Hans Morgenthau's Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation

J. Ann Tickner’s article is a foundational text in feminist international relations theory. She does not simply add women to realism. Instead, she rereads Morgenthau’s principles of political realism one by one, asking why “power,” “national interest,” “rationality,” and “security” are treated as masculinized political common sense.

The article matters because it reveals that the supposedly universal subject of international relations theory is often an abstracted masculine subject. Realism portrays states as rational actors pursuing power and survival, but rarely asks how that rationality excludes dependency, care, bodily security, economic vulnerability, and everyday violence. Tickner shifts security away from the state alone toward human security, relationality, and global inequality.

For FemRes, this paper pairs well with Cohn’s analysis of nuclear strategy language. Cohn enters expert discourse from within; Tickner rewrites the basic grammar of international relations theory. Together they show that war and security studies are not naturally neutral but organized by gendered assumptions.