Classical realism is based on the empirical analysis of human nature and international politics. It is influenced by thinkers like Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. Classical realists believe that sovereign states operating in an anarchic international system are the key actors, and they are primarily concerned with their own security and survival. In this self-help system without any overarching authority, conflict among states driven by their struggles for power is an inevitable reality.

1. 1
Understanding Global
Politics
Lecture 3: Classical Realism

2. 2
What is realist about realism?
 Avoids the ‘hopeless utopianism’
of idealism
 Based on empirical analysis of
the human condition and the
way the world works
 Some aspects of behaviour are
universal and eternal.

3. 3
Sun Tzu
 The Art of War (written
in the 6th century BC)
 One of the oldest and most
successful books on military
strategy in the world
 National interests should be
the top priority
 There is no place for ethics in
inter-state relations
 Statesmen who pay too much
attention to ethical principles
would do so at their peril

4. 4
Thucydides (471-400 B.C.)
 The first Western writer in the
realist tradition.
 The Peloponnesian War
(between Athens and Sparta in
the fifth century B.C.).
 A study of the struggle for
military and political power.
 The cause of the War—fear, a
dominant characteristic and a
motivating factor for arms races
and war itself.

5. 5
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)
 The Prince
 Power, balance of power,
formation of alliances, and
causes of conflicts
 The end—security of the
state—is understood to
justify any means necessary
to achieve the end
 The world as it is, not the
world as it should be—ethics
and politics are separated

6. 6
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
 The Leviathan (1660)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302
/texts/hobbes/leviathan-
contents.html

7. 7
Hobbes and his ideas
 A creature of his time: Concerned
with nature of political power, basis
of order, and origin of state.
 ‘State of nature’ which was ‘nasty,
brutish and short’
 Mutual vulnerability and self-
preservation mean setting up of
sovereign body.
 But only in domestic context: an
international Leviathan is impossible.

8. 8
E.H. Carr
 The Twenty Years’ Crisis (1939)
 Events of 1930s demonstrate
fragility of international institutions and
the underlying struggle for power.

9. 9
Main assumptions
 Sovereign states are key actors—
unitary and rational
 States are motivated by self-interest
(drive for power and survival)
 Main problem = anarchy (lack of
central sovereign authority to
regulate state relations)
 Therefore, conflict is an ever-present
reality of international relations.

10. 10
Therefore …
 The history of global relations is a
struggle for power: ‘every state for
itself’.
 This means leaders have little freedom
to organise the world and solve its
problems.
 Respect for law is only achieved if it is
reinforced by the threat of force.
 Conflict is inevitable, so must be
strong in face of aggression;
preparation for war is the main
concern of states.

11. 11
Classical Realism
… is an attempt to understand the world
from the point of view of
statesman/diplomat forced to operate in
dangerous and uncertain world.
… provides a guide to action based on
realpolitik (power and power politics
among states) in the interests of the
preservation of nation-states.

12. 12
Criticisms
 Too simple
 Fails to allow for possibility of
change
 Centrality of state
 No room for co-operation
 Rationality