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What Moves Man? An Analysis of the Realist Psychology
‘big stick’ of Theodore Roosevelt, and the cold war balance of power for which George Marshall was a primary architect.”5 The term Realpolitik was coined in 1853 by the German liberal nationalist August Ludwig von Rochau as a rhetorical weapon in his fight for the consolidation of the nation–state of Prussia and the assertion of its interests against Austria. The introduction of the term coincides with a shift in mainstream continental political thought away from the inf luence of idealist approaches inspired by Enlightenment philosophy toward the realist strategic rationale of the European concert of powers.6 Meanwhile, the ascension of positivist epistemology to its paradigmatic status in virtually all scientific departments served to support the belief that a realistic psychology should be the basis for political theorizing. Albert Hirschman writes: “That man ‘as he really is’ is the proper subject of what is today called political science continued to be asserted—sometimes almost routinely—in the eighteenth century.”7 As we have seen, realists claim that their theories are based on such a view of man, “as he really is,” and are therefore realistic. By comparison, they characterize idealist approaches as “unscientific” for being based on an unrealistic vision of man and criticize the exaggerated rationalism and utopian progressivism, which they perceive to be the consequences of this vision.8 The liberal and other progressive approaches to international politics that had been inspired by Enlightenment rationalism were not to regain status until the period between the two world wars.9 After this period, as a result of their perceived destructive consequences, they were once again discredited in large sectors of mainstream academic discourse and policy making. As George has put it, “[T]he time was right for the emergence of contemporary power politics Realism, and subsequently, for a Cold War ‘catechism’ opposed to all ‘utopian’ notions of a universal moral order.”10 Realists such as E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau played an important role in establishing international relations as an academic discipline, especially in Great Britain and the United States.11 The development of this discipline brought with it the systematic formulation of various tenets of realist political thought in the form of a paradigm of international relations theory. Francis Beer and Robert Hariman observe that “as it was linked to the modern valorization of the scientific method, the doctrine of political realism became the dominant theory within the contemporary discipline of international relations.”12 The basic and stable elements of the realist paradigm of international relations are as follows:13 The international system is comprised of nation–states, which are the primary actors in international politics.14 These states exist in an anarchic, selfhelp environment. In other words, there exists no authorit y above the level of the states that is capable of coercing them to carry out its decisions, and international organizations cannot properly provide for states’ needs. The condition of international anarchy is viewed as a powerful structural constraint that limits the rational policy options of states to such an extent that they are expected to behave in virtually identical ways when confronted with similar situations.15 Most important, to provide