| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Recent scholarship has called attention to the republican dimension of Hans Morgenthau's approach to politics in the postwar era, but the role republicanism played in his thought remains ambiguous. This essay examines that role, and explores its tensions with other aspects of his understanding of politics. It argues that he expanded and deepened his approach to politics as he developed a republican critique of American domestic politics. However, his conception of international politics remained rooted in the reason-of-state tradition, and evinces little evidence of his increasing engagement with republicanism. In this selective use of republicanism, he left its tensions with other aspects of his thinking unresolved, but this usage also suggests his recognition of the inadequacy of the original formulation of his realist approach. In considering what IR theorists today may learn from republicanism, his example is highly instructive in any effort to reconstruct the foundations of realism.
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