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The Case for Kinship a more recent critique, see Jay Rosen, What Are ]011rnalistsFor? ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 286, 296. CHAPTER X 44. Posner and Vermeule, "The Credible Executive," 911. 45. Rahul Sagar, "Against Moral Absolutism: Surveillance and Disclosure After Snowden," Ethics a11dfotemational Affairs 29, no. 2 (2015): 145-59. The Case for Kinship ClassicalRealism and PoliticalRealism ALISON McQUEEN he past decade ha witnessed the revival of political reali m within conremporary policical theory . These political realists have T a tandard story they cell chem ·elves about themselves . Ic is a story about a theoretical approach that, although targeted at the particular pathol­ ogies of contemporary liberal political philosophy, has its roots in the work of Thucydides, Augustine of Hippo, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Publius, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, and Carl Schmitt. 1 There are at least two interesting facts about this story. First, none of the thinkers listed self-identifies as a "realist." Second, the list excludes a sizable group of mostly self-identified realists in the field of international relations (hereafter, "international realists")-for instance, midcentury clas­ sical realists such as E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau (hereafter, "classical realists") and more contemporary structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer (hereafter, "structural realists"). 2 This chapter is concerned primarily with this second fact. 3 In particular, it asks whether this exclusion is well grounded. Are there foundational theoretical differ­ ences between political realism in contemporary political theory (here­ after, "political realism") and international realism that might reasonably ground a firm distinction between the two? Many political realists seem to think that there are. The exclusion of all international realists from political realism's standard list of forerunners [242] RAHUL SAGAR [ 243] suggests an implicit argument to this effect. Some political realists make realists offer important lessons for thinking about the possibilities and chal­ the case quite explicitly. 4 The most frequent ground for such a distinction lenges of the political realist research agenda. This chapter seeks to highlight is international realism's purported tendency to underplay the role of three lessons that strike me as both particularly valuable and underex­ moral considerations in the explanation and evaluation of political out­ plored. The first concerns the nature and breadth of the realist target. The comes .5 International realists are often cast as amoral strategists who are second addresses realist assumptions about human nature. The third deals "normative without being moral, eager to advise political actors on the with realism's purported conservative bias. basis of what will help them succeed without regard to the moral costs of success."6 However, a small body of recent work rejects the distinction between political and international realism, claiming that both approaches The Realist Family share a set of canonical forerunners (e.g., Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Weber) and targets (e.g., various forms of"idealism"). Given these points of com­ This section asks whether there are fundamental distinctions between polit­ monality, the argument goes, political realists should pursue a deeper engage­ ical realism and international realism by considering whether interna­ ment with at least some strands of international realism. 7 tional realists can affirm what political realists take to be a series of defining I am sympathetic to this line of argument, and this chapter seeks to build commitments. A close examination of the recent literature on political real­ upon it. However, I think that arguments for a foundational distinction ism suggests that it is a distinctive family of approaches to the study, prac­ between political and international realism are worth taking seriously. I tice, and normative evaluation of politics that tend to (a) affirm the also think that the case for a deep foundational connection between polit­ "autonomy" (or, more minimally, the "distinctiveness") of politics; (b) hold ical and international realism has so far been made in rather gestural terms. an agonistic account of politics; (c) reject as "utopian" or "moralist" those Shared canonical forerunners and a common tendency to rail against . I approaches, practices, and evaluations that seem to deny these facts; and "idealism" are not in themselves evidence of the kind of deep conceptual ' (d) prioritize the requirements of political order and stability over the and analytical kinship that could make closer engagement between polit­ l demands of justice (or, more minimally, reject any kind of absolute prior­ ical and international realism fruitful. The case for kinship demands a ity of justice over other political values).10 stronger and more sustained articulation. If political realists and interna­ I take this conceptualization of political realism to be relatively uncon­ tional realists are engaged in fundamentally different projects, it is less clear troversial. The question for our purposes is whether international realists that the former has anything to learn from the latter's successes and fail­ can affirm these commitments . It seems clear that most structural realists­ ures. Political realists might then carry on much as they have been, setting those writing in the aftermath of Kenneth Waltz's book Theory of Interna­ international realism aside as a distant and substantially distinct member of tionalPolitics (1979)-could affirm neither the particular conceptual framings the realist family. 8 nor the normative dimensions of these claims. This is simply because struc­ This chapter considers the most plausible arguments for a firm distinc­ tural realism is predominantly an analytic paradigm whose aim is to explain tion between political and international realism. I argue that although there and predict international outcomes.11 Consider two examples of com­ may be foundational theoretical differences between political realism and mitments that structural realists would likely fail to accept. First, although structural realism, there are no similarly strong axes of distinction between I• structural realists might seem to affirm something like the "autonomy" of political realism and classical realism. The exclusion of thinkers such as Carr (international) politics, their reasons for doing so are purely analytical. As and Morgenthau from the political realist "canon" cannot be justified on Kenneth Waltz explains, "In reality, everything is related to everything else, the grounds of important foundational differences and is more likely the and one domain cannot be separated from others. Theory isolates one realm result of a caricatured picture of classical realism. What is more, as Wil­ from all others in order to deal with it intellectually." 12 The structural real­ liam Scheuerman has suggested, this exclusion comes at a cost.9 Classical ist is not committed to the notion that politics is, in reality, an autonomous [ 244] ALISON McQUEEN THE CASE FOR KINSHIP [ 245] realm but only to the assertion that it may be analytically useful to treat it amoral realm, that it is a realm with its own normativity distinct from that as such. On these grounds, she would reject the political realist's concep­ of other spheres, or that it is a realm in which conventional and/or univer­ tual framing of the "autonomy" of the political. sal moral rules must be overridden and "good" political actors must dirty Second, the structural realist would not affirm any kind of non11ativepri­ their hands. ority of political order and stability over the demands of justice. She might However, a third reason why politics might not be reducible to ethics is instead insist on the empirical and descriptive claim that states act primar­ that the two are deeply m11t11allyenmeshed. On this view, politics deserves ily on the basis of their interest in political order and stability (or security "attention in its own right, not because we think that it is something sepa­ and survival) rather than on the basis of justice and right. On an extreme rate and autonomous, but precisely because we think it is an important version of this view, state arguments that invoke the demands of justice dimension of all realms of human activity and experience: we cannot just 13 are just "cheap talk" that conceal "real" power interests. Thus, the struc­ work out ethical truths and then apply them to 'politics' because ethics is tural realist would reject the normative dimension of the political realist's already a part of politics (and politics a part of ethics)." 18 If politics and claim about the priority of order. I take these examples to be illustrative of ethics are enmeshed in this way, then it is simply a mistake to think that deeper differences and sufficient for concluding that the political realist and certain moral values are insulated from the forces of politics or have "ante­ the structural realist are engaged in fundamentally different projects. From cedent authority over the political." 19 Only the first of these three argu­ the perspective of the political realist, the structural realist is at best a rather ments for nonreducibility commits the realist to a strong claim about the distant relative. "autonomy of the political." The remaining two are committed to the However, the case seems far less clear once we turn to the classical more moderate claim that politics is a distinctive realm that is connected realists. Let us take in turn each of the four commitments listed earlier. in various ways to other kinds of human activity and forms of evaluation. First, political realists affirm the "autonomy" of politics. To my mind, Classical realists affirm the overarching commitment to the nonreduc­ this framing of the commitment is somewhat misleading because what ibility of politics to ethics. For Carr, the tendency to "regard politics as a political realists tend to mean when they make claims about the "auton­ function of ethics" is part of a broader tendency within "idealist" or "uto­ omy of the political" is that politics is not reducibleto other fields or domains.
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