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Fear in Realism and Beyond

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Realism and Fear in International Relations

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Abstract

Chapter 6 compares and contrasts Morgenthau’s, Waltz’s and Mearsheimer’s conceptions of fear. In doing so, it also detects and debunks existing myths in the discipline regarding the relationship between realism and fear. Moreover, it provides a novel account of why the scholars employ fear in the way that they do in their respective frameworks. Finally, a guideline specifies how realism can deal with the primary emotion of fear in a more consistent and productive manner.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Morgenthau 1948a, 78–79, 327; Morgenthau 1948b, 160; Morgenthau 1960c, 305; Morgenthau 1962e, 147.

  2. 2.

    Waltz 1979a, 170; Waltz 1999, 694.

  3. 3.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 33; Mearsheimer 2011c, 21–22, 46, 59, 61–62, 90–91.

  4. 4.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 42–45.

  5. 5.

    Waltz 1979a, 118.

  6. 6.

    Waltz 2000b.

  7. 7.

    Morgenthau 1948a, 45–46.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., 45.

  9. 9.

    Waltz 1979a, 174.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., 171.

  11. 11.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 32.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 42–46.

  13. 13.

    Pashakhanlou 2013, 216–217.

  14. 14.

    Morgenthau 1948a, 155.

  15. 15.

    Donnelly 2000, 118, 118 n. 20; Weber 2001, 31–32.

  16. 16.

    Pashakhanlou 2013.

  17. 17.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 3, 414 n. 7; Mearsheimer 2006b, 122.

  18. 18.

    In the other interpretation of the theory that was eventually dismissed, Waltz’s defensive realism operates adequately even without fear.

  19. 19.

    Rathbun 2007, 538.

  20. 20.

    Crawford 2000, 118, 155.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 116–118.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 116, 119, 121, 156; Dierauer 2013, 32; Holsti 2000, 119–120; Schmidt 2013, 233–234; Schweller 1996, 109; Tang 2010a, 69, 452.

  23. 23.

    Dierauer 2013, 32; Freyberg-Inan 2004, 77; Kydd 2005, 14; Pervez 2013, 37.

  24. 24.

    Donnelly 2000, 109, 118 nn. 20, 157; Freyberg-Inan 2004, 13, 99, 203 nn. 93, 204 94; Santoro 2010, 110.

  25. 25.

    Brooks 1997, 466; Grieco 1988, 487, 498–499, 499 nn. 61, 500 64; Tang 2008, 456, 467; Tang 2010a, 18, 69.

  26. 26.

    Brooks 1997, 449; Donnelly 2000, 118; Iverson 2013, 36–37; Rathbun 2007, 539, 540 nn. 5, 553–554; Weber 2001, 31.

  27. 27.

    Morgenthau 1948a, 45.

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 46, emphasis added.

  30. 30.

    Morgenthau 1962e, 126, emphasis added.

  31. 31.

    Morgenthau 1948a, 24, emphasis added.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 136, emphasis added.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 141, emphasis added.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 140, emphasis added.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 3–4.

  36. 36.

    Jervis 1994, 859–860.

  37. 37.

    Nobel 1995, 85.

  38. 38.

    Kuklick 2007, 78.

  39. 39.

    Donnelly 2000, 35.

  40. 40.

    Little 2007, 94.

  41. 41.

    Jütersonke 2010, 188, emphasis added.

  42. 42.

    Waltz 1979a, 90, 110.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 105–107, 155.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., 202.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 70.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., 170.

  47. 47.

    Waltz 2001, 211. This reading partly supports Inan-Freyberg’s claim that realists in IR have adopted some of their conceptions of fear from Thucydides classic account of the Peloponnesian War. This point finds support in the works of Waltz. Freyberg-Inan 2004, 25.

  48. 48.

    Waltz 1979a, 166.

  49. 49.

    Waltz 2000a, 31; Waltz 2000b, 38.

  50. 50.

    Waltz 2001, 209.

  51. 51.

    Waltz 1991a, 669.

  52. 52.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 43.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 334–335.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 335; Mearsheimer 2010d, 86–87.

  55. 55.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 44–45. Since Mearsheimer tends to neglect unipolarity, he does not engage in these discussions with reference to this power configuration.

  56. 56.

    Mearsheimer 2010d, 80.

  57. 57.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 32.

  58. 58.

    Cheung-Blunden and Blunden 2008, 127; Coget, Haag, and Gibson 2011, 478; Macht 1999, 130; Petersen 2002, 19, 29.

  59. 59.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 414.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., 21.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 46.

  62. 62.

    Mearsheimer 2006b, 122.

  63. 63.

    Mearsheimer 2001c, 3. What is tragic or genuinely tragic is of course ultimately determined by one’s own value judgments. I am merely reprinting what Mearsheimer regards as tragic or genuinely tragic above, as they express his position on this issue.

  64. 64.

    Mearsheimer 2006b, 120.

  65. 65.

    Gray 1987, 253–254.

  66. 66.

    Coget, Haag, and Gibson 2011, 479.

  67. 67.

    That is so even in Morgenthau’s classical realism and Mearsheimer’s offensive realism that both explicitly claim to have normative dimensions as well, albeit in different ways.

  68. 68.

    See, for example, Jervis 1968; Jervis 1976; Jervis 1988; Jervis 1978; Snyder 1984; Snyder 1985.

  69. 69.

    Mercer 2005.

  70. 70.

    Clore and Gasper 2000; Damasio 1994; Elster 1999.

  71. 71.

    Mearsheimer 1995a, 91.

  72. 72.

    Morgenthau 1967a, 9.

  73. 73.

    Wendt 1999, 30.

  74. 74.

    Caverley 2013, 158; Rathbun 2008, 303.

  75. 75.

    Buzan 1995; Vasquez 1998, 194–195.

  76. 76.

    Vasquez 1998, 194–195.

  77. 77.

    As we have seen, this is also the underlying logic that characterize realist conceptions of the security dilemma.

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  1. Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou

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Pashakhanlou, A.H. (2017). Fear in Realism and Beyond. In: Realism and Fear in International Relations . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41012-8_6

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