International Relations and the Reconstruction of Political Theory

Politics ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Williams
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
State Behaviour

International relations and political theory are generally seen as two distinct disciplines with their afferent methodologies and clusters of problems. This division of labour has in some respects proved useful but may now be too extreme. Political theory and international relations have a common subject matter in political action and state behaviour. The advantages for political theory and international relations in crossing the dividing lines between the disciplines are explored. A case is made for a political theory which is focussed on international relations and an international relations which exploits the approaches and methods of political theory.

The limits of power: Knowledge, ethics, and foreign policy in Hans J. Morgenthau’s international theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782093562
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Zambernardi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Action ◽  
International Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Limits Of Knowledge ◽  
Political Thinker

Hans J. Morgenthau’s contribution to international relations and political theory appears to have been fully recognized to date. However, his ideas have undergone surprisingly little comprehensive investigation: an attitude that made it possible to grasp only a few aspects of his reflections. The main argument of this article is that the main area of inquiry in Morgenthau’s scholarship – international politics and foreign policy – is based on general considerations regarding the role of reason in politics and the limits of knowledge of the social universe. Not only does the question of the possibility of such knowledge lie at the root of his considerations on political action, but it also forms the mainspring of his reflection on ethics. Through an inquiry into the red thread that tightly links his diverse body of thought on social sciences, ethics, and foreign policy, the article aims to show that Morgenthau was a systematic political thinker who set out from theoretical observations on the limits of knowledge to develop particular insights into ethics and, from there, a particular notion of how foreign policy should be conducted. In other words, Morgenthau established links of essential continuity between knowledge, ethics, and action.

A normative enquiry in international relations: the case of ‘pacta sunt servanda’

1983 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hidemi Suganami
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
International Context ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
Moral Philosophers

A study of ethics must be regarded as incomplete if it does not offer tools for analysing moral problems arising in the international context, particularly in an age of growing interdependence between the peoples of the world. Similarly, a study of international relations must be thought to be imperfect if it leaves out normative questions.To this it may be objected that International Relations is an empirical discipline, and that it can legitimately leave normative considerations to moral philosophers. However, such a division of labour is unfortunately more likely to result in mere division rather than efficient co-operation. Moreover, international relations, the subject-matter, is logically, as well as historically, prior to International Relations, the academic discipline. Therefore, a study of international relations, undertaken by International Relations experts, cannot be claimed to be complete if it neglects those aspects of the subject-matter which have occupied the minds of many thinkers who do not consider themselves as IR specialists.

scholarly journals Barbarian thoughts: imperialism in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEATE JAHN
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
International Theory

Mill's political and his international theory rest on a philosophy of history drawn in turn from the experience of nineteenth century imperialism. And yet, this philosophy of history remains unexamined in Political Theory and International Relations (IR) alike, largely because of the peculiar division of labour between the two disciplines. In this article I will argue that this omission results not just in a misconception of those aspects of Mill's thought with which Political Theory and IR directly engage; in addition, and more seriously, it has led in both disciplines to an unreflected perpetuation of Mill's justification of imperialism.

Between Specters of War and Visions of Peace

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald M. Mara
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Democracies

This book examines how ideas of war and peace have functioned as organizing frames of reference within the history of political theory. It interprets ten widely read figures in that history within five thematically focused chapters that pair (in order) Schmitt and Derrida, Aquinas and Machiavelli, Hobbes and Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, and Thucydides and Plato. The book’s substantive argument is that attempts to establish either war or peace as dominant intellectual perspectives obscure too much of political life. The book argues for a style of political theory committed more to questioning than to closure. It challenges two powerful currents in contemporary political philosophy: the verdict that premodern or metaphysical texts cannot speak to modern and postmodern societies, and the insistence that all forms of political theory be some form of democratic theory. What is offered instead is a nontraditional defense of the tradition and a democratic justification for moving beyond democratic theory. Though the book avoids any attempt to show the immediate relevance of these interpretations to current politics, its impetus stems very much from the current political circumstances. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century , a series of wars has eroded confidence in the progressively peaceful character of international relations; citizens of the Western democracies are being warned repeatedly about the threats posed within a dangerous world. In this turbulent context, democratic citizens must think more critically about the actions their governments undertake. The texts interpreted here are valuable resources for such critical thinking.

scholarly journals Engaging the “Animal Question” in International Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Fougner
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Question

Abstract By raising the “animal question” in International Relations (IR), this essay seeks to contribute not only to put animals and human–animal relations on the IR agenda, but also to move the field in a less anthropocentric and non-speciesist direction. More specifically, the essay does three things: First, it makes animals visible within some of the main empirical realms conventionally treated as the subject matter of IR. Second, it reflects on IR's neglect of animals and human–animal relations in relation to both how IR has been constituted as a field and the broader socio-cultural context in which it is embedded. Third, it explores various ways in which IR scholars can start incorporating and take animals and human–animal relations seriously in studies on international relations.

scholarly journals Scarred souls, weary warriors, and military intervention: the emergence of the subject in the just war writings of Jean Bethke Elshtain

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LEE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
A Site

AbstractOver the past three decades Jean Bethke Elshtain has used her critique and application of just war as a means of engaging with multiple overlapping aspects of identity. Though Elshtain ostensibly writes about war and the justice, or lack of justice, therein, she also uses just war a site of analysis within which different strands of subjectivity are investigated and articulated as part of her broader political theory. This article explores the proposition that Elshtain's most important contribution to the just war tradition is not be found in her provision of codes or her analysis of ad bellum or in bello criteria, conformity to which adjudges war or military intervention to be just or otherwise. Rather, that she enriches just war debate because of the unique and sometimes provocative perspective she brings as political theorist and International Relations scholar who adopts, adapts, and deploys familiar but, for some, uncomfortable discursive artefacts from the history of the Christian West: suffused with her own Christian faith and theology. In so doing she continually reminds us that human lives, with all their attendant political, social, and religious complexities, should be the focus when military force is used, or even proposed, for political ends.

Minority Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 165-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
International Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Level ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Rights Issues

It has often been noted that the political claims of minorities and indigenous peoples are marginalized within traditional state-centric international political theory; but perhaps more surprisingly, they are also marginalized within much contemporary cosmopolitan political theory. In this chapter, I will argue that neither cosmopolitanism nor statism as currently theorized is well equipped to evaluate the normative claims at stake in many minority rights issues. I begin by discussing how the “minority question” arose as an issue within international relations—that is, why minorities have been seen as a problem and a threat to international order—and how international actors have historically attempted to contain the problem, often in ways that were deeply unjust to minorities. I will then consider recent efforts to advance a pro-minority agenda at the international level, and how this agenda helps reveal some of the limits of both cosmopolitan and statist approaches to IPT.

scholarly journals POLITIK PEMUSNAHAN DAN PEMUSNAHAN POLITIK : Telaah Kritis Atas Konsep Hannah Arendt Tentang Totalitarisme

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Mathias Daven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Total Domination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Totalitarian Regime

If we wish to understand a totalitarian system as a whole, we need first to understand the central role of the concentration camp as a laboratorium to experiment in total domination. Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in the twentieth century shows how a totalitarian regime cannot survive without terror; and terror will not be effective without concentration camps. Experiments in concentration camps had as their purpose, apart from wiping out any freedom or spontaneity, the abolishing of space between human beings, abolishing space for politics. Thus, totalitarianism did not mirror only the politics of extinction, but also the extinction of politics. As a way forward, Arendt analyses political theory that forces the reader to understand power no longer under the rubric of domination or violence – although this avenue is open – but rather under the rubric of freedom. Arendt is convinced that the life of a destroyed nation can be restored by mutual forgiveness and mutual promises, two abilities rooted in action. Political action, as with other acts, is identical with the ability to commence something new. Keywords: Totalitarisme, antisemitisme, imperialisme, dominasi, teror, kebebasan, kedaulatan, kamp konsentrasi, politik, ideologi, tindakan

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