Political Realism

Facilitating access to asylum and other forms of refugee protection for the millions displaced by mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq is essential to the implementation of the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). This responsibility, however, has been disproportionately shouldered by several states in the Middle East and Europe. This article explores the challenges associated with refugee responsibility-sharing in the context of RtoP and draws on work in climate justice and political realism to articulate a framework for integrating culpability as a key criterion in allocating states' responsibilities to protect refugees. An empirical and normative assessment of U.S. responsibilities to protect refugees in the cases of conflict-induced displacement in Syria and Iraq outlines several potential paths of culpability. The article ultimately argues for greater attention to culpability, equity, and legitimacy within the discourse surrounding RtoP and refugee protection. The article also advocates linking the benefits of refugee responsibility-sharing with states' national interests and highlights several such links with regard to U.S. responsibilities in Syria and Iraq.

During the twentieth century the protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr was an important public intellectual. From the Thirties until the Sixties he wrote numerous historical, theological and political works, and was a tireless polemicist and animator of some journals. Not only has he influenced the development of American politics but also he has inspired the reflections of some authors of classical realism in IR. This essay analyses the inextricable and fertile relationship between politics and religion in Niebuhr’s theory. Rejecting both sentimental idealism and cynical realism he argued a “Christian realism” in which the legacy of St. Augustine’s thought was strong. Through his tamed realism, that was based on the Christian view of human nature and history, Niebuhr analysed and judged national and international politics of the United States. In this way, he offered a prophetic world order vision that is probably still valid today.

In a world likely to remain hostage to thousands of nuclear warheads over the long term, in which
ancient realism---or as some wrongly refer to it as Cold-War thinking---appears to be an unbreakable
psychological barrier even for those who thoroughly understand the nuclear “threat of pain and
extinction" (Schelling), meeting Article VI (disarmament) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) is quite a challenge. Current concerns relative to proliferation tendencies among non-compliant
regimes as well as the potential implications of the still uncertain nuclear renaissance---which, if realized,
would disseminate sensitive (dual-use) nuclear technology among numerous untrustworthy actors---further the disarmament challenge. As a result, all the states parties to the NPT, not to mention those
beyond the nonproliferation regime, have failed to make sufficient efforts within their different nuclear
roles and responsibilities towards meeting the NPT disarmament clause, with many of them exhausting
themselves in a cacophonic debate on who is required to do what under NPT Articles III (nonproliferation safeguards), IV (peaceful use of the atom) and VI.

The article examines whether realist theory should adopt a philosophical anarchist position concerning political obligation. The conclusions are mixed. Drawing on a distinction between strong and weak theories of political obligation (in the terminology of the paper, strong theories are committed to morality-based theorizing while weak theories depart from it), the article argues that philosophical anarchism and realist theory are natural allies against strong theories of political obligation but they must part company when it comes to weak theories because it is exactly their departure from morality-based theorizing that can make weak theories especially appealing to realists. In addition, two further objections can be raised against philosophical anarchism on realist grounds: first, philosophical anarchists are drawn to undesirably sweeping conclusions about the non-existence of legitimate political authority or the extreme scarcity of genuine political relations by their Kantian or Lockean background assumptions and, second, Simmons seems to have an implicit weak theory of political obligation which could be, ironically, much more appealing to realists than his overall Lockean anarchism or his sweeping criticism of weak theories. All in all, can a realist be an anarchist? Probably, but definitely not on philosophical anarchist grounds.

Lorna Finlayson's book has the deceptively simple aim of showing that there is no distinction in kind to be drawn between the methodology of political philosophy and the philosophy itself. And, she suggests, since the methodology is in turn really just a way of trying to sustain the distinction between political philosophy and politics, the collapse of this distinction also supports the claim that the political philosophy/politics distinction is itself untenable. Political philosophy—or, it turns out, mainstream analytic political philoso-phy—has a mistaken understanding of itself as standing outside or above the messy power-ridden realm of actual politics, Finlayson argues; this misunderstanding is ideologically motivated, and the methodology of political philosophy serves to exemplify and buttress it. Showing that the distinction between the methodology of political philosophy and political philosophy is ideological, in the pejorative sense familiar from critical theory since Marx, will help to emancipate us from this misunderstanding and allow us to see that political philosophy is political all the way down. Thus emancipated, we will be better placed to see that much of what we have taken to be neutral philosophical virtues—constructiveness and charity are her examples— have been serving the ideological purpose of bolstering liberalism, while what presents itself as dissent from the primacy of analytic liberal political philosophy is already disciplined by this methodological buttressing in ways that mute its ability to challenge the dominance of liberalism. In the second part of The Political is Political, Finlayson turns to consider two potential sources of dissent within analytical political philosophy: the first is feminism, and in particular the fate of the so-called 'silencing' argument associated with Catherine MacKinnon, whose case was that por

This paper examines the differences between moralist, realist, and pragmatist approaches to political legitimacy by articulating their largely implicit views of judgment. Three claims are advanced. First, the salient opposition among approaches to legitimacy is not between "moralism" and "realism." Recent realist proposals for rethinking legitimacy share with moralist views a distinctive form, called "normativism": a quest for knowledge of principles that solve the question of legitimacy. This assumes that judging legitimacy is a matter of applying such principles to a case at hand. Second, neither Rawls nor Habermas is a normativist about political legitimacy. The principles of legitimacy they proffer claim to express rather than adjudicate the legitimacy of a liberal-democratic regime, and thus cannot solve the question of legitimacy at a fundamental level. But perhaps we should question the normativist aspiration to theoretically resolving the problem to begin with. My third claim is that a "pragmatist" approach enables us to rethink political legitimacy more deeply by shifting focus from the articulation of principles to the activity of judging. Implicit in Rawls and Habermas's theories I then find clues towards an alternative account of judgment, in which the question of legitimacy calls not for theoretical resolution but for ongoing practical engagement.

This article appeals to classical realism for new insights into the role emotions play in shifting the terrain of political allegiance in global politics. Although undetected in readings emphasizing rational statecraft, realists such as Hans Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr were centrally concerned with human emotions and their political impact. While following the intellectual currents of their time in regarding emotions as fixed impulses, these realists' deep appreciation for the contingencies of history also led them to cast emotions as socially conditioned mechanisms of adaptation. By revisiting the texts of classical realism, this paper develops a fresh account of how emotion responds to and engenders change in the social world – in particular, change in the location of political allegiances. I then show how Morgenthau and Niebuhr applied these ideas not only to the nation-state but also to the most vexing transnational phenomena of their time – communism and liberal internationalism. In conclusion, the paper speculates that these reflections on dynamic allegiances at the transnational level offer realists and other international relation theorists insight into the emotional appeal, adaptability, and organizational complexity of contemporary non-state movements and actors.

This talk starts from the presumption that the quantum challenge, as a set of philosophical questions, was a dialogue far beyond the discipline of physics. Quantum sociologist Gabriel Tarde, and philosophers Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, amongst others, were active participants in the debates over causality, time, and action at a distance, as well as the grander metaphysical questions about life raised by Bohr and Schrödinger in particular. Following Bohr and Tarde, I argue that quantum phenomena are not constrained to the subatomic, but in fact are essential components of human social and political relations.
Mostly ignored until recently, the panpsychist traditions that emerged from these early interdisciplinary debates over quantum are essential to understanding the character of contemporary terrorism, and more broadly global politics in an age of non-scalable events. By non-scalable I mean that the measurement of the brute materiality of an event does not in any predictable way translate into its effect. In our age, apocalyptic crises barely register, and statistically insignificant events shake the entire international order. In fact, International Relations theory has, from its beginning, endeavored to explain ‘spooky action at a distance’, as the relations of the international are by definition both in a no-space of the international, and habituated into the local practices and places of diplomacy, deterrence, and war. While the entangled and non-locality of global politics has always been true, I argue that media and quantum savvy organizations like ISIS succeed precisely because of their ability to leverage this characteristic of global life.
Given the difficulty of theorizing such events, it is necessary to revise Benedict Anderson’s model of the imagined community as an imaginary space of shared continuity and simultaneity in favor of a quantum-inflected notion of virtual entanglement. Here, the ‘community’ is created by the non-spatial but still real acceleration of distrust for the world, and those bearing the marks of racialized difference. Events like those that erupted in Paris, France and San Bernardino, California are only the most recent examples. The latter event had no explicit connection to ISIS, and yet this spectacular violence is an undeniable asset to the atmosphere of terror that ISIS requires to increase its international significance. In fact, no amount of discourse about the non-connection of San Bernardino to ISIS was sufficient to disentangle them. Events such as those in France and California do not operate in a three dimensional space in which we can measure something like speed or mass. Instead, contemporary terrorism takes place in an affective dimension where space/time is often irrelevant to the intensity of the consequences of an event. When a pineapple soda can becomes a ‘bomb’ and takes down a Russian airliner, the everyday objects around us provoke a sense of metaphysical doubt or skepticism most commonly known as horror. Therefore, International Relations needs a quantum turn so that we can understand the very real consequences of events and things whose capacities defy both physical and casual explanation, but far exceed constructivist concepts of discourse or ideas. Link to talk https://youtu.be/-71newlDkhI?t=13m17s

This study analyzes the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian foreign policy from political Realist perspective. We try to find and to demonstrate to our readers as to what extent Cold War Soviet foreign policy was under the impact of Realist political thinking, at what point a transformation to a more Constructivist approach began to be notable and Realism began to lose its monopoly in Kremlin’s foreign policy thinking and decision-making, and how political Realism regained its influence and is reviving in form of ‘new political Realism’ under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.

Abstract
This article examines the longstanding rivalry of Rome and Parthia, which began as an unintended consequence of Crassus’ decisive defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE. It synthesizes the accounts and opinions of numerous Graeco-Roman writers from the Augustan Age to late antiquity in order to help illustrate the new and interconnected post-Carrhae world and its legacy. The rivalry of the Romans and Parthians became a primary focus of their foreign policies and drastically expanded their perceptions of the world in which they interacted. Even after the fall of the Parthians to the rebellious Sassanid Persians in the 220s CE, the Romans continued to find their three-century-long rivalry with the Parthians of interest and relevant to the changing world of late antiquity.

El tema de las conjuras aparece con frecuencia en las obras de Maquiavelo. Incluso le ha dedicado un capítulo en sus famosos Discursos (III, 6). Aún así las historias sobre conspiraciones e intrigas recorren de forma continua las páginas de Historias de Florencia como sus escritos de naturaleza diplomático-cancillerescos. Se habla difusamente sobre tramas y maquinaciones tanto en el Príncipe (XIX) como en sus textos histórico- políticos menores. A diferencia de otros pensadores, a partir de Salustio, Maquiavelo no se limitó a la descripción de las conjuras particulares. Sobre esta particular y extrema forma de lucha política ha ofrecido una auténtica y verdadera teoría o fenomenología, algo nunca antes logrado por otros pensadores. Ha clasificado las conjuras, ha identificado sus diversas variantes históricas, ha echado luz sobre la dimensión técnico-operativa, ha ilustrado las fases y las modalidades de su desarrollo, las motivaciones ideales, las justificaciones del orden material y las matrices sociológicas. Sobre todo ha ofrecido una clave de lectura eminentemente histórico-política, cuando durante mucho tiempo las interpretaciones se han limitado a razonar sobre la psicología individual de los conspiradores.
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The theme of the conspiracies is frequently used in the works of Machiavelli. Moreover, he dedicated one of the most famous chapters of the Discourses (III, 6). But also,  stories of intrigue and conspiracy continually run through in the Florentine Histories as in his diplomatic-chancery writings. Looking at the predominant literature, its been spoken inaccurately of political plots and machinations in the Prince (XIX) as in his minor historical-political texts. Unlike other classical authors, from Sallustio onwards, Machiavelli did not limit himself to describing single conspiracies. For this particular and extreme form of struggle Machiavelli has offered a true theory or phenomenology, something that other thinkers had never achieved. He classified the conspiracies, identified the various historical variations, has shed light on the technical-operational dimension, illustrated the phases and the methods of development, the ideal motivations, the material justifications and the sociological matrices. Above all, he has offered key of interpretation, eminently historical and political. This deserves to be highlighted because, for a long time these interpretations were limited to the psychological reasons of the conspirators.

Da die meisten Lehrbücher intellektuell-unverständliche Gossenhauer sind, habe ich auf (hoffentlich) leicht verständliche Art und Weise ein eigenes Lehrbuchkapitel über den Politischen Realismus in internationalen Staatenbeziehungen geschrieben.

Appeals to a ‘tradition’ stretching back to Thucydides have been central to the recent emergence of realism in political theory. This article asks what work these appeals to tradition are doing and whether they are consistent with contemporary political realism’s contextualist commitments. I argue that they are not and that realists also have independent epistemic reasons to attend to contextualist worries. Ultimately, I make the case for an account of the realist tradition that is at once consistent with moderate contextualist commitments and that preserves the classificatory and analytical value of tradition-building.

El realismo político es la "imaginación del desastre" capaz de captar "momentos anímicos aislados que brillan a través de los siglos" y que por ello están dotados de una "significación eterna". Este estudio propone una definición del realismo político como "forma-límite del pensamiento político".

Kauṭilya's realism revolves around two distinct yet connected political goals, which can be attained to the extent that both are efficiently self-regulating: domestic security and foreign expansion. This chapter explores these two dimensions of his realism by tracing an analytical metaphor that pervades the Arthaśāstra: namely, the 'body' and its constituent parts, including the proper role that each part plays in securing internal order and external political expansion. The chapter explains how the underlying logic of this realist stance is a response to natural 'auto-tensions' that follow from individual, political and economic complexities associated with different levels of embodiment. Consequently, Kauṭilya's aim is not to eradicate this complexity but rather to hone and manage it as efficiently as possible, beginning with a unitary conception of ruling power at the top of the political order. Operating in both a top-down and an inside-out fashion, one can observe how a centrifugal, ascetic conception of ruling over oneself and others relies on a 'layered purity' through ritual self-discipline. In sum, Kauṭilyan realism amounts to a totalizing web of tightly controlled socioeconomic and political relations at the macro-level, which aim to mirror perfectly his desired level of control and purity at the micro-level of the ruler and the ruler's closest advisers.

İnsanın maddi-manevi huzuru için evrensel bir zorunluluk olan, kaynağını en hassas dürüst-lükten alan adalet idealinin sosyal realiteye dönüştürülebilmesi, şüphesiz olgun muhakemeleri ve yaklaşımları gerektirir. Bu bağlamda, adalete dair yaklaşımların çerçevesini çizen bir uğraş olan siyasetin nasıl anlaşıldığı, adaletin ulaşılabilirliği noktasında en belirleyici etkendir. Bu yazıda, ilm-i siyasetin ne olmadığına ve ne olduğuna yer verilmekte, ilm-i siyasete dair farklı ya da yaygın anlayışların kökenleri irdelenmektedir. İlk kısımda geliştirilen ilm-i siyaset tarifi, Türkiye özelinde siyasete ve adalete dair ihtiyaç tespitinin ve çözüm önerisinin sunulduğu ikinci kısımda pekiştirilmektedir.

Attaining justice, a necessary condition of peace at both personal and social grounds, is likely only through subtle and mature ideas on honesty. Various conceptualizations of politics prove to be a serious factor on the development and application of such ideas. There is an important concept in Turkish language and culture, ilm-i siyaset, literally the sci-ence/knowledge of politics, which is colloquially uttered as an excuse for almost any deviation from justice. This essay criticizes the very behavior of exaggerating political-mindedness to the extent that demands and attitudes aiming at justice become pointless. In the first part, the authentic meaning of knowledge as well as politics is discussed, and in the second part, solutions are suggested for Turkey's current socio-ethical situation with regard to the said problem.

The Second World War shattered the self-belief of the idealistic, utopian views of international politics that prevailed during the inter-war period. This gave rise to the political theory of Realism that has since dominated the fields of International Relations and academia right up until the end of the Cold War.

Maquiavelo es uno de los grandes y tradicionales referentes de la Teoría Política. Sus afirmaciones y propuestas describen rigurosamente la realidad de su época y también la nuestra. Puede que sea por su gran interés en la naturaleza humana y su afán por el realismo, pero no cabe duda de que sus tratados sobre política son casi siempre certeros, a la par que crueles. Quizá la realidad sea así: cruel. Tal vez las utopías sólo sean eso, utopías; y tal vez la política no sea más que lo que ya dijo el filósofo florentino hace tanto tiempo: la lucha por el poder. En el año 2016 aún podemos encontrar referentes culturales que dibujan a ese príncipe maquiavélico que pertenece ya para siempre a nuestro imaginario colectivo. Ese es el caso de House of Cards y su protagonista, el cual no está lejos de ser un verdadero psicópata. Pero, ¿qué opinaría Maquiavelo?

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Maquiavelli is one of the largest and traditional exponents of Political Theory. His statements and proposals have rigorously describe the reality of his time and our time too. May it be for his keen interest in human nature and his desire for realism, but there is no doubt that his treatises on politics are almost always accurate, and cruel at the same time. Perhaps the reality is as he exposed it: cruel. Perhaps the utopias are just that, utopias; and perhaps politics is nothing more than what the Florentine philosopher already said so long ago: the struggle for power. In 2016 we can still find cultural references that draw the Machiavellian prince that belongs to our collective imagination. This is the case of House of Cards and its leading character, who is not far away from being a true psychopath. But what would Machiavelli think?

I worked as lead writer and narrative designer for The King's Dilemma, a board game about tragic political choices. Players sit at the royal council and have to balance what they think is right with the interests of their house and the stability of the kingdom. Through negotiations and betrayals, the council's rulings shape the future of the realm. Their consequences will recurrently remind players of the compromises they had to make, or the ones that they failed to make.

The game is translated in 8 languages and is nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 - the most prestigious award in the field.

En el año 1917 marca el fin del régimen zarista y se instaura el primer régimen comunista del mundo. En 1927, se entrega el poder a Stalin, comenzando la era del Stalinismo. En su gobierno se establecen unos planes quinquenales para el desarrollo del país, poniéndose en marcha el primero en 1929. Dos eran los objetivos: desarrollar la industria y colectivizar la tierra. En la década de 1940, Rusia había alcanzado el tercer puesto a nivel mundial en producción industrial, después de EEUU y Alemania.
La sociedad couminsta no conocía el paro ni las crisis de los países capitalistas, pero el nivel adquisitivo de la población era tan bajo que apenas permitía su subsistencia.  Por otra parte, la represión ideológica era enorme. Las purgas políticas eliminaban cualquier posible adverario del Estado. Diez millones de personas murieron durante el Estalinismo. Stalin estuvo en el poder hasta su muerte, en 1953. Para entonces, la URSS ya era una de las potencia económicas y militares más importantes del mundo.
En este marco social se desarrolla el Realismo Socialista.  Al contrario que el periodo revolucionario de 1917-18, caracterizado por el vanguardismo, se impone el realismo llamadao “fotográfico”, donde los artistas y arquitectos tenían que seguir las reglas del romanticismo revolucionario. Se caracterizó por una crítica feroz a las vanguardias, quedando prohibidas en 1932 en la URSS. Todos los artistas fueron incorporados (a la fuerza) a la Unión de Artistas.

Broadly speaking, the form that contemporary Anglo-American political theory has taken since the 1970s, with its reinvigoration in the seminal work of John Rawls, can largely be described as Platonic and Kantian, focusing on the formulation, comparison, and evaluation of abstract principles of justice, and only subsequently looking to their application in the real world. Concerned about this, a number of critics of the contemporary paradigm in political theory have emerged to offer their own alternatives. This article will discuss two of them: Raymond Geuss and Amartya Sen. This article does three things. Its first section lays out the realist approach to political theory advocated by Raymond Geuss and the comparative approach advocated by Amartya Sen, respectively. Here I argue that Sen’s comparative approach can best be understood as a kind of realism. In the second section of this article, I explore what I take to be an underlying concern behind the work of both Sen and Geuss, and which, although it is rarely explicitly mentioned (and certainly never fully developed), I think we should bear in mind: namely a strand of anti-Platonism in political theory. Third and finally, I present three arguments for why a realist approach to political theory is likely to be superior to those of their contemporary adversaries: the argument from efficacy claims that realist approaches are more likely to impact real politics; the argument from cognitive distortions claims that realist approaches are better equipped to notice and critically evaluate and revise undue assumptions and distortions of various kinds; and the argument from abstractness claims that since such distortions are likely to increase with a theory's degree of abstractness, and since realist theories tend to be less abstract than their competitors, a realist approach will likely be less susceptible to such distortions to begin with.

Forthcoming in International Critical Thought