Contra Realists: Is Kant a Realist?

• In Event: Rethinking Realism

Abstract

Early International Relations scholars labeled Immanuel Kant as an idealist, associating his proposal for a pacific federation of republics, that could mediate interstate disputes and lead to world peace, with the failed League of Nations. However, a close reading of Kant’s work complicates this understanding. IR scholars have a tendency to focus on second and third image analyses, making it easy to see how Kant could be interpreted as an idealist. Drawing on a range of political and international theorists, I explicate Kant’s realist understanding of the world. Similar to Thomas Hobbes (almost universally understood as a realist by IR scholars), Kant views human nature as antagonistic and anarchy as a state of war. Both propose mechanisms for motivating people to overcome their human nature to form a government. However, while Hobbes stops at this point, largely neglecting to theorize about relations between states, Kant argues that a new international anarchy is formed. When seen in this light, Kant is a much better exemplar of international anarchy than Hobbes. Therefore, this understanding can help us reevaluate the fundamentals of early democratic peace theory. In some sense, the democratic peace is built on the (classical) realist principle of an antagonistic human nature and provides a solution to the destructive capacity of international anarchy. Reinterpreting Kant as a realist helps to complicate the early history of IR and should encourage modern IR scholars to reevaluate the historical distinctions between realism and more idealist approaches to world politics.

Author

• Thomas Worth, St. Olaf College