The realist science of politics: the art of understanding political practice
Date | 01 December 2021 |
DOI | 10.1177/13540661211050637 |
Published date | 01 December 2021 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211050637
European Journal of
International Relations
2021, Vol. 27(4) 1193 –1217
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661211050637
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JR
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The realist science of politics:
the art of understanding
political practice
Jodok Troy
University of Innsbruck, Austria
Abstract
Classical Realism represents a science of politics that is distinct from the conventional
understanding of science in International Relations. The object of Realist science is the
art of politics, which is the development of a sensibility based on practical knowledge to
balance values and interests and to make judgments. Realism’s science and its object led to
its tagging as “wisdom literature.” This article illustrates that reading Hans Morgenthau’s
and Raymond Aron’s work shows how their hermeneutic form of enquiry provides
insights into the character of international politics, which conventional understandings
do not. Following the example of Morgenthau, the article, first, illustrates how Realism,
rather than providing a theory of practice, builds on a science with the purpose to judge
knowledge. Realism’s science analyzes the objective conditions of politics, theorizes them,
and takes into account the requirements of political practice under contingencies and
considerations of morality. The article, second, examines Aron’s take on political practice
in the context of the Cold War and politics that built on knowledge without experience
to judge knowledge. Morgenthau and Aron’s science helps to capture Realism’s take on
politics as an art, how to explicate Realism’s epistemological foundation and value in
studying international politics. Doing so, the article, third, contributes to practice theory
by clarifying several aspects of Realism’s science. In particular, it shows how Realism
captures the art of politics by conceptualizing practice as a form of human conduct
thereby offering a more coherent notion of practice than current practice theory.
Keywords
Hans Morgenthau, practice theory, praxis, Raymond Aron, realism
Corresponding author:
Jodok Troy, Department of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck,
Austria.
Email: jodok.troy@uibk.ac.at
1050637EJT0010.1177/13540661211050637European Journal of International RelationsTroy
research-article2021
Article
1194 European Journal of International Relations 27(4)
Classical 20th-century political Realists conceptualized politics as an art (Morgenthau,
1946b: 10). Mastering politics, they argued, requires wisdom and moral strength, rather
than mere knowledge. Focusing on the art of politics, Realism’s theoretical reflection
“always stemmed from, and was rooted in, a practical context” (Beardsworth, 2017: 101),
rather than deducing practice from theory (Carr, 1964: 12–20). For Realism, the art of
politics is the development of a sensibility based on practical knowledge to balance values
and interests and to make value judgments. However, Realist conceptualizations of poli-
tics as an art and the science to understand it never gained traction (e.g. Behnegar, 2003;
Brown, 2012) and remains tagged as “wisdom literature.” Realism’s claim to be “based on
science,” yet advocating an anti-scientific argument (Koskenniemi, 2002: 470) perplexes.
Invoking everything of Realist by name, Guzzini (2004), for example, claims “Realism’s”
dilemma as one of either updating its take on practical knowledge but then losing its “sci-
entific credibility, or reaching for logical persuasiveness,” casting its “maxims in a scien-
tific mould, but end up distorting their practical knowledge” (p. 546).
The object of Realist science is the art of politics because Realism understands sci-
ence as the systematic study of political practice, to create knowledge prior to theorizing
practice or the knowledge of it (Morgenthau, 1972a; Rösch, 2016). Realism’s science of
the “art of politics” takes two fundamental dimensions of human life into consideration:
power and morality. Politics, Hans Morgenthau (1954) contends, is an art because of the
consequence of the real-life quagmire of “political man” and “moral man” (p. 12).1 How
else could Realists applaud the political art of Lincoln and Churchill other than pointing
out the moral merits of their judgments? Certainly, Henry Kissinger (2013) articulated
the art of politics as the “attempt to reconcile what is considered just with what is consid-
ered possible” (p. 5). Yet this common reference to the art of politics as a perspective,
rather than an objective of science, captures only partially Realism’s science of the art of
politics.
To conceptually grasp this art, we need to acknowledge that Realism’s science
assumes a “form of knowledge of the human condition conceptually distinct from that
embodied in the natural sciences” (Kuklick, 2007: 73). That means choosing practical
wisdom over rationalism (Hanley, 2004) yet not over rigorous scientific thinking.
Practical wisdom acknowledges the facts available but does not rely on rationalism, that
is reducing the understanding of politics to “questions of fact” (Williams, 2006: 95).
Realism denies the assumption that “an adequate understanding of the nature of empiri-
cal knowledge can be directly equated with the nature of political knowledge.” In other
words, “knowledge of objects in general and knowledge of the political object are not the
same thing” (Williams, 2006: 102). Accordingly, the eminent target of Realism has been
positivism, if the term is equated with the study of the laws of nature by methods of the
natural sciences (e.g. Aron, 1961; Bull, 1966; Morgenthau, 1946b). Realism has been
particularly hostile “to the idea that politics could be understood and controlled by utiliz-
ing methods modeled on those used in the natural sciences” (Bell, 2009: 12). To be sure,
Realism does not oppose science understood as an “attempt to make experiences con-
scious in reason in a theoretically valid, systematic way” (Morgenthau, 1972a: 1) or
empiricism. Yet Realism worries that “we put too much stock in science,” overlooking
“the distinctiveness of the political and social world” (Jackson, 2009a: 4) by reduction-
ism and quantification.
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