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Critical realism is a philosophical approach to understanding science, and in particular social science, initially developed by Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014). It specifically opposes forms of empiricism and positivism by viewing science as concerned with identifying causal mechanisms.
Statue of Niccolò Machiavelli. Classical realism is an international relations theory from the realist school of thought. [1] Realism makes the following assumptions: states are the main actors in the international relations system, there is no supranational international authority, states act in their own self-interest, and states want power for self-preservation. [2]
Realism, a school of thought in international relations theory, is a theoretical framework that views world politics as an enduring competition among self-interested states vying for power and positioning within an anarchic global system devoid of a centralized authority.
Wendt shares some key assumptions with leading realist and neorealist scholars, such as the existence of anarchy and the centrality of states in the international system. However, Wendt renders anarchy in cultural rather than materialist terms; he also offers a sophisticated theoretical defense of the state-as-actor assumption in international ...
Whereas realism deals mainly with security and material power, and liberalism looks primarily at economic interdependence and domestic-level factors, constructivism concerns itself primarily with the role of ideas in shaping the international system; indeed it is possible that there is some overlap between constructivism and realism or ...
Conflict theories are perspectives in political philosophy and sociology which argue that individuals and groups (social classes) within society interact on the basis of conflict rather than agreement, while also emphasizing social psychology, historical materialism, power dynamics, and their roles in creating power structures, social movements, and social arrangements within a society.
Bhaskar himself lists ten main influences on his early work, including philosophical work on the philosophy of science and language; the sociology of knowledge; Marx "and particularly his conception of praxis"; structuralist thinkers including Levi-Strauss, Chomsky and Althusser; the metacritical tradition of Hegel, Kant, and even Descartes; and perspectivalism in the hands of Nietzsche, Fanon ...
Antipositivism (or Interpretive sociology) is a theoretical perspective based on the work of Max Weber, proposes that social, economic and historical research can never be fully empirical or descriptive as one must always approach it with a conceptual apparatus.