Robert O. Keohane's Academic Status

Robert O. Keohane is the most important founder of neo-liberal institutionalism. With his unremitting efforts, neo-liberal institutionalism was founded and eventually developed into a complete theoretical system. Neo-liberal institutionalism, as one of the most influential schools of international relations theory in the world today, was formed and developed in the debate with neo-realism. In the mid-1970s, a group of scholars represented by Kenneth Waltz pushed the study of political realism to a new theoretical peak. However, with the relative weakness of American hegemony, the emergence of various non-state actors and the continuous strengthening of transnational economic ties, the traditional view of international political power, which emphasizes "state-centered" and "the role of material forces in maintaining world stability", has begun to be widely questioned by international relations scholars. Robert O. Keohane was keenly aware of the explanation defects of neo-realism. He pointed out that Waltz's new realism "failed to pay full attention to transnational relations, economic interdependence and international system" and ignored the relationship between domestic factors and international system structure, thus failing to dynamically explain the main changes in world politics. It was in the criticism and debate of neo-realism that Keohan tried to reinterpret the ever-changing world politics and established and improved his theoretical system of neo-liberal institutionalism.

Keohan's academic career originated from questioning realism paradigm, developed from criticizing realism paradigm, realized the construction of neo-liberal institutionalism paradigm, and was brilliant in establishing neo-liberal institutionalism (especially its international institutional theory) and the dominant position of neo-realism. Keohan's academic development process began with challenging realism, with neo-liberal institutionalism as the core, and achieved an academic leading position that kept pace with neo-realism, and actively responded to the challenge of constructivism paradigm as the current form.