Суверенитет и интеграция в политическом реализме

Полития: Анализ. Хроника. Прогноз. 2019. № 4(95). С. 53–66.

Kucherenko S.

One of the most significant trends of the recent years in world politics is the growing skepticism regarding integration projects and international institutions per se. The right-wing populist wave that has swept through the Western democracies is accompanied by an increase in rhetoric claiming the harmfulness of integration and the importance of protecting sove reignty. At the same time, such attitudes are often associated with political realism. Political realism is an extremely diverse direction in the theory of international relations. The author does not claim to analyze all its varieties and instead focuses on the approaches to the problem of sovereignty and integration developed by Hans Morgenthau, the founder of political realism who played a key role in its formation.

The analysis carried out by the author shows that political realism in its classical version cannot serve as a justification of sovereignty being the highest value. In fact, it can be used to criticize a belief system that emphasizes the importance of sovereignty. At its extreme political entities’ aspiration for isolation leads to the disintegration of the world community into many states that are unable to communicate with each other except from a position of power, which endangers international security. As a result, realism postulates the need to over-come the trend towards sovereignty through integration. However, it does not even envisage any real solutions to this problem. According to the author, the project proposed by Morgenthau to revive diplomacy as a way to unite the states or at least push them to create a platform for a dialogue, cannot play this role, which indicates the need to find fundamentally different solutions.

Keywords: интеграция, суверенитет, integration, sovereignty, политический реализм, political realism, Hans Morgenthau, Ганс Моргентау