The Development And Trend Of Neoclassical Realism Theory

Neoclassical Realism,the most active theory in the Realism camp,has been taken plenty of criticism on its way of development and there are disputes existing among its theoretical connotation and theoretical localization.Neoclassical Realism takes foreign policy as its main research sphere.it argues that the changing of relative power(as the independent variable)may cause the changes of foreign policies(as the dependent variable).But unlike the macro-system theory,it introduces domestic factors as intervention variables.And threat assessment,resource extraction,policy adjustment,etc.are the main topics of Neoclassical Realism.An explicit criteria is necessary to assess the nature of Neoclassical Realism and degree of progress.Scientific philosophy as a tool for theoretical assessment,scientific but harsh.So relatively speaking,Schweiler's evaluation criteria seems to be a more suitable one for explain international relations.Neoclassical Realism has been authenticated an advanced theory as expanding research boundaries and developing traditional studies then strengthen the power of relative-issue explanatory.However,there are still some obvious deficiency on its core theory and research method,such as the inter-hierarchical analysis and case study method using.In the future,for Neoclassical Realism,some important breakthrough points must be valued: to construct its core concept,concise its cross-level analysis,improve its case study method and finally make itself a mature foreign policy theory with great convincing interpretation.