Realism, Conflict, and the Challenge of Cooperation: Intellectual Trajectories and Critiques in Post-1970s IR Introduction Realism has long dominated the discipline of International Relations (IR), providing a parsimonious framework for understanding conflict, war, and the distribution of power in an anarchic international system. Thinkers from Thucydides and Machiavelli to Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz have … Continue reading Comment on the view that realism explains the “why” of conflict but fails to explain the “how” of cooperation, leaving space for constructivist and liberal theories. How has realism’s intellectual trajectory been challenged by regime theory, complex interdependence, and constructivist critiques in the post-1970s IR scholarship?