in the wider social realm of political contestation.^27 Furthermore, it is also note-
worthy that Waltz himself was integrated into an increasingly advanced culture of
social science professionalization that entailed both contact with current issues of
policy relevance and also an integral place in the developing structural infrastructure
of the American political economy. Oliver Zunz describes the 1950s as a trans-
formative period in US capitalism that was marked by the highly productive
synergies generated in a singularly American matrix of institutions based upon
business, science, engineering, management and social science sectors that found
their outlet in universities, research foundations, marketing and polling organ-
izations, advertising agencies, government bodies and policy centres.^28 This
conflation of cross-sector collaboration boosted interest in the roles, methods and
purposes of the social sciences. At the same time, it increasingly connected their
professional organizations with a hinterland of political engagement.
In spite of its evident distinction as an intellectual exegesis, Waltz’s work on
structural realism cannot simply be consigned to a bounded sphere of international
relations theory specialists. His theoretical treatise possessed a resonance with the
contemporary processes of America’s accommodation to an inextricable global
position as well as with the deep political insecurities generated by the emergence
of an apparently unstable and dangerous international order. Part of the appeal of
Man, the State and Warwas the way it tapped into these wider misgivings over the
Cold War’s emergent dynamics. This is not to claim that Waltz set out to provide
anything in the way of a prospectus. Quite the reverse. His insights into the remit
of international politics were not intended to address any normative issues; neither
were they designed to offer guidance to foreign policy-makers over how to achieve
a peaceful world order. In this vein, it is noteworthy that some contemporary
reviews of his book reflected a marked reluctance to give an unequivocal welcome
to its conclusions.^29 This was due in no small measure to the tensions and high stakes
of the nuclear age. It should be recalled that the period was marked by an increased
awareness of an international system that was deemed to be oppressive and from
which most participants would have preferred some means of escape. It was also a
period in which the United States’ often fractious ambiguity over its relationship
with the rest of the world could well have threatened to exacerbate the dangers
inherent in a deteriorating situation.
The posited existence of a morally neutral and immutable system of international
politics that Waltz advanced cannot be said to have resolved the manifold issues
attached to America’s liberal perspectives in this field. Nevertheless, it can be
proposed that the study contributed towards defusing the central issue at stake. In
this respect, it may be concluded that Waltz succeeded in turning the Hartzian
position on its head. In contrast to Hartz, Waltz found reasonable grounds for
optimism within an otherwise generally pessimistic context of international power
politics. His claim on behalf of an inherent structural realism offered a way out of
the Hartzian duality of the liberal mind. The third image amounted to a differ-
entiated repository of multiple agencies. It had properties and dynamics of its own,
derived from the interplay of state interests and the actions taken in pursuit of them.
46 Waltz and the process of Cold War adjustment