historians. But, Eckstein then goes on to reiterate Waltz’s much bolder claim,
arguing if realist theory can be shown to be valid for the ancient Mediterranean
world then ‘this would enhance confidence in Realist theories as an explanation
across the entire history of international relations’.^57 The aim of this chapter has been
to demonstrate the fallacy of this position. While it is true that Waltz’s model is so
parsimonious that it can be applied to the Hellenistic Empires in the Eastern
Mediterranean as well as to the super powers of the late twentieth century,
paradoxically, its parsimony also renders it inapplicable to many international
political systems that have existed during the course of world history. But the chapter
also demonstrates that IR has a growing number of theoretical tools that acknow-
ledge the need for a less parsimonious approach to political systems and recognize
the need to move beyond the analysis of political systems. It will be a matter of
competition to see which theoretical approach proves more productive: Waltz’s
bare-bones parsimony, or more fully fleshed approaches such as the English School.
Only by drawing on more encompassing views of theory can IR hope to make a
significant contribution to the study of world history. In our view, an understanding
of world history is necessary both to know how we got to where we are, and to
provide ideas beyond Westphalian ones about what kind of international systems
and societies might be possible in the future. World history is what IR should be
trying to explain, and only when it does so will it be able to assume its proper place
in the social sciences.
Notes
1 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979),
p. 66. This is certainly not an outdated position. Alexander Cooley has relatively recently
made reference to ‘the astonishingly similar types of ... behavior evident across many
different types of different polities, cultures and historical eras’. See Logics of Hierarchy:
The Organization of Empires, States, and Nations in Transit, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2005)
2 Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Realist thought and neorealist theory’, Journal of International Affairs
44 (1),1990, pp. 21–37, p. 37.
3 John Gerrard Ruggie, ‘Continuity and transformation in the world polity: towards a neo-
realist synthesis’, World Politics, 35 (2), 1983, pp. 261–85.
4 Waltz, TIP, p. 91.
5 Waltz, TIP, p. 124.
6 Waltz, TIP, p. 96.
7 See, for example, Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: A History of Power from the
Beginning to AD1760(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Philip Bobbitt,
The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History(London :Allen Lane,2002);
and Walter C. Opello and Stephen J. Rostow, The Nation–State and Global Order: A
Historical Introduction to Contemporary Politics(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999). Opello
and Rostow, for example, distinguish between the Ancient Roman State, the Feudal
State, the Medieval State, the Absolutist State, the Liberal State, the Antiliberal State and
the Managerial State.
8 See ch. 1 in Daniel H. Nexon, Religious Conflict and the Struggle for Power in Early Modern
Europe(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
9 Andreas Osiander, Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to
the French Revolution(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 13.302 The paradox of parsimony