ANALYTICAL ESSAY Drawing Out the Leviathan: Kenneth Waltz, Hobbes, and the Neorealist Theory of the State D AVID P OLANSKY University of Toronto Neo- or structural realism is famously said to lack a theory of the state. Resisting the urge to devise one, I would instead argue that structural re- alist theories—most notably the original theory of Kenneth Waltz— implicitly contain a theory of the state. What has eluded commentators is that this theory is prescriptive rather than descriptive. Insightful readers like Goddard and Nexon and Rathbun have unpacked Waltz’s (nonde- terminative) prescriptions for state behavior in the international system. This article will unpack those prescriptions for state order. Two conclu- sions emerge from this analysis: (i) structural realism implicitly reads es- sential features of the modern state into what are otherwise proclaimed to be nonspecific like units in anarchy and (ii) the ideal-typical state pre- scribed by Waltz’s theory most resembles Hobbes’ Leviathan. Making these connections explicitly may indicate why certain historical systems are a better “fit” for Waltz’s analytical construct and also serves to prop- erly situate structural realist theories within the larger framework of po- litical (not international relations) liberalism. Keywords: Waltz, State, Hobbes That neorealism lacks a theory of the state is taken to be axiomatic by most schol- ars of international relations (IR), including neorealists themselves. No less an authority than Kenneth Waltz (1986, 339) conceded that his theory of interna- tional politics did not include a “theory of the state.” From the outset, this had been a significant point of attack for critics of neorealism. Richard Ashley (1984, 248) claimed, “The neorealist move is, in short, a sleight of hand. For despite its statism, neorealism can produce no theory of the state capable of satisfying the state-as-actor premises of its international political theory.” Similarly, John Gerard Ruggie (1983, 273) noted, “it provides no means by which to account for, or even to describe, the most important contextual change in international politics in this millennium: the shift from the medieval to the mod- ern international system.” Fred Halliday (1987) went even further in declaring that not only neorealist theories but also the discipline of IR as a whole lacked an adequate theory of the state. Perhaps paradoxically, this lack of clarity regarding the state has not diminished—and may have even enhanced—the state’s significance for the study Polansky, David. (2016) Drawing Out the Leviathan: Kenneth Waltz, Hobbes, and the Neorealist Theory of the State. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1093/isr/viv002 V C The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com International Studies Review (2016) 00, 1–21 International Studies Review Advance Access published April 6, 2016