The Tragic in International Politics

Insufficiencies of the Approach to Tragedy in Mearsheimer's Offensive Realism

Abstract

Taking classical Greek tragedy as a framework and drawing on the play Oedipus Rex for
heuristic purposes, this article offers a critical analysis of John Mearsheimer’s appropriation
of tragedy in his seminal work on offensive realism — The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
With this approach, the article seeks not only to expose certain limitations in the treatment
of tragedy within the explanatory logic of offensive realism, but also to show how these
insufficiencies connect with important limitations of the very way in which Mearsheimer
formulates his theory. Finally, it is suggested that the research agenda on the relationship
between tragedy and international politics be opened to critical and reflexive approaches
that expand the debate beyond its predominant realist focus.