Reviews for Essays in Quasi-Realism

The average rating for Essays in Quasi-Realism based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-05-20 00:00:00 Marilyn Carpenter Recommended to anyone with background knowledge of IR traditional theories. It provides new and alternative insights to the standard paradigm-based approach found in IR textbooks. IR students are taught about the different paradigms that have emerged in the past century, presented in opposition with one another, with little to no room for an orthogonal understanding of their core concepts. Barkin suggests how theories are not to be taken as black boxes, capable of explaining certain times and events in world politics. In fact, no single theory does, nor can, comprehensively explain such complexity. He advances an approach in which international relations are observed through a hybrid set of concepts drawn from different academic perspectives. He makes the case for points of compatibility between Realism and Constructivism.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-03 00:00:00 Alan Lueck A good book that fell short of its ambitions, or, to be more fair, fell short of my ambitions for it. Barkin demonstrates how realist and constructivism could be used alongside each other, but this requires realism in IR to return to its classical realist roots. This is unlikely to happen. And returning to classical realism isn't as easy at it seems. I think this book is a good first step, and should be followed by investigation into how power politics can occur within belief systems, similar to the argument Jackson and Nexon made in their 2004 International Studies Review piece.