Stephen M Walt
Biographic Data
| ID | 1066652 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen M Walt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen M |
| FAMILY NAME | Walt |
| SIGNATURE | WALT S M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 53 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1141 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 53 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
International Security at Fifty Years
Fifty years ago, the founders of this journal hoped that its creation would help revitalize the academic study of international security. Their ambitions have been fulfilled: International Security is now one of the most widely cited journals in the field of international relations and there is a robust community of scholars studying different aspects of the subject. The contents of the journal constantly evolve in response to world events, new s…
Hedging on Hegemony: The Realist Debate over How to Respond to China
Regional hegemony is a realist concept explaining how great powers deal with each other and with their immediate surroundings. Realism's competing strands disagree on whether regional hegemony is a feasible objective, and on whether states should actively pursue this goal. For offensive realists, the international system's anarchic structure and the impossibility of gauging others' intentions compel states to maximize relative power and try to be…
The Origins of Alliances
Drifting apart? The emerging end of the transatlantic partnership
This chapter examines the transatlantic partnership between Europe and the United States. It first considers US strategic interests and how they are now changing, along with the implications of this shift for US foreign and defence policy priorities. It then describes some of the fundamental challenges faced by the European Union, including over-expansion, the demise of the Warsaw Pact, the euro crisis, a deteriorating regional environment, the p…
US grand strategy after the Cold War: Can realism explain it? Should realism guide it
This article uses realism to explain past US grand strategy and prescribe what it should be today. Throughout its history, the United States has generally acted as realism depicts. The end of the Cold War reduced the structural constraints that states normally face in anarchy, and a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy elites attempted to use this favorable position to expand the US-led 'liberal world order'. Their efforts mostly failed, howeve…
Realism and Security
Political Realism has been described as the “oldest theory” of international politics, as well as the “dominant” one. Central to the realist tradition is the concept of “security.” Realism sees the insecurity of states as the main problem in international relations. It depicts the international system as a realm where “self-help” is the primary motivation; states must provide security for themselves because no other agency or actor can be counted…
Ideology, Realpolitik, and US Foreign Policy: A Discussion of Frank P. Harvey's Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence
Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence . By Frank P. Harvey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 360p. $103.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. The Iraq War initiated by the Bush administration in 2003 was and perhaps continues to be an important episode in world politics, US politics, and the politics of the Middle East. The war also galvanized controversy among public intellectuals and broader publics, and generated stro…
Symposium: The Future of Israel and Palestine: Expanding the Debate
Leaving theory behind: Why simplistic hypothesis testing is bad for International Relations
Theory creating and hypothesis testing are both critical components of social science, but the former is ultimately more important. Yet, in recent years, International Relations scholars have devoted less effort to creating and refining theories or using theory to guide empirical research. Instead, they increasingly focus on ‘simplistic hypothesis testing,’ which emphasizes discovering well-verified empirical regularities. Privileging simplistic …
International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity
The end of the Cold War and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in a new unipolar international system that presented fresh challenges to international relations theory. Since the Enlightenment, scholars have speculated that patterns of cooperation and conflict might be systematically related to the manner in which power is distributed among states. Most of what we know about this relationship, however, is based on European experi…
Alliances in a Unipolar World
Unipolarity is a novel condition in world politics, and its effects on international alliances have yet to receive sustained theoretical attention. Tracing its impact requires a careful distinction between the purely structural features common to any unipolar system and the unique characteristics of the current unipole (the United States) or the policies undertaken by particular U.S. leaders (such as George W. Bush). In general, the unipole will …
The Blind Man and the Elephant in the Room: Robert Lieberman and the Israel Lobby
Robert Lieberman's critique of our work on the Israel lobby is at odds with an abundance of evidence and prior scholarship describing the powerful influence that pro-Israel groups exert on U.S. Middle East policy. In addition to mischaracterizing our arguments, Lieberman claims that our methodology and research design are flawed and that our work contradicts the scholarly literature on American politics. Neither claim is true. Contrary to what he…
Is It Love or The Lobby? Explaining America's Special Relationship with Israel
In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, we argued that the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel is due largely to the influence of a domestic interest group—comprised of Jews as well as non-Jews—and that this unusual situation is harmful to both the United States and Israel. Jerome Slater's thoughtful review endorses many of our central arguments, but it also highlights several points of disagreement. He argues that we…
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activi…
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy
Israël et les États-Unis
O Lobby de Israel
O cerne da política dos Estados Unidos no Oriente Médio deriva das atividades do "Lobby de Israel", que conseguiu desviá-la para longe do interesse nacional e convencer os americanos de que os interesses dos Estados Unidos e os de Israel são idênticos. O artigo sustenta que estratégias comuns ou imperativos morais inarredáveis não são explicações suficientes para explicar o notável nível de apoio material e diplomático fornecido pelos Estados Uni…
The Relationship Between Theory and Policy in International Relations
Policy makers pay relatively little attention to the vast theoretical literature in IR, and many scholars seem uninterested in doing policy-relevant work. These tendencies are unfortunate because theory is an essential tool of statecraft. Many policy debates ultimately rest on competing theoretical visions, and relying on a false or flawed theory can lead to major foreign policy disasters. Theory remains essential for diagnosing events, explainin…
Taming American Power
Perspectives on Structural Realism
Realism remains a predominant and most debated theoretical approach in International Relations research. Whether considered a scientific and accurate reflection of world politics or as reactionary and
An Unnecessary War
Iraq in a Box
Beyond bin Laden: Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy
International Security - Volume 26, Number 3, Winter 2001/02
The Renaissance of Security Studies
This article examines the evolution of security studies, focusing on recent developments in the field. It provides a survey of the field, a guide to the current research agenda, and some practical lessons for managing the field in the years ahead. Security studies remains an interdisciplinary enterprise, but its earlier preoccupation with nuclear issues has broadened to include topics such as grand strategy, conventional warfare, and the domestic…
International Relations: One World, Many Theories
Why should policymakers and practitioners care about the scholarly study of international affairs? Those who conduct foreign policy often dismiss academic theorists (frequently, one must admit, with good reason), but there is an inescapable link between the abstract world of and the real world of policy. We need theories to make sense of the blizzard of information that bombards us daily. Even policymakers who are contemptuous of theory must rely…
Alliances in a Unipolar World
Unipolarity is a novel condition in world politics, and its effects on international alliances have yet to receive sustained theoretical attention. Tracing its impact requires a careful distinction between the purely structural features common to any unipolar system and the unique characteristics of the current unipole (the United States) or the policies undertaken by particular U.S. leaders (such as George W. Bush). In general, the unipole will …
Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power
The Relationship Between Theory and Policy in International Relations
Policy makers pay relatively little attention to the vast theoretical literature in IR, and many scholars seem uninterested in doing policy-relevant work. These tendencies are unfortunate because theory is an essential tool of statecraft. Many policy debates ultimately rest on competing theoretical visions, and relying on a false or flawed theory can lead to major foreign policy disasters. Theory remains essential for diagnosing events, explainin…
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activi…
Leaving theory behind: Why simplistic hypothesis testing is bad for International Relations
Theory creating and hypothesis testing are both critical components of social science, but the former is ultimately more important. Yet, in recent years, International Relations scholars have devoted less effort to creating and refining theories or using theory to guide empirical research. Instead, they increasingly focus on ‘simplistic hypothesis testing,’ which emphasizes discovering well-verified empirical regularities. Privileging simplistic …
An Unnecessary War
Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies
April 01 1999 Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt is Professor of Political Science and Master of the Social Science Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago. He will join the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in July 1999. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Stephen …
Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy
Testing theories of alliance formation: The case of Southwest Asia
The question “what causes alignment?” remains a basic issue in international relations theory. Moreover, competing hypotheses about alliance formation underlie many recurring policy debates. Balance-of-power theory predicts states will ally to oppose the strongest state; the “bandwagoning hypothesis” predicts that alignmentwiththe stronger side is more likely. These two hypotheses are usually framed solely in terms of the distribution of capabili…
Taming American Power
The Progressive Power of Realism
John Vasquez's assessment of realism suffers from three serious flaws. First, his reliance on Imre Lakatos's (1970) model of scientific progress is problematic, because the Lakatosian model has been largely rejected by contemporary historians and philosophers of science. Second, Vasquez understates the range and diversity of the realist research program and mistakenly sees disagreements among realists as evidence of theoretical degeneration. Fina…
Why alliances endure or collapse
The Case for Finite Containment: Analyzing U.S. Grand Strategy
The Origins of Alliances
Beyond bin Laden: Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy
International Security - Volume 26, Number 3, Winter 2001/02
Building up New Bogeymen
Fads, Fevers, and Firestorms
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World Politics, by John Mueller
Alliances, Threats, and the Uses of Neorealism
The Blind Man and the Elephant in the Room: Robert Lieberman and the Israel Lobby
Robert Lieberman's critique of our work on the Israel lobby is at odds with an abundance of evidence and prior scholarship describing the powerful influence that pro-Israel groups exert on U.S. Middle East policy. In addition to mischaracterizing our arguments, Lieberman claims that our methodology and research design are flawed and that our work contradicts the scholarly literature on American politics. Neither claim is true. Contrary to what he…
A Model Disagreement
October 01 1999 A Model Disagreement Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Stephen M. Walt Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Online ISSN: 1531-4804 Print ISSN: 0162-2889 © 1999 President and F…
Two Cheers for Clinton's Foreign Policy
It's the economy, stupid. Back in the 1992 campaign, that one line told us that Bill Clinton did not intend to be a great foreign policy president. As his second term ends, most pundits agree that this is one promise he has kept. Critics on the right argue that he is too eager to accommodate a rising China, too blind to Russia's corruption and cronyism, and too slow to use force against states like Yugoslavia or Iraq. On the left, liberals bemoan…
Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power
The Search for a Science of Strategy: A Review Essay
Alliances, Threats, and the Uses of Neorealism
The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, by John Lewis Gaddis
Journal Article The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, by John Lewis Gaddis Get access The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis. New York, Oxford University Press, 1987. 332 pp. $24.95. Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt Princeton University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 103, Issue 2, Summer 1988, Pages 394–396, …
Testing theories of alliance formation: The case of Southwest Asia
The question “what causes alignment?” remains a basic issue in international relations theory. Moreover, competing hypotheses about alliance formation underlie many recurring policy debates. Balance-of-power theory predicts states will ally to oppose the strongest state; the “bandwagoning hypothesis” predicts that alignmentwiththe stronger side is more likely. These two hypotheses are usually framed solely in terms of the distribution of capabili…
The Case for Finite Containment: Analyzing U.S. Grand Strategy
The Renaissance of Security Studies
This article examines the evolution of security studies, focusing on recent developments in the field. It provides a survey of the field, a guide to the current research agenda, and some practical lessons for managing the field in the years ahead. Security studies remains an interdisciplinary enterprise, but its earlier preoccupation with nuclear issues has broadened to include topics such as grand strategy, conventional warfare, and the domestic…
Alliances, Threats, and U.S. Grand Strategy: A Reply to Kaufmann and Labs
(1992). Alliances, Threats, and U.S. Grand Strategy: A Reply to Kaufmann and Labs. Security Studies: Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 448-482.
Revolution and war
Revolutions are watershed events in international politics, yet the existing literature on revolutions focuses primarily on the causes of revolution or its effects on domestic politics. Revolutions are also a potent cause of instability and war, because they alter the “balance of threats” between the revolutionary state and the other members of the system. First, revolutions alter the balance of power and make it more difficult for states to meas…
Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World Politics, by John Mueller
Rethinking revolution and war: A reply to Jack Goldstone and Kurt Dassel
Revolution and War
The Gorbachev Interlude and International Relations Theory
Journal Article The Gorbachev Interlude and International Relations Theory Get access Lebow Richard Ned Risse-Kappen Thomas W.. International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. xv + 292 pp. Notes, index of names, general index. $45.00 (cloth). $17.50 (paper). Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Diplomatic History, Volume 21, …
Revolution and War
Why alliances endure or collapse
Building up New Bogeymen
Revolution and War
The Progressive Power of Realism
John Vasquez's assessment of realism suffers from three serious flaws. First, his reliance on Imre Lakatos's (1970) model of scientific progress is problematic, because the Lakatosian model has been largely rejected by contemporary historians and philosophers of science. Second, Vasquez understates the range and diversity of the realist research program and mistakenly sees disagreements among realists as evidence of theoretical degeneration. Fina…
International Relations: One World, Many Theories
Why should policymakers and practitioners care about the scholarly study of international affairs? Those who conduct foreign policy often dismiss academic theorists (frequently, one must admit, with good reason), but there is an inescapable link between the abstract world of and the real world of policy. We need theories to make sense of the blizzard of information that bombards us daily. Even policymakers who are contemptuous of theory must rely…
Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies
April 01 1999 Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt is Professor of Political Science and Master of the Social Science Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago. He will join the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in July 1999. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Stephen …
A Model Disagreement
October 01 1999 A Model Disagreement Stephen M. Walt Stephen M. Walt Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Stephen M. Walt Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Online ISSN: 1531-4804 Print ISSN: 0162-2889 © 1999 President and F…
International Security: Summer 1999, Cambridge, Mass
Never Say Never: Wishful Thinking on Democracy and War
Keeping the World Off Balance: Self Restraint and U.S. Foreign Policy
Political Science at the NSF: The Report of a Committee of the American Political Science Association
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Political science (49 works) · Law (33 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (28 works) · Politics (27 works) · Law (24 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Economics (20 works) · Political economy (19 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Foreign policy (10 works)