This paper seeks to interrogate some features of what has become known as the ‘realist critique’ of the predominant style of English language normative political theory. From a position broadly sympathetic to this critique, I want to ask what a realist political theory might look like, and how far and in what ways it would differ from the kind of political theory from which it seeks to distance itself. I identify four overlapping areas where it seems to me that important questions arise in relation to theorising politics generally, but my concern is specifically with how we should respond to them if we want to theorise politics realistically. These can be labelled: 1. Morality/Normativity 2. Practicality 3. Contingency 4. Temporality In so far as this is a genuinely exploratory paper, primarily concerned to raise questions, and to think about the kind of responses that might be appropriate, it does not seek to offer to offer firm answers to them. Rather, the aim is more a matter of identifying challenges that confront a realist political theory and helping to set an agenda for it its development.
