Political Realism PS 435R/PHIL 372R (Fall 2011) Professor: Alison McQueen 3-5 Units 405 Encina West Th 11.00am-1.50pm [email protected] GSL (400) Encina West OH: W 10.00am-12.00pm Course Description This graduate-level seminar will explore various articulations of political realism in their historical contexts. Realism is generally taken to be a pragmatic approach to a political world marked by the competition for material interests and the struggle for power. Yet beyond a shared critique of idealism and an insistence on the priority and autonomy of the political, realists tend to have very different normative visions and political projects. We will consider the works of several political realists from the history of political and International Relations thought, namely: Thucydides, Augustine of Hippo, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt, Reinhold Niebuhr, E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, Raymond Geuss, and Bernard Williams. Course Mechanics Students will be evaluated on a research paper (20 pages) due at the end of the quarter (60%), one (4-6 page) memo on the reading for a given week (15%), and one (10 minute) oral discussion of another student’s memo (10%). General participation will count for the remaining 15% of the final grade. We will begin each session with the oral discussion of the weekly memo. When writing your memo, please avoid summary and feel free to be contentious. Beyond the required readings, memos should engage with at least one of the supplemental readings. Memos should be sent to the entire class and me by no later than 10.00 am on the Tuesday before the seminar. Oral discussion should also avoid summary and instead pose a series of textually- supported critical questions to provoke a broader discussion. A sign-up sheet for both presentations and discussions will be available in the second week of class. Students With Disabilities Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) located within the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). SDRC staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the SDRC as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk, phone (650) 723-1066. Readings The following books are available for purchase at the Stanford bookstore. Most of them are also available new and used at substantial discounts at various online retailers. Additional readings will be posted on Coursework [C]. 1. Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, revised edition, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin, 1972). ISBN: 0140440399. 2. Augustine, Political Writings, translated by Michael W. Tkacz and Douglas Kries (Hackett, 1994). ISBN: 0872202100 3. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by Harvey Mansfield (Chicago, 1998). ISBN: 0226500446 4. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by Edwin Curley (Hackett, 1994). ISBN: 0872201775 5. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics (Westminster John Knox, 2002). ISBN: 0664224741 6. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (Harper Perennial, 1964). ISBN: 0061311227 7. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, expanded edition, translated by George Schwab (Chicago, 2007). ISBN: 0226738922 8. Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics (Princeton, 2008). ISBN: 0691137889. Note: Supplemental readings that are in the form of articles or single book chapters are posted on Coursework [C]. Those in the form of entire books or several chapters are on reserve at the library [R]. Schedule Week 1 09/29: Introduction Required William A. Galston, “Realism in Political Theory” (2007). Duncan Bell, “Introduction: Under an Empty Sky—Realism and Political Theory” (2009). Week 2 10/06: Thucydides Required History of the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE), 1.20-1.23 (pp. 46-49); 1.66-1.88 (pp. 72-87); 2.34-2.46 (pp. 143-151); 2.59-2.65 (pp. 158-164); 3.1-3.50 (pp. 194-223); 3.69-3.85 (pp. 236-245); 5.84-5.116 (pp. 400-408); 6.1-6.41 (pp. 409-437); 6.60-6.93 (pp. 447-470); 7.59- 7.87 (pp. 516-537). Supplemental Steven Forde, “Varieties of Realism: Thucydides and Machiavelli” (1992). [C] Robert Gilpin, “The Theory of Hegemonic War” (1988). [C] Josiah Ober, “Thucydides Theôrêtikos/Thucydides Histôr: Realist Theory and the Challenge of History” (2001, 2009). [C] Clifford Orwin, “The Just and the Advantageous in Thucydides: The Case of the Mytilenaian Debate” (1984). [C] Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (1998). [Note: this edition of Thucydides contains maps, diagrams, and scholarly appendices on subjects related to the text]. [R] Week 3 10/13: Augustine Required Augustine, Political Writings (386-430), pp. 1-47, 78-114, 130-163, 184-201, 213-229. Reinhold Niebuhr, “Augustine’s Political Realism” (1952, 1987). [C] Supplemental Jean Bethke Elshtain, “‘Our business within this common mortal life’: Augustine and a Politics of Limits” (1995). [C] George G. Lavere, “The Political Realism of Saint Augustine” (1980). [C] Paul Weithman, “Augustine’s Political Philosophy” (2001). [C] R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (1970), chps. 1-4. [R] Week 4 10/20: Machiavelli Required Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513, 1532), all. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses on Livy, selections. [C] Supplemental Steven Forde, “Varieties of Realism: Thucydides and Machiavelli” (1992). [C] Thomas M. Greene, “The End of Discourse in Machiavelli’s Prince” (1984). [C] John M. Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli- Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 (1993), chp. 5 and epilogue. [R] Hannah Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (1984, 1999), chps. 1 and 6. [R] J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1973, 2005), chps. 6 and 7. [R] Week 5 10/27: Hobbes Required Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), chps. 4-7 (pp. 15-37), 10-21 (pp. 50-145), 29-32 (pp. 210-250), 38 (pp. 301-314). Supplemental David Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes (1969), appendix. [C] David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (1986), chps. 4, 5, 7, 8. [R] Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (2001), chp. 4. [C] Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (2005), chp. 1. [C] Week 6 11/3: Schmitt Required Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1927, 1932), all (including Tracy Strong’s Forward and “The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations”). Supplemental David Dyzenhaus, Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar, chp. 2. [C] Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (1993), chp. 2. [C] Heinrich Meier, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt (1998), chp. 2. [C] Leo Strauss, “Notes on Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political” [pp. 99-122 in our edition of Concept of the Political]. Week 7 11/10: Niebuhr Required Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), xi-xxv, 1-112, 231-77. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (1952), chp. 4. [C] Supplemental Campbell Craig, Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz (2003), chp. 2. [C] Robin W. Lovin, Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (1995), chps. 4 and 5. [R] Daniel Rice, “Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau: A Friendship with Contrasting Shades of Realism” (2008). [C] Week 8 11/17: Carr Required E.H Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis (1939), all. Supplemental Michael Cox, “Introduction” [to The Twenty Years’ Crisis] (2001). [C] Michael Cox, “Will the Real E.H. Carr Please Stand Up?” (1999). [C] Jonathan Haslam, The Vices of Integrity: E.H. Carr, 1892-1982 (1999), chp. 3. [C] Week 9 12/1: Morgenthau Required Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics (1946), selections. [C] Hans J. Morgenthau, “The Twilight of International Morality” (1948). [C] Hans J. Morgenthau, “World Politics in the Mid-Twentieth Century” (1948). [C] Supplemental Christoph Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography (2001), chps. 5-8. [R] Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest (1951), chps. 1, 4. [R] Thomas Pangle and Peter J. Ahrensdorf, Justice Among Nations (2002), chp. 7. [C] Daniel Rice, “Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau: A Friendship with Contrasting Shades of Realism” (2008). [C] William Scheuerman, “Was Morgenthau a Realist? Revisiting Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics” (2007). [C] Week 10 12/8: Geuss and Williams Required Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), all. Bernard Williams, “Realism and Moralism in Political Theory” (2005). [C] Supplemental Bonnie Honig, Review of Philosophy and Real Politics (Geuss) and Public Philosophy in a New Key, vols 1 and 2 (Tully) (2001). [C] Bonnie Honig and Marc Stears, “The New Realism” (2011). [C] Marc Stears, “Liberalism and the Politics of Compulsion” (2007). [C] .