ABSTRACT
International politics has long been described in terms of states seeking power and security in an anarchicworld. States form alliances and balance the power of others in order to preserve their independence. Traditionally, we spoke of states as unitary rational actors. “France allied with Britain because it feared Germany.” There was little room for morality or idealism – or for actors other than states. When I first studied the subject, towering figures like E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau were warning against the misguided idealism that had helped produce the catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century.1
