Kenneth Waltz

Waltz argues that contemporary geopolitics exists in a state of international affairs comparable to that of perpetual international anarchy. He distinguishes the anarchy of the international environment from the order of the domestic one. In the domestic realm, all actors may appeal to and be compelled by a central authority, "the state" or "the government," but in the international realm, no such source of order exists. The anarchy of international politics, with its lack of a central enforcer, means that states must act in a way that ensures their security above all, or they otherwise risk falling behind. He wrote that is a fundamental fact of political life faced by democracies and dictatorships alike. Except in rare cases, they cannot count on the good will of others to help them and so they must always be ready to fend for themselves. Waltz's usage of the term "anarchy" led to a fundamental discursive transformation in international relations, as scholars wrestled with Waltz's ideas. A 2015 study by Jack Donnelly found that the term "anarchy" occurred on average 6.9 times in international relations books prior to 1979 but 35.5 times in those afterward.

In 2008, a conference in Waltz's honor was conducted by Aberystwyth University, titled "The King of Thought: Theory, the Subject and Waltz". It celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publication of Man, the State, and War and the 30th anniversary of Theory of International Politics.

Waltz retired from his position at Berkeley and returned to Columbia University in 1997. There, he became an adjunct professor as well as a senior research scholar at the Institute of War and Peace Studies.

Waltz received the Heinz Eulau Award in 1991 for Best Article in the American Political Science Review during 1990 for "Nuclear Myths and Political Realities". He received the James Madison Award for "distinguished scholarly contributions to political science" from the American Political Science Association in 1999. The International Studies Association in 2010 named him their International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar.

Like most other neorealists, Waltz accepted that globalization poses new challenges to states, but he did not believe that states are being replaced because no other non-state actor can equal the capabilities of the state. Waltz suggested that globalization is a fad of the 1990s, and if anything, the role of the state has expanded its functions in response to global transformations.

Waltz was one of the original founders of neorealism, or structural realism, in international relations theory and later became associated with the school of defensive neorealism. Waltz's theories have been extensively debated within the field of international relations. His 1979 book Theory of International Politics is the most assigned book in International Relations graduate training at U.S. universities.

Waltz's theory, as he explicitly states in Theory of International Politics, is not a theory of foreign policy and does not attempt to predict specific state actions, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union. The theory explains only general principles of behavior that govern relations between states in an anarchic international system, rather than specific actions. The recurring principles of behavior include balancing of power (the theory was refined by Stephen Walt, who modified the "balance of power" concept to "balance of threat"), entering individually-competitive arms races, and exercising restraint in proportion to relative power. In Theory of International Politics (1979:6) Waltz suggested that explanation, rather than prediction, is expected from a good social science theory since social scientists cannot run the controlled experiments that give the natural sciences so much predictive power.

In 1971, Waltz joined University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed the Ford Professor of Political Science. Meanwhile, Waltz held a number of additional research positions. He was affiliated with the Institute of War and Peace Studies until 1964. He was a fellow of Columbia University in Political Theory and International Relations from 1959 to 1960 in London. He was a research associate at Center for International Affairs at Harvard University in 1963 to 1964, 1968, 1969, and 1972. He held a National Science Foundation grant from 1968 to 1971 to develop a theory of international politics. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for 1976 to 1977 and a fellow at the Institute for the Study of World Politics in 1977. He was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1979–1980. He then became a research associate with the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Waltz taught at Peking University for two months in 1982, and he later taught at Fudan University as well. He lectured at a number of institutions in the US, including the Air Force Academy, the National War College, the Army War College, and the Naval War College. Similarly, he lectured at many other institutions around the world, including the London School of Economics, the Australian National University, and the University of Bologna.

Waltz served as Secretary of the American Political Science Association in 1966 to 1967 and then as its president in 1987 to 1988. He was President of the New England Section of the International Studies Association in 1966 to 1967. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served stints on the boards of editors of several scholarly journals. He has described Hans Morgenthau as a strong influence on his work.

Waltz's initial contribution to the field of international relations was his influential 1959 book, Man, the State, and War. It classified theories of the causes of war into three categories, or levels of analysis. He referred to those levels of analysis as "images" and used the writings of one or more classic political philosophers to outline the major points of each image. Each image was given two chapters: the first used the classical philosopher's writings mainly to describe what that image says about the cause of war, and the second usually had Waltz analyze the strengths and weaknesses of that image. Waltz's wife was essential in contributing the research that became the basis for the book.

Returning to Columbia, he obtained his Ph.D. under William T. R. Fox in 1954. During his PhD studies, Waltz was most interested in political theory, but gravitated towards international relations due to the academic job market and the pressure of his dissertation advisor. While preparing for his comprehensive exams, Waltz came up with the ideas that would ultimately become his dissertation and his 1959 book Man, the State and War.

Waltz became a lecturer and then assistant professor at Columbia from 1953 to 1957. He became one of the early group of scholars at Columbia's Institute of War and Peace Studies and acted as a research assistant from 1952 to 1954 and a research associate from 1954. Later saying that he and his wife had been unsettled by the prospect of raising small children in New York City, Waltz left Columbia for Swarthmore College, where he was an assistant professor and then a professor from 1957 to 1966. He then moved on to Brandeis University for a stint from 1966 to 1971, the last four years of which he held the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics chair.

In 1949, he married Helen Elizabeth Lindsley, known as "Huddie". They had three children together. After attending Columbia University to obtain an upper graduate degree in economics, he switched to political science because political philosophy was more interesting to him. He received his M.A. degree from there in 1950. He was an instructor at Oberlin for a while in 1950. A member of the US Army Reserve, he was called upon to serve again during the Korean War, which he did during 1951–52 as a first lieutenant.

He graduated from Oberlin with an A.B. degree in 1948, having switched his major to economics. He was a Phi Beta Kappa and also named an Amos Miller Scholar.

Kenneth Neal Waltz (/wɔːlts/; June 8, 1924 – May 12, 2013) was an American political scientist who was a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations. He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.

Waltz was born on June 8, 1924, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He grew up and attended high school there. He then attended Oberlin College, where he started out majoring in mathematics. That was interrupted to serve in the Army of the United States from 1944 to 1946 during World War II, when he rose in rank from private to first lieutenant. Waltz served in the Pacific theater of the war and was stationed in Japan during the U.S. occupation of Japan.