Kenneth N. Waltz (1924 – 2013)

In Memoriam Senior Research Scholar

Kenneth N. Waltz was a Senior Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. Waltz’s research interests involved reflections on the canonical works of international relations theory and the role of nuclear weapons in the relations of states.

Waltz served in the United States Army during the Second World War and the Korean conflict. He was a member of the Columbia University faculty from 1953 until 1957 and subsequently taught at Swarthmore College, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Berkeley. After retiring from his position at Berkeley, he return to Columbia University as an adjunct professor and became a Senior Research Scholar at the Institute of War and Peace Studies. Waltz has been a research associate with the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and with the Department of War Studies, Kings College, University of London. He has taught at the Peking University, Fudan University, and the United States Air Force Academy. Waltz has lectured at many other institutions at home and abroad, including the London School of Economics, the Australian National University, and the University of Bologna. He is a former President of the American Political Science Association and has received honorary doctorates from Copenhagen University, Oberlin College, Nankai University, and most recently Aberystwyth University. In 2008, Aberystwyth University held a conference in his honor, entitled “The King of Thought: Theory, the Subject and Waltz,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Man, the State, and War and the 30th anniversary of Theory of International Politics. Waltz is the recipient of the International Studies Association’s 2010 International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award.

Waltz received a B.A. from Oberlin University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Books

Realism and International Politics (New York: Routledge, 2008).

Kenneth N. Waltz and Scott D. Sagan, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002).

Kenneth N. Waltz and Scott D. Sagan, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995).

Theory of International Relations (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

Theory of International Politics (Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

Kenneth N. Waltz and Robert J. Art, The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).

Kenneth N. Waltz and Steven L. Spiegel, Conflict in World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1971).

Kenneth N. Waltz and Charles F. Hermann, Foreign Policy: An Anthology of Syllabi (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1970).

Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).

Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959).

Principal Articles

“Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security 21, no. 1 (2000): 5.

“Globalization and American Power,” The National Interest 59 (2000): 46.

“Globalization and Governances,” PS: Political Science & Politics 32, no. 4 (1999): 693.

“Evaluating Theories,” American Political Science Review 91, no. 4 (1997): 913.

“International Politics Is Not Foreign Policy,” Security Studies 6, no. 1 (1996): 54.

“A Reply,” Security Studies 4, no. 4 (1995): 802.

“The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18, no. 2 (1993): 44.

“The New World Order,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 22, no. 2 (1993): 187.

“America as a Model for the World? A Foreign Policy Perspective,” PS: Political Science & Politics 24, no. 4 (1991): 667.

“Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” American Political Science Review 84, no. 3 (1990): 731.

“On the Nature of States and Their Recourse to Violence,” U.S. Institute of Peace Journal 3, no. 2 (1990): 7.

“Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory,” Journal of International Affairs 44, no. 1 (1990): 21.

“The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 615, no. 4 (1988): 615.

“The Central Balance and Security in Northeast Asia,” Asian Perspective 6, no. 1 (1982): 88.

“The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, “Adelphi Paper 171 (1981): 1.

“A Strategy for the Rapid Deployment Force,” International Security 5, no. 4 (1981): 49.

“The Politics of Peace,” International Studies Quarterly 11, no. 3 (1967): 199.

“Contention and Management in International Relations,” World Politics 17, no. 4 (1965): 720.

“The Stability of a Bipolar World,” Daedalus 93, no. 3 (1964): 881.

“Kant, Liberalism, and War,” American Political Science Review 56, no. 2 (1962): 331.

“Reason, Will, and Weapons,” Political Science Quarterly 74, no. 3 (September 1959): 412.

Book Chapters

“Assaying Theories: Reflections on Imre Lakatos,” Progress in IR Theory: Appraising the Field, ed. Colin and Miriam Elman (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 2003).

“The Continuity of International Politics,” Worlds in Collision, ed. Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

“Intimations of Multipolarity,” The New World Order: Contrasting Theories, ed. Birthe Hansen and Bertil Heurlin (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000).

“NATO’s Expansion: A Realist View,” Special Issue of Contemporary Security Policy, ed. Robert W. Rauchhaus (New York: Routledge, 2000).

“East-West Relations after the Cold War,” East and West After the Cold War, ed. Zhao Yongyao and Liu Fei (Beijing: Cass Press, 1997).

“Kant, la démocratie et la paix,” L’année 1795 – Kant: essai sur la paix, ed. Pierre Laberge, Guy Lafrance, and Denis Dumas (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1997).

“Thoughts About Virtual Nuclear Arsenals,” Nuclear Weapons in a Transformed World: The Challenge of Virtual Nuclear Arsenals, ed. Michael J. Mazarr (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997).

“Strategic Defenses and the Problem of War,” Strategic Defense and Global Stability, ed. John Weltman (Los Alamos National Laboratory: Center for National Security Studies, 1989).

“Yes to Minimal Deterrence, No to Abolition,” Beyond Start: A Soviet Report with Commentaries, ed. Sanford Lakoff (University of California, San Diego: Institute for Global Cooperation and Conflict, 1988).

“Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response To My Critics,” Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Robert Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).

“Balance of Power,” Power, Principles, and Interests, ed. J. Salomon et al. (Lexington, MA: Ginn, 1985).

“Will the Future Be Like the Past?” Problems and Prospects of Presidential Leadership in the Nineteen Eighties, ed. James S. Young (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983).

“Toward Nuclear Peace,” Strategies for Managing Nuclear Proliferation, ed. Dagobert L. Brito, Michael D. Intrilligator, and Adele E. Wick (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1983).

“What will the spread of nuclear weapons do to the world?” International Political Effects of the Spread of Nuclear Weapons, ed. John Kerry King (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Press Office, April 1979).

“Theory of International Relations,” The Handbook of Political Science, ed. Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975).

“America’s European Policy Viewed in Global Perspective,” The United States and Western Europe in the 1970s, ed. Wolfram Hanrieder (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop, 1974).

“The Myth of National Interdependence,” The International Corporation, ed. Charles P. Kindleberger (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1970).

“The Politics of British Military Policy,” Modern European Governments: Cases in Comparative Policy Making, ed. Roy C. Macridis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968).

“Realities, Assumptions, and Simulations,” Simulation in the Study of Politics, ed. William D. Coplin (Chicago: Markham, 1968).