scholarly journals New Materialisms, discourse analysis, and International Relations: a radical intertextual approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOM LUNDBORG ◽  
NICK VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Force ◽  
Theoretical Status ◽  
New Materialisms ◽  
Do So

AbstractThis article investigates the recent ‘New Materialisms’ turn in social and political thought and asks what the potential theoretical and methodological significance might be for the study of International Relations (IR). To do so we return to debates about the theoretical status of discourse in IR as it is in this context that the question of materiality – particularly as it relates to language – has featured prominently in recent years. While the concept of discourse is increasingly narrow in IR, the ‘New Materialisms’ literature emphasises the political force of materiality beyond language and representation. However, a move to reprioritise the politics of materiality over that of language and representation is equally problematic since it perpetuates rather than challenges the notion of a prior distinction between language and materiality. In response, we draw on earlier poststructural thought in order to displace this dichotomy and articulate an extended understanding of what analysing ‘discourse’ might mean in the study of IR.

Revelation and The Political

2021 ◽  
pp. 551-567
Author(s):  
Matthew John Paul Tan
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Third ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
Mode A ◽  
Do So

This chapter will explore the varieties of political thought informed by divine revelation as understood in the Christian tradition. It will do so with reference to the metaphysical assumptions of what happens when transcendence meets history, and accordingly divide the inquiry into three archetypes. The first are the monists, for whom transcendence collapses into the temporal. The second are the dialecticians, for whom the uncrossable distinction between heaven and earth results in a struggle between the two. The third are the participationists, for whom the transcendent and the historical can harmoniously cohere through a ‘mediating third’ plane. For each mode, a brief sketch will be given of the writings of exemplary thinkers, and of the promises and pitfalls. In highlighting this variety, the aim of charting this map is to nuance the discussion currently taking place concerning the motivations and modus operandi of religiously informed political actors.

scholarly journals The Creation of Myth: Starting the First "Great Debate" in International Relations Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-39
Author(s):  
T. A. Alekseeva
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

From one textbook to another wanders the story about three (sometimes - four) Great debates, which formed the canonical history of the theory of international relations. In reality everything was much more complicated, and the theoretical richness much wider than many times repeated antinomic pairs - realism vs. idealism, traditionalism vs. modernism, rationalism vs. reflectivism The author regards the discussions between different trends of the political thought in the interwar period, which were later called the First "Great Debates", which, according to the author's view were pre-paradigmal.

scholarly journals Drones and the Threshold for Waging War

Politik ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezio Di Nucci
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Drone Warfare ◽  
The One ◽  
Do So

If drones make waging war easier, the reason why they do so may not be the one commonly assumed within the philosophical debate – namely, the promised reduction in casualties on either side – but a more complicated one. One that has little to do with the concern for one’s own soldiers or, for that matter, the enemy, but rather one that is embedded in the political intricacies of international relations and domestic politics. This article will utilize the example of the Obama Administration’s drone policies to illustrate this argument. This analysis is also meant to have a wider methodological significance; that philosophy can make an important contribution in analyzing drone warfare. However, philosophy will not help to simplify realities and provide easy solutions. 

Politics and Interstate Relations in the World of Early GreekPoleis: Homer and Beyond

Antichthon ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt A. Raaflaub
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Time ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Greek Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Do So

This essay is part of a larger project concerned with determining how historians today can use the evidence of the Homeric epics in order to gain a better understanding of the evolution of early Greek society—but do so responsibly, that is, in ways that are adequate to the epics' nature as poetic and cultural documents surviving from a specific time and social context. Elsewhere I have discussed Homer and history, the role of thepolis, warfare and military organisation, and political thought in Homer, as well as ‘Homeric society’ in general and the problem of its historicity. Here I want to take a close look at interstate relations (sections I and III) and the political sphere (section II). I choose as my point of departure some of the views which M.I. Finley expressed inThe World of Odysseus—a book that is now more than forty years old, still illuminating and indispensable but partly outdated.

scholarly journals Reflexive discourse analysis: A methodology for the practice of reflexivity

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406612096978
Author(s):  
Audrey Alejandro
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
The World ◽  
Theoretical Premise ◽  
Do So

How to implement reflexivity in practice? Can the knowledge we produce be emancipatory when our discourses recursively originate in the world we aim to challenge? Critical International Relations (IR) scholars have successfully put reflexivity on the agenda based on the theoretical premise that discourse and knowledge play a socio-political role. However, academics often find themselves at a loss when it comes to implementing reflexivity due to the lack of adapted methodological and pedagogical material. This article shifts reflexivity from meta-reflections on the situatedness of research into a distinctive practice of research and writing that can be learned and taught alongside other research practices. To do so, I develop a methodology based on discourse: reflexive discourse analysis (RDA). Based on the discourse analysis of our own discourse and self-resocialisation, RDA aims to reflexively assess and transform our socio-discursive engagement with the world, so as to render it consistent with our intentional socio-political objectives. RDA builds upon a theoretical framework integrating discourse theory to Bourdieu’s conceptual apparatus for reflexivity and practices illustrated in the works of Comte and La Boétie. To illustrate this methodology, I used this very article as a recursive performance. I show how RDA enabled me to identify implicit discriminative mechanisms within my discourse and transform them into an alternative based on love, to produce an article more in line with my socio-political objectives. Overall, this article turns reflexivity into a critical methodology for social change and demonstrates how to integrate criticality methodologically into research and writing.

Unity and difference: John Robert Seeley and the political theology of international relations

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
DUNCAN S. A. BELL
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Regius Professor

This article explores the international political thought of one of the most prominent late Victorian public intellectuals, John Robert Seeley (1834–95), the Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, and author of the best-selling The Expansion of England (1883). Challenging conventional readings of Seeley, I argue that his vision of global politics must be located within the wider frame of his views on the sacred, and that he is seen best as articulating an intriguing political theology of international relations. In particular, I argue that instead of interpreting him as a realist, as has traditionally been the case, his position is classified most accurately as ‘cosmopolitan nationalism’. Only by situating him in the intellectual context(s) of his time is it possible to provide an adequate account of the identity of his political thought.

scholarly journals Scopic regimes and the visual turn in International Relations: Seeing world politics through the drone

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Grayson ◽  
Jocelyn Mawdsley
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Targeted Killing ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
Drone Warfare ◽  
A Site ◽  
Kinetic Force ◽  
Do So

In this article, we argue that the lack of attention paid to the scopic regimes of modernity in the ‘visual turn’ literature misses a key aspect of how visuality produces and shapes the international as both a site — and sight — of politics. In making the case that systemised ways of seeing are central to world politics, we contend that the scopic regimes of modernity help us to understand how it becomes possible for particular representational practices and outputs to resonate within broader discourses as authoritative, truthful, and/or emotively powerful. To do so, we draw from ongoing controversies over targeted killing via drones. We argue that disagreements over the legality and governance of drone warfare are more than disputes over legal statutes and legitimate techniques for the application of kinetic force; they also encompass disagreements over how we see, who we see, what we see, and what counts as being seen. Thus, by demonstrating the importance of scopic regimes, we provide evidence of the value of engaging with how the visual produces the political in International Relations. Moreover, we argue for International Relations to engage with scopic regimes from beyond Western traditions in order to decolonise the ‘visual turn’.

Simone Weil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Marovich
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Intellectual Curiosity ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
Simone Weil

Few of Giorgio Agamben’s works are as mysterious as his unpublished dissertation, reportedly on the political thought of the French philosopher Simone Weil. If Weil was an early subject of Agamben’s intellectual curiosity, it would appear – judging from his published works – that her influence upon him has been neither central nor lasting.1 Leland de la Durantaye argues that Weil’s work has left a mark on Agamben’s philosophy of potentiality, largely in his discussion of the concept of decreation; but de la Durantaye does not make much of Weil’s influence here, determining that her theory of decreation is ‘essentially dialectical’ and still too bound up with creation theology. 2 Alessia Ricciardi, however, argues that de la Durantaye’s dismissal of Weil’s influence is hasty.3 Ricciardi analyses deeper resonances between Weil’s and Agamben’s philosophies, ultimately claiming that Agamben ‘seems to extend many of the implications and claims of Weil’s idea of force’,4 arguably spreading Weil’s influence into Agamben’s reflections on sovereign power and bare life.

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