Realizmus, idealizmus és "neorealizmus" - Az amerikai külpolitika válsága az 1970-es években és a neokonzervatív fordulat
Realism, Idealism and 'Neo-realism'. The Crisis of American Foreign Policy in the 1970s and the Neo-conservative Turn

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to present neo-conservatism as a reaction to the crisis of American foreign policy in the 1970s. Its chosen field is the history of ideas, so it understands the crisis of American foreign policy in the 1970s as a crisis of foreign policy thinking. Accordingly, events of political history appear only to the most necessary extent, as a background, and in a schematic way. American foreign policy thinking of the first half of the 1970s was characterized by two competing schools of thought. The first, foreign policy realism, advocating the primacy of national interest, can be linked to the presidency of Richard N ixon, and to his most influential foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger. The second school, the foreign policy of human rights-based idealism, was attempted by President Jimmy Carter. Thinkers under the label of neo-conservatism - most importantly Irving Kristol, regarded as the founder of neo-conservatism, and its most influential foreign policy theorist at the time, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick - strongly criticized both schools. They objected to realism on account of its indifference towards the internal political order of states on the international stage, and towards ideological and moral concerns in general, and to idealism because of its overheated rationalism, overreliance on, and misunderstanding of the power of ideas. Neo-conservatives suggested an especially American blend of realism and idealism called 'neo-realism' which would link the national interest to the representation of American ideals.

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