Constructivist and Neoclassical Realisms

Neoclassical realism is one of the major new developments in realist theory in the past two decades. It is an approach that aspires to bridge the gap between classical realism’s focus on foreign policy and neorealism’s systematism and parsimony. Rather than classical realism’s focus on policy prescription, neoclassical realism looks to explain foreign policy, and to do so by using neorealism’s assumptions about the nature of anarchy and the international system as a starting point. But to the extent that it espouses a neopositivist methodology, as most neoclassical realists do, it fails. This chapter argues that constructivism provides the appropriate set of methodologies for neoclassical realism.