On Glen Newey’s Prescient Political Realism

Anno LIV, n. 225-226, maggio-dicembre 2019

In this paper I trace some key realist themes in Newey’s work, to try and show how his realist insights preceded the explicit realist revival, and how they then developed in dialogue with the growing realist literature. I then place Newey in a taxonomy of realisms, to the extent that his often illuminatingly contrarian positions allow for such an exercise. Finally, and more speculatively, I consider some of Newey’s posthumous work, to try and see where his unique approach to realism might take us next.