Power, Realism and Constructivism

Stefano Guzzini is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and Professor in the Department of Government at Uppsala University, Sweden.

"Guzzini’s book opens up 'thinking space' for a self-reflective, cogent, and fertile vision for how to study the intersection between power and processes of social construction. Together, they suggest an approach to research and theorization of tremendous importance to a field that continues to wrestle with that intersection." - 2014 International Studies Association Theory Section Book Award

• Introduction Part I: Power 1. Structural Power: The Limits of Neorealist Power Analysis 2. The use and misuse of power analysis in international theory 3. From (alleged) unipolarity to the decline of multilateralism? A power-theoretical critique 4. Constructivism and International Relations: an analysis of Niklas Luhmann’s conceptualisation of power 5. Power analysis in Bourdieu Part II: Realism 6. The enduring dilemmas of realism in International Relations 7. The Different Worlds of Realism in International Relations 8. Foreign Policy without diplomacy: the Bush administration at a crossroads 9. Robert Gilpin: A Realist Quest for the Dynamics of Power 10. Strange’s oscillating realism: opposing the ideal - and the apparent Part III: Constructivism 11. A reconstruction of constructivism in International Relations 12. The concept of power: a constructivist analysis 13. 'The Cold War is what we make of it’: when peace research meets constructivism in International Relations 14. Wendt’s constructivism: a relentless quest for synthesis’ with Anna Leander 15. Imposing coherence: the central role of practice in Friedrich Kratochwil’s theorising of politics, international relations and science Epilogue: The significance and roles of teaching theory in International Relations