One Paradigm Many Orders: Realists’ Conceptualizations of International Order

Abstract

As the relative decline of the United States and the rise of China have become the focus of international relations studies, the concept of "international order" has also been frequently debated in recent years. These debates touch on very different points in the IR discipline and are addressed at different levels. The main reason for this situation is that the concept of order, like any other concept, is portrayed in different ways by students of international politics. Despite being a paradigm that has lost favour in recent years, Realist theories have been at the centre of these debates for a long time. This study will explore how Realists conceive of international order. Considering the fact that Realism contains hundreds of large and small theories and approaches, the study selects theorists and homogeneous theories that clearly conceptualise order. For this reason, Hans Morgenthau, Robert Gilpin and Patrick Porter from Classical Realism and Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer from Structural Realism will be selected and their conceptualisations of order will be discussed.