>
>From what you and Ian say (and what I wanted was a brief statement of
>this sort) my flippant citation of Plato (in response to Kelley) is
>substantially correct: This "realist" view does see states as Platonic
>absolutes rather than as complexes of social relations?! They make
>history but are not themselves historical (except in a merely
>chronological sense).
>
>
Maybe. It's a structuralist view--not related to French structuralism, but one that explains state behavior in terms of the structure of the international system. As Morganthau and Waltz teach it, it's historical in that it is tied to the development of an international system, specifically with to the Peace of Westphalia that ended the 30 Years War in 1648. It has a lot of explnatory power, although it is obviously not the whole story by any means. --jks
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