Caught between vulgar and effete realists: Critical theory, classical realism and mythographies of power
| Author | Timothy W Luke |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1755088216673078 |
Journal of International Political Theory
2017, Vol. 13(1) 18 –36
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088216673078
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Caught between vulgar
and effete realists: Critical
theory, classical realism and
mythographies of power
Timothy W Luke
Virginia Tech, USA
Abstract
This study explores conceptual conflicts embedded in the thematic grounding of classical
realism. To establish conditions of consistent normality in human political behaviour
for realist analysis, the rhetoric of originary political wisdom usually ties its claims, as
a research framework, to myth and enlightenment. Because Thucydides, Machiavelli
or Hobbes articulated the premises of political realist analysis in the contexts of state
formation, anarchic regional politics and perpetual war, these first figures of political
authority seem to have set terms of geopolitical analysis that erase context, arrest
temporality and homogenise space by pointing analysis back to classical events, thinkers
and struggles in mythic terms. Critical theorists ask if such mythic styles of reasoning are
a credible approach, even though many accept such modes of analysis. Consequently,
this study explores how myth affects political realist studies to question how statecraft
perpetuates itself on reason, myth and their contradictions.
Keywords
Critical theory, epistemic community, Morgenthau, myth and reason, neorealism
This study critically reviews some contradictory qualities in the reception and application
of classical realism in the scholarly networks tied to the study of international politics.
While the conceit of policy relevance is one that many academics cling to for dear life,
their grasp on actual political realities and potential institutional utility typically is quite
minimal. Instead of accepting the quick-and-dirty use of ideas in policy applications, they
Corresponding author:
Timothy W Luke, Department of Political Science, Virginia Tech, 539 Major Williams Hall (0130),
Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Email: twluke@vt.edu
673078IPT0010.1177/1755088216673078Journal of International Political TheoryLuke
research-article2016
Article
Luke 19
often are sidetracked by scholastic debates over technicalities in the schools of realism.
Instead of recognising how realism can be mobilised as myth to motivate and guide state-
craft as well as understand how decision-makers draw upon only cursory readings of
realism, many scholars ignore how fluid mythographies of power guide actual statecraft.
By returning to Morgenthau’s reading of political realism as well as Adorno and
Horkheimer on myth and enlightenment, this study explores some of these conceptual and
sociological tendencies.
This analysis of classical realism and critical theory parallels Morgenthau’s (1967)
basic characterisation of ‘the history of modern political thought’ as a never-ending
‘story of the contest between two schools that differ fundamentally in their conceptions
of the nature of man, society, and politics’ (1967: 3). It wonders whether classical realism
and neorealism in international politics scholarship suffers from a comparable contest
between two sensibilities, or styles of scholarship, understood figuratively here as ideal
types, namely, effete and vulgar approaches to political realism. And, do they limit its
impact in the larger world by prompting scholars to become strangely doctrinaire to dif-
ferent degrees in their practices of interpreting how they and their rivals assess interna-
tional politics?
Neorealist theories of international politics freeze in place too many structural condi-
tions associated with twentieth century great power politics and the Cold War that seem
increasingly less important after 1991. Classical realism, however, retains a more robust
view of the political dynamics between individual human beings, cultural groups, social
organisations and states in many different historical circumstances, which makes it more
germane to today’s circumstances. At the same time, Frankfurt School critical theory is
open to mapping how economic struggles, cultural conflicts and material differences
shape statecraft separate and apart from the structures of the international state system.
While the neorealist interpretation of state capabilities and structural dynamics after the
Cold War asserts there still is considerable continuity with the post-9/11 era (Waltz,
2001: 1–41), more classical realist accounts (Pashakhanlou, 2014: 295–315) call such
neorealist views into doubt.
Realism in the practice of politics and political theory, particularly for international
relations scholarship, is a multivocal style of both action and analysis (Behr, 2010).
Working at all levels of analysis, in several ranges of theory, and multiple traditions of
discourse, this complex concept is difficult, if not impossible, to define precisely what it
means. This study, however, will not take up that nearly impossible task. Instead, it pur-
sues a narrower assignment: working to assay the worth of classical realism, as pro-
pounded by Hans Morgenthau in the spirit of Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli or Thucydides,
and Frankfurt critical theory, especially its first generation of thinkers like Adorno and
Horkheimer as key influences in ‘discourses of disintegration, texts of transformation’
(Luke, 1993: 239–258). Rather than struggling to determine what political realism really
is by bringing out the nuances between realist and neorealist thinkers, can one provision-
ally map how it can be and, at times, is understood in looser pragmatic terms? That is, in
its effete and vulgar expressions, can one see decision-makers and scholars invoking
realist precepts as mythographies of power to guide their strategic thinking and action as
well as to interpret the thought and activity of others engaged in conducting international
affairs?
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