ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ I

Strategic issues such as the security of the state are often referred to as "high politics" whereas socio-economic topics remain in the field of "low politics". As such, the hierarchy of issues prioritises military and related national and international security issues.

Classical realists state that man is naturally egotistical and has an endless will to gain power. As animus dominandi, he constantly seeks to make others the subject of his domination. Since this state is considered human nature, it is also a result of the state of nature, the pre-civil condition that is an extremely adverse human circumstance in which life is ruled and shaped by a permanent state of war of every man against every man. This constant fear of death has resulted in humans engaging in rational collaborations due to security concerns. As such, human nature lies at the root of politics.

The "balance of power" is a mechanism that creates the distinction between anarchy and chaos. While nations try to maintain or overthrow the status quo based on their own aspirations, the necessity for a configuration called the balance of power rises, leading to policies that aim at preserving it. The power relationships between states sustain international order, with the power of states being balanced by each other. Since this process is a result of statesmen policies and international relations, it does not appear automatically but emerges from these policies (which may be subject to change) and serves to provide temporary stability and peace at the international level.

Part of the statement “the vast majority of IR theorists are not realists" suggests that most IR theorists are not in fact realists. The reason for the claim is expalined further in the rest of it.

In essence, neorealism gives no account of human nature and disregards statecraft ethics, instead focusing on the systemic structure of international relations that is completely external to the actors. It is this international system that tell states and individual actors what to do, and not the other way around.

In the neorealist perspective, particular international systems can be differentiated as being multipolar, bipolar, and unipolar based on the number of major actors or the distribution capabilities across units (in which neorealism considered states to be units).

As the fundamental requirement to other needs, survival and security is the primary goal of any state. In a bipolar arrangement, the constant pressure of such a threat may result in permanent tension that may result in smaller conflicts to prevent larger ones, but a fundamental threat to the very existence of the state is not considered a limiting factor that contributes to stability in a bipolar world.

Fourth and the last main realist assumption puts emphasis on hierarchy of issues according to which the ones related to national and international security are located at the top. “Military and related political issues dominate world politics.” (Viotti and Kauppi, 2012: 40). In that logic, military, strategic issues that concerns security of state are often referred to as “high politics” whereas socio-economic topics remains in the field of “low politics”. In that context, the hierarchy mentioned here schematize the realist vision of political issues regarding their importance and primacy over one another.

American-Soviet relations in the post WW II era are considered to be a relatively stable example of bipolar balance in that despite constant tension during the Cold War era including certain crises such as the Cuban missile crisis, the two global superpowers were effective at maintaining the relative stability of this period.

“The [realist] tradition focuses on the nationstate as the principle actor in international relations and its central proposition is that since the purpose of statecraft is national survival in an hostile environment, the acquisition of power is the proper, rational and inevitable goal of foreign policy (Evans and Newnham, 1998: 465). In this view, international arena is the scene of power politics and power, in that matter, it is conceptualized as both a means and an end in itself. In other words, international actors, nation-states notably, seek to gain power and it is this power what helps them survive in this environment in which reigns homo homini lupus est (man is wolf to another man) principle.

The international security dilemma establishes that states trying to increase their own security by means of offensive weapons decreases the security of others. As such, despite not being dominant powers on a global or even regional scale, the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea signify an increasingly significant threat. As such, alliances established in opposition to these programs are reactions as results of a threat imbalance best explained by the balance of threat theory.

Neoclassical realists agree with the neorealist assumption that the primary factors of foreign policy choices are the relative powers of states on an international level. This is then combined with the classical realist view of the importance of national level variables resulting in a complex implementation of both external and internal variables. As such, Randall Schweller stated that "Neoclassical realism is essentially the only game in town for the current and next generation of realists".

On a theoretical level, neorealism is not interested in developing a solid framework to facilitate foreseeing foreign policy moves of international actors. As such, this paradigm is not capable of offering an "explicit policy guidance to state leaders as they confront the practical problems of world politics. This is presumably because they have little or no choice owing to the confining international structure in which they must operate".

Nations cannot be judged by universal moral principles.

Given classical realist point of view that sees “all politics” whether international or domestic, as a “struggle for power” and its distinction between “high” and “low” politics, it can be claimed that “the difference between domestic politics and international relations”, in classical realist thought, “are of degree, not of kind” (Halliday, 2012: 25).

Considered as the precursor of neorealism, Kenneth Waltz, in his seminal work, Theory of International Politics (1979), tries to develop a scientific approach to understand and explain the international political system.

Simple balance, regional balance, rigid balance, multiple balance, global balance, local balance and flexible balance are types of balance of power.

As different from defensive realism, even in the contrary direction, Mearsheimer, in his essay about future of the post-Cold War World, particularly Europe, emphasizes that a transition to a multipolar order from a bipolar one provokes instability. He argues that “the next decades in a Europe without the superpowers would probably not be as violent as the first 45 years of this century but would probably be substantially more prone to violence than the past 45 years” (Mearsheimer, 1993: 43). He affirms partially Waltz’s view by accepting that the anarchic structure compels states to compete for power for security and survival. However, the image of state portrayed by Mearsheimer is greedier and more aggressive than how Waltz pictures it. He claims that states seek hegemony; they all want to become, ultimately, regional hegemons. His theory, as it is called, offensive realism is built upon the assumption that “[G]reat powers… are always searching for opportunities to gain power over their rivals, with hegemony as their final goal” (Mearsheimer, 2001: 29).

“Neoclassical realism is”, as stated by Randall Schweller, “essentially the only game in town for the current and next generation of realists” (Schweller, 2003: 344-45). Taken the definition offered by one of the precursors of this paradigm, Gideon Rose (1998) says, “it [neoclassical realism] explicitly incorporates both external and internal variables, updating and systematizing certain insights drawn from classical realist thought.”

Neoclassical realism could be considered as an approach that seizes the middle-ground in realist perspective. Given the increasing importance of some domestic variables such as public opinion, civil society on foreign policy process, adding that the immaterial factors that have been mostly ignored by the other realist views, its inclination to combine “outside and inside” elements to establish a solid analytical framework for not only states’ foreign policies but also international politics in general, offers, without doubt, a promising prospect for the study of international relations in 21^st century.