Understanding International Relations, Third Edition

Chapter 3
International Relations Theory
Today
Introduction: rational choice theory and its critics
Just as the post-war synthesis was dominated by Morgenthau’s 1948 text,
so contemporary IR is fixated on Kenneth Waltz’s 1979 volume, Theory of
International Politics. Not only was realism revitalized by this book, but
also anti-realists have felt obliged to respond to its arguments. In the 1960s
it was said (by Kenneth Thompson) that IR theory constituted a debate
between Morgenthau and his critics; in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s the
name of Waltz should be substituted for that of Morgenthau (although, in
both cases, it is what the author is believed to have written rather than what
was actually on the page that is crucial).
The merits of Theory of International Politics will be discussed below,
but the success of the book does not simply rest on its own qualities, impres-
sive though these are. The wider context is provided by the rise to domi-
nance of rational choice theory in the Political Science community in the
United States. The presupposition of rational choice thinking is that politics
can be understood in terms of the goal-directed behaviour of individuals,
who act rationally in the minimal sense that they make ends–means
calculations designed to maximize the benefits they expect to accrue from