The Idea of Power Politics:

THE END OF THE cold war presented the discipline of International Relations with a number of challenges. ¹ The most important challenge is theoretical: specifically, what theoretical approach will guide inquiry into matters political in the post—cold war world? "Realism," in its various incarnations considered the orthodox theory of international politics, is deemed by many to be ill-suited to deal with the new factors prevalent in the late twentieth-century international system. ² Indeed, many scholars argue that realism cannot even account for the seemingly willful decision of the leaders of the Soviet Union to abdicate their superpower status, arguably the most significant event in international politics since the end of the Second World War. ³ Having been initially created to explain the nature of traditional balance-of-power politics, and subsequendy adapted to the particulars of the bipolar struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, it is argued that realist analysis cannot explain the proliferation of new actors, processes, and norms of international behavior that have effectively rendered traditional power politics, as well as its analysis in those terms, a thing of the past. Moreover, realists are charged with actively eschewing universal moral values and transnational ethical concerns in favor of a narrowly defined self-interest and the primacy of power over justice. ⁴