Arnold Wolfers. I don't have a great justification for this selection, but it seems he has become something of an afterthought to the academic IR community.

I also think the world would be a better place if more people within the American IR community read and studied Raymond Aron.

I was thinking Wolfers as soon as I saw the topic, but Rich beat me to it.

After scouring my bookshelves, here's a short list of scholars who should get more attention/praise/accolades in our field (in no particular order):

J. David Singer (can't believe he didn't make the "who belongs in the IR hall of fame?" list): Correlates of War Project

Stephen Van Evera: "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War", Editor of International Security. Additionally, a leading contributor to the practice of teaching IR.

John Vasquez: "The War Puzzle" "The Power of Power Politics"

Manus Midlarsky: "On War: Political Violence in the International System", "The Killing Trap"

Ted Robert Gurr: "People vs. States", "Ethnic Groups in Conflict", Minorities at Risk Project, Political Instability Project

Michael E. Brown: "Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict", "Ethnic Conflict and International Relations", Editor of International Security, Dean of the Elliott School.

Stephen!

this John Herz sounds good, did he also offer an alternative IR structure?

You could pick up where he left Mate!
Give a serious thought to my draft TE if you wish to be the Top Underrated Scholar in the IR (TUSIR);->

It is not difficult, I could give you more tips (open tips, nothing under the table), you already have a "Multi-National-Company" structure, for the SPEEs drop the "National" part which won't mean the same when you redefine State as SPEE. Now all you need is to introduce the SPEE structure _somehow_ similar (?!) to Company structure ;->>

I know, I know this will be the stepping on the toe of the pig, but Hey! you are a scholar, right?!, you have to do what you have to do;->>

You are coming closer to it, as I see, be quick!
This is _not_ going to stay on the shelf(rayon) too long;->>

Thanks for the pick!

Grand Sen~or

note - BTW, you like it or not that is what the Jews trying hard to protect their identity even under the pressure of the Constitution of the USA. If your constitution allowed them to make and implement their laws to themselves, wouldn't that be realistic? Then Jews wouldn't feel much homesick difference between Israel and the USA accept the grass is greener in the US;->Similar for the other SPEEs.

Hedley Bull - The Anarchical Society, The Control of the Arms Race, Intervention in World Politics, Strategic Studies and Its Critics, ...; one of the founding member of the English School of IR

John G. Ruggie - Constructing the World Polity, Multilateralism Matters, 'Territoriality and Beyond',...; practitioner and theorist

Barry Buzan - Peoples, States & Fear, Security, International Systems in World History, The Logic of Anarchy, Regions and Powers, From International to World Politics

Here's an odd one -- but on the underrated but great scale, I can't think of anyone better: Ivan Bloch: The future of war in its technological, economic and political aspects. (Ginn, 1899) Here's a single work, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, historical prediction and political analysis, and by a public intellectual to boot. Perhaps more an historical curiosity at this point, but worth remembering.

Don't get me wrong -- big fan of Ruggie, Bull, Singer, et al; but these are well-known and widely read scholars -- at least within academe. Bloch's at best a footnote.

While he's working on something "hot" (Iran) his Realist analysis deserves a lot more respect and attention than it gets.

The "Rethinking the World" author and proponent of the power of ideas in IR is, in my opinion, under appreciated and definitely has one of the strongest grasps of IR theory around.

Damn this is hard. Miles Kahler. David Lake. The UCSD faculty writ large. Mark Trachtenberg. Keck and Sikkink. Richard Rosecrance.

Now that he does civil war, does David Laitin count?

Lawrence Freedman, Kings College London War Studies, Colin Gray (same?) - was John Mueller already listed among the greats? If not, then damn that omission. Who's the biggest and best democratic peace theorist out there - has he been listed? Was RN Lebow counted? What about people who straddle interdisciplinary lines - Tetlock? Graham Allison overlooked by Essence being 40 years old? Mort Halperin for same? Steinbruner - cybernetic? Robert Art? They're more old school, but for a compendium/review article, merit inclusion, or do they have to be supercontemporary?

without any doubt, for me, if you are willing to consider her an IR theorist. On the one hand, she should be considered as such, since IPE is clearly a subfield of IR. But on the other hand, she was so unorthodox that I could imagine it argued the other way.

Also agree with the previous poster saying that Graham Allison (and the genius of Essence of Decision) is often overlooked, although I would attribute it less to the vintage of the book than to the fact that he is such a blowhard.

I would put the Bulgarian scholar Ivan Krastev in here too.

What about Organski?

I saw a lot of weird comments around, from people listing the few books they have on their bookshelves, to some claiming the most prominent scholars in the field are underrated.

1. Van Evera is one of the most important scholars in the field. He gets a tenure at the MIT... underrated? God, I think a lot of IR-scholars would like to be underrated in such a way! His works are known and appreciated (Causes of War) and he is even the author of one of the most read works on Methods in PS. Similarly, M.E. Brown: former editor of IS, and current dean of the Eliot School - underranted? (actually, since he has not written so widely, probably the opposite is true). Ruggie is known and respected, he is credited for having given status to constructivism... and he (was?) teaching ad Harvard University. If one considers how wordy and useless is constructivism, again: underrated seems everything but Ruggie.

2. Gurr, Singer, Levy, Legro: either their research programs proved to be dead (Singer), or their publications, though important, have not given any dramatic contribution to the field (Levy, Gurr, Legro).

3. Bull... ok... guys, now I really give up. Hedley Bull's the Anarchical Society is a wordy, ascientific and common sense book. He adds nothing and makes a lot of methodological mistakes. How can Bull be even considered at the level of the Masters of the discipline (like Waltz, for example) is really a big doubt.

4. Buzan... Buzan has written just one insterestnig book: PSF. The only clever point concerns the security relationship between State and individual. But then, what else? His The Logic of Anarchy is basically an edited book in which with his two co-authors attempts to expand Waltz' framework... with pretty disappointing results. He makes a good point, that the structure depends on the systems, and that systems depends on process. But then, he has not been able to do any more than restating this in his other books (The International Systems in World History). Similarly, his methodological sectorial differentiation of security has proven quite useless. His Security: A New Framework for Analysis is such a confused book that readers can barely understand what he is about. His methodological point is also interesting, but then Buzan is unable to make it relevant analytically. Again, he has just been able to restate this methodological differentiation in all his following academic production (Int. Systems in WH).
His Book Regions and Power seems more a narrative than an analysis: he attempts to merge Wendt and Waltz (very original!) but then he is just able to describe how world politics now is... not explain it.

So, at the end, beside Hertz, the only name among those made here, that appears to deserve more attention is Organski and probably Aron, if he really is so neglected in American Universities (around the world, his works are well known).

there are many underrated scholars... but I believe that there are also many (far too many) very overrated ones.

I know that it would not be politically correct for prof. Walt to name them out, but it would be interesting to hear his opinion about...

In regard of the underrated, I am quite skeptical about those listed above too. It seems they are all celebrities... and their accomplishments are quite disputable. Not really what I intend when I refer to an "underrated" scholar.

One possible name is Morton Kaplan. I have not really studied his works in depth, but he has he introduced the concept of "system" in IR and to a certain extent, anticipated Waltz' argument about nuclear weapons. I believe very few students have heard his name.

I completely agree, a lot of people are overrated. Prof. Walt cannot make the names, we can.

1) G. John Ikenberry: he wrote the article with Lake on Realist Theory of the State. Then? His book After Victory seems more like a ex-post justification than a Theoretical Explanation. Indeed, when GWB came to power, Ikenberry threw his theory in the toilet and relied on highly scientific concepts to explain the new course in the US foreign policy: fanatics, fundamentalists. Ikenberry made a theory that should explain US foreign policy. Events showed it did not. And instead of admitting its poor performance, he put the fault on the US Government. Once theories were supposed to explain Government's actions... now Governments are required to fit to (allegedly )theoretical explanation to be considered correct.

2) Alexander Wendt: ok, his book is fun. It is very well written, stimulating and challenging... so? He starts claiming he wants to take further the normative idealism of the '30 and make it analytically useful. What does its book say, at the end of the day? If we all were good, we would live in peace. Is this not the utopianism of which E.H. Carr was speaking? His 1992 article, Anarchy is what states make of it is probably the most overvalued article of the history. He takes a lot of time explaining the role of ideas and so forth. But which were the causes of the New Thinking? Wendt admits: economic decline. Is Anybody Still a Constructivist?

3) Helen Milner, Andrew Moravchik and friends: has anybody ever been able to read till the end one of their articles? Harvard, Princeton... it is really interesting to know who and how appointed them to these universities, when their academic records (when compared to people like Eug Gholz or Mike Desch) are so poor.

4) Bob Keohane: can anybody tell me what's so relevant has Keohane written? Power and interdipendece? His book was discussed a few months, then Waltz came, and Keohane had nothing to do than throw it in the bin, to adopt Waltz's approach. He put a lot of effort to show that Waltz's framework could be expanded... but at the end he performed quite bad. He was not considering security issues, and was only dealing with economic cooperation AMONG allies. As Keohane would admit later (1993): the Absolute-Relative Gains debate proved the Absolute Gainers wrong. In the annual surveys, Keohane is listed as the most important and credited scholar in the field. Just a question: why?

Former grad.

Modelski?

Duncan Snidal? Christopher Achen?

I remember taking a class of his in the late 1980's on US Foreign Policy right after WWII. This was towards the end of his career and I don't remember him being the best lecturer. Since I was a sophomore at the time, I certainly did not realize his previous accomplishments.

I was thinking Wolfers as soon as I saw the topic, but Rich (& thucydides) beat me to it. The articles in "Collaboration and Discord" make my favourite book in IR.

Stephen, John Herz really sounds a very good pick. Nevertheless, I have some doubts calling him "underrated" since it is very well known in the IR field. I think he should be put not here but in the "Hall of Fame" of the first "Open Mic." After all, as you said, he wrote two books and some articles that still are a "must read" in every course.

Finally, I would like to say that from my point of view Christopher Layne is the most underrated academic in the U.S. He is a top notch intellectual, a Realist from the first hour, and a fierce critic of the other pseudo-theories. He still is not teaching in an Ivy league univesity, finds it hard to get books and articles published, and --above all-- has created the concept --now much in fashion-- of off-shore balancing which is the current policy option picked by every Realist, from Posen, to Measheimer, to you Stephen, including Pape, Van Evera, and others.
So, I think Chris Layne SHOULD deserve much more attention and credit that he actually enjoys (including among Realists themselves!).

All best, from Argentina
Nico.

I should think the question is: Among IR scholars dedicated to bringing policy AND theory together, who is underrated? And the answer, I would say, is Ken Booth, underrated no doubt because he comes at security theory from a critical point of view.