Cosmopolitan Political Communities in International Relations

2002 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Linklater
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Communities

State Theory in International Relations

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas G. Freire ◽  
Marjo Koivisto
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Political Communities

The state is one of the most used terms in international relations (IR) theory, and yet IR scholars influenced by both sociology and political philosophy have complained that the state and the states-system have been inadequately theorized in the field. What does the discipline mean when referring to the state? Why should state theorizing be part of IR at all? Need all state theorizing in IR be “state-centric”? There are two kinds of thinking about the state and the states-system in IR. One strand examines the history of thought about the purpose of the state and the states-system as political communities. Another explains the causes of events and transformations in the state and the states-system. These two approaches to studying the state largely translate to (1) political theory about the state and the states-system, and (2) social scientific theories of the state and the states-system in IR. Recently, both traditions have been significantly revisited in IR, and new productive synergies are emerging.

scholarly journals Cosmopolitan Pluralism: Beyond the Cultural Turn

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-46
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Know How ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Cultural Turn

The ‘cultural turn’ has had a profound influence across the humanities and social sciences in the last few decades. In calling into question the universalist basis on which conventional methodological and normative assumptions have been based, the cultural turn has focused on the extent to which specificity and particularity underpin what we can know, how we can know it, and how this affects our being-in-the world. This has opened the way to a range of insights, from issues of pluralism and difference, both within political communities and between them, to the instability if not impossibility of foundations for knowledge. Too few studies embracing this ‘cultural turn’, however, pay more than cursory attention to the culture concept itself. This article suggests that conceptions of culture derived mainly from the discipline of anthropology dominate in political studies, including international relations, while humanist conceptions have been largely ignored or rejected. It argues further that we would do well to reconsider what humanist ideas can contribute to how ‘culture’ is both conceptualized and deployed in political thought and action, especially in countering the overparticularization of social and political phenomena that marks contemporary culturalist approaches.

Ethical Aspects of Migration Flows

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria Innes
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
International System ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
International Borders ◽  
National Affiliation ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
The Right

A comprehensive review of the scholarly literature that considers ethical questions surrounding human migration flows across international borders covers themes of membership and belonging, the right to exclude, the liberal impasse with regard to immigration, the role of property rights at the international level, movement through visa categories, and the problem of jurisdiction during migration journeys. Such an examination reveals that migration provokes a particular problem for international relations when the nation-state is the primary unit of analysis, and that the current literature acknowledges yet does little to correct a Western bias at the heart of scholarly work on the ethics of human migration flows. Ethical questions regarding human migration have been at the forefront of news and public debate, particularly in recent years. The implications of human migration for membership in political communities have received much attention in political theory, international relations theory, international law, human rights, and ethics. Migration, by definition, challenges some of the key assumptions, categories, and ways of theorizing international relations (hereafter IR). The conventional assumptions of IR reproduce the notion that states as unitary actors interact with each other in a global sphere or within the confines of the international system and its structure and rules of behavior. In this rendering of the global, there is little room for people who seep outside of state borders, people who move with no national affiliation, or people who retain multiple national affiliations. The embodied contestation of the territorial categories of IR that is practiced by the movement of people is particularly relevant to constructivist IR theory. If the world is constituted through social interactions and intersubjective understandings, when social interactions happen across borders the intersubjective understanding of state units containing human populations is called into question. When people manifest multiple identities, the state-based identities of the international system are called into question. Studies of the ethics of migration flows then must tackle these lines of inquiry.

Citizens into wolves? Carl Schmitt’s fictive account of security

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Moore
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
International Security ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Security Regime ◽  
Security Discourse ◽  
Internal Goods ◽  
Political Communities

This article assesses the extent to which security regimes are the products of authorization in the thought of Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt. The Hobbesian security regime offers a contingent construction of security in terms of processes of authorization and brings into view questions about the epistemic construction of security within security discourse today. The Schmittian concept of security involves the naturalization of security through the state, meaning that security is understood as condition rather than regime. Rather than look to Carl Schmitt’s concept of security as the paradigm of international security today, there are clear benefits in returning to the contractual account of security evident in the Hobbesian emphasis on authorization. Security is not the primary value of political community, but the means by which political communities realize their internal goods. Schmitt’s security regime is fictive, driven by colourful metaphor and political theology. By returning to classic questions of authorization—how a security regime authorizes itself—International Relations theory can examine the legitimation of security beyond an exclusively state-centric model.

Niccolò Machiavelli’s International Legal Thought: Culture, Contingency, and Construction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Roth-Isigkeit
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter suggests a progressive reading of Machiavelli, relying on the unity of his national and international thought. It argues that his focus on the unification of political communities through the medium of law allows for a sophisticated theoretical understanding of international law. The chapter starts with a discussion of the relationship of his biographical events and his social epistemology. It proceeds with the relationship of Machiavelli’s concept of law as a governance tool to the area of morality and normativity. Ultimately, the focus lies on his understanding of imperialism and international relations in order to shape a novel understanding of Machiavelli that depicts him as a reasonable historical starting point for a modern, post-critical understanding of international law.

scholarly journals The ‘re-turn’ to empire in IR: colonial knowledge communities and the construction of the idea of the Afghan polity, 1809–38

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN J. BAYLY
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Knowledge Communities ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Great Game ◽  
Exploration And Development

AbstractThis article seeks to add to the exploration and development of Imperial History's contribution to the discipline of International Relations (IR). Focusing on British perceptions of Afghanistan in the period preceding the first Anglo-Afghan war the article considers colonial knowledge as a source of identity construction, but in a manner that avoids deploying anachronistic concepts, in this case that of the Afghan ‘state’. This approach, which draws on the insights brought to IR by historical sociology, shows that engaging with Imperial History within IR can encourage a more reflexive attitude to core disciplinary categories. This not only reveals alternative approaches to the construction of specific political communities but it also allows for a more historicist mode in the use of history by IR as a discipline. Furthermore, by moving away from material based purely on diplomatic history, Afghanistan's imperial encounter can be recovered from the dominance of ‘Great Game’ narratives, offering an account that is more appreciative of the Afghanistan context.

scholarly journals GREENING ECONOMIES: A NORMATIVE CHALLENGE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

2017 ◽  
pp. 277
Author(s):  
Miroslav Stevanović ◽  
Dragan Đurđević
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Green Economy ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Practical Level

: In this article, we examine the concept of “greening economy” from the aspect of interest of States as actors in international relations responsible for providing vital values of political communities. The problem in this context primarily involves the non existence of consensus about either normative or value content of the “greening economy”, apart from a commonly acceptable discourse on the practical level. Nevertheless, such discourse has not been functionalised through new developments in instruments and mechanisms of administration, governance and validation of efforts in numerous sectors at the international level. On the methodological level, the basic dichotomy between the practical and perceptive in the concept of greening economy has imposed a need for phenomenological approach in estimating its functional roles. In this segment, we pursued the obvious appearance or impacts in practice, regardless of the narratives. As far as the discourse itself is concerned, this analysis did not require a detailed insight into perception since different bodies and states apply the concept as they find suitable for their purposes.In the structural analysis, since the greening of economy, as a concept, introduces series of bodies and institutional procedures which deal with measurements, criteria, indicators and tools that impose administering on a supranational level, we have focused on the context of the process of globalisation. Apart from that, these indicators mostly do not lead to the projected goals, nor affect the economy as a whole and achieving sustainable development goals. We find that mainstreaming the environment into economic development, through 'green economy', regardless how logical in substance it may be, is still no more than an emerging theoretical discourse, which is suitable for the needs of globalisation. We thus conclude that “greening” is a contemporary political economy, which deals with unsustainability on the production level, and lacks a clear definition of development. This concept promotes an administrating process on the global level, without legal grounds, which is a challenge for national security, given that national authorities should be responsible for sustainable development, as a vital value. 

Symposium ‘Theories of Territory beyond Westphalia’

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayelet Banai ◽  
Margaret Moore ◽  
David Miller ◽  
Cara Nine ◽  
Frank Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
State Model ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Territorial State ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Systemic Understanding

Is territory a trap? Does the concept of territory trap us into false assumptions of internally homogeneous, externally bounded political communities that exercise uniform sovereignty across their domain? Against the background of debates about territory and the territorial state in international relations, this symposium brings together five contributions in political theory that advance a nuanced and systemic understanding of what territory is. Taken together, they indicate that there is much to the territorial paradigm beyond the modern, sovereign, and territorial state model. There are diverse conceptions of territory, which may be relevant across different legal and political orders. The various conceptual analyses of territory in this symposium suggest that the sovereign state model is only one way in which a sovereign political authority can be territorial. These essays provide the conceptual tools to formulate (and subsequently test) the hypothesis that the transformations in statehood may not be best described in terms of the rise and decline of territorial sovereignty, but as moves from one model of territorially bounded political authority to another. In political theory, it is only in recent years that this foundational concept has received sustained attention from political theorists. This symposium aims to take forward this welcome theoretical development.

Accent Policy and Accent Modification Enterprises as Potential Indicators of Intercultural Power Relations: A Call for an Updated Research Agenda

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brynne D. Ovalle ◽  
Rahul Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This article has two purposes: (a) to examine the relationship between intercultural power relations and the widespread practice of accent discrimination and (b) to underscore the ramifications of accent discrimination both for the individual and for global society as a whole. First, authors review social theory regarding language and group identity construction, and then go on to integrate more current studies linking accent bias to sociocultural variables. Authors discuss three examples of intercultural accent discrimination in order to illustrate how this link manifests itself in the broader context of international relations (i.e., how accent discrimination is generated in situations of unequal power) and, using a review of current research, assess the consequences of accent discrimination for the individual. Finally, the article highlights the impact that linguistic discrimination is having on linguistic diversity globally, partially using data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and partially by offering a potential context for interpreting the emergence of practices that seek to reduce or modify speaker accents.

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