ABSTRACT
The international system, which is ostensibly governed by a weak, decentralized body called the United Nations, is, in reality, governed by the political processes of the system, to which the legal processes are always subordinate. Morgenthau makes a powerful case for his theory of the nature of international politics and the behavior of statesmen in his classic textbook, Politics Among Nations, citing philosophical foundations, historical precedents, and contemporary practices. In Chicago the same dichotomy has traditionally existed between those who want the city’s political and governmental systems to solve broad social problems and those who conceive of the political function as one of “managing conflict,” in the words of Edward C. Banfield and James Q. Wilson. “The world, imperfect as it is from the rational point of view,” writes Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations “is the result of forces inherent in human nature.
