Top Ten Foreign Affairs Articles

After compiling a few ‘top ten’ lists of classic foreign affairs books, Stephen Walt—professor of international affairs at Harvard University—compiles a more digestible version: the top ten articles in the field of international relations.

The ten articles Walt recommends are below, but click through to the original to see his reasoning behind each choice and to check out the comments.

1. Albert Wohlstetter’s The Delicate Balance of Terror (pdf).
2. Mancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser’s An Economic Theory of Alliances (pdf).
3. Kenneth Waltz’s International Structure, National Force, and the Balance of World Power.
4. Robert Jervis’ Hypotheses on Misperception (Summary).
5. Michael Doyle’s Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs (Summary).
6. John Ruggie’s International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order (pdf).
7. Alexander Wendt’s Anarchy is What States Make of It (pdf).
8. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink’s International Norm Dynamics and Political Change (pdf).
9. William C. Wohlforth’s The Stability of a Unipolar World (pdf).
10. Alexander George’s Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison (pdf).

If anyone spots full-text versions of articles 3, 4, 5 and 10, please do let me know and I’ll update the post.