Theory and International Relations II: Theory Today

Abstract

The debate on method in the 1950s and 1960s left realism intact; for the most part the behaviouralists were realists — their aim was to fulfil the realist claim to scientific status rather than to undermine it. However, in the 1960s and the early 1970s major challenges to realism did emerge, driven not by developments in the academy, but by events in the real world. Two sets of events were of particular significance, one set focusing on changes in the world of Great Power diplomacy (‘high’ politics), the other pointing to the significance of less dramatic socioeconomic changes (‘low’ politics). Taken together these changes produced the two dominant theories of the last twenty years — ‘neorealism’ and ‘neoliberal institutionalism’ (neoliberalism for short) — as well as fuelling challenges to this new orthodoxy such as ‘structuralism’ and ‘globalisation’ theory, and assisting in the revival of the English School of theorists of international society. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of these developments; later chapters will flesh out the picture by describing, for example, the neorealist account of the balance of power, or the neoliberal account of regime theory — the aim here is to provide an outline of contemporary theory within which these concepts can be located. First, a brief account of the changes of the 1960s and 1970s is required.