Between Kratos and Ethos: Thinking Through the Ritual in the Work of Friedrich Meinecke

Abstract

Realism is often caricatured as a doctrine that gives license—the ends justify the means. Hence, realist work and realist writers are often depicted as immoral. Whilst existing work has excavated realism’s hidden ethics, and at the same time questioned the conflation of realism and political science, the ethical reflections of Friedrich Meinecke have been overlooked in this undertaking. This omission is puzzling because Meinecke’s work on raison d'état, historicism and nationalism left an indelible mark on what we routinely identify as the realist tradition. The following chapter retrieves aspect of Meinecke’s ethical reflections. It focuses specifically on the relationship between kratos and ethos in Meinecke’s mind and illustrates the influence that these reflections have had on thinkers often identified as principal authors in the realist tradition of International Relations. In closing, the chapter reflects on how Meinecke’s work can be aligned to contemporary debates under the realist umbrella.