This chapter will be similar in structure to the previous one: it will consist of an outline of the general traits of the realist interpretation of international politics, will demonstrate the development of the attitude of despair within the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, will seek to show how this attitude has been bequeathed to, and elaborated upon by, twentieth-century realists and, finally, will discuss in greater detail some of the key elements embraced within this philosophical perspective. As in the previous chapter, the main concentration will be upon continuities within this particular tradition of thought.

There is, of course, a degree of artificiality in speaking of realist or utopian schools or traditions of thought as, indeed, there is in assuming that we can readily discern a sharp dichotomy between the two. Frequently, writers display hybrid characteristics, which makes it difficult, not to say unproductive, to try to insert them into convenient realist or utopian pigeon-holes. Nonetheless, as long as it is remembered that we are talking at the level of intellectual ideal-types, there is some value in depicting the general characteristics of a realist tradition of thought. As Brian Porter has observed, ‘“the tradition” then is a device, as the arranging of stars in constellations is a device, for the convenience of the observer … “Permanent propensities of the political mind” might be a better, though more cumbersome, way of putting it’.