Conflict and cooperation in international relations: the cohabitation of (neo)realism and neoliberal institutionalism

Abstract

The two main state-centric approaches to international relations, i.e., neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism, are the product of the seventies and eighties. They have evolved and changed in constant competition with each other, to eventually merge by the end of the 20th century under the label of rationalism, as opposed to the various constructivist and revisionist-postmodern schools of international relations. By placing international cooperation and institutions in the spotlight of analysis, the aim of the article is to demonstrate how neorealism and neoliberal instititonalism emerged, how they reinforced each other’s development, and how they arrived at different propositions from apparently similar core assumptions.