国际体系、国内政治与外交政策理论--新古典现实主义的理论构建与经验拓展

International System,Domestic Politics and Theory of Foreign Policy:Neoclassical Realism's Theoretical and Empirical Expansions

新古典现实主义是一种试图将国际体系和国内政治两个层次的因素结合起来解释国家对外战略和行为的外交政策理论。在过去十多年间,这一理论催生了大量具有明确理论自觉性和鲜明问题意识的经验研究成果。与第一代新古典现实主义的研究相比,第二代研究成果在理论上侧重于理论运用而非理论建构,在研究方法上强调经验实证研究,尤其侧重通过对多个历史案例的比较以及单个案例内部的过程追踪对这一理论衍生的具体命题加以检验。这些研究的主要贡献在于坚持以具体问题而非理论为导向的路径,围绕某种特定的对外战略和国家行为展开深入探讨,从而推进了外交政策研究的理论化水平。当然,新古典现实主义在内部一致性、理论逻辑的严密性和研究方法的精密性等方面仍然存在局限。为了继续完善和改进这一理论,新古典现实主义研究者需要在国内政治的核心变量上凝聚共识,同时在解释具体问题时完善因果分析的链条,从而发展真正意义上的跨层次理论。

Neoclassical Realism is a theoretical school trying to combine factors at both international system level and domestic politics level to explain states' external strategy and foreign policy behaviors.Over the past ten years and beyond,this theoretical school has brought out a large number of researches with clear theoretical consciousness and empirical orientations.Compared with the first generation of neoclassical realist researches,the new generation's theoretical focus is theoretical application rather than theoretical construction,emphasizing empirical proposition testing,especially the one relying on comparison of several historical cases or within-case process tracing.The main contributions of these studies are stressing problem-oriented rather than theory-oriented approaches,discussing specific external strategy and states' behaviours in depth,and promoting empirical-theoretical studies in the field of foreign policy.However,the neo-classical realist approaches have their limitations on internal consistency,theoretical precision and rigidity of research methods.In order to improve and develop a truly cross-level theory,neoclassical realist scholars need to reach a consensus on the core variables at domestic politics level as well as refine the chain of causal analysis in explaining specific questions.