Competing Theoretical Frameworks: Realist and Cultural Approaches

Abstract

Realism is a diverse and highly-contested school of thought, divided by debates about the analytical leverage that can be attained by focusing on the role of material and non-material factors and characterised by divergence about the level of analysis that should take precedence in understanding the behaviour of states in the international system. The roots of the theory lie in the work of Thomas Hobbes, who argued that human preferences are inherently in conflict due to the scarcity of material resources which can be employed to satisfy them, leading to an underlying incentive to employ or to threaten force and coercion. Without a ‘Leviathan’ (the modern state), endowed with a monopoly on legitimate violence allowing the imposition of order, justice, equity and the rule of law, a ‘state of nature exists’ (Kolodziej, 2005: 53–8). In this ‘war of all against all’ life is ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’, as equal human beings rely on their own self-help efforts to compel others to comply with their interests (Kolodziej, 2005: 53–8).