Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in Eurocentric Liberal International Theory

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Hobson ◽  
Martin Hall
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
International Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
International Thought

This chapter examines the validity of the postcolonial view that liberalism is inherently imperialist and culturally monist. In so doing it examines the claim that classical liberal international thought is committed to individual liberty and human dignity in the domestic realm and anti-imperialism and non-interventionism in the international realm. It points to a schizophrenic set of practices where interdependence, non-intervention, and anti-imperialism apply only to relations between ‘civilized’ states but not to the relations between ‘civilized’ and non-European powers. It suggests that the relationship between liberalism and imperialism is a highly complex one, and that liberalism is neither inherently imperialist nor anti-imperialist, but that classical liberalism was inherently and consistently Eurocentric — and perhaps still is.

Refutation of neoliberal educational policies based on Millian principles

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110313
Author(s):  
Jaakko Honkanen ◽  
Rauno Huttunen
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Future Analysis ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article attempts to start an in-depth consideration and analysis of modern neoliberal education policy through its philosophical roots. To achieve this, the article considers the ideology and philosophy of the classical liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill and the relationship of his philosophy with the modern-day neoliberalist education policy. The purpose of the article is to discuss the philosophical groundwork that drives Mill’s ideas on the establishment of education and compares it to the philosophical groundwork and implications present in modern neoliberal education policy, and through this begin to assert what neoliberalist education policy is. The paper asserts that while Mill’s version of classical liberalism holds similar views and forms of occurrence with modern neoliberalist policies, in many cases Mill’s philosophical groundwork seems to disagree fundamentally with that of neoliberalism. The study is based on literature detailing both the philosophical as well as polity aspects of both Mill’s ideas and modern neoliberalism from the viewpoint of education, and it presents considerations for the nature of neoliberal education policy and its future analysis.

Capitalism in the Classical and High Liberal Traditions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
Marginal Contribution ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Distinguishing Features

This chapter discusses the main distinguishing features of two liberal traditions—classical liberalism and what I call “the high liberal tradition”—and their respective positions regarding capitalism as an economic and social system. It also compares the two traditions’ different positions regarding equality of opportunity and the distributive role of markets in establishing economic justice. I critically assess the classical liberal principle that economic agents deserve to be rewarded according to their marginal contribution to economic product. The chapter concludes with some reflections upon the essential role that dissimilar conceptions of persons and society play in grounding the different positions on economic justice that classical and high liberals advocate.

Human Rights and the Vulnerability of Rights-bearers

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67
Author(s):  
Diana Tietjens Meyers ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Human Vulnerability ◽  
Vulnerable Subjects ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Relationship

I seek to understand the relationship between human vulnerability and human rights as something more than a problem that respect for human rights solves. After characterizing vulnerability and noting that human rights are generally regarded as entitlements that respect the dignity of persons by securing their autonomous agency, I draw out the implications of these premises. I argue that human vulnerabilities are constitutive of the capacity for autonomous agency and therefore that the circumstances of respect for persons must include persons’ vulnerability to many sorts of harms. Given that the opportunity to lead one’s life in one’s own way—that is, the opportunity to exercise autonomous agency—is indispensable to human dignity, respect for persons entails respect for the vulnerability that underwrites autonomous agency. If so, rights-bearers are necessarily vulnerable subjects. I further defend this conception of rights-bearers by arguing that it comports with three types of human rights theory: agency-centered, needs-centered, and practice-based accounts of human rights.

“The Conscience of the Civilized World”

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-112
Author(s):  
Sinja Graf
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Civilized World ◽  
International Thought

This chapter assesses the role of universal crime in nineteenth-century European arguments on the legitimacy of imperial rule. British abolitionist arguments redeployed the concept by overlaying “humanity” with the discourse of civilizationalism. Abolitionist uses of universal crime hence targeted imperial Britain rather than colonized societies. Refracting “humanity” through the lens of civilizational distinction indicates nineteenth-century changes in European international thought that lessened the popularity of the concept of universal crime. Overall, the chapter argues that a turn from an “inclusionary Eurocentrism” to an “exclusionary Eurocentrism” subtends these changes. Analyzing John Stuart Mill’s and Tocqueville’s evaluations of European imperialism shows that they discussed the legitimate conduct of colonial rule not in terms of humanity’s laws, but in terms of national identity and reputation. The chapter further assesses in detail those features of nineteenth-century international theory that engendered a normatively fractured vision of humanity that was inimical to its imagination as universally injured.

Global Prescriptive Authority

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-97
Author(s):  
Margaret M. deGuzman
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Prescriptive Authority ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between gravity and global prescriptive authority— the authority of the global community to prescribe rules of conduct and consequences for violating those rules. . It surveys the principal theories of international crimes and shows that virtually all of them rely significantly on a gravity threshold above which international prescriptive authority is justified. It goes on to explain how gravity has impeded the development of a coherent moral theory of global prescriptive authority, and advocates a theory that links such authority to the moral values at stake in labeling a crime “international,” in particular the value of human dignity.

Freedom and its limitations: The contemporary mainland Chinese debate over liberalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Hua ◽  
Matthew Galway
Keyword(s):  
New Left ◽  
World Order ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

The emergence of Chinese liberalism carries with it a specific China-centric character that reflects both a Chinese and a foreign focus on the nation’s complicated domestic situation. As part of the research dialogue on the intellectual public sphere in China, this article provides a historical perspective of the development of contemporary Chinese liberalism and explores the complexities of those Chinese liberals’ engagement with a number of key issues in political thought, both among themselves and with their principal opponents, the New Left. We review four themes in these ongoing debates: the relationship between freedom and equality; the liberals’ demands for a more open civil society; their call for balanced social structures, including a mechanism for expressing interest; and their search for a new synthesis of Chinese tradition with a strong nation state. Contemporary Chinese liberals propose their visions for a China that operates within and against a Euro-American-dominated system. Thus, their interpretation of classical liberal texts is characterized by one of creative adaptation, and informed by both local and foreign intellectual resources. The article’s ultimate goal is to provide a deeper understanding of the internal debates among Chinese liberals, which may give a sense of the multifarious predicaments and opportunities that China’s intellectuals face as China attempts to pursue wealth, power, and a revitalized role in a new world order.

scholarly journals Rethinking political distrust

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eri Bertsou
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Unethical Conduct ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Political Distrust ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIncreasing political distrust has become a commonplace observational remark across many established democracies, and it is often used to explain current political phenomena. In contrast to most scholarship that focuses solely on the concept of trust and leaves distrust untheorized, this article makes a contribution by analysing political distrust. It argues that citizen distrust of government and political institutions poses a threat for democratic politics and clarifies the relationship between the distrust observed in established democracies and classical ‘liberal distrust’, which is considered beneficial for democracy. Further, it addresses the relationship between trust and distrust, identifying a series of functional asymmetries between the two concepts, with important implications for theoretical and empirical work in political science. The article suggests that a conceptualization of political distrust based on evaluations of incompetence, unethical conduct and incongruent interests can provide a fruitful ground for future research that aims to understand the causes, consequences, and potential remedies for political distrust.

A response: why epistemology matters in international theory

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hollis ◽  
Steve Smith
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
International Theory ◽  
The Relationship

In their rejoinder to our recent article, Vivienne Jabri and Stephen Chan argue that we have privileged epistemology at the expense of ontology. We welcome this engagement with our continuing discussion of the relationship between epistemology and ontology in international relations theory, and will confine our response to three main points: their interpretation of our argument, their use of the work of Giddens, and their arguments about the nature of epistemology in International Relations.

Mary Wollstonecraft's Nurturing Liberalism: Between an Ethic of Justice and Care

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Engster
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
The Political ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Political Justice ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Care Giving ◽  
Justice And Care ◽  
The Relationship

Contemporary feminist scholars have devoted much attention to analyzing the relationship between justice and care theories but little to the ideas of early feminist authors. I bring the political philosophy of the Mary Wollstonecraft to bear on contemporary justice/care debates in order to highlight her unique contribution. Although usually interpreted as a classical liberal or republican thinker, Wollstonecraft is better understood as a feminist care theorist. She aimed at a revolutionary transformation of liberal society by emphasizing the importance of care-giving duties. Unlike some recent feminist scholars, however, she still recognized an important role for justice. She argued that before personal care-giving activities could transform the political, political justice had first to be extended to personal caring relationships. Wollstonecraft's political philosophy thus provides a feminist model for synthesizing justice and care theories and represents an innovative reformulation of classical liberal and republican ideas that incorporates the care perspective.

scholarly journals Fatal attraction: a critique of Carl Schmitt's international political and legal theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benno Gerhard Teschke
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
International Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Intellectual Product ◽  
International Thought

The ongoing Schmitt revival has extended Carl Schmitt's reach over the fields of international legal and political theory. Neo-Schmittians suggest that his international thought provides a new reading of the history of international law and order, which validates the explanatory power of his theoretical premises – the concept of the political, political decisionism, and concrete-order-thinking. Against this background, this article mounts a systematic reappraisal of Schmitt's international thought in a historical perspective. The argument is that his work requires re-contextualization as the intellectual product of an ultra-intense moment in Schmitt's friend/enemy distinction. It inscribed Hitler's ‘spatial revolution’ into a full-scale reinterpretation of Europe's geopolitical history, grounded in land appropriations, which legitimized Nazi Germany's wars of conquest. Consequently, Schmitt's elevation of the early modern nomos as the model for civilized warfare – the ‘golden age’ of international law – against which American legal universalism can be portrayed as degenerated, is conceptually and empirically flawed. Schmitt devised a politically motivated set of theoretical premises to provide a historical counter-narrative against liberal normativism, which generated defective history. The reconstruction of this history reveals the explanatory limits of his theoretical vocabulary – friend/enemy binary, sovereignty-as-exception, nomos/universalism – for past and present analytical purposes. Schmitt's defective analytics and problematic history compromise the standing of his work for purposes of international theory.

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