The State and Imperialism in International Relations Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 132-147
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State

Integrating anxiety into international relations theory: Hobbes, existentialism, and ontological security

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bahar Rumelili
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Existentialist Philosophy

This article draws on Hobbes and existentialist philosophy to contend that anxiety needs to be integrated into international relations (IR) theory as a constitutive condition, and proposes theoretical avenues for doing so. While IR scholars routinely base their assumptions regarding the centrality of fear and self-help behavior on the Hobbesian state of nature, they overlook the Hobbesian emphasis on anxiety as the human condition that gives rise to the state of nature. The first section of the article turns to existentialist philosophy to explicate anxiety's relation to fear, multiple forms, and link to agency. The second section draws on some recent interpretations to outline the role that anxiety plays in Hobbesian thought. Finally, I argue that an ontological security (OS) perspective that is enriched by insights from existentialism provides the most appropriate theoretical venue for integrating anxiety into IR theory and discuss the contributions of this approach to OS studies and IR theory.

Beyond the Great Divide: globalization and the theory of international relations

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN CLARK
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
External Environment ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
State Action ◽  
Theoretical Scheme ◽  
General Significance ◽  
External Forces

This article assesses the general significance for International Relations theory of the literature on globalization. It argues that globalization is a pervasively unsettling process which needs to be explained not only as an issue in its own right but for the insight which it affords into cognate areas of theory. In short, it advances an analytical model whereby globalization itself can be understood and utilizes this as a theoretical scheme that may be applied more generally. The predominant conceptualization of the globalization issue within International Relations has been the debate between the proponents of state redundancy and the champions of continuing state potency. In turn, these arguments rest upon an image of state capacities being eroded by external forces, or alternatively of external forces being generated by state action. In either case, there is the assumed duality of the state(s) set off from, and ranged against, a seemingly external environment. Instead, this article argues that the state occupies a middle ground between the internal and external and is itself both shaped by and formative of the process of globalization.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
Territorial State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

This book has sought to deepen the dialogue between history and international relations theory in examining a pivotal moment in the history of international relations. The Paris Peace Conference constituted a historically specific effort to reimagine “the world.” More specifically, it sought to replace anarchy under realism with “sovereignty.” The conference could not live comfortably with the radical liberalism of Wilsonianism, but the international contract made at the time of the armistice with Germany meant that the conference could not live without it. The territorial state and its discontents lay at the heart of sovereignty at the conference. Two logics of the state fought each other to a standstill in Paris—that of the self-help of realism, forever seeking unattainable “security,” and that of the state that exists only in relation to other states, toward some common end.

BETWEEN INVOLVED POWER AND ACTUAL HUMANITY: A TYPOLOGY OF THE DIPLOMACY OF THE WESTERN UKRAINIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

2019 ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
I. S. Monolatii
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State

The features of foreign policy activity of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic (WUPR) are investigated in the article. On the basis of modern approaches in the field of international relations theory, 10 types of diplomacy of this Ukrainian state in 1918-1923 were investigated: “quiet” & “protest” diplomacy); “group diplomacy” & “nichte diplomacy”; “diasporic diplomacy” & “multicultural diplomacy”; “enterprises diplomacy” & “regulatory diplomacy”; “summit diplomacy” & “cyber diplomacy”. It is concluded that, although the fundamental principle of unification with Ukraine was taken as the basis of WUPR international legal relations, the problem of powerlessness of diplomacy of this Ukrainian state was the desire of middle and lower level diplomats who confused party interests with national pseudo-actors of policy, that would embody the international prestige of the state.

The Islamic Paradigm of Nations: Toward a Neo-Classical Approach

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amr Sabet
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
International Community ◽  
The State ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Classical Approach ◽  
Sovereign State

As late as 1966, Martin Wight could still pose the question: “why is there no international relations theory?” By this he meant the absence of a tradition of speculation about relations between states, family of nations, or the international community, comparable to that of political theory as speculation about the state. To the extent that it did exist, it was marked by “intellectual and moral poverty” caused both by the prejudice imposed by the sovereign state and the belief in progress (Wight 1995: 15-16 &19). Unlike political theory, which has been progressivist in its concern with pursuing interests of state as “theory of the good life”, international politics as the “theory of survival” constituted the “realm of recurrence and repetition” (Wight 1995: 25 & 32). Essentially, therefore, it had nothing new to offer.

Actor, structure, process: transcending the state personhood debate by means of a pragmatist ontological model for International Relations theory

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (04) ◽  
pp. 1057-1077 ◽  
Author(s):  
ULRICH FRANKE ◽  
ULRICH ROOS
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Ontological Model ◽  
Corporate Practice ◽  
As If

AbstractThe following article refers to the current debate about state personhood opened by Wendt's claim for a treatment of states as real persons in order to prevent the reductionist argument that states only are treated ‘as if’ they were persons. By understanding phenomena like states consistently as structures – as ‘structures of corporate practice’ – we argue that there is a possibility to escape from the situation dually framed by Wendt. This alternative is constituted by a tripartite pragmatist ontological model that consists of actors, structures of corporate practice, and processes. After having presented our view of the debate and its central problems in a first step, we will set forth our model and its implications for the study of international relations in a second and third step.

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