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REALISM SOLVES

INDEX

Index....................................................................................................................................................................1

2AC K BLOCK...................................................................................................................................................2

2AC K BLOCK...................................................................................................................................................3

1AR EXT: A2 – REALISM BAD......................................................................................................................4

A2: PAN K..........................................................................................................................................................5

A2: PAN K..........................................................................................................................................................6

A2: PAN K – CAN’T PREDICT CHINA........................................................................................................7

A2: CHINESE EXPANSIONISM/COUNTERBALANCING.......................................................................8

Realism Good 2AC...........................................................................................................................................10

Realism Good 1AR...........................................................................................................................................11

Realism Good 1AR – realism true..................................................................................................................12

Realism Good 1AR – transformative..............................................................................................................13

Realism Good 1AR – transformative..............................................................................................................14

Realism Good 1AR – transformative / pragmatic.........................................................................................15

Realism Good 1AR – strategic uses / perm solvency.....................................................................................16

Realism Good 1AR – solves war / alternative bad........................................................................................17

Realism Good 1AR – solves oppression..........................................................................................................18

Realism Good 1AR – A2: you don’t access realism......................................................................................19

Realism Good 1AR – A2: you foreclose other approaches...........................................................................20

Realism Good 1AR – A2: threat construction...............................................................................................21

Realism Good 1AR – A2: realism inherently violent....................................................................................22

Realism Good 1AR – A2: state bad / realism is statist..................................................................................23

Realism Good 1AR – A2: realism assumes states are rational.....................................................................24

Realism Good – permutation solvency...........................................................................................................25

Realism Good – transition violence................................................................................................................26

Realism Good – no alternative........................................................................................................................27Realism Good – A2: realism is socially constructed......................................................................................28

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REALISM SOLVES

2AC K BLOCK Our affirmative is the most productive ontology in the debate. We effectively mitigate the violence of the

international arena. Realism is the best system to solve war

Mearsheimer 2001 [professor of political science at University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power

Politics, pg. 361]The optimists' claim that security competition and war among the great powers has been burned out of the system is wrong. In fact, all of the major statesaround the globe still care deeply about the balance of power and are destined to compete for power amongthemselves for the foreseeable future. Consequently, realism will offer the most powerful explanations ofinternational politics over the next century , and this will be true even if the debates among academic and policy elites are dominated by non-realist theories

In short, the real world remains a realist world . States still fear each other and seek to gain power at each other'sexpense , because international anarchy-the driving force behind greatpower behavior-did not change with the end of the Cold War, and there are few signs that

such change is likely any time soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman standing above them. For sure, the collapsof the Soviet Union caused a major shift in the global distribution of power. But it did not give rise to a change in the anarchic structure of the system, and without thakind of profound change, there is no reason to expect the great powers to behave much differently in the new century than they did in previous centuries. Indeedconsiderable evidence from the 1990s indicates that power politics has not disappeared from Europe and Northeast Asia, the regions in which there are two or moregreat powers, as well as possible great powers such as Germany and Japan. There is no question, however, that the competition for power over the past decade has been

low-key. Still, there is potential for intense security competion among the great powers that might lead to a major war

Probably the best evidence of that possibility is the fact that the U nited S tates maintains about one hundredthousand troops each in Europe and in Northeast Asia for the explicit purpose of keeping the major states ineach region at peace .

Evolutionary biology proves realism is inevitable – all of their impacts are irrelevant. The alternative can

resolve nothing

Thayer, ‘4 [Bradley, Associate Professor for the Department of Defense & Strategic Studies and a former Fellow @ the Belfer Center for Science and

International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and EthnicConflict]

Evolutionary theory allows realists to advance offensive realist arguments without seeking an ultimate cause in either the anarchic international state system or in theological or metaphysical ideas. Realism based on evolutionary theory reaches the same

conclusions, but the ultimate causal mechanism is different: human evolution in the anarchic and perilous conditions of the late-Pliocene, Pleistocene, and most of the

Holocene epochs. Specially, evolutionary theory explains why humans are egoistic, strive to dominate others, and makein-group/out-group distinctions. These adaptations in turn serve as a foundation for offensive realism . The centra

issue here is what causes states to behave as offensive realists predict. Mearsheimer advances a powerful argument that anarchy is thefundamental cause of such behavior. The fact that there is no world government compels the leaders of states totake steps to ensure their security, such as striving to have a powerful military, aggressing when forced to do so, and forging and maintaining alliances

This is what neorealists call a self-help system: leaders of states are forced to take these steps because nothing else can guarantee their security in the anarchic world ointernational relations. I argue that evolutionary theory also offers a fundamental cause for offensive realist behavior. Evolutionary theory explains why individuals aremotivated to act as offensive realism expects, whether an individual is a captain of industry or a conquistador. My argument is that anarchy is even more important than

most scholars of international relations recognize. The human environment of evolutionary adaptation was anarchic; ourancestors lived in a state of nature in which resources were poor and dangers from other humans and the environmen

were great-so great that it is truly remarkable that a mammal standing three feet high-without claws or strong teeth, not particularly strong or swift-survived and

evolved to become what we consider human. Humans endured because natural selection gave them the right behaviors to lastin those conditions. The environment produced the behaviors examined here: egoism, domination, and the in-group/out-group distinction. These specific traits are sufficient to explain why leaders will behave, in the proper circumstances, as offensive

realists expect them to behave. That is, even if they must hurt other humans or risk injury to themselves, they will strive tomaximize their power, defined as either control over others (for example, through wealth or leadership) or control over ecological circumstances (such a

meeting their own and their family’s or tribe’s need for food, shelter, or other resources). Evolutionary theory explains why people seek control over environmentalcircumstances-humans are egoistic and concerned about food-and why some, particularly males, will seek to dominate others by maintaining a privileged position in a

dominance hierarchy. Clearly, as the leaders of states are human, they too will be influenced by evolutionary theory asthey respond to the actions of other states and as they make their own decisions .

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REALISM SOLVES

2AC K BLOCK

ALSO, YOUR REALISM IMPACT TURNS DON’T APPLY - OUR DIPLOMACY POLITICS CREATESTHE POSSIBILITY OF A NEW POWER POLITICS THAT REPLACES THE VIOLENCE OF ZERO SUMSECURITY WITH WIN-WIN COMPETITION

YONG DENG AND MOORE IN 2004 [Yong Deng is an associate professor of political science at the UnitedStates Naval Academy. Thomas G. Moore is an associate professor of political science at the University ofCincinnati. China Views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics? The Washington Quarterly 27.3(2004) 117-136]-AC

Great-power politics has traditionally been viewed in terms of an unmitigated struggle for power among nation-statesSpecifically, some mainstream international relations theories attribute inevitable great-power conflict to the supreme value that states attach to superior relative power.It is from this perspective that China's economic growth and rise in power are viewed as detrimental by many observers outside China. This line of reasoning overlook

the potential role globalization can play in transforming Chinese foreign policy choice and the corresponding responses toChina's rise by other great powers . In the preceding sections, we have outlined the mainstream views among top Chinese leaders and prominent strategi

researchers within leading Chinese civilian think tanks and academic institutions. To be sure, these views are contested by more traditional security thinking,

particularly among military analysts.31

Yet, the prevailing views and the strategic choices that Beijing has made in recent years raise the question ofwhether China has, in fact, already begun to pursue a different approach to great-power politics, one [End Page 133] thaseeks to overcome the security dilemma fueled by great-power transitions. Skillful management of the Taiwan issue in particular remains

critical to entrenching such an emerging Chinese view. Assuming that is successfully navigated , such an approach emphasizes positive state-to-staterelations at the expense of narrower concerns about undercutting other states in the interest of enhancing China's own relative power

Globalization by no means negates competition, but in today's increasingly globalized world, rules and institutions may moderate competitive politics. Chinese experience with and perceptions of globalization show that globalization has facilitated its status quo orientation despite U.S. hegemony. The sam

process has in turn led to international responses to China's rise that are, overall, characterized by a much more constrained balance-of-power logic than was evident in

traditional great-power politics. The steady rise in China's international and regional status has vindicated its cooperativediplomacy. It is by no means certain that China will not retreat from cooperative security thinking, nor is a new great-power system solely a Chinese choice

China's strategy and the constraints imposed by both the bright and dark sides of globalization on the unilateral exercise ofcoercive power, however, may provide other states the kind of mutual reassurance of each other's intentions and mutually beneficial outcomes that have been largely absent in traditional great-power relations . Countries thus may increasinglyengage in multifaceted, dynamic, win-win competition rather than maintain a single-minded, zero-sum power struggle. As

such, beyond the changes globalization appears to be bringing to China's foreign policy in particular, mainstream Chineseglobal thin; A2king suggests the possible emergence of a new kind of great-power politics where peacefully contestedchange m;ay replace the worst manifestations of hostile competition.

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http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/journals/washington_quarterly/v027/27.3deng.html#top



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REALISM SOLVES

1AR EXT: A2 – REALISM BADEXTEND THE 2AC YONG DENG EVIDENCE - THEIR IMPACTS RELY UPON PAINTING US AS THEWORST EXCESSES OF U.S. HEGEMONY BUT THE COOPERATION SPURRED BY THE PLANFUNDAMENTALLY ALTERS THE COLD-WAR STYLE OF ZERO-SUM REALISM BY PROMOTING AWIN-WIN FORM OF COMPETITION, MORE EVIDENCE:YONG DENG AND MOORE IN 2004 [Yong Deng is an associate professor of political science at the UnitedStates Naval Academy. Thomas G. Moore is an associate professor of political science at the University ofCincinnati. China Views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics? The Washington Quarterly 27.3(2004) 117-136]-AC

As explained by the vice minister of foreign affairs, Wang Yi, the Chinese view of multipolarization differs from the traditional Western interpretation in that China

seeks the " harmonious coexistence of all forces," including developing countries, rather than a confrontational great-power

struggle.6 According to this perspective, multipolarization is antithetical to the self-help, unilateralist approach to security and development associated with the

traditional great-power game. Chinese analysts and political elites clearly recognize that the United States enjoys great advantages in

utilizing globalization across the military, technological, economic, political, and even cultural arenas to consolidate

Washington's predominant position in the world further. These observers also recognize, however, that China's own national rejuvenation requires its

active participation in such a world. The latest mainstream view recognizes that the force of interdependence and globalization is essential to convince the United States

of what Joseph Nye Jr. calls "the paradox of American power," whereby U.S. power is simultaneously strengthened and restrained in theglobalized world. To cope with the wide array of global challenges, cooperative [End Page 122] and legitimate use of power is not only a virtual necessity bu

also strengthens the U.S. global leadership role.7 For example, Shen Jiru, director of strategic studies at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences (CASS), argues that the United States did not retaliate against France, Germany, and Russia for their opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq

because "the advance of economic globalization means that the interests of different countries are interwoven ever more closely

and this has become a powerful material force constraining U.S. hegemonism."8 Elsewhere, Shen posits that diplomatic activism by Japan

Korea, China, Russia, and the United States on the North Korean nuclear issue is best explained by common concern over the devastating impact that a militarizedconflict would have on the highly interdependent Northeast Asian regional economies.9 Along the same lines, CASS scholar Zheng Yu argues: [T]he rising trend ofeconomic globalization has led to an unprecedented level of economic interdependence, thereby effectively containing the possible escalation of regional conflicts to

great-power war. And it has become increasingly difficult to resort to economic coercion as a means to control the economic development of another country. As such

economic globalization has provided opportunities and favorable conditions for overall peace and development in the

international community.10 These observations reflect the emerging Chinese interest in exploring how economic globalization

can actually change the parameters of great-power politics from a traditional zero-sum game to win-win competition . "Unde

conditions of globalization there are no absolute winners or absolute losers," contends Luo Zhaohong, a CASS research fellow. Consequently, "the globalization

age requires increased cooperation between all countries and regions, and we must apply the concept of 'both are winners' or'all are winners' in place of the outdated 'zero-sum game' mentality."11 Such a new concept presumably precludes Cold War-

style antagonism between two great powers or two blocs. The win-win idea has been widely espoused in mainstream Chinese analyses, as it is

considered a hallmark of China's new foreign strategy.

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REALISM SOLVES

A2: PAN K WE SOLVE YOUR IMPACTYONG DENG AND MOORE IN 2004 [Yong Deng is an associate professor of political science at the UnitedStates Naval Academy. Thomas G. Moore is an associate professor of political science at the University ofCincinnati. China Views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics? The Washington Quarterly 27.3(2004) 117-136]-ACTo the extent that globalization can create constraints on U.S. power —power that might otherwise be used to pursue unmitigated

unilateralism— China believes it can pluralize and democratize the hegemonic order and strengthen incentives forWashington to engage Beijing rather than contain it.17 As such, Chinese mainstream observers see globalization andmultipolarization reinforcing each other to create common interests that can replace the China threat theory with the Chinaopportunity theory. Such a world is most conducive to China's quest for economic prosperity and great-power status .

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REALISM SOLVES

A2: PAN K THERE IS NO IMPACT TO YOUR SCENARIO – OUR FORM OF POLITICS SOLVES THE HOSTILITIES BETWEEN THE USAND CHINA.

YONG DENG AND MOORE IN 2004 [Yong Deng is an associate professor of political science at the UnitedStates Naval Academy. Thomas G. Moore is an associate professor of political science at the University of

Cincinnati. China Views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics? The Washington Quarterly 27.3(2004) 117-136]-AC

China's concern about transnational threats such as terrorism, unregulated capital flows, weapons proliferation, epidemics, and

cross-border criminal activities preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For example, the Asian financial crisis dramatically sensitized

China to its own banking and economic vulnerabilities, given the broad similarities (such as high levels of nonperforming loans) to the conditions that contributed toweakness in neighboring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea. Similarly, one of the original missions of the SCO was to combat what member statescall the three evil forces of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. The September 11 attacks and the SARS crisis undoubtedly raised Chinese awareness about what

China's latest White Paper on National Defense specifically refers to as "diversifying and globalizing" security threats .18 Today, China no longer faces anyimminent threat of military invasion by any foreign power. According to Chu Shulong, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies at Tsinghu

University, Taiwan may be the only prominent traditional security issue currently facing China. Consequently, he argues, China should brace itself mainly againstnontraditional threats that would endanger its social stability, economic vitality, and "human security."19 Moreover, official Chinese views now also hold that effectivelycombating these global threats requires cooperative security rather than traditional competitive politics. For China, no nontraditional threat hit home as abruptly as theoutbreak of SARS in the first half of 2003. Originating in southern China in late 2002 (or earlier by some accounts), the epidemic quickly infected more than 8,000

people in 30-plus countries, causing nearly 800 deaths within six [End Page 127] months. By the time the disease was finally brought under control, Beijing's initiamishandling of the crisis, as well as the SARS scourge itself, had taken a serious toll on China's economy and its international reputation. The silver lining of thetragedy, however, was the subsequent call by Chinese analysts for a comprehensive rethinking of national security with more attention to nontraditional threats to socialstability and the rights and well-being of the Chinese people.20 When China's top leadership finally acknowledged the SARS crisis and started to mobilize the "people'war" against the epidemic in April 2003, Chinese commentators emphatically characterized SARS as a global disease posing a common threat to the internationacommunity. They even compared the outbreak to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States: both came from new threats facing humanity and both required

joint international efforts to eradicate them. In response, foreign leaders generally echoed Beijing's characterization of SARS as a global challenge. Whereas the foreignmedia were more critical of Beijing's initial cover-up, world leaders, including Bush, refrained from openly casting blame on Beijing and offered support instead for theembattled Beijing leadership, which had been newly inaugurated in March. Foreign governments and international institutions provided a financial package worth $38million in support of Beijing's fight against SARS. This support led a prominent Chinese international relations scholar, Yan Xuetong, to declare that SARS "not onlytested our country's foreign relations, but to some extent strengthened China's cooperative relationship with the international society. Moreover, SARS has providedChina with experience in international cooperation and a new environment for China's further integration into the international society." 21 Of particular note, h

specifically attributed the enhanced international cooperation to the nontraditional nature of the SARS threat. The devastation of the Asian financial crisis, the

fallout of the terrorist attacks, and the North Korean nuclear standoff further underscored the intertwined nature otraditional and nontraditional security threats. Chinese commentators have learned that nontraditional threats can imperil China's security environmen

and strike China's vital interests in social stability, national unity, and economic development. While calling for greater attention from their government to such threatsChinese analysts also emphasize the inadequacy of an outdated, militarized, self-help approach to security. This [End

Page 128] emerging recognition among the political and intellectual elites of the need for a comprehensivemultilateralist, and cooperative model for security has resulted not only from the practical necessities in dealing with these new threats but also

from China's greater interest in transforming great-power politics in ways that would improve the country's security

environment.22 Indeed, cooperation between China and the United States on transnational threats such as terrorism and North

Korean nuclear proliferation has significantly stabilized the bilateral relationship. Despite pervasive concerns about the offensive nature o

Washington's hegemonic policies, the consensus within the Chinese policy community is that the global war on terrorism has defused, at least in part, U.S. strategic

concerns about China becoming a peer competitor. In this way , the dark side of globalization, namely nontraditional threats, may serve torestrain U.S. power and reduce U.S. hostilities toward China . The six-party talks in Beijing on the North Korean crisis area case in point. They have strengthened Sino-U.S. cooperation and diminished the U.S. unilateral impulse to settle thecrisis through force.

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REALISM SOLVES

A2: PAN K – CAN’T PREDICT CHINAYOU CAN’T DISAVOW OUR ABILITY TO PREDICT – PREDICTIONS ABOUT CHINA ARE KEY

TO POLICYMAKING

GILLEY 2005 [Bruce Gilley, Ph.D. candidate in politics at Princeton University, March 2005, The Whitehead Journal

of Diplomacy and International Relations, http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/shjdir/v6n1/shjdir_v6n1e.pdf ]-ACPrediction of regime changes, then, has been accurate in some cases and inaccurate in others. Like all inferences made in the social sciences, some have been right

and some have been wrong. But in all cases, scholars who choose to predict have been forced to line up what they believe are

the factors relevant to regime change and then inferred a prediction. Many have been wrong. But in doing so,

they have concentrated minds, allowing policy-makers to be open to the potential sources and direction of

change . What sets such efforts apart is not that they predicted correctly, but that they predicted at all. Those who have “eschewed prognostication” have

implicitly endorsed some form of continuation of business as usual, or else have been so overwhelmed by a sea of data to have been hamstrung in making any

inferences at all, descriptive, causal, or predictive. The costs of inaccurate prediction are to be ready for the wrong changes. The

costs of a failure to predict are to be not ready for change at all. At least in the former case, there is a possibility

of accurate prediction and preparedness for the right changes. Even where one is prepared for the wrong outcome—a liberal

democracy rather than a form of electoral authoritarianism as in Putin’s Russia, for example—many of the same policies will be applicable, support for the rule of

law and media, for example. In the latter case, policymakers are doomed from the start. If the arguments offered above are valid, then this shortage of

predictions about China is not only unnecessary, but also dangerous. Of course, the uncertainty of China’s future may indeed be greater than

elsewhere. But this needs to be proven and it is by no means obvious. Large, populous developing countries with clear structural changes may actually be more

easily subject to prediction than smaller ones where elites can manipulate outcomes more easily. More important, it is precisely in confronting the substantiveissues relevant to the future that the scholarly community provides a useful service, even if differences arise about predictions of future stability or foreign policy.Critics of prognostication in Sinology shirk a core duty of scholars.

PREDICTIONS GOOD – PREFER THE SPECIFICITY OF OUR EVIDENCE

GILLEY 2005 [Bruce Gilley, Ph.D. candidate in politics at Princeton University, March 2005, The Whitehead Journal

of Diplomacy and International Relations, http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/shjdir/v6n1/shjdir_v6n1e.pdf ]-ACIn the sections to follow I will critique this appeal to “eschew prognostication” as both logically flawed and

professionally irresponsible. Predictions about China’s political future are not only logically implicit in most of the studies of the

“complicated present” of China, but also a fulfillment of the mission of social scientists . Without them, we find ourselves in a

muddle of thought and a muddle of policy . Second, I will argue that in the case of China, a prediction of an elite-led and fairly rapid transition to an

electoral democracy is the most reasonable forecast. Nonetheless, and to complete the point, this prediction not only leaves open many important questions about

the nature of democratic transition and consolidation in China, but will remain useful even if wrong. By orienting scholars and policy-makers

towards the critical issues of the future , prediction serves to concentrate minds admirably. The gravest dangeris no prediction at all.

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REALISM SOLVES

A2: CHINESE EXPANSIONISM/COUNTERBALANCINGGLOBALIZATION HAS NULLIFIED THE SELF-INTEREST OF CHINESE COUNTER-BALANCINGYONG DENG AND MOORE IN 2004 [Yong Deng is an associate professor of political science at the UnitedStates Naval Academy. Thomas G. Moore is an associate professor of political science at the University ofCincinnati. China Views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics? The Washington Quarterly 27.3(2004) 117-136]-AC

Despite Beijing's rhetoric bemoaning inequities in the international economic system, criticizing international military intervention, and denouncing U.S. unilateralism

Chinese foreign policy in recent years can in fact be best characterized as dynamic "system maintenance."23 At the outset of the new millennium, China'sinternational behavior is increasingly motivated by a desire to maintain the status quo by seeking stable relations with theUnited States as the world's sole current superpower and by promoting China's gradual rise in the international system .24 In

the past decade, China has stepped up its great-power diplomacy. It has significantly improved relations with Russia, Germany, France, and the EU. As an exception political relations with Japan have most recently stalled largely due to disputes over issues concerning Japanese wartime responsibility and a severe lack of confidencein each other's strategic intentions. President Hu Jintao's attendance of a North-South conference sponsored by the 2003 Group of Eight summit in France represented

breakthrough in China's view, which had long perceived the great-power club as Western-dominated and discriminatory. This turnabout underscores China's desire to participate in great-power forums. Individually, China has cultivated strategic partnerships with Russia, Germany, and France, not as a hostile alliance to the UnitedStates but to enhance its own international standing. Within this broader foreign policy framework, the Chinese perception of and policy toward the United States aremore nuanced and strategic than [End Page 129] straightforward or clear-cut. Beijing prefers an enduring, robust relationship with the United States but resents the

many ways in which U.S. hegemony disadvantages China's interests. To the extent that the United States remains the champion of economic liberalism , China

benefits from U.S. leadership. Although Chinese elites often find U.S. hegemony objectionable, China also owes U.S. leadership for thelargely tranquil and open international environment essential for its economic growth during the past three decades or soAt the regional level, Chinese officials in the past couple of years have openly accepted the U.S. role in Asia as long as that presence does not threaten China's interestsGenerally frustrated by the uncertainty and ambiguity of U.S. policy toward their government, Chinese leaders' discontent has focused specifically on what they

perceive to be the United States' distrust of, and zero-sum power politics mindset toward, China. To avoid the prohibitive costs of confrontation and dispel anyimpressions of China's pursuit of old-style power politics, Chinese foreign policy has disavowed both all-out internal military mobilization and vigorous externalmilitary alliances. Neither China's military modernization nor its strategic partnership with Russia amounts to a classical balancing strategy. In the minds of most

Chinese observers, the persistence (and even strengthening) of U.S. primacy after the end of the Cold War has rendered balancinga relatively impractical alternative .25 Coupled with China's strategic self-restraint, the enduring power gap between Chinaand the United States has dissuaded Beijing from trying to engage directly in peer competition with Washington .26 Thus

Chinese analysts have focused their attention on defining a position for their country within a global system of U.S. hegemony. It is in this context that the Chinese

leadership has conceptualized the impact of globalization on China's economic agenda and security environment. By transforming the geo-economiccontext of interstate competition, globalization has created powerful incentives for China's participation in transnational

economic structures and multilateral institutions. Pursuit of a balancing strategy, on the other hand, would require Chinato divert huge sums of scarce resources to a concerted arms buildup, to establish military alliances against Washingtonand to withdraw from (and perhaps even actively undermine) the U.S.-led liberal international economic system—all toChina's disadvantage. Such confrontational policies are likely to prove futile and self-defeating . Rather, a Chinese foreign policy

that accommodates economic globalization and works toward active participation in international institutions is essential to maintaining the robust economic growthcritical both to social stability and the political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, let alone China's rising status and influence in international politics. [End

Page 130] Throughout the series of foreign policy crises encountered in recent years, particularly as manifested in tensions between the United States and China, theleadership in Beijing has consistently concluded that China has no alternative but to continue and even to increase China's participation in the globalizing worldeconomy. Nothing illustrates this commitment better than the timing and circumstances of Beijing's November 1999 agreement with Washington on China's WTOaccession, when President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji delivered politically on a deal whose terms were strenuously opposed by significant bureaucraticinterests at home. Even more striking, China's top leaders had to overcome an embarrassing negotiating rebuff by the Clinton administration during Zhu's April 1999visit to Washington as well as the bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade the following month. The latter, in particular, made it difficult domestically for Jiang andZhu to appear as if they were making concessions to gain U.S. blessing for China's WTO membership. In their public statements, China's leaders routinely acknowledgethat globalization—economic globalization, initially, but now including its more fundamental implications—encourages broad participation in multilateral institution

both at the regional and global levels.27 More specifically, across an increasingly wide range of trade issues, including disputes over steel tariffs, textile quotas, andantidumping duties, WTO mechanisms are proving an important means by which China can defend its interests against U.S. unilateralism. For example, China was one

of the complainants who appealed to the WTO over the controversial imposition of U.S. tariffs on imported steel in March 2002. Indeed, China prepared retaliatorytariffs against U.S. imports, as allowed under WTO rules, in case the Bush administration had refused to lift the duties. Similarly, global and regional institutions have

provided a measure of support as Beijing has resisted pressure from Washington to revalue the renminbi on U.S. terms. In November 2003, for example, a majority othe International Monetary Fund's (IMF) directors found that China's currency was not substantially undervalued, noting in part the sharp decline in China's overalltrade surplus.28 This marked the third time in as many months that the Bush administration failed to secure multilateral pressure on China on this issue. In Septembermembers of ASEAN with additional support from Australia undermined Washington's drive to have a statement issued on Beijing's currency policy at a meeting ofAPEC finance ministers. In October, [End Page 131] Bush himself failed to make the U.S. case successfully at the annual APEC leaders' summit. At the Octobermeeting, Japan went on the record in opposition to Washington's position. For their part, Chinese officials said that Beijing would consider changing its currency policy"if there was consensus in the region."29 Any statement by the IMF or APEC would not have obliged China to take action, and Chinese officials undoubtedly expressedtheir willingness to consider the consensus view knowing what the outcome would be. These rejections of U.S. policy were important symbolically, however, invalidating Beijing's determination to manage currency rates and undertake foreign exchange reform at its own pace. Whereas recent emphasis has been on China's

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REALISM SOLVESgrowing participation in multilateral institutions, similar arguments can be made about how informal mechanisms of interdependence, such as China's burgeoningcommercial ties, have anchored its relations with other great powers. For all of China's oft-cited dependence on the United States as an export market, Washington's

penchant for foreign borrowing contributes to leveling the playing field. By virtually any measure, Chinese holdings of U.S. debt, such as Treasury securities, dwarfU.S. investment in Chinese factories. The result is a historically unusual relationship in which the rising power, developing China, provides both exports (second-

leading supplier) and loans (second-leading foreign holder of government debt) to the superpower, the industrialized United States. In this and other ways, China'seconomic ties with the United States are seen as weakening any impulse the United States may have to view China as arival that needs to be contained. By many accounts, Beijing long ago adopted a conscious strategy of developing constituencies in the United States,

particularly in the business community, who will support engagement policies toward China even if the noneconomic aspects of the bilateral relationship sour. Giventhe de facto constraints on using a balancing strategy to check the exercise of U.S. power, interdependence presents the most viable alternativecurrently available to China to restrain U.S. hegemony. Although deepening economic ties may produce their own tensions in the relationship, a

the ongoing controversies over the proper valuation of the renminbi and the broader sources of the U.S.-Chinese trade imbalance illustrate, they still create mutual

dependencies that most Chinese observers view as limiting hostilities. Certainly, China continues to resort to power politics calculations as alstates do in the still anarchic, albeit highly globalized world — for example, [End Page 132] relying on coercive measures as an essential tool to

prevent Taiwan's de jure independence—and is determined to strengthen its material power. Even in Taiwan, however, China's nicer, gentler image hasmade its threat of force less credible. Military confrontation over a democratic Taiwan would contradict Beijing's attempt to differentiate its own strategic

choice of responsibility and peace from traditional great-power politics, characterized by the prominent role of violence and territorial conquest. In this senseglobalization and interdependence might have undercut the efficacy of China's coercive diplomacy in the short term and has no doubt drastically increased the cost of amilitary solution. Yet, decisionmakers in Beijing still believe that the same process has deepened cross-strait interdependence, increased international support forstability in the region, and overall held the prospect of decisively turning the tide in mainland China's favor.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 2ACA.) Realism is epistemologically true

Frank Harvey, associate professor of Political Science, Dalhouse University, The Future’s Back: NuclearRivalry, Deterrence Theory, And Crisis Stability After The Cold War, 1997, p. 139

Finally, the lack of purity and precision, another consequence of linguistic relativism, does not necessarily imply irrelevance of purpose or approach. The

study of [IR] international relations may not be exact, given limitations noted by Wittgenstein and others, but precision is a practical

research problem, not an insurmountable barrier to progress. In fact, most observers who point to the context-dependent nature of language

are critical not so much of the social sciences but of the incorrect application of scientific techniques to derive overly precise measurement of weakly

developed concepts. Clearly, our understanding of the causes of international conflict—and most notably war—has improved

considerably as a consequence of applying sound scientific methods and valid operationalizations. The alternative approach,

implicit in much of the postmodern literature, is to fully accept the inadequacy of positivism, throw one’s hands up in

failure, given the complexity of the subject, and repudiate the entire enterprise. The most relevant question is whether we would know more or

less about international relations if we pursued that strategy.

B.) Realism is transformative—it can synthesize critical theories to provide effective strategies of change

Alastair J.H. Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p178-9

In Wendt’s constructivism, the argument appears in its most basic version, presenting an analysis of realist assumptions which associate it with a conservative

account of human nature. In Linklater's critical theory it moves a stage further, presenting an analysis of realist theory which locates it within a conservativediscourse of state-centrism. In Ashley's post-structuralism it reaches its highest form, presenting an analysis of realist strategy which locates it not merelywithin a conservative statist order, but, moreover, within an active conspiracy of silence to reproduce it. Finally, in Tickner's feminism, realism becomes allthree simultaneously and more besides, a vital player in a greater, overarching, masculine conspiracy against femininity. Realism thus appears, first, as adoctrine providing the grounds for a relentless pessimism, second, as a theory which provides an active justification for such pessimism, and, third, as astrategy which proactively seeks to enforce this pessimism, before it becomes the vital foundation underlying all such pessimism in international theory. Yet,

an examination of the arguments put forward from each of these perspectives suggests not only that the effort to locate realism within a

conservative, rationalist camp is untenable, but, beyond this, that realism is able to provide reformist strategies which are

superior to those that they can generate themselves. The progressive purpose which motivates the critique of realism in these

perspectives ultimatelygenerates a bias which undermines their own ability to generate effective strategies of transition. In

constructivism, this bias appears in its most limited version, producing strategies so divorced from the obstacles presented by the

current structure of international politics that they threaten to become counter -productive. In critical theory it moves a

stage further, producing strategies so abstract that one is at a loss to determine what they actually imply in terms of the

current structure of international politics. And, in post-modernism, it reaches its highest form, producing an absence of such strategies altogether, until we

reach the point at which we are left with nothing but critique. Against this failure, realism contains the potential to actas the basis of a more constructive approach to [IR] international relations, incorporating many of the strengths of

reflectivism and yet avoiding its weaknesses. It appears, in the final analysis, as an opening within which some synthesis of

rationalism and reflectivism, of conservatism and progressivism, might be built.

C.) Realism is the best framework for understanding the Middle East

Flynt Leverett, senior fellow at New America Foundation, Poly Sci Prof @ MIT, 8-13-2006, “Illusion andReality,” American Prospect, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=11859

Democrats have fallen into a “soft neconservatism” that has dulled the party's voice on foreign policy. Henry Kissinger once

observed that the United States is the only country in which the term “realist” is used as a pejorative. The more progressive elements

of the Democratic coalition have been especially strident in voicing their antipathy to Kissingerian realism. But it was the 20th century's greatest

Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, who defined a fundamentally realist paradigm for U.S. foreign policy in

Europe during the Truman administration that laid the foundations for eventual peaceful victory in the Cold War. America needs

that kind of wisdom about the Middle East today. It is time for Democrats to understand that, when it comes to curbing the threats posed

by problematic states like Iran, encouraging reform in strategically important states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, or ensuring Israel's long-term

future, realism has become the truly progressive position on foreign policy.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR Extend our Harvey and Murray evidence and group the realism debate.

We’ll isolate several reasons realism is good:

1. It’s epistemologically true—any failings in realism are a justification for further research, not for

abandoning the theory altogether. They’ve conceded this argument and have no defense of their epistemological approach, which means you shouldn’t read or evaluate any of their evidence

2. It’s solves war—realism is essential to understanding and preventing conflict. War is inevitable in the

world of the alternative because it fails to come to grips with existing structures of IR.

3. Realism is transformative—none of their links apply because they assume realism is static. Murray

says realism can synthesize critical theories to resolve its weaknesses. At the least, a reformed realism solvesthe internal link to all your implications.

4. All their realism bad arguments are offense for us—rejecting realism makes it worse

Stefano Guzzini, Assistant Professor at Central European Univ., Realism in International Relations andInternational Political Economy, 1998, p. 235

Third, this last chapter has argued that although the evolution of realism has been mainly a disappointment as a general causal theory, we have to deal with it.On the one hand, realist assumptions and insights are used and merged in nearly all frameworks of analysis offered in International Relations or InternationalPolitical Economy. One of the book's purposes was to show realism as a varied and variably rich theory, so heterogeneous that it would be better to refer to it

only in plural terms. On the other hand, to dispose of realism because some of its versions have been proven empirically wrong, ahistorical, or logically

incoherent, does not necessarily touch its role in the shared understandings of observers and practitioners of international affairs.

Realist theories have a persisting power for constructing our understanding of the present. Their assumptions, both as theoretical constructs, and as

particular lessons of the past translated from one generation of decision-makers to another, help mobilizing certain understandings and dispositions to

action. They also provide them with legitimacy. Despite realism's several deaths as a general causal theory, it can still powerfully enframe action. It exists

in the minds, and is hence reflected in the actions, of many practitioners. Whether or not the world realism depicts is out there,

realism is. Realism is not a causal theory that explains International Relations, but, as long as realism continues to be a powerful mind-set, we need to

understand realism to make sense of International Relations. In other words, realism is a still necessary hermeneutical bridge to the understanding of world

politics. Getting rid of realism without having a deep understanding of it, not only risks unwarranted dismissal of some valuable theoretical insights thatI have tried to gather in this book; it would also be futile. Indeed, it might be the best way to tacitly and uncritically reproduce it.

And any risk that realism is good is a warrant to vote for the permutation.

And all of our realism arguments are disads to their framework because only we incorporate a strategic

use of realism through the lens of fiat.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – REALISM TRUE

*The world functions according to realist principles. Nothing will persuade states to abandon power politics

John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 2001

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall01/002025excerpt.htm, accessed 11/14/02The optimists' claim that security competition and war among the great powers has been burned out of the system is wrong. In fact, all of the major

states around the globe still care deeply about the balance of power and are destined to compete for power among themselves for the

foreseeable future. Consequently, realism will offer the most powerful explanations of international politics over the next

century, and this will be true even if the debates among academic and policy elites are dominated by non-realist theories. In

short, the real world remains a realist world. States still fear each other and seek to gain power at each other's expense, because international

anarchy —the driving force behind great-power behavior— did not change with the end of the Cold War, and there are few signs that such

change is likely any time soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman standing above them. For

sure, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a major shift in the global distribution of power. But it did not give rise to a change in the anarchic structure of the system, and without that kind of profound change, there is no reason to expect the great powers to behave much differently in the new century than they did

in previous centuries. Indeed, considerable evidence from the 1990s indicates that power politics has not disappeared from Europe

and Northeast Asia, the regions in which there are two or more great powers, as well as possible great powers such as Germany and Japan. There is noquestion, however, that the competition for power over the past decade has been low-key. Still, there is potential for intense security competition among thegreat powers that might lead to a major war. Probably the best evidence of that possibility is the fact that the United States maintains about one hundredthousand troops each in Europe and in Northeast Asia for the explicit purpose of keeping the major states in each region at peace.

International actors rely on realismStefano Guzzini, Assistant Professor at Central European Univ., Realism in International Relations andInternational Political Economy, 1998, p. 227

The main line of critique can be summarized as follows: realism does not take its central concepts seriously enough. To start with, its critiques claim thatrealism is a sceptical practice which however, stops short of problematizing the inherent theory of the state. It is, second, a practice which informs an

international community. Third, international politics is not power politics because it resembles realist precepts, but because the

international community which holds a realist world - view acts in such a way as to produce power politics: it is a social

construction. Realist expectations might hold, not because they objectively correspond to something out there, but because

agents make them the maxims that guide their actions. Finally, this can have very significant policy effects: even at the end of the Cold War

which might have shattered realist world-views, realist practices could mobilize old codes, such as to belittle the potential historical break of the post-Berlinwall system. Realism stil l underlies major re - conceptualization of the present international system, from Huntington's geocultural reification to`neomedievalism' - and justifies the foreign policies which can be derived from them.

We have to use realism because others assume it to be trueRobert Keohane, Professor of Government at Harvard, “Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Politics,” Neorealism and its Critics, ed. Robert Keohane, 1986, p. 4

The inescapabiity of theory in studying world politics suggests a second reason for exploring what are labeled here political realism and neorealism. Whatever one’s conclusion about the value of contemporary neorealism for the analysis of world politics in our time, it is important to understand realism and neorealism

because of their widespread acceptance in contemporary scholarship and in policy circles. Political realism is deeply embedded in Western thought.

Without understanding it, we can neither understand nor criticize our own tradition of thinking about international relations. Nor

could we hope to change either our thinking or our practice. All people who are interested in having a sustained professional

impact on world affairs should study international relations theory at some time, if only to examine prevailing assumptions

and evaluate the basic propositions that they might otherwise take for granted. The danger that one will become the

prisoner of unstated assumptions - is rendered particularly acute by the value-laden nature of international relations theory. This does

not mean that observers simply see what they want to see: on the contrary, virtually all serious students of world politics

view it as a highly imperfect realm of action in which wrongdoing is common and unimaginable evil is threatened.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – TRANSFORMATIVE

Realism is malleable

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 184-5 Now, if this is directed at realism, as it would seem to be, it seriously misinterprets its approach. First, as we have seen, the `logic of anarchy' that

realism portrays is not a material phenomenon, but the intersubjective emanation of cumulative past choices, albeit choices

rooted in a material account of human nature. If realism maintains that this logic represents a relatively entrenched structure, itnevertheless holds that it is, potentially at least, malleable by judicious statecraft. If it takes the state to be the principal focus

of this logic in contemporary world politics, there is no sense that this is permanent or final - indeed, no sense that it is even

unproblematic. Second, the notion that realism ignores the clash between the individual's simultaneous identification as both man and citizen mistakes the

entire thrust of its work. If realism is concerned with the duties owed to the state, it is only for the conflict that this produces with the cosmopolitan moralobligations which fall upon men. Third, if realism insisted that change must be compatible with the national interests of the state, it also recognised that,

particularly in an age of interdependence and nuclear weapons, a stable international order could ultimately only be built on some broader sense of communitythan that which existed in states alone, and was thus centrally concerned with the extension of community in international relations.

Realism is transformative and synthesizes critical theories

Alastair J.H. Murray, Politics at the University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 193-196For realism, man remains, in the final analysis, limited by himself. As such, it emphasises caution, and focuses not merely upon the achievement of

long-term objectives, but also upon the resolution of more immediate difficulties. Given that, in the absence of a resolution of such difficulties,

longer-term objectives are liable to be unachievable, realism would seem to offer a more effective strategy of transition than reflectivism

itself. Whereas, in constructivism, such strategies are divorced from an awareness of the immediate problems which obstruct such efforts, and, in criticaltheoretical perspectives, they are divorced from the current realities of international politics altogether, realism's emphasis on first addressing the immediateobstacles to development ensures that it at least generates strategies which offer us a tangible path to follow. If these strategies perhaps lack the visionary

appeal of reflectivist proposals, emphasising simply the necessity of a restrained, moderate diplomacy in order to ameliorate

conflicts between states, to foster a degree of mutual understanding in international relations, and, ultimately, to develop a sense of community which

might underlie a more comprehensive international society, they at least seek to take advantage of the possibilities of reform in the current international systemwithout jeopardising the possibilities of order. Realism's gradualist reformism, the careful tending of what it regards as an essentially organic process,ultimately suggests the basis for a more sustainable strategy for reform than reflectivist perspectives, however dramatic, can offer. For the realist, then, if rationalist theories prove so conservative as to make their adoption problematic, critical theories prove so progressive as to make their adoption unattractive. If the former can justifiably be criticised for seeking to make a far from ideal order work more efficiently, thus perpetuating its existence and legitimating its

errors, reflectivist theory can equally be criticised for searching for a tomorrow which may never exist , thereby endangering

the possibility of establishing any form of stable order in the here and now. Realism's distinctive contribution thus lies in its attempt to drive a

path between the two, a path which, in the process, suggests the basis on which some form of synthesis between rationalism and reflectivism might beachieved. Oriented in its genesis towards addressing the shortcomings in an idealist transformatory project, it is centrally motivated by concern to reconcilevision with practicality, to relate utopia and reality. Unifying technical and a practical stance, it combines aspects of the positivist methodology employed by

problem-solving theory with the interpretative stance adopted by critical theory, avoiding the monism of perspective which leads to theself - destructive conflict between the two. Ultimately, it can simultaneously acknowledge the possibility of change in the structure of

the international system and the need to probe the limits of the possible , and yet also question the proximity of any international transformation,

emphasise the persistence of problems after such a transformation, and serve as a reminder of the need to grasp whatever semblance of order can be obtained inthe mean time. Indeed, it is possible to say that realism is uniquely suited to serve as such an orientation. Simultaneously to critique contemporary resolutionsof the problem of political authority as unsatisfactory and yet to support them as an attainable measure of order in an unstable world involves one in a

contradiction which is difficult to accept. Yet, because it grasps the essential ambiguity of the political, and adopts imperfectionism as

its dominant motif, realism can relate these two tasks in a way which allows neither to predominate, achieving, if not a reconciliation, then at least a viablesynthesis. Perhaps the most famous realist refrain is that all politics are power politics. It is the all that is important here. Realism lays claim to a relevanceacross systems, and because it relies on a conception of human nature, rather than a historically specific structure of world politics, it can make good on thisclaim. If its observations about human nature are even remotely accurate, the problems that it addresses will transcend contingent formulations of the problemof political order. Even in a genuine cosmopolis, conflict might become technical, but it would not be eliminated altogether.67 The primary manifestations of

power might become more economic or institutional rather than (para)military but, where disagreements occur and power exists, the employment of the one toensure the satisfactory resolution of the other is inevitable short of a wholesale transformation of human behaviour. Power is ultimately of the essence of

politics; it is not something which can be banished, only tamed and restrained. As a result, realism achieves a universal relevance to the problem of

political action which allows it to relate the reformist zeal of critical theory , without which advance would be impossible, with the problem-solver's sensible caution that, before reform is attempted , whatever measure of security is possible under contemporary conditions

must first be ensured.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – TRANSFORMATIVE

Realism can synthesize critical theories to be transformative

Alastair J.H. Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p177-8

Beyond the issue of the role that realism plays in normative international debates, the issue of the way in which it fits into post-international debates presents

itself. International relations theory is currently suspended between the twin poles of a body of orthodox ̀ rationalist', or `problem - solving', theory, and a growing body of `reflectivist', or ̀ critical', theory.' Underlying these are two contending philosophies, a

conservatism which privileges the extant to the exclusion of the possible, and a progressivism which privileges the possible to the exclusion of the extant. AsRobert Cox, perhaps the first to draw attention to this division, points out, the former: takes the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organised, as the given framework for actions. The general aim of problem-solving is to make theserelationships and institutions work smoothly by dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble. Critical theory, by way of contrast, `is directed toward anappraisal of the very framework for action, or problematic, which problem solving accepts as its parameters'. Consequently, each takes a very different pathtowards theorising international politics. Problem-solving theory adopts a positivist methodology in order to gain the necessary clarity to generate scientificlaws of politics. Yet, if the distinction between subject and object which this methodology establishes permits the detailed empirical analysis of specific

problems, it also rigidifies the social realm into a material objectivity such that the possibility of change is eliminated. Critical theory, on the other hand,

adopts an interpretative methodology in order to emphasise the social construction of international politics and, thus, the

potential for its reform. Yet, if the interaction of subject and object which this methodology emphasises allows it the flexibility necessary to deal with historicalchange, it also prevents it from acquiring the clarity necessary for the explanation of international politics such that the possibility of articulating any generallaws of politics is eliminated.' Each thus has strengths and weaknesses. Critical theory can accommodate historical change, whilst problem-solving theory is

ahistorical; yet problem - solving theory is capable of a precision that critical theory can never hope to attain. Ultimately, Cox

concludes, ̀ [t]he strength of the one is the weakness of the other'. Problem-solving theory is suited to stable periods, but critical theory must take over in periods of historical change.' Cox's articulation of the division between the two approaches is perhaps definitive, but his conclusion is much more problematic.Whilst he is undoubtedly correct to argue that each has a contribution to make, this does not suggest, as he presumes, a strategy of alternation according to thestability of the historical process. It is precisely this question of stability which is ultimately at stake in the debates between rationalist and reflectivist

perspectives, and the danger is always that the one will predominate to the exclusion of the other in periods ill-suited to it, undermining whatever possibilitiesof order or reform actually exist. Consequently, a strategy of alternation is inevitably going to prove inadequate to the challenges posed by world politics;

what is required is some form of synthesis. Realism, I will argue, is capable of providing a foundation on which such a

perspective might be built. It is, of course, conventionally treated as a part of the rationalist orthodoxy - and hence criticised for reproducing an

iniquitous status quo by seeking to mitigate its problems. Yet, as should already be apparent from the understanding of realism put forward in earlier chapters,

this account is clearly problematic. If realism emphasises the need to grasp what semblance of order can be obtained under the

current structure of the system, it nevertheless acknowledges the need to investigate the possibilities of reforming this

structure. If it makes use of aspects of the positivist methodology employed by rationalism, it is nevertheless convinced

of the importance of the more interpretative approach adopted by reflectivism. Realism ultimately avoids the monism of

perspective which leads to the self - destructive conflict between the two, maintaining a position which provides an

opening for a path between the conservatism that privileges the extant to the exclusion of the possible and the progressivism which

privileges the possible to the exclusion of the extant.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – TRANSFORMATIVE / PRAGMATIC

Realism bridges the gap between the critique and the need for political action

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p.202-203

If the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate seems at times to be avoiding practical questions by going around in circles, the critical literature seems at

times to be utterly unsure whether there are such things as practical questions. Yet, unless international relations theory is to become a purely intellectual exercise devoid of practical relation, such concerns must be juxtaposed to a consideration of the problems posed by the current framing of

international politics. Ultimately, the only result of the post - positivist movement 's self-styled 'alternative' status is the generation of an

unproductive opposition between a seemingly mutually exclusive rationalism and reflectivism. Realism would seem to hold out the

possibility of a more constructive path for international relations theory. The fact that it is engaged in a normative enquiry is not to say that it

abandons a concern for the practical realities of international politics, only that it is concerned to bridge the gap between cosmopolitan moral and power political logics. Its approach ultimately provides an overarching framework which can draw on many different strands of thought, the 'spokes' which can be

said to be attached to its central hub, to enable it to relate empirical concerns to a normative agenda. It can incorporate the lessons that

geopolitics yields, the insights that neorealism might achieve, and all the other information that the approaches which effectively serve to

articulate the specifics of its orientation generate, and, once incorporated within its theoretical framework, relate them both to one

another and to the requirements of the ideal, in order to support an analysis of the conditions which characterise contemporary international politics and

help it to achieve a viable political ethic. Against critical theories which are incomprehensible to any but their authors and their acolytes and which

prove incapable of relating their categories to the issues which provide the substance of international affairs, and against rationalist, and especially neorealist,

perspectives which prove unconcerned for matters of values and which simply ignore the relevance of ethical questions to political action, realism is

capable of formulating a position which brings ethics and politics into a viable relationship. It would ultimately seem tooffer us a course which navigates between the Scylla of defending our values so badly that we end up threatening their very

existence, and the Charybdis of defending them so efficiently that we become everything that they militate against. Under its

auspices, we can perhaps succeed in reconciling our ideals with our pragmatism.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – STRATEGIC USES / PERM SOLVENCY

Strategic uses of realism are key to prevent dangerous realism. The perm which speaks realism whilecritiquing it is the best way to solve all their impacts.Stefano Guzzini, Assistant Professor at Central European Univ., Realism in International Relations andInternational Political Economy, 1998, p. 212

Therefore, in a third step, this chapter also claims that it is impossible just to heap realism onto the dustbin of history and start anew. This

is a non-option. Although realism as a strictly causal theory has been a disappointment, various realist assumptions are well alive in the minds of

many practitioners and observers of international affairs. Although it does not correspond to a theory which helps us to understand a real world with

objective laws, it is a world-view which suggests thoughts about it, and which permeates our daily language for making sense of it. Realism has

been a rich, albeit very contestable, reservoir of lessons of the past, of metaphors and historical analogies, which, in the hands of its most gifted representatives,have been proposed, at times imposed, and reproduced as guides to a common understanding of international affairs. Realism is alive in the collective memoryand self-understanding of our (i.e. Western) foreign policy elite and public, whether educated or not. Hence, we cannot but deal with it. For this reason,

forgetting realism is also questionable. Of course, academic observers should not bow to the whims of daily politics. But staying at distance, or being

critical, does not mean that they should lose the capacity to understand the languages of those who make significant

decisions, not only in government, but also in firms, NGOs, and other institutions. To the contrary, this understanding, as increasingly varied as it may be,

is a prerequisite for their very profession. More particularly, it is a prerequisite for opposing the more irresponsible claims made in the

name, although not always necessarily in the spirit, of realism.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – SOLVES WAR / ALTERNATIVE BAD

Only realism can address violence. Critical approaches promise abstractions but don’t provide a concrete

solution.

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 185-186Linklater seems to go some way towards acknowledging this in Beyond Realism and Marxism, recognising Morgenthau's commitment, in contrast to

neorealism, to widening community beyond the nation-state. What he now suggests, however, is that `[w]hat realism offers is an account of historicalcircumstances which human subjects have yet to bring under their collective control. What it does not possess is an account of the modes of politicalintervention which would enable human beings to take control of their international history."' The issue becomes less a matter of what realism does, than what

it does not do, less the way it constructs the problem, than its failure to solve it. Yet Linklater concedes that `it is not at all clear that any

strand of social and political thought provides a compelling account of "strategies of transition"'. Indeed, where he has attempted to

engage with this issue himself, he has proved manifestly unable to provide such an account. Although he has put forward some ideas of what is

needed - a fundamental reorganisation of political relations, establishing a global legal order to replace the sovereign state, and a fundamental

rearrangement of economic relations, establishing an order in which all individuals have the means as well as the formal rights of freedom - his only

suggestion as to how such objectives should be achieved seems to be that `[s]ocial development entails individuals placing

themselves at odds with their societies as they begin to question conventional means of characterising outsiders and to criticise customary

prohibitions upon individual relations with them'. His critical theoretical `transitional strategies' amount to little more than the suggestion

that individuals must demand recognition for themselves as men as well as citizens, must demand the right to enter into complex interstate relations

themselves, and must act in these relations as beings with fundamental obligations to all other members of the species ." More recently,

he has proposed a vision in which `subnational and transnational citizenship are strengthened and in which mediating between the different loyalties and

identities present within modem societies is one central purpose of the post-Westphalian state'. Such an objective is to be reached by a discourse ethics alongthe lines of that proposed by Habermas. Yet such an ethics amounts to little more than the suggestion `that human beings need to

be reflective about the ways in which they include and exclude others from dialogue', scarcely going beyond Linklater's earlier

emphasis on individuals acting as men as well as citizens. Realism does at least propose tangible objectives which, whilst perhaps lacking the

visionary appeal of Linklater's proposals, ultimately offer us a path to follow, and it does at least suggest a strategy of realisation, emphasising the

necessity of a restrained, moderate diplomacy, which, if less daring than Linklater might wish, provides us with some guidance. It is this inability to

articulate practical strategies which suggests the central difficulty with such critical theoretical approaches. The progressive

urge moves a stage further here, leading them to abandon almost entirely the problem of establishing some form of stable international order at this level in

favour of a continuing revolution in search of a genuine cosmopolis. It generates such an emphasis on the pursuit of distant, ultimate

objectives that they prove incapable of furnishing us with anything but the most vague and elusive of strategies, such an

emphasis on moving towards a post-Westphalian, boundary - less world that they are incapable of telling us anything about

the problems facing us today. If, for theorists such as Linklater, such a difficulty does not constitute a failure for critical theory within its own terms of

reference, this position cannot be accepted uncritically. Without an ability to address contemporary problems, it is unable to provide strategies to overcomeeven the immediate obstacles in the way of its objective of a genuinely cosmopolitan society. And, without a guarantee that such a cosmopolitan society is

even feasible, such a critical theoretical perspective simply offers us the perpetual redefinition of old problems in a newcontext and the persistent creation of new problems to replace old ones, without even the luxury of attempting to address them.

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R EALISM GOOD 1AR – SOLVES OPPRESSION

Problem-solving theory is necessary for solving oppression

D.S.L. Jarvis, Lecturer in IR at the University of Sydney, International Relations and the Challenges ofPostmodernism, 2000, p. 129

On all these questions one must answer no. This is not to say, of course, that all theory should be judged by its technical rationality and problem-solving

capacity as Ashley forcefully argues. But to suppose that problem-solving technical theory is not necessary—or is in some way bad—is acontemptuous position that abrogates any hope of solving some of the nightmarish realities that millions confront daily.

As Holsti argues, we need ask of these theorists and their theories the ultimate question, “So what?” To what purpose do they

deconstruct, problematize, destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist approaches? Does this get us any

further, make the world better, or enhance the human condition? In what sense can this “debate toward [a] bottomless pit of

epistemology and metaphysics” be judged pertinent, relevant, helpful, or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be

scholastically excited by abstract and recondite debate: Contrary to Ashley’s assertions, then, a poststructural approach fails to

empower the marginalized and, in fact, abandons them. Rather than analyze the political economy of power, wealth, oppression,

production, or international relations and render an intelligible understanding of these processes, Ashley succeeds in ostracizing those

he portends to represent by delivering an obscure and highly convoluted discourse. If Ashley wishes to chastise structural realism for its abstractness

and detachment, he must be prepared also to face similar criticism, especially when he so adamantly intends his work to address the real life plight of thosewho struggle at marginal places.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 1AR – A2: YOU DON’T ACCESS REALISM

We access our realism turns because the 1AC is predicated on explaining IR in terms of states pursuing

self-interest. The fact that it isn’t about pure power politics only proves that realism can be

transformative.

Realism can explain interstate cooperation and isn’t predicated on perpetual violenceAlastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 180

Yet, with this point, Wendt's discussion of realism has become detached from its reality. Realism does not hold to a Hobbesian image of man ̀ possessed by

an inherent lust for power or glory ...'. Its account of human nature juxtaposes co - operative and conflictual elements. Furthermore, even in

terms of the conflictual elements, it does not hold all individuals to be inherently predatory power maximisers, but regards

them to be sometimes predatory, power maintainer/maximisers. The difference is crucial. The former assumes persistently

predatory actors, destined to perpetual conflict. The latter assumes actors animated primarily by a will to survive but liable, at times, to slip into aself-contained lust for power. Such actors will merely tend to conflict, perpetrating acts of predation which are occasional, in that they are non-pervasive, and

yet inevitable, in that, given multiple actors and an infinite time span, such acts are an unavoidable element of the human condition. Ultimately, realism

allows us to take account of the fact that actors are capable of both co - operation and self-regard, and are capable of defining this

self-regard in both status quo and revisionist ways. As such, Wendt's attempt to attribute it `a relentless pessimism' proves untenable.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 1AR – A2: YOU FORECLOSE OTHER APPROACHES

Realism doesn’t foreclose critique—that’s our Murray evidence about it being transformative.

And their alternative forecloses realism just as much. If we should be open to multiple perspectives on

IR, that’s a warrant for the permutation.

(Read more ev that realism is transformative)

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 1AR – A2: THREAT CONSTRUCTION

Realism doesn’t require worst case forecasting or “threat construction.” The critique sacrifices stability

on the alter of uncertain transformation.

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 182This is not merely to indulge in yet another interminable discourse on the `lessons of Munich', rejecting all strategies of assurance for more familiar policies of

deterrence. A realist perspective does not, as Wendt seems to assume, require worst - case forecasting, nor does it adopt an ethic of `sauvequi peut'. But it is to suggest that, when realism emphasises the need for a cautious, gradual approach to attempts to transform

the nature of the system, it has a point. In Wendt's analysis, change ultimately becomes as privileged as the status quo in rationalist perspectives. If

he does not hold that history is progressive, he does hold that change is. If he is not idealistic about the possibilities of effecting a transformation of the system,he is with regard to the way in which it might be accomplished. Yet, even if we acknowledge that a transformation in the structure of international politics

would be beneficial, this does not imply the acceptance of a desperate gamble to accomplish it. And, at the end of the day, if we can accept that

the current structure of international politics contains many injustices, there is no guarantee that its transformation

would remove such iniquities anyway. The only thing that the quest to overthrow the status quo does guarantee to do is to undermine those fragments

of order that we currently possess. Ultimately, constructivism can be seen to rest upon a value judgment which sacrifices the safe option of remaining

within the current situation for the attempt to explore its possibilities. It can be seen to rest on a progressive philosophy which privileges

the possible over the extant and sacrifices stability on the altar of transformation. This is not to attempt to level a charge of

utopianism, as Wendt complains that Mearsheimer does, by emphasising constructivism's normative rather than explanatory commitment. As Wendt responds:`Constructivists have a normative interest in promoting social change, but they pursue this by trying to explain how seemingly natural social structures, likeself-help or the Cold War, are effects of practice ... If critical theorists fail, this will be because they do not explain how the world works, not because of their values."' All theories ultimately have normative commitments; the fact of their existence does not allow us to question the validity of constructivism's

explanatory power. What does, however, is the impact of these normative assumptions on its account of international politics. Just as reflectivists

argue that the implicit conservatism of neorealism generates its ahistoricism, the implicit progressivism of

constructivism generates its unwillingness to acknowledge even the possibility of elements of permanency. And, just as

reflectivists argue that the implicit conservatism of neorealism generates strategies which threaten to become self-perpetuating, so the implicit progressivism

of constructivism generates strategies which threaten to become counter - productive.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 1AR – A2: REALISM INHERENTLY VIOLENT

Realism doesn’t rely on a predatory human nature, it can explain interstate cooperation

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 180Yet, with this point, Wendt's discussion of realism has become detached from its reality. Realism does not hold to a Hobbesian image of man

`possessed by an inherent lust for power or glory ...'. Its account of human nature juxtaposes co - operative and

conflictual elements. Furthermore, even in terms of the conflictual elements, it does not hold all individuals to be inherently predatorypower maximisers, but regards them to be sometimes predatory, power maintainer/maximisers. The difference is

crucial. The former assumes persistently predatory actors, destined to perpetual conflict. The latter assumes actors animated primarily by a will to survive

but liable, at times, to slip into a self-contained lust for power. Such actors will merely tend to conflict, perpetrating acts of predation which are occasional, inthat they are non-pervasive, and yet inevitable, in that, given multiple actors and an infinite time span, such acts are an unavoidable element of the human

condition. Ultimately, realism allows us to take account of the fact that actors are capable of both co - operation and

self - regard , and are capable of defining this self-regard in both status quo and revisionist ways. As such, Wendt's attempt to attribute it `a relentless

pessimism' proves untenable.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 1AR – A2: STATE BAD / REALISM IS STATIST

Realism doesn’t prop up the state – its discusses the state strategically

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 187-8Ashley is left is that it actively seeks to avoid doing so. He suggests that, because the balance of power scheme involves what is

effectively an acceptance of the traditional `rules of the game', it actively reproduces, by its very success, the traditional statist

terms of the game, such that realism becomes complicit in a conservative perpetuation of an iniquitous statist order by its endorsement of it. Ashleywould, of course, like to treat this as design, and end the matter there. Yet this is to equate implication with purpose. If the balance of power

scheme implies the reproduction of the state, this does not prove its dedication to this objective. Realism advocated a scheme for an interstate

balance of power not because of any concern to reproduce the state, but because its analysis of contemporary empirical

conditions indicated that such a strategy offered the best available fulfilment of moral principles: if states represent the

principal receptacles of power in the modern environment, the best level of justice can be achieved by establishing some

equilibrium of power between states. Consequently, its position not only moves beyond the state, de-privileges it, and

demands its compliance in principles which privilege the individual, but, furthermore, this position is open to the

possibility of progress beyond it towards some more universal order. If the state must be employed as the principal agent of

international justice and international change, it is only because of its current centrality to international politics.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD 1AR – A2: REALISM ASSUMES STATES ARE RATIONAL

Realism does not presuppose rationality of states

Kenneth Waltz, bad-ass, Neorealism and its Critics, ed. by Robert Keohane, 1986, p. 117-118Most of the confusions in balance-of-power theory and criticisms of it, derive from misunderstanding these three points. A balance-of-power theory, properly

stated, begins with assumptions about states: They are unitary actors who, at a minimum, seek their own preservation and, at a maximum,

drive for universal domination. States, or those who act for them, try in more or less sensible ways to use the means available in order to achieve the ends inview. Those means fall into two categories: internal efforts (moves to increase economic capability, to increase military strength, to develop clever strategies)and external efforts (moves to strengthen and enlarge one’s own alliance or to weaken and shrink an opposing one). The external game of alignment andrealignment requires three or more players, and it is usually said that balance-of-power systems require at least that number. The statement is false, for in atwo-power system the politics of balance continue, but the way to compensate for an incipient external disequilibrium is primarily by intensifying one’sinternal efforts. To the assumptions of the theory we then add the condition for its operation: that two or more states coexist in a se1f-help system, one with nosuperior agent to come to the aid of states that may be weakening or to deny to any of them the use of whatever instruments they think will serve their

purposes. The theory, then, is built up from the assumed motivations of states and the actions that correspond to them. It describes the constraints that arisefrom the system that those actions produce, and it indicates the expected outcome: namely, the formation of balances of power. Balance-of-power theory is

microtheory precisely in the economist’s sense. The system, like a market in economics, is made by the actions and interactions of its

units, and the theory is based on assumptions about their behavior. A self-help system is one in which those who do not help themselves, or who do

so less effectively than others, will fail to prosper, will lay themselves open to dangers, will suffer. Fear of such unwanted consequences

stimulates states to behave in ways that tend toward the creation of balances of power. Notice that the theory requires no

assumptions of rationality or of constancy of will on the part of all of the actors. The theory says simply that if some do relatively well,

others will emulate them or fall by the wayside. Obviously, the system won’t work if all states lose interest in preserving

themselves. It will, however, continue to work if some states do, while others do not, choose to lose their political identities, say, throughamalgamation. Nor need it be assumed that all of the competing states are striving relentlessly to increase their power. The possibility that force may

be used by some states to weaken or destroy others does, however, make it difficult for them to break out of the competitive system.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD – PERMUTATION SOLVENCY

Critical theory is not exclusive with problem-solving approaches

Robert Cox, Globalization, Multilateralism, and Democracy, 1992

www.brown.edu/Departments/ACUNS/NEW_publications/Cox/Cox.body.shtml, accessed 3/15/02Two kinds of theory correspond to the two kinds of time. There is problem-solving theory which takes the present as given

and reasons about how to deal with particular problems within the existing order of things. Then there is what, for wantof a better term, I shall call critical theory. Critical theory stands back from the existing order of things to ask how that

order came into being, how it may be changing, and how that change may be influenced or channelled. Where problem-solving theory focuses synchronically upon the immediate and reasons in terms of fixed relationships, critical theory works in amore historical and diachronic dimension. Its aim is the understanding of structural change. There are also,correspondingly, two main functions of international organization: one, to respond effectively to the pressing problems of the present; the other, to be concerned with longer-term questions of global structural change and with how internationalorganization--or we can use the broader term "multilateralism"--can help shape that change in a consensually desirabledirection. In an ideal perspective, both functions should be united in the top direction of international institutions.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD – TRANSITION VIOLENCE

Wishing doesn’t make it so. Violence results from changes to the system inspired by criticism

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 181-182This highlights the central difficulty with Wendt's constructivism. It is not any form of unfounded idealism about the possibility of effecting a change in

international politics. Wendt accepts that the intersubjective character of international institutions such as self-help render them

relatively hard social facts . Rather , what is problematic is his faith that such change, if it could be achieved, implies progress. Wendt'sentire approach is governed by the belief that the problematic elements of international politics can be transcended, that the competitive identities which create

these elements can be reconditioned, and that the predatory policies which underlie these identities can be eliminated. Everything, in his account, is up

for grabs: there is no core of recalcitrance to human conduct which cannot be reformed, unlearnt, disposed of. This generates a

stance that so privileges the possibility of a systemic transformation that it simply puts aside the difficulties which it

recognises to be inherent in its achievement. Thus, even though Wendt acknowledges that the intersubjective basis of the self-help system makes

its reform difficult, this does not dissuade him. He simply demands that states adopt a strategy of `altercasting', a strategy which `tries to induce alter to take on

a new identity (and thereby enlist alter in ego's effort to change itself) by treating alter as if it already had that identity'. Wendt's position effectively

culminates in a demand that the state undertake nothing less than a giant leap of faith. The fact that its opponent might not

take its overtures seriously, might not be interested in reformulating its own construction of the world, or might simply see such

an opening as a weakness to be exploited, are completely discounted. The prospect of achieving a systemic transformation simply

outweighs any adverse consequences which might arise from the effort to achieve it. Wendt ultimately appears, in the final analysis, to have overdosed on`Gorbimania'.

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD – NO ALTERNATIVE

Criticism without an alternative theory ensures violence. Realism keeps the balance of power stable.

Alastair Murray, Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, 1997, p. 188-189Ashley's critique thus boils down to a judgement as to the potentialities for change in the current situation and how best to exploit them. It amounts to thedifference between a progressive philosophy which regards systemic transformation as imminent, and one which remains more sceptical. In `Political realismand human interests', for instance, realism's practical strategy ultimately appears illegitimate to Ashley only because his own agenda is emancipatory in nature.

His disagreement with realism depends on a highly contestable claim - based on Herz's argument that, with the development of global threats, the conditionswhich might produce some universal consensus have arisen - that its `impossibility theorem' is empirically problematic, that a universal consensus isachievable, and that its practical strategy is obstructing its realisation. In much the same way, in ‘The poverty of neorealism’, realism's practical strategy is

illegitimate only because Ashley's agenda is inclusionary. His central disagreement with realism arises out of his belief that its strategy

reproduces a world order organised around sovereign states, preventing exploration of the indeterminate number of - potentially

less exclusionary - alternative world orders. Realists, however, would be unlikely to be troubled by such charges. Ashley needs to do rather more than

merely assert that the development of global threats will produce some universal consensus, or that any number of less exclusionary world orders are possible,

to convince them. A universal threat does not imply a universal consensus, merely the existence of a universal threat faced by particularistic actors. And the

assertion that indeterminate numbers of potentially less exclusionary orders exist carries little weight unless we can

specify exactly what these alternatives are and just how they might be achieved. As such, realists would seem to be

justified in regarding such potentialities as currently unrealisable ideals and in seeking a more proximate good in the

fostering of mutual understanding and, in particular, of a stable balance of power. Despite the adverse side-effects that such a

balance of power implies, it at least offers us something tangible rather than ephemeral promises lacking a shred of support. Ultimately, Ashley's demand that anew, critical approach be adopted in order to free us from the grip of such 'false' conceptions depends upon ideas about the prospects for the development of a

universal consensus which are little more than wishful thinking, and ideas about the existence of potentially less exclusionary orders which are little more thanmere assertion. Hence his attempts, in 'Political realism and human interests', to conceal these ideas from view by claiming that the technical base of realismserves only to identify, and yet not to reform, the practical, and then, in 'The poverty of neorealism', by removing the technical from investigation altogether by

an exclusive reliance on a problem of hermeneutic circularity. In the final analysis, then, Ashley's post - structuralist approach boils down to

little more than a critique --and, at that, a critique which fails. It is predicated on the assumption that the constraints upon us are simply restrictive

knowledge practices, such that it presumes that the entirety of the solution to our problems is little more than the removal of such false ways of thinking. It

offers nothing by way of alternative - no strategies, no proximate goals, indeed, little by way of goals at all. If, in constructivism, the progressive

purpose leads to strategies divorced from an awareness of the problems confronting transformatory efforts, and, in critical theoretical perspectives, it producesstrategies divorced from international politics in their entirety, in post-structuralism it generates a complete absence of strategies altogether. Critique serves tofill the void, yet this critique ultimately proves unsustainable. With its defeat, post-structuralism is left with nothing. Once one peels away the layers of

misconstruction, it simply fades away. If realism is, as Ashley puts it, 'a tradition forever immersed in the expectation of political

tragedy', it at least offers us a concrete vision of objectives and ways in which to achieve them which his own position,

forever immersed in the expectation of deliverance, is manifestly unable to provide."

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REALISM SOLVES

R EALISM GOOD – A2: REALISM IS SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED

Social construction doesn’t mean realism is malleable

Alexander Wendt, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Chicago, International Organization, v46 n2, 1992Let us assume that processes of identity- and interest-formation have created a world in which states do not recognize rights to territory or existence—a war of

all against all. In this world, anarchy has a “realist” meaning for state action: be insecure and concerned with relative power. Anarchy has this meaning

only in virtue of collective, insecurity-producing practices, but if those practices are relatively stable, they do constitute asystem that may resist change. The fact that worlds of power politics are socially constructed, in other words, does not

guarantee they are malleable, for at least two reasons. The first reason is that once constituted, any social system confronts each of

its members as an objective social fact that reinforces certain behaviors and discourages others. Self-help systems, for example, tend to

reward competition and punish altruism. The possibility of change depends on whether the exigencies of such competition leave room for actions that deviate

from the prescribed script. If they do not, the system will be reproduced and deviant actors will not.” The second reason is that systemic

change may also be inhibited by actors’ interests in maintaining., relatively stable role identities. Such interests are rooted not only in

the desire to minimize uncertainty and anxiety, manifested in efforts to confirm existing-beliefs about the social world, but also in the desire to avoid theexpected costs of breaking commitments made to others—notably domestic constituencies and foreign allies in the case of states—as part of past practices.The level of resistance that these commitments induce will depend on the “salience” of particular role identities to the actor. The United States, for example, is

more likely to resist threats to its identity as “leader of anticommunist crusades” than to its identity as “promoter of human rights.” But for almost any

role identity, practices and information that challenge it are likely to create cognitive dissonance and even perceptions of

threat, and these may cause resistance to transformations of the self and thus to social change.” For both systemic and “psychological”

reasons, then, intersubjective understandings and expectations may have a self-perpetuating quality, constituting path-dependencies that new ideas about self and other must transcend. This does not change the fact that through practice agents are continuously producing and reproducing identities and interests,

continuously “choosing now the preferences [they] will have later.” But it does mean that choices may not be experienced with meaningful degrees of

freedom. This could be a constructivist justification for the realist position that only simple learning is possible in self-help

systems. The realist might concede that such systems are socially constructed and still argue that after the

corresponding identities and in have become institutionalized, they are almost impossible to transform.

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