Article: Evaluating theories. (response to article by John Vasquez, in this issue, p. 899)

Having previously covered the criticisms John Vasquez makes (see especially Waltz 1979, 1986), I respond to his article reluctantly. One is, however, always tempted to try again.

Following Lakatos (1970), albeit shakily, in moving from paradigms to theories to research programs, Vasquez says he places theories in a single paradigm if they "share certain fundamental assumptions" (p. 900). He thereupon lumps old and new realists together in one realist paradigm. This is odd since, as he recognizes, old and new realists work from different basic assumptions. Believing that states strive for ever more power, Hans Morgenthau took power to be an end in itself. In contrast, ...

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