Abstract
This chapter discusses the roots and changing character of John H. Herz’s political realism. A student of Hans Kelsen in interwar Germany, Herz was preoccupied with the pure theory of law and its contribution to international law. As the international order collapsed, he directed his attention to the foundations of law (and politics). After arriving in the US in the late 1930s, this sociological orientation became central to his political realism. The chapter outlines the contours of Herz’s realism and discusses his attempt to employ political realism to make sense of the novel conditions of the thermonuclear age. At this point, Herz’s liberal and radical aspirations and the sociological nature of his realism came to the fore. For Herz, realism had a purpose beyond itself.
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Sylvest, C. (2021). John Herz and the Purposes of Realism. In: Reichwein, A., Rösch, F. (eds) Realism. Trends in European IR Theory. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58455-9_5
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