Theory of International Politics

Theory of International Politics is a 1979 international relations theory book, written by Kenneth Waltz that elaborated a new theory, the neorealist theory of international relations, and surpassed the cognitive limitations of the past. Taking into account the influence of neoclassical economic theory, Waltz argued that the fundamental "ordering principle" (p. 88) of the inter...

Theory of International Politics is a 1979 international relations theory book, written by Kenneth Waltz that elaborated a new theory, the neorealist theory of international relations, and surpassed the cognitive limitations of the past. Taking into account the influence of neoclassical economic theory, Waltz argued that the fundamental "ordering principle" (p. 88) of the international political system is anarchy, which is defined by the presence of "functionally undifferentiated" (p. 97) individual state actors lacking "relations of super- and subordination" (p. 88) that are distinguished only by their varying capabilities.

Kenneth Neal Waltz (born 1924) is an American political scientist who is a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations alive today.[1] He is one of the founders of neorealism, or structural realism, in international relations theory.