Socratic Cosmopolitanism: Cicero's Critique and Transformation of the Stoic Ideal

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas L. Pangle
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
World Community ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Law

AbstractThe post-Cold War era has provoked a revival of various implicit as well as explicit returns to Stoic cosmopolitan theory as a possible source of a normative conceptual framework for international relations and global community. This article confronts this revival of interest in Stoicism with an analysis of Cicero's constructive critique of original Stoic conceptions of the world community. Particular attention is paid to the arguments by which Cicero identifies major flaws in the Stoic outlook and establishes the validity of his alternative notion of the “law of nations.” It is argued that Cicero's transformation of Stoicism issues in a more modest but more solid, as well as more civic-spirited, cosmopolitan theory. At the same time, the implications of Cicero's arguments for our understanding of justice altogether are clarified.

Constructing Identity in “Glocal” Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
M. A. Muqtedar Khan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Socioeconomic Conditions ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Important Concept ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This paper seeks to understand the impact of current global politicaland socioeconomic conditions on the construction of identity. I advancean argument based on a two-step logic. First, I challenge the characterizationof current socioeconomic conditions as one of globalization bymarshaling arguments and evidence that strongly suggest that along withglobalization, there are simultaneous processes of localization proliferatingin the world today. I contend that current conditions are indicative ofthings far exceeding the scope of globalization and that they can bedescribed more accurately as ccglocalization.~H’2a ving established thisclaim, I show how the processes of glocalization affect the constructionof Muslim identity.Why do I explore the relationship between glocalization and identityconstruction? Because it is significant. Those conversant with current theoreticaldebates within the discipline of international relations’ are awarethat identity has emerged as a significant explanatory construct in internationalrelations theory in the post-Cold War era.4 In this article, I discussthe emergence of identity as an important concept in world politics.The contemporary field of international relations is defined by threephilosophically distinct research programs? rationalists: constructivists,’and interpretivists.’ The moot issue is essentially a search for the mostimportant variable that can help explain or understand the behavior ofinternational actors and subsequently explain the nature of world politicsin order to minimize war and maximize peace.Rationalists contend that actors are basically rational actors who seekthe maximization of their interests, interests being understood primarilyin material terms and often calculated by utility functions maximizinggiven preferences? Interpretivists include postmodernists, critical theorists,and feminists, all of whom argue that basically the extant worldpolitical praxis or discourses “constitute” international agents and therebydetermine their actions, even as they reproduce world politics by ...

‘Realism as an Unsentimental Intellectual Temper’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Berdal
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Theoretical Construction

The post-Cold War era witnessed a growing tendency to justify the use and the threat of use of military force in international relations on humanitarian grounds. Freedman’s writing on the use of armed force in pursuit of humanitarian goals and his contribution to the field are explored in this chapter. He rejects the traditional dichotomies in International Relations scholarship between Realism and Idealism. Freedman’s work on ‘New Interventionism’, with the Chicago Speech contribution at its core, suggests that it is unhelpful to delineate sharply different existing schools of thought, or paradigms. Freedman draws a distinction between ‘realism as an unsentimental temper’ and realism as a ‘theoretical construction.’ Liberal values are important for Freedman and their universality is to be asserted, but that does not mean being naively oblivious to dangers and difficulties inherent in seeking to promote them as standards against which Western governments should be judged.

Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-175
Author(s):  
James F. Jeffrey
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The World ◽  
Cold War Era

Introduction: The Emergence of “Greater China”

1993 ◽  
Vol 136 ◽  
pp. 653-659 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shambaugh
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Greater China ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
New Millennium

The post-Cold War world is witnessing the reconfiguration of international relations with the emergence of new actors and relationships on the world stage. These new actors and patterns of relations are reshaping the familiarities of the post-war era. As the new millennium approaches, one has the sense that the world is in transition from one epoch to another. Among the new realities of our era is the emergence of “Greater China.”

The foreign policy options of a small unrecognised state: the case of Abkhazia

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Thomas Frear
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Universal Principle ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
The World ◽  
Systemic Understanding

The study of international relations has historically focused on the activities of large, powerful states, dismissing the smaller entities of the international system as unimportant or merely objects of policy for the larger entities. This truism extends especially to those entities that exist in an unrecognised or partially recognised limbo, neither a full part of the international system nor an ungoverned space. Yet in the post-Cold War world, following the dissolution of large multi-national states such as the USSR, these entities have begun to proliferate. This proliferation provides a significant challenge to an international system in which the primary participants are states, and to the institutions created to oversee their interaction. Unrecognised entities, existing outside of this framework, represent a threat to the universal principle of sovereignty, that one true institutionalised aspect of international relations. As such the study of these entities and their interaction with the world outside their borders is a study important for a systemic understanding of contemporary international relations. This article aims to address the foreign policy of one such entity, Abkhazia.

Nations and Nationalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 578-592
Author(s):  
Scott Paeth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the development of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thoughts on nationalism. Over the course of his lifetime, Niebuhr continually returned to the question of nationalism as a factor in international relations, revising his understanding in light of the particular circumstances confronting the United States and the global community. His early writings on German Americanism yielded to a more sceptical analysis of nationalism as a manifestation of collective egoism, but one which could nevertheless provide important resources to human communities. The threat of Fascist nationalism in the 1930s caused him to yet again revise his understanding of nationalism, as a revitalized form of democratic nationalism became necessary to confront it. The Cold War presented the context for Niebuhr’s mature reflection on the subject, advocating for a form of chastened nationalism, which was aware of both its responsibility to confront evil in the world, as well as its own tendencies towards self-delusion and the abuse of power.

Russia’s Changing Relations with Pakistan and Taliban: Implications for India

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinay Kaura
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
The World ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

Historically, India–Russia cooperation has largely been dictated by geopolitical factors. During the Cold War era, their relationship was defined by their similar strategic perceptions of the world. However, post-Cold War global politics has seen several transformations in geopolitical and geostrategic configurations, influencing the strategic worldview of both New Delhi and Moscow. Recent political trends demonstrate the growing divergence between the strategic approaches of the two states toward various global issues, including Pakistan and the Taliban. The article discusses the implications of the shift in Russia’s South Asia policy as well as India’s counterterrorism efforts.

The Authority of Vattel

1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G. Fenwick
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Political Philosopher

There is no more significant commentary on the growth of international law, both in precision and in comprehensiveness, than an estimate of the relative authority of the name of Vattel in the world of international relations a century ago and in that of today. A century ago not even the name of Grotius himself was more potent in its influence upon questions relating to international law than that of Vattel. Vattel's treatise on the law of nations was quoted by judicial tribunals, in speeches before legislative assemblies, and in the decrees and correspondence of executive officials. It was the manual of the student, the reference work of the statesman, and the text from which the political philosopher drew inspiration. Publicists considered it sufficient to cite the authority of Vattel to justify and give conclusiveness and force to statements as to the proper conduct of a state in its international relations.At the present day the name and treatise of Vattel have both passed into the remoter field of the history of international law. It is safe to say that in no modern controversy over the existence and force of an alleged rule of international law would publicists seek to strengthen the position taken by them by quoting the authority of Vattel. As an exposition of the law of nations at a given period of its growth, the work can, it is true, lose nothing of its value, but in saying that it has thus won its place irrevocably among the classics of international law, we are merely repeating that it has lost its value as a treatise on the law of the present day.

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