Table Of ContentHans J. Morgenthau’s Theory of International Relations
International Political Theory series
Series Editor: Gary Browning, Professor of Politics, Department of International
Relations, Politics and Sociology, Oxford Brookes University, UK
The Palgrave International Political Theory Series provides students and
scholars with cutting-edge scholarship that explores the ways in which we
theorise the international.
Political theory has by tradition implicitly accepted the bounds of the state,
and this series of intellectually rigorous and innovative monographs and
edited volumes takes the discipline forward, refl ecting both the burgeoning
of IR as a discipline and the concurrent internationalization of traditional
political theory issues and concepts. Offering a wide-ranging examination
of how international politics is to be interpreted, the titles in the series thus
bridge the IR–political theory divide.
The aim of the series is to explore international issues in analytic, historical
and radical ways that complement and extend common forms of conceiving
international relations such as realism, liberalism and constructivism.
International Political Theory series
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-230-20538-3 hardcover 978-0-230-20539-0
paperback
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a
standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of diffi culty, write
to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series
and the ISBNs quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Hans J. Morgenthau’s
Theory of International
Relations
Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment
Mihaela Neacsu
© Mihaela Neacsu 2010
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-57607-0
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-36607-1 ISBN 978-0-230-24576-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230245761
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
To the memory of my father
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction: Context and Assumptions 1
On modernity and postmodernity in international
relations 4
Old and new interpretations 15
Power as meaning imposition; between destruction
and construction 30
2 Life Experience and Intellectual Encounters 36
A motivating life experience 39
Studies, mentors, negative influences 41
Morgenthau’s reading of Nietzsche and Weber 50
The American experience 61
3 The ‘Death of God’ and the Crisis of Philosophy 67
The experience of nihilism and disenchantment 70
Man as creature: Power as meaning imposition,
and the fight over power 85
Man as creator, and the issue of responsibility 95
4 The Disenchantment of Politics, and Morgenthau’s
Leadership Theory 101
A vision of plurality and perspectivism in the
political realm 105
On politics as a fight for power, and the perils of
disenchantment and technological advancement 119
Thoughtful politics, as a solution to the evil of
politics 134
5 Closing the Openness: Morgenthau on Meaning,
Tradition, and the Statesman’s Mission 147
Creation as reinterpretation: Morgenthau’s meaning of
universality 150
The statesman and his mission: Re-enchantment 161
vii
viii Contents
6 Conclusion: Hans Morgenthau’s Discussion of
Meaning, Disenchantment and Leadership 175
Notes 185
Bibliography 186
Index 197
Acknowledgements
This book is the end result of an intellectual journey which began at
the University of Kent at Canterbury, and I would like to thank the
Politics and International Relations Department of the University of
Kent, and Dr Stefan Rossbach and Professor Richard Sakwa in par-
ticular, for the stimulating discussions and continuous encourage-
ment, and for inspiring me to develop further my project on Hans J.
Morgenthau’s thought.
Thanks are also due to my Ph.D. supervisors in the Politics and
International Studies Department of The Open University, Dr Raia
Prokhovnik and Dr Jef Huysmans, who tirelessly read my numerous
drafts and provided excellent comments and guidance on all stages
of my research project, being there for me as supervisors and as friends.
I would also like to thank the other members of the department who
offered comments on my thesis during the departmental research
seminars. The Open University provided an extraordinary intellectual
atmosphere and a financial support for which I am very grateful.
In March 2006 I spent several weeks studying Hans J. Morgenthau’s
Papers at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and the Library
staff were most helpful and supportive of my project. My thanks are
also due to them.
Throughout my research I presented a range of papers based on my
Ph.D. thesis at various conferences, and I am grateful for the excel-
lent feedback I received on these occasions. Within this context special
thanks are due to Professor Michael C. Williams, Dr Lucian M. Ashworth,
Dr Sean Molloy, Dr Columba Peoples and Dr Cian O’Driscoll.
I was blessed to meet Mrs Lorenta Dinescu, an outstanding teacher,
and Mrs Tia Serbanescu, an outstanding journalist and writer, at a
formative stage in my life. Both of them encouraged me to write and
to follow my dreams, and I am grateful for all their help throughout
the years.
Finally I would like to thank my family, especially my mother
Eugenia-Tamara and my husband Catalin, for their cheerful smiles,
words of encouragement and endless patience.
ix
1
Introduction: Context
and Assumptions
In the introductory part of one of his best-known essays the political
philosopher Leo Strauss asserts, while tackling the issue of what he
calls ‘the crisis of modernity’, ‘that such a crisis exists is now obvious
to the meanest capacities’ (Strauss in Gildin, 1975, p. 81). At the time
of putting this thought to paper, Strauss was telling the academic
world nothing new: in emphasising that ‘modern western man no
longer knows what he wants’, that he ‘no longer believes that he can
know what is good and bad, what is right and wrong’ (Strauss in Gildin,
1975, p. 81), Strauss echoed some of the pessimistic assessments regard-
ing central developments within modernity, which had been formu-
lated and reflected on since the nineteenth century. Moreover, Strauss
echoed many voices within his own generation, voices of witnesses
to the horrors of World War II, whose life experiences had made them
agree with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: God is dead, and the
world is in crisis.
This book argues that International Relations (IR) scholar Hans
J. Morgenthau – a colleague of Strauss at the University of Chicago, and
also a witness of the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany – was one of the
voices who expressed the aforementioned critique of modernity and
incorporated it into his works. It intends to portray Morgenthau as a
scholar interested in discussing topics such as the status of truth and the
legitimacy of universal values, much discussed in the aftermath of the
‘death of God’, which to Morgenthau represents the defining moment
for his political theory. As will be shown in this book, the ‘death of God’
constitutes an interpretation of the times which Morgenthau adopts
from Nietzsche, and which he sees as the collapse of a supranational
1
