Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp. 1–85 (hereinafter noted as Handbook);Theory of International
Politics(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979; hereinafter noted as TIP). A system is then
defined as a set of interacting units. At one level, a system consists of a structure, and the
structure is the systems level component that makes it possible to think of the units as
forming a set, as distinct from a mere collection. At another level, the system consists of
interacting units. Handbook, p. 45; TIP, p. 40.
3 Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Structural realism after the Cold War’, International Security, 25 (1),
2000, pp. 5–41.
4 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), p. 1; also see p. xiii. The very title of Wendt’s book is an homage to TIP.
5 Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, p. 51. See below for Wendt’s full definition.
6 Michel Devitt, Realism and Truth, Second edition. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1997), p. 235. See, generally, ch. 13.
7 Kenneth N. Waltz, Handbook, p. 2; TIP, p. 1. For a checklist of these standards, see
Handbook, p. 12; TIP, p. 13. Waltz could plausibly assume that his readers would be
familiar with the deductive-nomologicalor covering lawmodel of scientific explanation
favoured by positivist philosophers. See Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation
(New York: Free Press, 1965).
8 See, for example, Richard K. Ashley, ‘The poverty of neorealism’, in Robert O. Keohane
(ed.), Neorealism and its Critics(New York: Columbia University Press, 1986),
pp. 255–300; Ashley, ‘Living on borderlines: man, poststructuralism, and war’, in James
Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro (eds),International/Intertextual Relations: Posmodern
Readings of World Politics(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 259–321. On
Waltz’s bewilderment, see ‘A response to my critics’, in Keohane, Neorealism and its Critics,
p. 337.
9 See Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, ch. 2; Heikki Patomäki, After International
Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re)Construction of World Politics(London: Routledge,
2002); Colin Wight,Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Milja Kurki,Causation in International
Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), chs
5–6.
10 Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis(New York: Columbia
University Press, 1959), p. 80.
11 Waltz, Man, the State and War, pp. 81, 231, 124, 184–5, 159 (chapter subtitle).
12 Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘International structure, national force, and the balance of world
power’, Journal of International Affairs, 21 (2), 1967, pp. 229 n18, 228.
13 Waltz, ‘International structure, national force, and the balance of world power’, p. 218.
14 The Treaty of Utrecht gave the balance of power formal notice in 1713. ‘Thenceforward,
for two hundred years, the balance of power was generally spoken of as if it were the
constituent principle of international society, and legal writers described it as an
indispensable condition of international law’. Martin Wight, ‘The balance of power’, in
Herbert Butterfield and Wight (eds),Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of
International Politics(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 153, footnote
deleted.
15 Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics(New York:
Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 74.
16 Waltz, ‘International structure, national force, and the balance of world power’, p. 218.
‘Within the structure of world politics, the relations of states will be as variable and
complex as the movements and patterns of bits of glass within a kaleidoscope’ (p. 229).
17 Kenneth N. Waltz,Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), p. 8.
18 Waltz,Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics, p. 17.
19 Waltz,Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics, p. 36.
20 Waltz, TIP, pp. 82–88.
Structure? What structure? 103