Why Hans Morgenthau Was Not a Critical Theorist (and Why Contemporary IR Realists Should Care)

Bibliographic Data

ID4444747
AuthorsDeborah Levine (0000-0001-8364-0430, University of Alabama, corresponding author), Daniel J Levine (University of Alabama)
Year2013
Volume27
Issue1
Pages95-118
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Relations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-1178 • E-ISSN: 1741-2862
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0047117812460878
OpenAlexW1997672795
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited1

A growing body of critical and reflexive international relations (IR) realism draws on the work of Hans Morgenthau. While not without merit, I argue that these appropriations rely on selective - perhaps even wishful - readings of Morgenthau's work: the reflexivity that he calls for, I argue, is not matched by what his theory actually delivers. Raising that distinction, I then trace out its consequences for contemporary critical and reflexive IR realists, in two steps. First, I identify similar reflexive shortcomings in recent work by neoclassical realist Randall Schweller. These, I suggest, point to abiding challenges to which contemporary critical/reflexive realism must prove itself equal. I then survey the notions of reflexivity at work in the critical/reflexive realism of Michael C. Williams and Richard Ned Lebow. Do they go far enough? Do they answer those challenges? I conclude by arguing that Morgenthau's legacy for critical and reflexive realism should be reconsidered: properly understood, his work signals an impasse that is general to IR as a discipline. Signaling the depth of that impasse constitutes a lasting legacy, with which critical/reflexive realists have not yet dealt adequately

Critical realism (philosophy of perception) · Critical theory · Epistemology · Realism · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Philosophy