Anarchy, power and death: Contemporary political realism as ideology

Abstract

There has recently been a renaissance of interest in ideological analysis, and this is to be greatly welcomed. However, there is a noticeable lack of concern with international political ideologies, a position that mirrors the pernicious disciplinary dichotomy between political theory and international relations (IR) theory. In this essay I offer a critique of this state-centric understanding of ideology, and consequently offer an extension of Michael Freeden's morphological approach. In order to demonstrate the utility of this extension, I offer an innovative analysis of contemporary political realism, an ideology that has played an important role in recent US academic and policy debates, most notably in the current Bush administration. It is argued that much contemporary realism is conceptually sovereign-centric rather than, as is commonly assumed, state-centric. The other two central concepts are anarchy and power.