered

expression.I have insufficientlystressed that practice must be graspednotjust as conformityto the norm but also as a continuingstrategicstruggle oproduceorescapealternative ormsof order.If my critique s to be successful,these gaps will need to be filled."'

1 8. Bourdieudescribesthreemodes of knowledge-phenomenological,objectivist,and di-alectical. For a discussionof these three modes of knowledgein the study of internationalpolitics, see Ashley,"RealistDialectics."

119. One majorprojectunder way is the "Dialecticsof WorldOrder"workof HaywardR.Alker Jr., Thomas Biersteker,Ijaz Gilani, and TakashiInoguchi.See, for example, Alker,"DialecticalFoundationsof GlobalDisparities";AlkerandThomasBiersteker, TheDialecticsof WorldOrder:Notes fora FutureArchaeologist f International avoirFaire"(Deliveredatthe September 1982 meetingof the American PoliticalScienceAssociation,Denver, Colo.);andAlker,Biersteker, ndInoguchi,"FromImperialPowerBalancingo People'sWars:SearchingforOrder n the TwentiethCentury" Presentedat the April 1983 meetingof the InternationalStudiesAssociation, Mexico City). The WorldOrderModels Project,underthe directionofRichard Falk and Saul Mendlovitz,can be said to exemplifya dialecticalmethodologyofnormativeclarification ywhichcompetingworldorderdevelopmental onstructs, epresentingvarioussocial and culturalpoints of view, are exposed, confronted,and elaborated.See forexample, RichardFalk,A Study of Future Worlds New York:Macmillan,1975). Papersby




Third, it may be reasonablyarguedthat I have unfairlysingledout neo-realism o take the bruntof a critique hat could easilybe expanded o include

other targets.Neorealismis in many ways just partof a trend. I think it isevident, for example, that the "economization"of politicaltheory is not aphenomenon unique to internationalrelations theory in the United States.The current"legitimationcrisis"in the U.S. polity may help to account forthe sudden reinvigoration f microeconomic heoriesof politics,game theory,exchangetheory, rationalchoice theory, and publicchoice theory, but sucheconomic theoriesof domestic politicshave alwaysbeen nearthe center(ifnot always the surface)of the postwarscientific study of politics. I think itis evident, too, that even among internationalrelations heories,neorealism

is not the only perspectivemeritingsuch an attack. In importantrespects,much that I have said here could as easily be applied to Immanuel Wall-erstein's world systems perspective.I think that Wallerstein'sneo-Marxiststructuralismexhibits many of the positivistic and physicalisticqualitiesearlierascribedto neorealism.I think, too, that Wallerstein'sperspective s,in some ways, just as guilty of statism. I would be inclined to account forthis replicationof flawsin terms of Wallerstein's haringa Weberian ineage(in his case via Mertonand Parsons)with neorealism.'20

Terence Hopkins indicate an important effort toward the development of dialectical perspectiveswithin neo-Marxist world systems analysis. See Hopkins, "World Systems Analysis: Method-ological Issues," in Barbara Kaplan, ed., Social Change in the Capitalist World Economy (BeverlyHills, Calif.: Sage, 1978); and Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, "Cyclical Rhythms andSecular Trends of the Capitalist World Economy," Review 2, 4 (1979). Johan Galtung's TheTrue Worlds as well as his most recent methods text, Methodology and Ideology, outline andrichly illustrate a dialectical approach.

120. The mention of Wallersteinreminds me to amend my earlier remarks on the commitmentto "actor models" implicit in Weberian solutions to the problem of subjectivity and meaning.There is a partial exception to the claim that social scientists rooted in this tradition will generallyreject as "meaningless" social analyses which do not come to rest in an "actor model." Thatexception is social analyses which come to rest in "the market"; I term it a "partial" exceptionbecause market and exchange relations are generally taken to be individualist in origin withinbourgeois ideology, and hence all analyses in terms of market relations can themselves bethought ultimately to come to rest in an actor model. Despite his radical intentions, Wallerstein'sanalysis seems now stuck in this box. His model of the capitalistworld system seems to amalgamatea market-based model of production and exchange relations (one which refuses to close its eyesto the reproductive hierarchyof the global division of labor) with an actor model of state practice,a joining that has some sorry consequences. Wallerstein is left to oscillate between-withoutever transcending-the poles of market force and state purpose. Worse, when called upon toaccount for creative moments in the system's evolution (moments that cannot be reduced tomarket "dynamics" within the center-periphery hierarchy) he is left only two avenues: either

(a) that instrumentalist form of economism according to which the state conspires with (or istotally enslaved to) a dominant power bloc or segments of capital who themselves are close toomniscient, or (b) that idealist form of statism which credits the state with an all-seeing awarenessof its situation in history, and the will and ability to change the system while perpetuating itsessential structures. As this suggests, Wallersteinians offer us the choice between economisticaccounts and what turn out to be, on close inspection, neorealist accounts (which, we haveseen, are themselves economistic in an important sense). I do not think, by the way, that thistrap is escapable via a Parsonian move in the treatment of the states system, such as the onepromoted by John Meyer. It seems to me that escaping this trap will require reexamining theposition that locks Wallerstein into it, namely, the Weberian position on subjectivity and meaning




Fourth, n this connection, it may be arguedalso that my neglectof Waller-steinian and other radical perspectiveshas deprived my critiqueof a full

sense of the epistemo-politicalcontextof neorealism.This is a fair criticism.A more complete critique would have stressed the opposition betweenWallersteinianheterodoxyand neorealistorthodoxy against the backgroundof crisis.'2'On the one side, Wallerstein'sperspectiveis an instance of het-erodoxy, a mode of theory that consciously sides with the dominated in asocial system. Occasionedby the currentcrisis, it struggles o findwords forthatwhich the dominantwouldprefer o excludefrom the realmof consciouspolitical discourse, namely, the politicalcontent of core-periphery elations.In PierreBourdieu'swords, it struggles o "expandthe domain of discourse"

and expose "thearbitrariness f the takenforgranted."'22On the otherside,neorealist theory is an instance of orthodoxy, implicitlyon the side of thedominant. It emerges underthe conditionof a crisisthat calls into questionthe self-evidence of the given order by severingthe once near-perfectcor-respondencebetween the objective order and the subjective principlesof itsorganization.Under these conditions,and with the help of heterodoxy, thearbitraryprinciplesof the prevailingorder can begin to appearas such. Itbecomes necessaryto develop orthodoxiesto "straightenopinion" by "nat-uralizingthe given order,"an order that, priorto crisis, was simply takenfor granted. Neorealist orthodoxy does just that. It develops "a system ofeuphemisms, of acceptable ways of thinking and speakingthe natural andsocial world, which rejects heretical remarks as blasphemies."'23t servesprimarily,as I noted earlier, to constrain the domain of discourse.I regretthat this line of argument could not have been more fully developed; hadwe followed it further,we might have come to understand ome of the strangeasymmetries n debatesbetween neorealistsand neo-Marxistworld systemsanalysts.

in social reality. Having said that, let me distance myself from a fashion current among neorealists:the ritual slaying of Immanuel Wallerstein (usually coupled with the celebration of the totemicfigure of Otto Hintze). I want to state plainly my own intellectual debt to Wallerstein's pioneeringwork: like many American international relations theorists trained in the 1970s, I owe muchto Wallerstein, not just for his theory but for the exemplary boldness of his enterprise, and hiswillingness (so threatening to neorealism) to punch holes in the convention-made walls of ourminds.

On Wallerstein's error of anchoring his analysis in market-based explanations, see RobertBrenner, "The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism," NewLeft Review no. 104 (1977). See also John W. Meyer, "The World Polity and the Authority of

the Nation-State," in Albert Bergesen, ed., Studies of the Modern World-System (New York:Academic Press, 1980); John Boli-Bennett, "The Ideology of Expanding State Authority inNational Constitutions, 1870-1970," in Meyer and Michael T. Hannan, eds., National Devel-opmentandthe WorldSystem:Educational,Economic,and PoliticalChange,1950-1970 (Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).

121. This treatment of the opposition between heterodoxy and orthodoxy in the context ofcrisis is due to Bourdieu, Outline, pp. 159-71.

122. Ibid., p. 165.123. Ibid., p. 169.




Finally, I must confess to naggingdoubts abouttone. HadI the neorealist'sgift for theorizing,I would certainlyaspire to write the kind of critiquethat

wouldcausemy opposition o concedeerroron the spot-a deft,dispassionate,and surgicallyprecisearticulation f a logical lawthat would bringneorealiststo their knees with technicalcertitude.I am not so gifted,however, and somy lesser approachhas been to circle the neorealist orreryof errors,try toglimpse its self-affirming nd antihistoricalclosure, and then set the wholeof it before the eyes of the classicalrealisttraditionupon which neorealismclaims to improve. Along the way, I have called names, I have poked fun,I have stolensome of Morgenthau's ngrierwords to hurl at neorealists,andI have tried to expose the implicit politicalcontentof this purportedlyneutral

enterprise. have said, in effect,that this supposedlyscientificrealism s badscience and worse realism. In the mannerof Thompson, I have whackedaway at the bungs of structuralistbarrelslined up in the academy, and Ihave done so in the hope that some "minds might get out." Such a tone ishardly calculatedto win friends, I know. Worse, it makes me appear theaggressor,and leaves me open to a calculated strategyof "witheringnon-chalance"in response.

Inmy defense, et me say thatI am drivento these lengthsbya combinationof

concern and hope. Myconcernis that, amidstthe wrenchingof economic,

social,andepistemic crisis,social scientistswho studyinternational elationswill mistake neorealism's anticriticalclosure for a much needed pillar ofcertainty,security,and,most of all, collectiveunderstanding. am concernedthat the faculties that above all distinguishscience from nonscience-thereflective exercise of criticism-are thus being deadened at just the timewhen their potential is most needed and most likely to burst forth. I amconcerned that, as a result, the scientificstudy of internationalpolitics inthe United States sgravitatingowarda reactionary olerather haninvolving

itself in the expansionof the fieldof politicaldiscourseand, with it, oppor-tunities for the creative evolution of world society. And I am especiallyconcerned about graduatestudents and youngerscholars who are toldtothinkcriticallyand creativelybut whose freedomto thinkcritically n publicdepends to a very considerabledegree upon their linkingtheiraccomplish-ments to collectivelyrecognized oundations.Insofaras neorealist ore comesto occupythe collectivelyrecognized oundationsof the discipline, he urgingof criticism-consciousness an only be a cruel hoax.

My hope is encapsulatedin the words of Sartre:"Words wreak havoc

when they find a name for what had up to then been lived namelessly."'24My hope and my hunch is that the presentpolemic amounts to little morethan a puttinginto words of what many have already"lived namelessly."I suspect that I am not the first to wonderwhy neorealistargumentsalways

124. Jean-Paul Sartre, L idiot de la famille (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), 1: 783, and quoted inBourdieu,Outline, p. 170.




come to us not as ideas that pry open beloved concepts and make room fornew scientificadventuresbut as case-hardened onceptualdevices that enclose

the sensesin an all-encompassing inality.I imaginethatothers have recoiledat the feeling, upon encountering hese neorealistdepictions, that one is aninnocent fallen victim of a vast and diabolicalmachine, a perpetualmotionmachine that bends every attempt to escape it into a reaffirmation f itself.And I would guess that others have been troubled by the eerie sense ofcompletenessabout neorealisttheory,as if there is no more of consequenceto be said, save a defense of the edificehere, a demonstrationof its efficacythere. If I am right, and I hope I am, then most internationalrelationsscholarshave long sensed what I have tried to put into words.

Let us then play havoc with neorealistconcepts and claims. Letus neitheradmirenor ignorethe orreryof errors,but let us instead fracture he orbs,crack them open, shakethem, and see whatpossibilities hey have enclosed.And then, when we are done, let us not cast away the residue. Let us insteadsweep it into a jar, shine up the glass, and place it high on the bookshelfwith other specimens of past mistakes.

1984 the Poverty of Neorealism

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