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New Realist Research on Alliances: Refining, Not Refuting, Waltz's Balancing Proposition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Randall L. Schweller
Randall L. Schweller*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Abstract

Realism is both a scientific research program and, more traditionally, a political philosophy. All realists share a pessimistic worldview that posits perpetual struggle among groups for security, prestige, and power and that denies the capacity of human reason to create a world of peace and harmony. Recent research by so-called neotraditional realists does not disconfirm Waltz's balancing proposition. Instead, these works have tended to add unit-level variables in order to transform Waltz's theory of international politics into one of foreign policy. The question is not whether states balance or bandwagon—history clearly shows that they do both—but rather under what conditions states choose one strategy or the other.

Type
Forum
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 91 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 927 - 930
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

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