All academic disciplines periodically appraise their effectiveness, evaluating the progress of previous scholarship and judging which approaches are useful and which are not. Although no field could survive if it did nothing but appraise its progress, occasional appraisals are important and if done well can help advance the field.This book investigates how international relations theorists can better equip themselves to determine the state of scholarly work in their field. It takes as its starting point Imre Lakatos's influential theory of scientific change, and in particular his...

Realism and International Politics brings together the collected essays of Kenneth N. Waltz, one of the most important and influential thinkers of international relations in the second half of the twentieth century. His books Man, the State and War and Theory of International Politics are classics of international relations theory and gave birth to the school of thought known as neo-realism or structural realism, out of which many of the current crop of realist scholars and thinkers has emerged. Waltz frames these seminal pieces in his theoretical development by...