Neo-liberalism lightened neo-realism’s dark view of international politics. Comment. (2025, 10 Marks)
Neo-realism, set out by Kenneth N. Waltz in Theory of International Politics (1979), drew a bleak picture: anarchy compels self-help and cooperation stays fragile. Neo-liberal institutionalism, chiefly Robert O. Keohane‘s After Hegemony (1984), accepted the same premises and still found room for durable cooperation. The statement is largely true, but the lightening has clear limits.
The dark view
- Structure over choice. Under anarchy every state must secure its own survival, and the security dilemma turns one state’s defence into another’s threat.
- Relative gains. States ask who gains more, not whether both gain, so mutually beneficial bargains still fail.
- John J. Mearsheimer‘s offensive realism (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 2001) darkens it further: great powers maximise power and seek regional hegemony.
How neo-liberalism lightened it
- Same premises, different conclusion. It conceded anarchy, state centrality and rational egoism, then argued that states weigh absolute gains and that cooperation fails mainly through fear of cheating, an information problem institutions can reduce.
- The shadow of the future. Robert Axelrod‘s iterated prisoner’s dilemma (The Evolution of Cooperation, 1984) showed that reciprocity (tit-for-tat) makes cooperation rational among egoists who expect to meet again. Regimes lengthen that shadow and cut transaction costs.
- Complex interdependence. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (Power and Interdependence, 1977) described multiple channels, no fixed hierarchy of issues and little use for force among interdependent states.
- The functionalist lineage. David Mitrany‘s A Working Peace System (1943) and Ernst B. Haas‘s spillover explain the European Union’s growth from technical cooperation.
- Evidence. The long great-power peace after 1945, the WTO and the EU fit this view. The BBNJ Agreement, negotiated among rivals, entered into force on 17 January 2026.
Limits of the lightening
- Joseph M. Grieco (1988) answered that relative-gains fears persist, and Mearsheimer called institutions a “false promise” (1994–95).
- Interdependence is now weaponised (Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, 2019): tariffs, export controls and payment networks become instruments. The WTO Appellate Body has been inoperative since December 2019, and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine shows force retains its utility. India–China trade reached $151.1 billion in 2025–26 without dissolving the border rivalry.
- Constructivists treat the neo-neo synthesis as one rationalist orthodoxy. Alexander Wendt argued that the darkness itself is socially made, and Amitav Acharya traced ASEAN’s cooperation to shared norms rather than contracting institutions.
Conclusion
Neo-liberalism lightened the picture without denying anarchy or self-interest: realism’s own premises, repeated over time, need not yield realism’s pessimism. The lightening is real in economic and regulatory life and thin in security, so the world it describes is grey rather than bright.