The Neorealist and His Critic

To the Editors: In his characteristically forceful essay “Structural Realism after the Cold War,”1 Kenneth Waltz argues that institutional theory misses the key point about institutions: that they are based on treaties made by states (p. 20). But he later acknowledges that institutional theory rests on a modiªed version of structural realism: That is, it begins with power and interests (pp. 24–25). So institutional theory does not miss the point after all! Correspondence It seems that Professor Waltz cannot decide whether to anathematize institutional theory for allegedly ignoring power and interests, or to embrace it as a minor branch of structural realism itself. Because, as Waltz recognizes, the former interpretation would be manifestly incorrect, in his better moments he recognizes the insights of institutional theory, merely claiming them for structural realism itself. If institutional theory acknowledges the role of state power and state interests, what does it contribute to the analysis of world politics? It provides an explanation of why states turn increasingly to international institutions to achieve their purposes: chieºy, because institutions reduce the informational and other transaction costs of action. It explains the persistence of institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Waltz incorrectly forecast would disappear after the Cold War. It shows how institutional characteristics alter the incentives, and actions, of states. International institutions reduce the costs of operating within institutional rules and increase the costs of violating them. Sometimes states break the rules, since to increase costs is not to make them inªnite. But when these costs are high, they indeed affect state behavior. If these arguments are, as Waltz says, “realist conclusions” (p. 25), then I welcome realists to a more sophisticated understanding of the roles played by international institutions than is evident in Waltz’s classic work of 1979, Theory of International Politics. As Waltz acknowledges, the issue is not one of choosing between two mutually exclusive theories. It is, instead, how to synthesize different insights in order to enhance our understanding of world politics. Structural realism in my view provides a good basis for such a synthesis, but it is not well defended by claiming that its 1970s formulation is sufªcient for analyzing world politics in the twenty-ªrst century. Waltz claims prescience by having written in 1988 that the Cold War “is ªrmly rooted in the structure of postwar international politics and will last only as long as that structure endures” Correspondence The Neorealist and His Critic Robert O. Keohane Kenneth N. Waltz International Security, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Winter 2000/01), pp. 204–205© 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 204 Robert O. Keohane is James B. Duke Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Kenneth N. Waltz, former Ford Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, is a Research Associate of the Institute of War and Peace Studies and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. 1. Kenneth N. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000), pp. 5–41. Further references appear parenthetically in the text. (p. 39). But he did not identify a change in the structure independent of the end of the Cold War, so his proposition reduces in operational terms to an unfalsiªable tautology. The unpredicted collapse of the Soviet Union simultaneously created the structural change and ended the Cold War. A theory that adduces a tautology as evidence for its power needs all the help it can get. Structural realism should not brush away the outstretched hand of institutionalist analysis. —Robert O. Keohane Durham, North Carolina Correspondence 205 The Author Replies: Robert Keohane is right: I do not see “institutional theory” as being a distinct theory, although Keohane’s and others’ writings about institutions have often been insightful. He seems to cede this point in his last sentence where he shifts his claim of usefulness from institutional theory to “institutionalist analysis.” Keohane asserts that my proposition about the end of the Cold War amounts to “an unfalsifiable tautology.” My point, however, was that the old structure of international politics caused the Cold War and that structural realist theory predicted...