The Different Worlds of Realism in International Relations
Abstract
The Different Worlds of Realism in International Relations SAGE Publications, Inc.2001DOI: 10.1177/03058298010300010801 StefanoGuzzini Copenhagen Peace Research Institute in Denmark Central European University, Budapest Michael Cox, ed., E.H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2000, 352 + xxi pages, £45 hbk.). Jack Donnelly, Realism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 231 pages, £36.82 hbk., £12.95 pbk.). Whether or not there has been really as much renewal in the discipline of International Relations (IR), as the end of the Cold War seemed to call for, realists, for sure, have found themselves under closer scrutiny again. This came at a time when Realism might have lost its predominant theoretical status and yet still stood at the centre of much IR debate. For Realism provided the core to be criticised, as attested by the earlier poststructuralist critique via the neo-neo `debate' to the recent constructivist turn. The two books under review show, in their own ways, that if Realism is to define this core, it remains very elusive. Jack Donnelly's introductory textbook Realism and International Relations tries sympathetically and critically to re-compose a tradition of Realism as a philosophical orientation. This broad conception is the only one Donnelly is willing