Abstract John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argue that American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has been a failure and that the reasons stem from the American domestic political system. For Mearsheimer, a prevailing form of Liberalism is at fault; for Walt it is the consensus of the foreign policy establishment (“the Blob”). These arguments have much to be said for them but are not supported by adequate evidence because both authors neglect standard methods of verification: counterfactuals, the applications of the hypothetico-deductive method, and the use of comparisons to countries or cases in which the posited independent variable is absent. Examining the arguments in this light brings out weaknesses and opportunities for further testing, highlights the tension between the explanatory and the normative aspects of realist theorizing, and points to other cases in which the impact of the situation is discounted.

中文翻译：

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自由主义、Blob 和美国外交政策：证据和方法论

摘要 John J. Mearsheimer 和Stephen M. Walt 认为冷战结束以来美国的外交政策一直失败，其原因源于美国国内的政治制度。对于米尔斯海默来说，一种流行的自由主义形式是错误的。对于沃尔特来说，这是外交政策机构（“Blob”）的共识。这些论点对他们来说有很多话要说，但没有足够的证据支持，因为两位作者都忽视了标准的验证方法：反事实、假设演绎法的应用，以及对假设独立的国家或案例进行比较变量不存在。从这个角度检查论点会发现弱点和进一步测试的机会，