By Jason Hollander Kenneth N. Waltz Prof. Kenneth N. Waltz, adjunct professor of political science, has spent much of his scholarly career proposing controversial realist theories on the world's political climate. The award is given only once every three years.
Realists face the world as it is.
Most people want the world to be nicer and for people to be better. Forty years after leaving Columbia as a newly minted Ph.D. and young faculty member, he returned to Columbia's faculty in the fall of 1997, and now focuses on testing his realist theories of international affairs, many of which have become highly debated standards in the field. A Theoretical Analysis, recalled his reaction to winning the James Madison Award last fall. Controversy has followed Waltz throughout his career, one filled with dissent and contention. In 1981, at the height of the Cold War and with increasing fears of a nuclear showdown between the superpowers, Waltz published a monograph, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, his first of many proclamations arguing for the potentially positive effects of nuclear weaponry's gradual spread.