REALISM

Beginning with a historical study of international relations which exist between World War I and II, realism emerged as a mainstream approach to international relations due to the imperfections of the idealist approach, particularly the discussion of 'war'. Idealists thinkers approach is weak because it was too disparaging 'power,' and too flattering high human rationality, even believing that the nation state has a large chopping so many common interests for the sake of solving the 'scourge' of war.Debates about the problems of power, rationality, common interests and the war, began to emerge during the new generation of realism (EH Carr, HJ Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, Frederick Schuman, George Kennan, et al.) In the late 1930s, where they emphasize kemaha expansion of 'power' and natural-political struggle between nations.

Actually thought they had started since the days of Thucydides (The Melian Dialogue, 460-406BC), N. Machiavelli (1496-1527), T.Hobbes (1588-1679) and J.J. Rousseau (1712-78), the so-called classic-realism. Classical realism offers the concept of raison d'etat (state excuse), where the state has a pretext to protect his country [As military doctrine of pre-emptative U.S. strike post-Cold War containment]. This arises from the assumption that the international environment is not there a 'superior,' do not exist only a higher power who can manage the entire population of the world.While each country will always try to maximize their own national interests. This anarchic world conditions that make the "Balance of Power 'is so important to be maintained, certainly with a code of ethics of international law (West version) as a consensus. For that, Meinecke said, countries need to strengthen and nourish itself as the first step. But Machavelli also suggested that countries should not sacrifice its own interests in an international meet since the real ethical realism view of universal moral principles that do not exist, although at the domestic level, realist still expect the existence of political ethics which guarantees the internal strength of the state.'Raison d'etat' is what eventually became the precursor of a double standard.

Keep in mind that in this flow, the state is considered as the main actor and the only legitimate in conducting relations between nations, and the role of statesman becomes incredibly important in the recommendation of the realist thinkers. Meanwhile also, a lot of criticism addressed in this approach. Serious questions like, whether this approach will be 'long live' in international relations?and What is classical realism is able to understand and apply to the present? raises as many different answers. By karen, most contemporary international relations theorists see that the center of gravity of the discipline of international relations will soon (currently) switch to neo-liberalism, a trend that approach may be suitable for use in analyzing the state of post-cold war world.

The essence of Realism

In the discourse of classical and modern realism there will be a triangle of understanding 'Triple S', namely 'Statism', 'Survival' and 'Self-help'. Statism is the focus of realism, where there are two 'claim' kestatisan dynamic in relations between nations. First, in theory, in world politics, the state is the main actor and all the other actors do not have a comparable level of significance with the state. Secondly, 'sovereignty' country became independent marker of the political community, where he has the legal authority in the region. Note however that this has imperfections by empirical analysis, in which the perpetrators of international relations is not only the country but also other institutions with the agreement / consensus holders of the status quo (winner of World War II) [see hegemonic stability theory], then also the fact that sovereignty and power is not always in the hands of the people, for the sake of domestic stability. Likewise, normative analysis [Normativitas are still rooted in the understanding liberal-secular/capitalism], where the state itself was not able to overcome the collective global problems such as hunger, poverty and reduced food reserves of the world, environmental degradation, and human rights violations.

Survival, the main purpose of organizing the state is to maintain order in public life, this is the largest national interest that must be realized every political leader. Political leaders are likewise the one who will determine the attitude of his country in his views on international security and cooperation, whether offensive or deffensive. And economic interests, cultural, as well as others merely considered as part of 'low politics'. In order to organize the country's security as well, leaders must enforce code of ethics that are used to judge actions of a person / an institution, which is based on the consequences thereof, is not based on whether or not such action. -Even if there is a universal moral, for the realist politician, this only applies in certain communities. Of course, this view still has a weakness, namely the limitations that are not clear, until which the state must act in order to meet the needs of survival earlier.

Self-help, realist thinkers assume that there will be no single country in the world who can guarantee our existence is structurally both at domestic and international (security dilemma - although not all the conflict, both domestically and internationally due to the security dilemma, will but has historically caused more by the state 'predator'). In international politics it is impossible to have ties of friendship, trust, and honor that logic will reduce the power gain of a state. What's happening is the uncertainty caused by the absence of global government. The concept of co-existence posed by the security dilemma is only obtained through the maintenance of balance of power, which itself is not static balance. And the limited cooperation that will be done only if the state wanted something more from other countries. It is worth realizing that there is also criticism that self-help is not something inevitable for a world without a single authority the power, but rather is a strategy that was chosen to be played by state actors.

Because in fact, there are countries that prefer to join a collective security system or in the form of regional integration. It is suspected the current world political conditions that gave rise to institutions / international organizations such the WTO, the United Nations and its offshoots is a sign of the triumph of liberalism approach, although the realism and Western liberalism still refer to one of interest (preservation of the status quo culture secular liberal capitalism).

Variations Realism

There are difficulties in gaining consensus in the literature that have been there, about the meaning of Realism in a coherent theory [although Keohane (1989) and Gilpin (1986) in his study had found the collective core values in realism, which views the state as an actor, state as rationality , state as a power Maximizer]. Indeed there are differences in the types of Realism have good reason to deliberately classified.

The first classification is based on the time of its appearance, namely classical realism (until the 20th century), modern realism (1939-79), and neo-realism (1979-till now). But this kind of division does not provide a solution to the differences that exist in the minds of one period, for example disagreement thinkers of classical realism about the causes of war. The second classification is based on the themes that carried, RBJ Walker, making permbedaan between 'historical or practical realism' with structural realism (1993). Differentiation resumed after analyzing the writings of Thomas Hobbes, appeared a new type of realism, namely the Liberal realism.

Realism historical / practical emphasize the understanding that the 'principle' is under 'policies', the ability of the main leaders of the country is to accept, implement (adaptation) and changing the configuration of political power in world politics. And realism be state licensed to perform actions in order to meet the needs of survival. The main character of historical realism is Machiavelli (Il Prince, 1532), and EH Carr (The Twenty years crisis 1919-1939, 1939) [Robert Ashley distinguish again between Machiavelli as the realism of practice and EH Carr as realism technique].

Structural realism see realism as a permanent condition of conflict or preparation for conflict. There are two wings here, the first wing digadangi by Thucydides (The Peloponnesian War, 400BC) and HJ Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations, 1948), which stresses that human nature itself that is the structure, while the law, justice, and society is not so considered. The second wing is represented by J.J. Rousseau (The State of War, 1750) and Kenneth Waltz (Theory of International Politics, 1979) who believe that anarchy is a structure that causes fear, jealousy, doubt and insecurity so that the shape and force state behavior [Keohane (Theory of World Politics , 1989: 40) states that the structuralist Waltzian (Rousseau was not included in it) is neo-realism itself.]. Meanwhile, Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651) and Hedley Bull (The Anarchial Society, 1977) offers a liberal realism that refuses pessimism of structuralist and praxis, where the condition anakhi (State of War) can be reduced by adjusting the value of the risk of power among state leaders through construction of ground rules for coexistence of their own.