The poverty of neorealism

Abstract

The theory of knowledge is a dimension of political theory because the specifically symbolic power to impose the principles of the construction of reality-in particular, social reality-is a major dimension of political power. Pierre BourdieuIt is a dangerous thing to be a Machiavelli.It is a disastrous thing to be a Machiavelli without virtu.Hans Morgenthau Almost six years ago, E. P. Thompson fixed his critical sights across the English Channel and let fly with a lengthy polemic entitled The Poverty of Theory.*Thompson's immediate target was Louis Althusser.His strategic objective was to rebut the emergent Continental orthodoxy that Althusser championed: structural Marxism, a self-consciously scientific perspective aiming to employ Marxian categories within a structuralist framework to produce theoretical knowledge of the objective structures of capitalist reality.The charges Thompson hurled defy brief summary, but some key themes can be quickly recalled.Althusser and the structuralists, Thompson con-This article develops ideas from a draft paper, "The Hegemony of Hegemony," and "Realist Dialectics" (Presented at the September 1982 meeting of the American Political Science Association, Denver, Colo.).My thinking on this topic has benefited enormously from comments and criticisms generously provided by