International Political Theory

This book seeks to reimagine why and how to confront mass atrocities in world politics. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s conception of evil, it interprets and understands mass atrocities as ‘evil’ in an ‘Arendtian’ sense, that is, as crimes against human plurality and, thus, crimes against humanity itself. This understanding of mass atrocities paves the way for reframing responses to mass atrocities as attempts to confront evil. In doing so, the book focuses on military intervention under the banner of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and judicial intervention by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and reframes them as tools to protect human plurality from evil. Furthermore, the book looks at the place and the role of R2P and the ICC in the changing landscape of world order. It argues that the protection of humanity from evil can serve as a legitimate Grundnorm (basic norm) around which a global constitutional order in an inherently pluralistic world can be constructed.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an international event whose impact has been acutely felt by almost everyone across the globe. Indeed, currently reading this, it is highly unlikely that your own life has not been significantly impacted by COVID-19.

This book offers one of the first analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential impact from the perspective of International Political Theory. It promises normative interpretation and analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic and to map potential political orders that may emerge in the post-pandemic world. It seeks to give initial insight into how the shockwaves from this event will impact upon our political and international norms. 

The book focuses on the normative questions of: can emergency powers be used to preserve society from the virus without necessitating a transition to more authoritarian political norms? Will COVID-19 prove a catalyst for Chinese Socialism to challenge, and potentially usurp, liberalism as the dominant international political norm? What changes to liberalism ought to be made as a result of the pandemic? What direction should liberalism take in the post-pandemic world?

This book explores why and how Thomas  Hobbes – the 17th century founder of political science -- contributed to the modern marginalisation of ‘friendship’, a concept that stood in the foreground of ancient moral and political thought  and that is  currently undergoing a revival. The study shows that Hobbes did not question the occurrence of friendship; rather, he rejected friendship as an explanatory and normative principle of peace and cooperation. Hobbes’s stance was influential because it captured the spirit of modernity- its individualism, nominalism, practical scepticism, and materialism. Hobbes’s legacy has a bearing on contemporary debates about civic, international and global friendship.  

This book suggests that more can be said about cosmopolitanism than either the bold endorsement of a world state or the humble recognition of the equal moral worth of individuals, which makes everybody cosmopolitan. Identifying problems with the traditional concept and disentangling a variety of positions within the cosmopolitan paradigm, it introduces the more refined concept of cosmopolitanism as nonrelationism, which denies underived special duties among fellow citizens or other related individuals, such as family members or friends.

Cosmopolitanism as nonrelationism promises to overcome an entrenched debate wherein everybody is a cosmopolitan, and brings back the radical character traditionally associated with the term. It portrays cosmopolitanism as a distinct and thorough position challenging classic proponents such as Barry, Caney, Nussbaum, and Pogge, and questioning their theories’ cosmopolitan character. Cosmopolitanism as nonrelationism has consequences for world politics without prescribing any unfeasible global order: It establishes normative criteria for evaluating institutions and provides guidance for the development of new ones.

This book argues that states have a special obligation to offer asylum as a form of reparation to refugees for whose flight they are responsible. It shows the great relevance of reparative justice, and the importance of the causes of contemporary forced migration, for our understanding of states’ responsibilities to refugees. Part I explains how this view presents an alternative to the dominant humanitarian approach to asylum in political theory and some practice. Part II outlines the conditions under which asylum should act as a form of reparation, arguing that a state owes this form of asylum to refugees where it bears responsibility for the unjustified harms that they experience, and where asylum is the most fitting form of reparation available. Part III explores some of the ethical implications of this reparative approach to asylum for the workings of states’ asylum systems and the international politics of refugee protection. 

This handbook provides an exploration of the field of International Political Theory (IPT), which in its broadest terms, examines the ways in which ideas about justice, sovereignty, and legitimacy shape international politics. It is a comprehensive resource for those interested in understanding the philosophical, political, and legal issues that arise from interactions between states, peoples, and global actors. The two volumes of the handbook cover a wide range of topics, from the foundations of international political thought to the latest debates in the field. They are designed to give readers a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and arguments within international political theory and provide an introduction to the main debates in the field.

Volume 1 takes us from the ancient world to the formation of the modern state system as we lay the groundwork for a critical understanding of changes in, and challenges to, core ideas such as sovereignty, international law and territorial integrity. The contributions to this volume explore the European domination of the discipline providing insights into how it came to conceive the world in its own image. They also focus on non-Western perspectives and reactions to European hegemony.

This book articulates international political theory in dialogue with economics on several questions. It asks: how has modern international theory been adjusted and nourished by economic ideas, theories and practices? How far has the distinctive contribution of some theorists to international theory been informed by their views on economy? What has been the impact of the theory of the state for economic and international theory? What sort of economic thinking has led to revise the debates constitutive for the modern international realm? How have economic debates been rhetorically connected to political debates in the field of international relations?