Sears (2017) The Neoclassical Realist Research Program: Between Progressive Promise and Degenerative Dangers (original) (raw)
2017, International Politics Reviews
This essay reviews two recent books of the neoclassical realist research program, with the aim of evaluating whether the research program should be considered 'progressive' or 'degenerative' within the International Relations tradition of realism. The essay argues that neoclassical realism's aim of bringing together unit-and structural-level causes and effects into a coherent theoretical framework is a progressive aim, but that its eclectic approach to theoretical explanation, and failure to develop a clear and coherent 'hard core' of premises and assumptions, puts the research program at risk of being degenerative. Ultimately, neoclassical realism is missing a simple and elegant statement of the theory's core logic that is capable of explaining the interaction between the unit-and system-levels-of-analysis in a way that is internally consistent with realism. As a result, the neoclassical realist research program offers both progressive strengths and degenerative weaknesses that this review essay seeks to explain.
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