Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr's Understanding of Power

COMPARing AND CONTRASTing HANS MORGENTHAU AND EH CARR'S UNDERSTANDING OF POWER
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"Comparing and Contrasting Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr's Understanding of Power"
Introduction
Political realism is a controversial territory within the area of international politics. Polarization within the domain of political realism mainly surrounds the treatment of the concepts relating to power, morality, international relations, and the level of the dichotomy between political realism and idealism or utopianism (Cox, 1996). History has seen the authors who borrowed concepts from other theoretical realms in order to craft a distinctive view of realism from their own perspective and present it as a holistic view of the subject matter. Some authors held a strict stance on the separation between objective reality and political realism, while others hinted at the possibility of an interface between them. This paper analyses the work of two renowned authors, Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr, who belong to the breed of political realists whose work invites the attention to fresh perspectives within political realism while challenging traditionally established ideas in part.
Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr belong to the realist school of thought within the domain of international relations (IR). Both these authors have historical and seminal contributions to the literature and knowledge database around power and interest in the political and geopolitical context. It is worth mentioning that despite sharing their roots, Morgenthau and Carr had criticized each other on different grounds. Morgenthau alleges Carr of tempering the purest essence of realism by interjecting relativistic instrumental conception of morality (Morgenthau 1949). Carr also attributes Utopianism to Morgenthau's work and dismisses his argument based on the inadequacy of realism (Carr & Cox, 2016). This cross-argumentation shows that Carr and Morgenthau hold considerable distinctions in their approach to realism. A close understanding of each author's treatment of the concept of power reveals that Carr's assertions are backed by historical evidence and simple logic, thereby remaining superior in their ideological sense compared to his counterpart.
This essay delves deep into each author's approach to the concept of power within the context of IR and highlights the key commonalities and nuances. The insights are gleaned from the current literature debate involving these authors' contributions or critiques of their work. Based on the insights gained from the analysis, the concluding parts lay out the verdict about the relative strength of the arguments posited by each author.
Power as Defined by Each Author
Before delving into the details and the principles set forth by Morgenthau, it is essential to understand how each author approaches the concept of power. For Morgenthau, power is the ultimate goal that advances the interest of a state or nation. The author emphasizes that power dictates a nation's relative strength within the universal inter-state competition in space and time (Morgenthau 1948). Carr's conceptualization of power is not much different from Morgenthau's since the former ...