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If for Ken Booth and Steve Smith theory is always for someone and for some purpose -- following Robert W. Cox's critical investigation -- their commitment with the real world begins right in the pages of a theory textbook. With this article, we set up to bring some light to what we think is one of the most crucial episodes in the recent IR disciplinary history. At the same time we set up to develop the critical potential of the discipline based on an approach that both recognizes the legacy of political realism -- but also of its shortcomings -- and the need to give voice to traditionally marginalized perspectives and interests. Adapted from the source document.

Kenneth N. Waltz's magnum opus, Theory of International Politics, first published in 1979, is the single most widely read contribution to neorealism. Waltz claimed the establishment of a nomothetic theory of international politics that deals in regularities and repetitions, arguing that the structural component of the international system greatly influences state behaviour and hence outcomes. The author proposes a macrotheoretical solution to the micro account of traditional realism that focuses on unit and individual level explanations. Adapted from the source document.

The division found between the international and domestic structures in the definition of the states' international conduct has marked a significant part of the debate on international relations theory. Realism has been the target of criticism on the part of other approaches that tend to associate Realism with perspectives that are based essentially on the international sphere, in detriment of the domestic structure. New Realist perspectives, ranging from Statism to Structural Realism and Neoclassical Realism strive to oppose it, by attempting to extend to the domestic sphere the normative and empirical principles of the Classical Realism and the Neorealism. Adapted from the source document.

Kenneth Waltz resisted describing the post-Cold War world as unipolar. This reluctance results from two characteristics of his structural realism: its naturalistic view of systemic balances of power and its focus on relations among great powers. Yet, Waltz's thinking on the nuclear revolution allows us to correct these limitations of his structural theory and highlight two central aspects of American unipolarity: its potential durability in a nuclear world and its potential for preventive counter-proliferation wars. In sum, Waltz's structural realism, when combined with his thinking about a nuclear world, produces a powerful analytic apparatus to further our understanding of our post-Cold War unipolar world. Adapted from the source document.

The intention is to challenge the common perception that Raymond Aron is a realist author. Indeed, despite the author's close affinities with classical realism Aron's thinking displays a Kantian dimension and an idealist thinking concerned with moral issues and with a certain notion of freedom that set him apart from realism. The argument is that within the realm of international relations the thinking of Raymond Aron is best seen as resulting from the existing tension between realism and liberalism, starting from a position close to classical realism that evolved towards what is considered to be the via media in International Relations. Adapted from the source document.