REALISM

The Dominance of Realism in International Relations Theory

The Dominance of Realism in International Relations Theory

Introduction

Realism has historically been the dominant theory of international relations and a point of reference for alternative theories, even if only critically. According to the proponents of this theory, the most fundamental features of international politics include; conflict and war, emerging in the 1930s, realism's polemical target was the progressive, reformist optimism connected with liberal internationalists such as the American president, Woodrow Wilson. Against this optimism, realism comported a more pessimistic outlook which was felt to be necessary in the target realm of international politics.

Realists, on the whole, lay claim to a long tradition of political thought, including such eminent thinkers as Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes, whose points of departure is the study of conflict and power politics. According to realists, conflict is inevitable, even necessary in international politics. When disputes cannot be resolved peacefully or diplomatically, force, and ultimately war, is a decisive means of settling matters. Realists believe that, insofar as order exists in international relations, it is the precarious product of the balance of power or hegemony (domination by a great power and its allies). As per the realism's outlook, the two chief essentials include the pragmatic acceptance of conflict along with the concept of power politics (Booth, 2011, pp. 89 - 95).

The Concept of Realism

Realism as a theory of international politics is principally concerned with states as power and security-maximizing actors in a context of international anarchy. Under the assumptions of this theory, states are the fundamental units of organized, hierarchal power and their relations dominate the world politics. According to this theory, there are three distinct key features that a state possesses. First, states possess sovereignty, the supreme authority to make and enforce laws. Second, states govern by exercising a monopoly over both internal and external instruments of legitimate violence (embodies in the police and the armed forces respectively). Third, these sovereign organizations are territorial, partitioning the Earth by imposing both material and immaterial barriers between people (namely, borders and citizenship respectively).

Synthesizing Theory and Practice

The existing international organisations such as United Nations, the supranational organisation, such as, the European Union and other transnational organisations such as NGOs, all perform important roles for the maintenance of peace; however, they too are subordinate to states, or at least to the most powerful among them. The international law, on the whole occupies an analogous condition of subordination, being the product of contingent will and actual practice of the states. Individual and other non-state actors (e.g. activities, transnational corporations) without the state's support have reduced political space to conduct their transborder activities in international relations (Williams, 2005, pp. 135 - 150).

In the present time, states perform essential political, social and economic functions for all other actors in world politics and no other organisation appears today as a possible competitor. In particular, the most powerful states make the rules and maintain the institutions that shape international life, including its economic and ...