The chapters across this volume have made the argument that a combination of realism and constructivism has significant theoretical promise and can result in important payoffs in terms of understanding empirical phenomena in global politics. They have suggested that it is important for those interested in the social to pay attention to power, and important for those interested in power to pay attention to its social dynamics. Each chapter, and each theorist of realist constructivism, has put forth a slightly different permutation of the theoretical paradigms and used it for a slightly different end. Each is importantly fruitful. I agree with its subscribers that combinations of realisms and constructivisms are more theoretically useful and empirically explanatory than the deployment of theories within each paradigm on their own would be. At the same time, overall, I find both the theoretical commitment to realist constructivism and its deployment to analyze events in global politics problematic. In this chapter I suggest that the enterprise of realist constructivism itself, and the manifestations of its utility included in this volume, are not necessarily incorrect, but instead rest on a partial and misguided premise.

The partial and misguided premise is that the combination of realism and constructivism has more, or different, utility than any other combination of theories, and that the combining should stop with these two theoretical approaches. The old adage that two heads are better than one certainly applies to realism and constructivism, but the justificatory logic applies to expanding further: a second approach covers more ground and exposes more nuance than only one; adding a third, or fourth, approach would do the same. Rather than limiting the possible combinations to realisms and constructivisms, I argue that the idea of ‘the more the merrier’ applies to international relations (IR) theorizing as much as it does to social gatherings, if not more so. In this chapter, then, I suggest that, theoretically, realist constructivism is itself too limiting a concept for thinking about global politics. After outlining that theoretical argument, I revisit the substance of four empirical chapters in the volume, each time adding a third theoretical approach to suggest an increase in the theoretical and empirical leverage that the chapter might provide. The chapter concludes by arguing for trading in realist constructivism for ‘ism’ promiscuity.