Politics and International Politics Scholarship

Abstract

Most of us were interested in politics long before we were exposed to, and often enthralled by, IR theories. We were driven to think about what was happening in the world, why it was happening, how things would turn out, and what various countries, especially our own, should do. Growing up as I did during the Cold War, it is only a slight oversimplification to say my friends and I developed into little Hawks and Doves without much theoretical underpinning. Scholars from different generations were exposed to different problems and questions, such as how deeply the United States should be involved throughout the world and the nature and extent of foreign threats (and opportunities) the United States faces. These early impressions are not set in stone, but I suspect that they do shape the questions that interest us and the approaches that we find most congenial. Of course, logically policy preferences depend on correlational if not causal analysis, but in practice the relationship is likely to be reciprocal, with preferences being highly salient. The Theory, Research, and International Policy Project (TRIP) data unfortunately do not permit us to see correlations between foreign policy preferences and orientations toward Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism. But I believe that there are connections, although many concern the factors that scholars look at rather than the answers they give. This is perhaps most obvious with Realism, and because of space constraints, I will focus on it throughout this essay even though parallel points could be made about other schools of thought. Contrary to some impressions, the fact that Realism never loses sight of power and conflict does not mean that its proponents advocate bellicose policies. Carr was an advocate of appeasement; Morgenthau and Waltz opposed the war in Vietnam; 33 Realists took out an ad in …