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Studies on Existing Foreign Policies and Their Limitations

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Positional Realism

Part of the book series: Contributions to International Relations ((CIR))

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Abstract

It is generally accepted that state interests determine foreign policy. Politicians use the term state interests to defend their policies, but scholars need to find out what state interests are Martha Finnemore, an American scholar of international relations, once pointed out: “much of international politics is about defining rather than defending state interests”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Finnemore (1996), Preface.

  2. 2.

    Rubinstein (1994), pp. 39, 41.

  3. 3.

    Moravsick (1997), p. 518.

  4. 4.

    Hermann (1993) p. 78.

  5. 5.

    Breuning (2007), p. 5.

  6. 6.

    Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin (1954), p. 65.

  7. 7.

    Snyder et al. (1954), p. 12.

  8. 8.

    Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff (2001), p. 572.

  9. 9.

    Allison (1971).

  10. 10.

    Simon (1947), pp. 29–31.

  11. 11.

    Krasner (1978), p. 10.

  12. 12.

    Sato (1989).

  13. 13.

    Allison (1971), p. 294–299.

  14. 14.

    Hudson (2007), p. 7.

  15. 15.

    “President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 h,” Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation, at: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html.

  16. 16.

    Krasner (1978), pp. 10, 43, 54.

  17. 17.

    Tollison (1998), part 4.

  18. 18.

    For a brief introduction on the Interest Group Theory, please refer to Hrebenar (1997).

  19. 19.

    Bentley (1967), pp. 205–222.

  20. 20.

    Rosati (2004), p. 10.

  21. 21.

    Habermas (1996), p. 275.

  22. 22.

    John Ikenberry and Kupchan (1990).

  23. 23.

    Rosati (2004), p. 433.

  24. 24.

    Hayek (2013), pp. 356–357.

  25. 25.

    Wight (2006), p. 177.

  26. 26.

    Martin Rochester (1978), pp. 77–96.

  27. 27.

    Friedman (1970), Hosti, Terrence Hopmann, and Sullivan (1973), p. 2. See Walt (1990), p. 1.

  28. 28.

    Snyder (1990), p. 104.

  29. 29.

    Morgenthau (1993), p. 103.

  30. 30.

    Quoted from Yuguo (2004).

  31. 31.

    Morgenthau (1993), p. 103.

  32. 32.

    Keohane (1984), p. 137.

  33. 33.

    Weitsman (2004), p. 1.

  34. 34.

    Walt (2009), pp. 94–95.

  35. 35.

    Walt (1990), pp. 25–26.

  36. 36.

    Schweller (1994), p. 105.

  37. 37.

    Schweller (1994), pp. 105–106.

  38. 38.

    Walt (2009), p. 89.

  39. 39.

    Sweeney and Fritz (2004), p. 433.

  40. 40.

    Sweeney and Fritz (2004), pp. 433–435.

  41. 41.

    Gartzke (2013), pp. 1, 12 7.

  42. 42.

    The conditions for the change of alliance as a collective knowledge are, as in the words of Alexander Wendt, “Cultural change requires not only that identities change, but that their frequency and distribution cross a threshold at which the logic of the structure tips over into a new logic.” Wendt (2003), pp. 301–302, 365.

  43. 43.

    Gibler (2008), pp. 432–433.

  44. 44.

    Levy and Thompson (2010), p. 8.

  45. 45.

    Levy and Thompson (2010), pp. 14–16.

  46. 46.

    Levy and Thompson (2010), p. 18.

  47. 47.

    Wohlforth (2002), p. 102.

  48. 48.

    Wohlforth (2002), p. 107.

  49. 49.

    Walt (2009), p. 114.

  50. 50.

    Krasner (1978), p. 41.

  51. 51.

    Holsti (1992), p. 83.

  52. 52.

    Morgenthau (2005), p. 15.

  53. 53.

    Morgenthau (2005), p. 20.

  54. 54.

    Quoted from Shi Yinhong, Nixonism, Wuhan: Wuhan University Press, 1984, p. 25.

  55. 55.

    Zhongyun et al. (1994), pp. 60–61.

  56. 56.

    Machiavelli (1998), p. 61.

  57. 57.

    Mearsheimer (2001), p. 43.

  58. 58.

    Mearsheimer (2001), p. 31.

  59. 59.

    Mearsheimer (2001), p. 46.

  60. 60.

    Morgenthau (1993), p. 14.

  61. 61.

    Jervis (1978), p. 187.

  62. 62.

    Kaysen (1990), pp. 42–64.

  63. 63.

    Security dilemma refers to the situation when a state develops armaments in order to increase its own security, which in turn makes other states feel less secure, thus triggering an arms race. Herbert Butterfield expresses much the same idea in terms of Hobbesian fear, that if you imagine yourself locked in a room with another person with whom you have often been on the most bitterly hostile terms in the past, and suppose that each of you has a pistol, you may find yourself in a predicament in which both of you would like to throw the pistols out of the window, yet it defeats the intelligence to find a way of doing it. Donnelly (2000), p. 22.

  64. 64.

    Gilpin (1981), p. 22.

  65. 65.

    Waltz (1999) p. 195.

  66. 66.

    Keohane (1984), Wendt (1999).

  67. 67.

    Finnemore (1996), p. 2.

  68. 68.

    Xuetong (1996), pp. 45–54.

  69. 69.

    Art (2003).

  70. 70.

    Waltz (1979), Preface.

  71. 71.

    Waltz (1979), Chaps. 6–8.

  72. 72.

    Waltz (1979), p. 136.

  73. 73.

    Waltz (1986), pp. 330–333.

  74. 74.

    Keohane (1984).

  75. 75.

    See Grieco (1993).

  76. 76.

    Keohane (1984), p. 132.

  77. 77.

    Xiaoping (1994), p. 259.

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  1. School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, No. 59, Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100872, China

    Wei Song

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Song, W. (2023). Studies on Existing Foreign Policies and Their Limitations. In: Positional Realism. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6829-7_2

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