WHY HAS REALISM REMAINED SUCH A DOMINANT THEORY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS?

(Morgenthau 1978 br

.6 . Had Chamberlain continued to govern according to good motives i .e . the avoidance of war , it may well have been the case that Hitler 's regime would have been allowed to commit even greater atrocities than it did

From this , we can make several assumptions about the nature of political realism . Firstly , that human nature is inherently self-centred and nation states , as a result of being governed by humans are inherently motivated by self interest . Furthermore , as it is meaningless to talk of good motives , it must

be that the world 's stage is essentially anarchic , as there is no universal arbiter to whom other countries or individuals may appeal if they object to a nation 's behaviour . Thirdly , Morgenthau talks only of statesmen , assuming then that states are the only actors upon the world stage . Additionally , in defining interest in terms of power , Morgenthau is purporting to a form of descriptive realism , which is considered by some as troublesome

Problems facing Realism

An immediate concern with Realism in the contemporary world is that one cannot consistently maintain that there are moral restrictions on individual action , but no such restriction on actions of the states (Beitz 1979

.15 . In the modern world , citizens tend not to accept , as Hobbes did , that the Sovereign can do no injury to its subjects Countries are called to account for their actions , and there are in operation bodies to enforce this . Organisations such as the United Nations and Amnesty International not only provide guidelines to which nations must adhere , but can impose punishment upon them if they refuse Political leaders can and are put on trial to face charges of war crimes . Thus , the roots that fed the core ideas of Realism are no longer relevant in many modern...