Man, the State, and War
| Author | Kenneth Waltz |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | international relations theory |
| Preceded by | N/A |
| Followed by | Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience |
Man, the State, and War is a 1959 book on international relations by realist academic Kenneth Waltz. The book is influential within the field of international relations theory for establishing the three 'images of analysis' used to explain conflict in the international system.
Waltz's initial contribution to the field of international relations was his 1959 book, Man, the State, and War, which classified theories of the causes of war into three categories, or levels of analysis. Waltz refers to these levels of analysis as "images," and uses the writings of one or more classic political philosophers to outline the major points of each image. Each image is given two chapters: the first mainly uses the classical philosopher's writings to describe what that image says about the cause of war; the second usually consists of Waltz analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of that image.
The first image argues that wars are often caused by the nature of particular statesmen and political leaders such as state leaders -- examples like Napoleon or Saddam Hussein -- or by human nature more generally. This is basically consistent with Classical Realism, which dominated the International Relations discipline at the time of Man, the State, and War but which Waltz would contest more fully in his next book, Theory of International Politics.
Theories of war that fall under the rubric of Waltz's second image contend that wars are caused by the domestic makeup of states. A prime example that Waltz refers to is Lenin's theory of imperialism, which posits that the main cause of war is rooted in the need for capitalist states to continue opening up new markets in order to perpetuate their economic system at home. A more familiar example in the Western world today is the notion that non-democratic states, because of their internal composition, start wars.
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