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Realism in World Politics: the Transatlantic Tradition, Pt. II Professor Matthew Specter June 2021 Mondays June 7, 14, 21 and 28, 12-1:30 + Friday June 25, 12-1:30

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Realism in World Politics: the Transatlantic Tradition, Pt. II Professor Matthew Specter June 2021 Mondays June 7, 14, 21 and 28, 12-1:30 + Friday June 25, 12-1:30 Realism in World Politics: The Transatlantic Tradition, Pt. II Professor Matthew Specter June 2021 Mondays June 7, 14, 21 and 28, 12-1:30 + Friday June 25, 12-1:30 Since 1945, three leading traditions have fought for primacy in the theory and practice of US foreign policy: the liberal internationalist, the realist, and the neoconservative. Liberals and realists, so the usual story goes, disagree on the fundamental questions of the relationship of law, morality and power in international politics. Where the liberals are said to be principled multilateralists and earnest supporters of human rights, the realists are said to stick to the austere and amoral calculation of whether actions abroad are in “the national interest.” But the real history is much more complicated. In the postwar era, 1945-1989, US realists and liberal internationalists had much more in common than is usually portrayed. Liberal internationalists were neither consistently liberal nor truly internationalist. They were one face of American primacy in the international system. In Pt. I of this course—which is not a prerequisite for the summer course—we examined major figures in the tradition of international thought now known as “classical realism.” In successive lectures, I presented the ideas of Otto von Bismarck and the German tradition of Realpolitik; Woodrow Wilson and the idea of an international order based on law; the anti-interventionism and pro-fascism of the “America First” movement of the 1940s; two interwar critics of Wilsonian liberalism, Carl Schmitt and E.H. Carr who developed influential versions of realism; Hans Morgenthau’s famous critique of liberal reformism from the perspective of power politics; the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s critique of hubris in world affairs in the 1950s, George Kennan’s realist doctrine of “containment” of the USSR (and his unhappiness when the policy was globalized to authorize wars like the US’s in Vietnam) and Morgenthau’s critique of the Vietnam War. Though realism is one of the three most popular approaches to international relations in the academy—the other two are liberal institutionalism and constructivism—I offered a robust critique of realism on the grounds of both its imperial blindspots and democratic deficit. I develop this critique and the narrative of US-German making of realism in my forthcoming book from Stanford University Press, The Atlantic Realists: Empire and International Political Thought Between Germany and the United States. In this course, we begin with a review of the definition of realism, the varieties of realism most influential today, and an explanation of the stakes of the debate for real-world political decision-making. In the second and third meetings, we discuss the way in which race and empire, once central to the discussion of international relations fell from view. Today, international relations courses almost never treat race as an independent variable in their discussion of the roots of war and international conflict for example. That was not always so. We first read the writings of two prominent turn-of-the-century American thinkers, political scientist Paul Reinsch and naval strategist Alfred T. Mahan, and together unpack their ideas about the prerogatives of empire, the nature of international relations, and the often explicit endorsement of white supremacy in a global racial hierarchy. In the third we look at the writings of the “Howard School” in international relations, and two of its key authors, W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke. Scholars 1 today are rediscovering the contributions of Ralph Bunche, Rayford Logan, Raymond Buell and others, whose views of the legacies of European colonialism for the Global South and North- South relations today. In the fourth, we examine realism by an in-depth look at the first black woman political scientist in the US, the Oxford and Harvard-trained professor at Radcliffe and Howard Universities, Merze Tate. The rediscovery by scholars of this major intellectual who saw herself as a realist challenges old verities about the tradition, but also forces a deeper confrontation with the significant exclusions based on race and gender of topics and authors from the canon and practice of the discipline of international relations in the US. In our fifth meeting, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of the realist tradition for navigating the future of the US-China relationship. A note on format and workload: Reading is never more than fifty pages per week. While Pt. I of the course was conducted as a pure lecture with only 5-15 minutes allocated for discussion, this course will allot at least half of every class meeting to discussion. It thus depends on active participation for its success. While keeping up with readings was not at all essential to follow lectures in Pt. I, the discussion focus of Pt.II means that completing the readings on time is essential. To maximize the simulation of an in-class experience and to encourage oral participation, it is my preference that students keep their cameras on for the duration of class. We will continue to use the “chat” function for questions and as a sidebar to discussion. Week One (June 7): From Classical Realism to Neorealism and Offensive Realism Read to discuss: Hans Morgenthau, “A Realist Theory of International Politics,” 53-59; John Herz, “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” 60-61; Kenneth Waltz, “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory,” 129-133; John Mearsheimer, “Anarchy and the Struggle for Power,” 179-187; Glenn Snyder, “Mearsheimer’s World: Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” 188-196. All from The Realism Reader, ed. Colin Elman and Michael A. Jensen (Routledge, 2014).[all in PDF] Week Two (June 14): The Color Line in World Politics Read to discuss: Paul Reinsch, “The Negro Race and European Civilization”(1905); Alfred Mahan, “A Twentieth Century Outlook”(1897); Lord James Bryce, The Relations of the Advanced and Backwards Races of Mankind (1903), brief selection [all in PDF] Week Three (June 21): The Howard School of International Relations Read to discuss: W.E.B. DuBois, “The African Roots of the War”(1915); Alain Locke, When Peoples Meet: A Study in Race and Culture (1942), brief selection [all in PDF] Week Four (June 25): Merze Tate, Forgotten Giant 2 Read to discuss: “The War Aims of World War I and II and Their Relation to the Darker Peoples of the World,” Journal of Negro Education 12 (Summer 1943): 521-532; Conclusion, The Disarmament Illusion: The Movement for a Limitation of Armaments (1942), 161-171; and The US and Armaments (1948), brief selection Week Five (June 28): Realism and The Future of the US-China Relationship Read to discuss: Charles Glaser, “Structural Realism in a More Complex World”; Barry Posen “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”; John Mearsheimer, “China’s Unpeaceful Rise”; and Jonathan Kirshner, “The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Classical Realism and the Rise of China,” 450-480 in The Realism Reader, ed. Jensen. 3 .
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