From Realpolitik to realism: the American reception of a German conception of politics

Abstract

ABSTRACTDialoguing with, but going beyond the current history of realist thought in International Relations, the article reflects on how German émigrés contributed to the reception of Realpolitik in the Anglophone political discourse in the form of political realism. It pursues the origins of the concept in mid-nineteenth-century Germany, its first reception in the US by American-born intellectuals, and by German émigrés one century later. Focusing on the work of Hans Morgenthau, it suggests that the theory of political realism stands as an inheritor of Realpolitik, as a phenomenon of cultural accommodation, though not without distortions and reinterpretations. Understanding Morgenthau’s experience in broader social, political, and academic contexts throughout this reception process may help to better understand his own contribution to the scientification of realism.