Chapter 1 Assumptions of a historical sociology of realism; Part I Realism from containment to détente; Chapter 2 Classical realism: Carr, Morgenthau and the crisis of collective security; Chapter 3 The evolution of realist core concepts during the second debate; Chapter 4 Realism and the US policy of containment; Chapter 5 The turning point of the Cuban missile crisis: crisis management and the expanding research agenda; Chapter 6 Epilogue: Soviet theories of International Relations; interlude Interlude The crisis of realism; Chapter 7 The policy of détente: Kissinger and the limits of concert diplomacy; Chapter 8 International Relations in disarray: the inter-paradigm debate; Part II Realist responses to the crisis of realism; Chapter 9 Systemic neorealism: Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics; Chapter 10 International Political Economy as an attempt to update realism; Chapter 11 International Political Economy at the convergence of realism and structuralism; Conclusion The fragmentation of realism; Chapter 12 Realism gets lost: the epistemological turn of the 1980s and 1990s; Chapter 13 Realism at a crossroads;

Authored by Guzzini, Stefano

Stefano Guzzini's study offers an understanding of the evolution of the realist tradition within International Relations and International Political Economy. It sees the realist tradition not as a school of thought with a static set of fixed principles, but as a repeatedly failed attempt to turn the rules of European diplomacy into the laws of a US social science.
Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy concentrates on the evolution of a leading school of thought, its critiques and its institutional environment. As such it will provide an invaluable basis to anyone studying international relations theory.