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Classical Realism In International Relations

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Realism has been the dominant theory since the creation of the field of international relations in 1919, influencing both academic study and world politics alike. Realism, broadly speaking, is composed of three main elements, those being ‘statism, survival, and self-help’ (John Baylis, 2017, p. 105). This therefore means that realists place states as the most important actors in what they see as an anarchical international system where there is no real authority. A state’s primary motivation is therefore to survive in this system, a motivation driven by human nature, with the increasing of power being the best way of doing this. This forms the basis of classical realism, of which Hans Morgenthau and E. H. Carr are key proponents. Following the end of the Second World War another approach to international relations emerged, established by Kenneth Waltz in his 1979 work ‘Theory of International Relations’, known as neorealism, which offered a more objective and structured approach to analysing current affairs. Whilst understandably closely linked to Classical Realism there are a number of key differences between the two theories. This essay will firstly outline and explain these main differences, before then arguing that classical realism’s emphasis on the importance of human nature and other factors make it subjective in nature and therefore less able to analyse current international affairs than the objective structural approach offered by neorealism.
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