Replication data for: The Micropolitics of Realism: A General Equilibrium Approach to Security Maximization

The argument extends the neo-realist rethinking of realism, with particular attention to the nature of the actors in world politics, the economic substructure of power and security, and the rigor with which assumptions are specified and conclusions drawn. A critique of the simple state-as-actor model gives the state a complex internal structure; the elaboration of the actor broadens the concept of national security from foreign affairs to include domestic security, and hence the guns-butter trade-off. Treating security as a discounted stream of future security and allowing for qualitatively different types of threats, the model permits investigation of trade-offs between foreign and domestic, present and future security concerns (guns vs butter, consumption vs investment). Contrary to the prescriptions of most modern realists, but in accord with political practice, foreign and domestic policy emerge as closely intertwined. When economic resource s are constant, competition among actors produces a stable balance of power; cooperative arms control can always increase the security of all actors above the purely competitive level. Economic growth, however, destablizes the competitive balance and undermines cooperation, resulting in a world system inherently in disequilibrium, its structures of balance and hegemony ephemeral.