Kenneth Waltz

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Kenneth Waltz, 2008

Kenneth Neal Waltz (born June 8, 1924 in Ann Arbor , Michigan - † May 13, 2013 in Washington, DC ) was an American political scientist and the founder of neorealism in international relations .

Life

Waltz taught at UC Berkeley and most recently at Columbia University . In 1980 he was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He chaired the American Political Science Association from 1987 to 1988. In 1999 he received the James Madison Award for "excellent scientific contributions to political science".

Act

At the center of Waltz's scientific endeavors was the goal of developing a theory of international politics which is based on the ideal of scientific theories and explains the behavior of states from the power structures in the international system. His thinking developed from a criticism of Hans Morgenthaus's understanding of realism . In his first work Man, the State, and War from 1959, Waltz differentiated between three levels of analysis (images) for explaining war as a phenomenon of international politics: the level of the individual, that of the political and that of the international system. In his opinion, satisfactory theories can only be based on the latter, for it is the anarchic structure of the international system that makes wars possible at all. In doing so, he set himself apart from classical realists like Morgenthau, who locate the causes of war in people's striving for power, and from liberal thinkers who seek those in the inner constitution of societies.

He developed this idea further in his main work Theory of International Politics . Waltz opposes detailed and complex descriptions of international politics and instead advocates lean and “frugal” theories (“parsimony”). He justifies this with the fact that otherwise one would be distracted by unimportant details and lose sight of the essential connections. The aim is to generate testable hypotheses from these simplified and abstract theoretical statements.

His theory of international politics is influenced by neoclassical approaches to economics. According to this, states are, similar to market participants, as rational actors in a “market”, the international system. The main preference of the actors in the system is their own survival. This is threatened by other states that are also fighting for their survival and, since there is no world government equipped with a monopoly of force, it cannot be guaranteed by a higher authority. According to Waltz, power is the only means by which states can ensure their survival in the anarchic system. He understands power to be an abstract concept made up of military, economic and social factors. The distribution of these means of power among the states in the international system can explain international politics.

Waltz saw the bipolar system of the Cold War as a particularly stable structure of world politics. He does not consider the current US hegemony to be permanent, because according to his assumptions it is to be expected that other states will try to (re) establish a balance of power against the hegemon. Kenneth Waltz was one of the few thinkers who saw the existence of nuclear weapons as a stabilizing factor for the international system and who were not afraid of the proliferation of these weapons.

A large research program arose from Waltz's theory in the USA. Authors such as John J. Mearsheimer , Steven van Evera, Robert Jervis , Randall Schweller, and William C. Wohlforth assume systemic considerations in their refined global political analyzes. In Germany it was Werner Link who put the structural analysis approach to good use. Carlo Masala continues his work.

Waltz's approach is admired for its methodological elegance. In terms of content, however, his neorealism is controversial in wide circles of the liberal and constructivist schools of thought in international relations.

Named after Waltz, an annual lecture at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University has been held since 2008 .

Fonts

  • Man, the State, and War. Columbia University Press, New York 1959.
  • Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1967.
  • Theory of International Politics. Addison-Wesley, Reading 1979.
  • Reflections on Theory of International Politics. A Response to My Critics. In: Robert O. Keohane (Ed.): Neorealism and Its Critics. Columbia University Press, New York 1986.
  • Realism and International Politics . Routledge, New York 2008.

literature

  • Carlo Masala: Kenneth N. Waltz - Introduction to his theory and examination of his critics. Baden-Baden 2005, ISBN 3-8329-1066-2 .
  • Stefan Fröhlich: World order through equilibrium politics. The neorealistic approach by Kenneth Waltz, in: PR Weilemann / HJ Küsters / G. Letter (Ed.), Power and Criticism of Time. Festschrift for Hans-Peter Schwarz on his 65th birthday. Paderborn u. a. 1999. pp. 503-515.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annual Kenneth N. Waltz Lecture: James D. Fearon. In: Institute for War and Peace Studies. November 15, 2011. (English)
personal data
SURNAME Waltz, Kenneth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Waltz, Kenneth Neal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Ann Arbor , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH 13th of May 2013
Place of death Washington, DC