The Enduring Importance of Revisionism and Status-quo Seeking

Recently, international relations scholars have again begun to distinguish between states with revisionist goals and those with status-quo goals. Whereas revisionists seek to change the way things are in international politics, status-quo seekers strive to preserve things as they are. When scholars categorize states as revisionist or status-quo seeking they are able to explain important outcomes in international politics, such as war and peace.1 In this book, I explore the prior issue of the origins of revisionist and status-quo goals. What are the origins of revisionism and status-quo seeking? Building on past research, I recognize that rising states tend toward revisionism and declining states tend toward status-quo seeking. This general trend leaves an important question unanswered, however. Under which conditions do rising states become revisionist and declining states seek to maintain the status quo?KeywordsForeign PolicyInternational RelationState GoalInternational PoliticsClassical RealistThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.