PREFACE
Ken Booth
This volume is one outcome of a project to celebrate two notable milestones in the
academic study of International Politics. The year 2009 marked the anniversary of
the publication of two of the discipline’s small number of classical texts: it was the
50th anniversary of the publication of Kenneth Waltz’s Man, the State and War, and
the 30th anniversary of his Theory of International Politics.
The contributors to the present volume have joined in celebrating these
anniversaries, recognising Professor Waltz’s unique stature in the field in doing so:
but they have done so not as slavish disciples. They pay him an even higher scholarly
compliment. While mindful of the remarkable centrality and authority of Waltz’s
work, the contributors engage with it critically in the chapters below, offering
alternative understandings of some of the most basic conceptual and theoretical issues
in the discipline, and more complex accounts of unfolding global dynamics. All are
united with Professor Waltz, however, in sharing an abiding concern with the ways
in which power at the international level pulls and pushes the lives of real people in
real places, and of the unique potential of our discipline to ask the biggest questions
in the biggest political arena of all.
Realism and World Politicsshould be of interest to all students of politics across
borders: its issues are of lasting significance to those who want to understand how
the world works. The book’s particular audience includes upper level under-
graduates, Masters and PhD students, as well as teachers of International Relations/
World Politics. Addressed by a group of scholars from varied theoretical and
geographical locations, the chapters below cover the political ideas and context of
Waltzian realism, structural realism’s basic concepts, the conundrum of human
nature in world affairs, the causes of war and modalities of security, and the Rubik
cube of interconnections between politics and power at different levels.
Earlier stages of this project included a conference and special issues of a journal,
and multiple thanks are due on my part to those who made these so successful and
enjoyable. Particular credit is due to the contributors to this volume; without their
enthusiastic support the project would not have been viable. For helping to fund
the conference I want to thank the Department of International Politics at