Teaching and learning guide for: Realism in normative political theory

The extent to which contemporary political philosophy has become overly detached from reality, too abstract or idealised to speak meaningfully to or about the real world as it actually is, has become a central concern for many political theorists. The resurgence of interest in realist thought, a tradition of political thinking that goes back at least to Thucydides and includes such notaries as Machiavelli, Hobbes and Hume, yet which has been much maligned in recent years in favour of variants of neo-Kantian or teleological moralism, addresses these issues. Realism attempts to provide a way of thinking about and understanding politics that balances an appreciation of the way the world ‘really is’ with the more traditional normative endeavour of providing philosophical and moral arguments for how the world ‘should be’. Developing such a mode of theorising requires theorists to rethink their conception of politics and the role of agreement and coercion within political life, to shift their focus from concepts such as justice to order and legitimacy, to reconfigure their understanding of the relationship between ethics and politics and to take more seriously the deeply contextual nature of political action and judgement. Realism therefore has a series of merits in comparison to other theories of politics, such as those ‘moralistic’ theories that seek to reduce politics to morality, though many critics worry either that realism cannot sufficiently escape being a form of moralism or in doing so, it denies itself the normative resources or critical distance required to become anything than an apology for the status quo.