WALTZIAN NEOREALISM AND THE PRAGMATISM OF POLITICS
WALTZIAN NEOREALISM AND THE PRAGMATISM OF POLITICS

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to review Kenneth Waltz’s main contributions to the development of International Relations (IR) as an academic domain. Taking into account his epistemic view regarding the limits of knowledge, the indeterminism of his theory, the normative grasping of a potential vulnerable progress, the interest for the philosophies of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant and the recurring tendency of involving him into almost any significant discussion relating to the domain of IR, I suggest that an interpretation which situates him closer to ethical interests and to classical realism is more appropriate than the dominating image of a structuralist-materialist theoretician. The article starts with an epistemological sketch, followed by a review of his main theoretical contributions, and of his principal writings.

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