Description
Within International Relations, ‘attraction’ is a concept that remains conspicuously undertheorized. This paper argues that IR’s explicit neglect of attraction conceals a deeper, implicit reliance on the concept. Adopting the approach of conceptual history, this paper re-examines the works of the Classical Realists: Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan, tracing the various ways these theorists implicitly conceptualized attraction. It contends that concepts of an attractive pull served to keep these theories manageable, bestowing the image of predictability and consistency onto the political world, and underpinning core categories such as power, security, agency and balancing. In this sense, attraction is a concept Classical Realism could not do without. Building on scholarship that explores the co-constitution of concepts and political reality, the paper examines the relation between these realist concepts of attraction and practices of security, sovereignty and alliance formation. By drawing to the surface this long-neglected concept, this paper improves our understanding of Classical realisms’ conceptual underpinnings, while also bringing attraction within the realm of critique, creating the possibility for new conceptualizations of agency and power.
