Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to the French Revolution

Transcription

1 University Press Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 11 items for: keywords : International Relations theory Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to the French Revolution Andreas Osiander Published in print: 2007 Published Online: May 2008 ISBN: eisbn: Item type: book acprof:oso/ This book challenges the habit of conventional historiography of taking the essential state a bounded entity equipped with a sovereign central power for granted in any period and of not taking period political terminology seriously. It refutes the idea, current both in historiography and in International Relations theory (in particular Realism), that the fundamental nature of international politics is historically immutable. Nothing akin to what we call the state existed before the 19th century: it is a recent invention and the assumption that it is timeless, necessary for society, is simply part of its legitimating myth. The development over the past three millennia of the political structures of western civilization is shown here to have been a succession of unrepeatable but path-dependent stages. In examining structural change, the book adopts a constructivist approach based on the analysis of period political discourse. This approach both reflects and illuminates the evolution of western political thought: on the one hand, political thought is a vehicle of the political discourse of its period. On the other hand, the assumption that political theory must in any age somehow be centred on the state has forced our understanding of it into a straight-jacket: abandoning this assumption permits fresh and unexpected insights into the political thinking of earlier eras. Close attention, however, is also paid to the material constraints and opportunities (e.g., ecological and economic factors, or military technology) impacting on the evolution of society. Page 1 of 6

2 Embedded Selves, Transnational Duties, and Distant Strangers Toni Erskine in Embedded Cosmopolitanism: Duties to Strangers and Enemies in a World of 'Dislocated Communities' Published in print: 2008 Published Online: January 2012 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: British Academy DOI: /bacad/ This chapter discusses the groundwork for constructing a qualified ethical cosmopolitan position. It maintains that normative International Relations (IR) theory must respond to the attempts to challenge the very nature of morality. The chapter distinguishes between two distinct aspects of any moral perspective, namely: the understanding of the moral agent upon which it relies, and the sphere of equal moral standing that it allows. Basics Andreas Osiander in Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to the French Revolution Published in print: 2007 Published Online: May 2008 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This introductory chapter criticizes the amateurish way in which history is used to corroborate International Relations theory, in particular Realism. Conversely, it criticizes conventional historiography for its neglect of political theory. A case in point is the constructivist insight that political structures are created through political discourse. The political discourse underlying present-day political structures is so ubiquitous as to render those structures largely immune to manipulation. But since to most people the everyday political discourse of past eras is now unfamiliar, historians feel free, indeed obliged, to describe past political structures using the political concepts and assumptions of our own day. What they fail to realize is that unlike present-day political structures the political structures of past ages do change when anachronistic terminology is used to describe them: they come to look more like our own than they were. Page 2 of 6

3 Conclusion Frédéric Mérand in European Defence Policy: Beyond the Nation State Published in print: 2008 Published Online: September 2008 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ The conclusion develops the implications of the book's argument for the study of European integration and International Relations more generally. The conclusion is framed around two challenges posed by ESDP. The first challenge concerns the inability of traditional EU approaches, such as neofunctionalism or intergovernmentalism, to theorize the development of European defense. The second challenge concerns the nature of the state and its definition in International Relations theory. IR theory has often been accused of being too statocentric, thus neglecting the social determinants of state behavior. For each of these challenges, it is shown how political sociology's critical eye on the role of the state, here grounded in a careful empirical study, can open up new research paths. The chapter concludes with predictions about the future of European defense. Law-making and Constitutionalism Jan Klabbers in The Constitutionalization of International Law Published in print: 2009 Published Online: February 2010 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This chapter looks into the question how, in a constitutionalizing world order, international law-making could take place. It identifies two poles: on the one hand, law-making should do justice to the presence and agency of relevant actors, and thus cannot do away with the requirement of consent just yet. On the other hand, law-making should also be responsive to common needs. The chapter suggests that a presumptive approach may be the best way to combine the two polar opposites, and posits the idea that normative utterances best be seen as law unless the opposite can be proven, accompanied by an enumeration of elements that may help rebut the assumption of law. Page 3 of 6

4 Sustainable Critique and Critical IR Theory: Against Emancipation Daniel J. Levine in Recovering International Relations: The Promise of Sustainable Critique Published in print: 2012 Published Online: January 2013 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ How does sustainable critique differ from other appropriations of Frankfurt school social theory the focus of third and fourth debate into IR? The answer lies in differentiating the work of contemporary Frankfurt school theorists, in particular Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, from that of their predecessors: Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse. I argue that IR has been too quick to dismiss these earlier scholars. Building on Max Weber s notion of a constellation and Graham Allison s classic Essence of Decision, I suggest a basis for their re-consideration. The Biopolitics of the War on Terror: Life Struggles, Liberal Modernity and the Defence of Logistical Societies Julian Reid Published in print: 2006 Published Online: July 2012 ISBN: eisbn: Item type: book Publisher: Manchester University Press DOI: / manchester/ This is a book which aims to overturn existing understandings of the origins and futures of the War on Terror for the purposes of International Relations theory. As the book shows, this is not a war in defence of the integrity of human life against an enemy defined simply by a contradictory will for the destruction of human life as commonly supposed by its liberal advocates. It is a war over the political constitution of life in which the limitations of liberal accounts of humanity are being put to the test if not rejected outright. The International Argument Arvind Sharma in Are Human Rights Western?: A Contribution to the Dialogue of Civilizations Published in print: 2006 Published Online: October 2012 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Page 4 of 6

5 This chapter examines the argument that human rights are Western in terms of International Relations (IR) theory. IR theory provides three basic models for analysing international relations: realism, pluralism, and globalism. The operation of human rights discourse could be considered Western in the sense that in the terms of the realist model, political and civil rights are emphasized at the expense of social, cultural, and economic rights; in terms of the pluralist model, the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) which promote these rights is accorded importance; and in terms of the global model, attempt is made to maximize the scope for the operation of Western capitalism. Bodies, Subjects, and Violence in International Relations Lauren B. Wilcox in Bodies of Violence: Theorizing Embodied Subjects in International Relations Published in print: 2015 Published Online: December 2014 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Chapter 1 provides a reading of how the subject of International Relations has been theorized in relation to human bodies and violence. The chapter argues that bodies have been problematically understood in liberal humanist terms as individual, material objects, preexisting politics, that house sovereign subjects. Furthermore, contemporary practices of violence are constituted not only in reference to sovereign power, as most IR theory assumes, but biopower as well. Biopolitical practices of violence call our attention to the question of how bodies are constituted as objects and what the parameters and possibilities for embodied subjectivity are. Compared to International Relations, feminist theory has been much more attentive to questions of embodied subjectivity related to power and violence. Engaging with feminist theorists, the chapter provides a conceptualization of a body politics that understands bodies as produced by, and productive of, social and political relations. The Social Construction of Sovereign Responsibilities Luke Glanville in Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History Published in print: 2013 Published Online: May 2014 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: University of Chicago Press DOI: / chicago/ Page 5 of 6

6 This chapter lays a conceptual foundation for the examination of the historical development of the relationship between sovereignty and responsibility that follows it. It examines how sovereignty has been understood in International Relations theory and argues, in contrast to some theorists, that sovereignty is not an objective and unchanging principle, but something that demands conceptual and historical inquiry. It defends a constructivist understanding of sovereignty which emphasizes its historically contingent and contested nature against the argument of Krasner about sovereignty which acknowledges historical deviations from the conventional story but refuses to allow that the meaning of sovereignty may have changed over time. The chapter then outlines a framework for conceptualizing the social and historical construction of sovereignty that enables us to understand the development of its relationship with notions of responsibility. Page 6 of 6