Table of Contents

General Introduction

I – ´The father of us all’: the making of Christian Realist

1.1. Who was Reinhold Niebuhr?

1.2. Wilsonian Temptations

II – Against the Pagans: christian realism as a critique of political idolatry

2.1. False Gods

2.2. God Reborn

III – Fear God: human nature redefined

3.1. The Hobbesian ‘natural’ revolution: fear death, not God

3.2. In perpetual solicitude of the time to come

IV – The Existential Turn in the Realist Tradition: Niebuhr’s political ‘ontology of possibility’

4.1. The ‘will-to-power’: International Politics beyond Survival

4.2. Anxiety and the ‘Realism of distance’

V – The Anarchical Community or the impossible possibilities of a fallen world

5.1. Anarchy and the normative foundations of the realist tradition

5.2. The world community or ‘The Kingdom not of this world’

Epilogue: Jusnaturalism for Postmodern times? The Poverty of IR’s Liberal-Realist Consensus

About the Author

Guilherme Marques Pedro holds a PhD from the Department of International Politics in Aberystwyth. His research interests lie in international relations theory, political thought and international law. He is a researcher in philosophy of law at Uppsala University, Sweden. Previously, he was a lecturer at the University of Beira Interior, Portugal.