Heteronymous politics beyond anarchy and hierarchy: The multiplication of forms of rule 750–1300

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Haldén
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Western History ◽  
Concept Hierarchy ◽  
Investiture Controversy

Anarchy and hierarchy are two central concepts of International Relations theory but as conventionally defined they cannot describe political life for most of Western history. Neither concept describes the structure of medieval politics well. Rather, many different principles of differentiation existed simultaneously, both stratificatory and segmentary. The situation was closer to anarchy as understood as the absence of overarching principles of order rather than as ‘anarchy’ in the conventional sense used in international relations and absence of government. The power of the Popes over temporal rulers was considerable, but it never corresponded to the concept ‘hierarchy’ as conventionally understood either. Between c. 700 and c. 1300, Europe became more heteronymous as time went by, not less. More principles of differentiation were developed, and both Popes and kings became more powerful. The reinvention of the papacy after the ‘Investiture Controversy’ (1075–1122) created a system of law and practices in which European monarchs and realms were embedded, but it did not create an all-powerful papacy.

scholarly journals Time in International Relations Theory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Hom
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
English School ◽  
Power Shifts ◽  
It Impacts ◽  
Open Time

Temporal phenomena like power shifts, wars, and confounding events characterize international politics. Yet for decades academic international relations (IR) did not consider time worthy of research or reflection. Recently things have changed, especially in critical IR, where scholars developed numerous arguments about time’s political importance. However, none of that work pursued a synoptic account of time in IR theory. This chapter does so, using an ideal typology of closed and open time to understand realism, liberalism, constructivism, English School, feminism, Marxism, and critical theory. In each, tensions between open and closed time distinguish the theory from its competitors but also animate explanatory and normative debates among its proponents. The historically overlooked issue of time—our assumptions about it, visions of it, and claims about how it impacts politics—drives theoretical development across and within IR theories, which we can understand as attempts to time international political life.

A REFUNDAÇÃO DA TEORIA DAS RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS: ORIGENS DO PENSAMENTO REFLEXIVISTAINTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY REBUILDING: ORIGINS OF REFLEXIVISTA THOUGTH

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (14) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Somberg Pfeffer (IBMEC/MG)
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory

Desde a década de 1980, o campo teórico das Relações Internacionais tem passado por uma crise profunda. Na nova sociedade da informação marcada pela globalização, o conceito fundamental das teorias tradicionais – a soberania do Estado – é desafiado. Em diálogo com outras áreas das Ciências Sociais e da Filosofia, a teoria das Relações Internacionais busca, então, refundar sua identidade. Essa refundação tem passado por uma reflexão crítica acerca de sua história e uma reavaliação de seus pressupostos. A defesa da emancipação humana passa a ser o mote orientador dessa nova tendência entre os críticos reflexivistas. Esse artigo busca resgatar algumas influências de outros campos do saber que estão na origem ao pensamento reflexivista.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Deterrence Theory ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Previous Scholarship ◽  
As If

This chapter provides a summary introduction to the book. It explains the central question the book addresses and why it is important. Namely, it asks why academic nuclear deterrence theory maintains that nuclear superiority does not matter, but policymakers often behave as if it does. It then provides a brief explanation of the answer to this question: the superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory. It discusses the implications of the argument for international relations theory and for US nuclear policy. In contrast to previous scholarship, the argument of this book provides the first coherent explanation for why nuclear superiority matters even if both sides possess a secure, second-strike capability. In so doing, it helps to resolve what may be the longest-standing, intractable, and important puzzle in the scholarly study of nuclear strategy. It concludes with a description of the plan for the rest of the book.

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.

Hobbes among International Relations Thinkers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
English School ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
International Issues ◽  
Civil Condition ◽  
The Individual

Among philosophers and historians of political thought Hobbes has little or nothing to say about relations among states. For modern realists and representatives of the English School in contemporary international relations theory, however, caricatures of Hobbes abound. There is a tendency to take him too literally, referring to what is called the unmodified philosophical state of nature, ignoring what he has to say about both the modified state of nature and the historical pre-civil condition. They extrapolate from the predicament of the individual conclusions claimed to be pertinent to international relations, and on the whole find his conclusions unconvincing. It is demonstrated that there is a much more restrained and cautious Hobbes, consistent with his timid nature, in which he gives carefully weighed views on a variety of international issues, recommending moderation consistent with the duties of sovereignty.

Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The World ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

Markets are constantly collapsing: Reconceptualizing ‘the market’ as a quantum social wavefunction

2021 ◽  
pp. 102452942098782
Author(s):  
Michael Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Broad Framework

The quantum moment in International Relations theory challenges the taken for granted Newtonian assumptions of conventional theories, while offering a novel physical imaginary grounded in quantum mechanics. As part of the special issue on reconceptualizing markets, this article questions if prior efforts to conceptualize ‘the market’ have been unsuccessful at capturing the paradoxical microfoundational/macrostructural because of the Newtonian worldview within which much social science operates. By developing a new, quantum perspective on the market, taking the physical paradigm of the wavefunction, I seek to explore the connections between entanglement, nonlocality, interference and invisible social structures. To demonstrate the applicability of quantum thinking, I explore how global value chains and open economy politics might be ‘quantized’, through the mobilization of core concepts of quantum social theory, within the broad framework of the market as a quantum social wavefunction.

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