Kenneth Waltz Essay

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Kenneth Waltz was one of the most highly regarded political theorists of our time. He is fondly remembered for his contribution in the form of major works to the field of International Relations- Man, the State and War (1959), Theory of International Politics (1979) and The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better (1981). However, his greatest legacy to the field of International Politics was his study that facilitated the revival/resurrection of realism. Realism is the objective study of global phenomena and behavioral patterns of state and non-state actors in the international realm. It attributes raison d’état to state behavior and justifies real-time state actions by connoting self-interest and survival to all state actions.
The three core principles of …show more content…
Stateism offers a state-centric view of international relations by establishing the modern-nation state as the only determining factor of global politics. Survival, on the other hand, …show more content…
The ‘evidence’ on which it was based was not a systematic body of evidence and analysis, but rather sets of religious or philosophical speculations.
Theory of International Politics grounded realism by offering a structural account of the international system and the concept of systemic constraints. He acknowledged the inadequacy of Morgenthau’s analysis of human behaviour and revised a systemic approach to study shifts in state behaviour. Waltz characterized the international system using two concepts that have derived significance by realists in understanding state behaviour in the international

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