Key Features of Paradigms

I. Realism

• Key actors: states

• Dominant human drive(s): Fear, desire to dominate

• Actors’ primary goals: power or security

• Actor’s dominant instrument(s): military power

• Dominant processes of interaction: competition

• Dominant structural feature of international system: hobbesin anarchy

• Dominant bodies of theory: balance-of-power theory; theories of hegemonic transition and hegemonic war

II. Liberalism

• Key actors: states, nonstate actors

• Dominant human drive(s): fear, desire to live well

• Actors’ primary goals: welfare, justice, security

• Actor’s dominant instrument(s): military power, trade, investment, negotiation, persuasion

• Dominant processes of interaction: competition and cooperation

• Dominant structural feature of international system: non-hobbesian anarchy

• Dominant bodies of theory: neoliberal constitutionalism; “Democratic Peace”

III. Marxism

• Key actors: economic classes

• Dominant human drive(s): greed

• Actors’ primary goals: capital-owning class seeks to maximize profit; working class seeks fair wages and working conditions

• Actor’s dominant instrument(s): wealth for capital owning class, labor for working class

• Dominant processes of interaction: exploitation

• Dominant structural feature of international system: economic inequality

• Dominant bodies of theory: dependency theory; theories of revolution

IV. Constructivism

• Key actors: states, nonstate actors

• Dominant human drive(s): need for orderly, meaningful social life

• Actors’ primary goals: actors’ interests are socially constructed through interaction

• Actor’s dominant instrument(s): depends on historical period and social context

• Dominant processes of interaction: depends on historical period and social context

• Dominant structural feature of international system: social constraints (laws, rules, norms, taboos)

• Dominant bodies of theory: structuration; theories of norm evolution