The pertinence of revolution

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 675-681
Author(s):  
Roberto González Gomez
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Third World ◽  
New Left ◽  
First Century ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
The 1960S

Fred Halliday has been impertinent enough to write this book at a time when the collapse of the European socialist bloc and the undiluted hegemony of a trans-nationalized capitalism, encourages the beatific neo-liberal confidence in the ‘end of history’. For this book brilliantly emphasizes the meaning and the importance of revolutions both as an historical phenomenon and in terms of its relevance for the twenty-first century, especially for those countries of the South. Probably few academics in Western countries are as well positioned as Halliday to write about the subject: his early links with the New Left in the 1960s, his interest in the study of Third World conflicts and revolutions, and of course his role as a theoretician of international relations, have equipped him well. His study analyses revolutions in all of their complexity and range, from the British to the Iranian, the French to the Bolshevik, the Chinese to the Cuban. The result is a substantial, profound, richly analytical book, that almost requires writing another book to discuss its various qualities. I will however restrict myself here to making a few comments about the issues I deem particularly significant.

The other as past and present: beyond the logic of ‘temporal othering’ in IR theory

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 1273-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
SERGEI PROZOROV
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Conceptual Argument ◽  
Temporal Aspect ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

AbstractThe article ventures a critique of the logic of ‘temporal othering’ in contemporary International Relations (IR) theory. Originally articulated in the field of European integration, this logic presupposes a possibility for a political community to constitute its identity without any spatial delimitation by means of casting as Other its own past, whose repetition in the future it seeks to avoid. While the image of contemporary Europe as ‘othering’ its own past has been subjected to empirical criticism, this article makes a conceptual argument for the indissociability of temporal and spatial aspects in any act of othering. Drawing on Alexandre Kojève's reading of Hegel, I argue that any historical action is necessarily spatiotemporal, combining the abstraction of temporal negation with the concrete actuality of a negated spatial being. Alternatives to the logic of sovereign territoriality are therefore not to be sought in the temporal aspect of othering, but rather by pursuing the possibility of self-constitution in the absence of any negating action whatsoever. The article concludes with an outline of such an alternative ethos, developed on the basis of Giorgio Agamben's reconstruction of the Hegelian-Kojèvian problematic of the end of history and his theory of the subject.

From Derrida's Deconstruction to Stiegler's Organology: Thinking after Postmodernity

Derrida Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
Anne Alombert
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Critique ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The End Of History

The aim of this paper is to question the significance of Derrida's deconstruction of the concepts of subject and history. While ‘postmodernity’ tends to be characterized by philosophical critique as the ‘liquidation of the subject’ or the ‘end of history’, I attempt to show that Derrida's deconstruction of ‘subjectivity’ and ‘historicity’ is not an elimination or destruction of these concepts, but an attempt to transform them in order to free them from their metaphysical-teleological presuppositions. This paper argues that this transformation, which begins in Derrida's and continues in Stiegler's texts, leads to the notions of ‘psycho-social individuation’ and ‘doubly epokhal redoubling’. I maintain that such notions ‘supplement’ the metaphysical concepts of subject and history by forcing a reconsideration of the technical conditions of psychic individuation and the technological conditions of ‘epochality’.

India and Global Governance

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poorvi Chitalkar ◽  
David M. Malone
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
First Century ◽  
Climate Change Negotiations ◽  
Economic Diplomacy ◽  
Meaningful Participation ◽  
Tremendous Progress ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

India’s engagement with the institutions and norms of global governance has evolved significantly since independence in 1947. This chapter traces the evolution—beginning with early engagement with international organizations under Nehru, to the waning of its enthusiasm for multilateralism in the 1960s and 1970s, and its struggle for greater voice and recognition internationally in the twenty-first century. Through the prism of its quest for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, its approach to climate change negotiations, global economic diplomacy, and its engagement with global norms, this chapter traces India’s rise as a vital player in the rebalancing of international relations in a multipolar world. However, despite its tremendous progress, some ongoing challenges continue to constrain India’s meaningful participation in global governance at times. The chapter concludes with an assessment of India’s contribution to global governance and its prospects as a stakeholder and shareholder on the global stage.

Status in International Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Renshon
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Critical Element ◽  
Status Inconsistency ◽  
Collective Beliefs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Different Strains ◽  
Status Position

Scholars from disparate traditions in political science and international relations (IR) agree that status—standing or rank in a hierarchy—is a critical element of international politics. It has three critical attributes—it is positional, perceptual, and social—that combine to make any actor’s status position a function of the higher-order, collective beliefs of a given community of actors. The term is commonly used in two ways. The first refers to status in its most purely positional sense: standing, an actor’s rank or position in a hierarchy. “Status community” is defined as a hierarchy composed of the group of actors that a state perceives itself as being in competition with. “Rank” is one’s ordinal position and is determined by the collective beliefs of members of that community. Status has long been a focus of IR scholars, dating back to (at least) the beginning of the “scientific study of international relations” that developed in the 1960s. Since then, two different strains of work—status inconsistency theory and social identity theory—have provided the basic theoretical scaffolding for much of the empirical research done since then. After the initial wave of research in the 1960s and 1970s, IR scholars seemingly moved on from the subject for a few decades. However, recent years have seen a renaissance in the study of status, with novel work being done across methodological and epistemological boundaries.

Generation fables and the ‘end of history’

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-112
Author(s):  
Jennie Bristow
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Outside The Box

This chapter examines ‘generationalism’ — using the language of generations to narrate the social and political. It argues that generationalism means that we are in danger of taking historical stories way too personally. The chapter shows that the generationalism of the Sixties was as much about the failure of established institutions and ideologies to grasp what was happening as it was about the experience of the kids and the counterculture. Moving on half a century, the generationalism of the early twenty-first century tells us as much about our present anxieties as it does about the Sixties as a historical period. Whereas the Sixties Boomer was, until fairly recently, a source of wistful fascination, often bringing with it a romanticised nostalgia for a time when people felt they could think and live outside the box, the Boomer-blaming of the present day mobilises the stereotype as an example of everything that is seen to be wrong with the past.

American World Order: The End of the ‘End of History’

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
SERGEY CHUGROV
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
Modern World ◽  
New World Order ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The World ◽  
The End Of History

It seems that everyone has already realized that our world enters a period of fundamental changes and the formation of a new world order. Today, the question of how the modern world will develop is one of the most vital problems of international relations. Therefore, I want to once again prudently refer to the books by J. John Ikenberry and Acharya Amitav on the American World Order (AWO)? Both books represent a lucid, intelligent, and thought-provoking analysis of tectonic transformations in the world as well as a subtle foresight of certain trends.

scholarly journals Theory, ‘truthers’, and transparency: Reflecting on knowledge in the twenty-first century

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW FLUCK
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Information Age ◽  
First Century ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
Political Interaction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Object Relationship

AbstractThe current era is often described in epistemic terms, as an ‘information age’ or ‘knowledge society’. Such claims reflect ideals that are deeply ingrained in modern societies. There is a widespread assumption that successful social and political interaction involves access to information and that political power is gained when knowledge replaces obscurity. Such assumptions reflect contemporary ‘epistemic folkways’, which are manifested in two widespread epistemic phenomena – faith in ‘transparency’ and conspiracy theorisingInternational Relations (IR) theorists should be well-equipped to understand such developments. However, reflection concerning epistemic matters in IR is in under attack, increasingly presented as a distraction from the formulation of empirically grounded accounts of international politics. This article argues that reflexive theory can in fact play an important role in helping IR scholars to understand contemporary epistemic folkways. Drawing on the Critical Theory of Theodor Adorno, it is argued that the transparency ideal and conspiracy theorising reflect the efforts of individuals to increase their influence in a world in which they are both objects of technical knowledge and, in principle, epistemically empowered subjects. Reflection on the subject-object relationship suggests that the pursuit of increasingly unmediated access to information is in fact a key source of reification and disempowerment.

Author and audience in Catalepton

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-69
Author(s):  
Joseph Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
First Century ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The End Of History

Catalepton presents itself as a work of Vergil’s youth that reflects the time when it is set. It represents Vergil as a belated neoteric and a critic of littérateurs; and it reflects on the downfall of an unnamed individual evocative of Pompey. This chapter argues that such topics have a double frame of reference, speaking both to the collection’s dramatic date and to the time when it was written, probably in the first century AD. The collection represents Vergil as preoccupied with literary belatedness and inferiority; the death of oratory; the pernicious influence of rhetores; issues surrounding monarchy; the end of history—all themes more characteristic of early imperial intellectuals than of Vergil. Yet the author of Catalepton presents Vergil’s concerns with plausibility. One may therefore infer that the author’s double focus addresses an early imperial audience on two levels, commenting on contemporary concerns, and reflecting on a posited similarity between two historical moments (the collection’s dramatic date and the period when it was produced).

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