The Study of International Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Theories of the Radical Right and the Radical Left*

Ole R. Holsti

American Political Science Review, 1974, vol. 68, issue 1, 217-242

Abstract: The political spectrum has often been viewed as a linear continuum on which the extremes of the right and left occupy the most antithetical positions. The alternative hypothesis is that there are some dimensions on which the extremes resemble each other. This essay examines the theories of international politics and foreign policy espoused by scholars of the radical right and left. Two dozen points of convergence are grouped under five headings: Understanding history and politics, the causes of war, the nature of the enemy, the conditions of peace, and ends and means in politics. Because the essay is focused on studies of international politics since the outbreak of World War II, considerable attention is devoted to the parallels between rightwing theories of the USSR and Soviet foreign policy, and left wing explanations of the United States and American foreign policy. The conclusion suggests that both theories are fundamentally flawed in two respects: (1) As employed by their proponents, the theories appear incapable of being falsified; and (2) studies employing them are marred by serious methodological flaws that violate the canons of systematic inquiry.

Date: 1974
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