This book defends realism in the study of international politics and demonstrates the heuristic and evaluative utility of Robert Berki's interpretation of political realism and political idealism. It argues that realism is not a meaningless term nor redundant and necessarily rhetorical in politics.

The author argues for a revised conception of international relations that acknowledges the irreconcilability of realist and idealist theories, and concerns itself instead with important substantive issues.

1. The realist tradition

Forfatterens mål med denne bog er: 1) Analyse af de gældende teorier for international politik og hvad der heri er lagt størst vægt på. 2) Konstruktion af en teori for international politik som kan kan råde bod på de mangler, der er i de nu gældende. 3) Afprøvning af den rekonstruerede teori på faktiske hændelsesforløb.

Challenges the assumption of the rationality of foreign policy makers in international relations, showing how leaders systematically vary in the rationality of their thinking.

Presents a challenge to international relations scholars to think globally, understanding the field's development in the Global South alongside the traditionally dominant Western approach.

Using a typology of worldviews based on perception of threat and expansionist or isolationist objectives, Hayden J. Smith examines influences on the foreign policy decision-making of individual US Presidents—including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

Realism and constructivism, two key contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of international relations, are commonly taught as mutually exclusive ways of understanding the subject. Realist Constructivism explores the common ground between the two, and demonstrates that, rather than being in simple opposition, they have areas of both tension and overlap. There is indeed space to engage in a realist constructivism. But at the same time, there are important distinctions between them, and there remains a need for a constructivism that is not realist, and a realism that is not constructivist. Samuel Barkin argues more broadly for a different way of thinking about theories of international relations, that focuses on the corresponding elements within various approaches rather than on a small set of mutually exclusive paradigms. Realist Constructivism provides an interesting new way for scholars and students to think about international relations theory.