Theory of Irrational Politics: Classical Realist Lessons on Foreign Policy Analysis

Abstract This article argues that efforts to strengthen the theoretical foundations for foreign policy analysis (FPA) should take as a vantage point the smallest social unit—the human being. It advocates far-reaching engagement with psychology and the life sciences for insights on the individual in the social context. Research on emotion, as a general human phenomenon and one that has been extensively researched across disciplines, is thought to offer a particularly promising conceptual lens on foreign policy. For cues on how to incorporate scientific findings with historical analysis and situate resulting hypotheses in relation to prevailing theoretical paradigms, the article draws on classical realism. Especially mid-twentieth century realists such as Hans Morgenthau expressed a nuanced conception of human agency and the interplay between emotion and cognition. Substantial aspects of their theories, based largely on experience and intuition, have been corroborated by recent scientific research. This review is structured around four central issues. These have been both the loci of much criticism levelled at classical realism and remain a challenge to IR as a whole: the levels of analysis problem, the “scaling up” of emotion, the classification and choice of emotion(s), and the accessibility of the political world to scientific method.