This article is a reply to Bevir and Hall, who recently argued in this journal that the English School needs to reflect more on its philosophy. They are right. Yet, their preferred distinction between a structural and an interpretivist strand of the School is not a constructive way forward. This is because their distinction between a structural and an interpretivist strand of the school is too stark, their chosen dimensions for sorting through the School are arguably not the most fruitful, (...) and the inclusion of the English School’s normative agenda must remain independent of whether one is inclined to start from structure or from agency. After elaborating these points, the article moves on to suggesting a number of other philosophical issues which would be more relevant for the English School to work through. It ends with an empirical illustration of what an integrated English School approach, inspired by structuration, could look like. (shrink)

This article responds to Charlotta Friedner Parrat’s critique of our argument that the English School of international relations should embrace a more thoroughgoing interpretivism. We address four of Friedner Parrat’s objections to our argument: that our distinction between structuralism and interpretivism is too stark; that our understanding of the relationship between agency and structure is problematic; that our approach would confine the English School to the study of intellectual history; and that the English School should eschew explanation. We argue that (...) if the School is to use structuralism, it must be clearer about how it understands structures and their relationships to agents. We argue too that interpretivism not only offers a better account of situated agency, but also that it provides the English School with one way to move beyond the description and classification of institutions in international society towards better explanations of international relations. (shrink)

This paper shows that while there seems to be more or less a general acceptance for plurality as a condition of world politics and at least a vague commitment to a pluralist ideal, the challenge remains to formulate a fruitful account of international pluralism. While dominating approaches to international theory present international pluralism as essentially a by-product and instrumental, this paper suggest an alternative way to conceive of international pluralism when defending the ancient concept variety as a better guide to (...) approach both the understanding of plurality as the human condition and the notion of international pluralism. The paper concludes that it is preferable to accept a variety of pluralist conceptions rather than go on searching for a theoretical conception standing above the controversy; accepting pluralism in a sense involves rejecting just one version of pluralism. (shrink)

International studies investigate the governance authority of state versus non-state actors in terms of their public or private authority. However, the public–private distinction does not sufficiently capture the variety of governance actors, or the forms of their authority, beyond that distinction. Focussing on businesses, this paper argues that certain governance actors assume public and private roles, as well as a third category of roles it calls ‘societal’ that transcend notions of public and private. To understand these roles and how they (...) affect governance authority, this paper treats the public–private relationship as mediated and extends it with the ‘societal’ category, then translates it into the concept of business authority, which constitutes a particular form of governance authority alongside public and private authority. It does so by operationalising governance authority as a triadic concept composed of power, legitimacy and a connection to public interests. In all three components, business authority escapes the binary distinction between public and private without simply merging the two. (shrink)

The commitment to the rational actor model of state behavior is said to be a core assumption of realist theory. This assumption is listed in most textbook accounts of realism. Yet is rationality a core supposition of realist theory, and if so, what kind of rationality is implied in these claims? Debate on the relationship between realism, and what is often labeled as rationality is replete with misunderstandings. Authors deploy terms such as rationality, rationalism, and rational actor in diverse and (...) contradictory ways. This article aims to cut through this confusion and provide an account of the different ways in which these terms are used in the field of International Relations (IR). We argue that much of the confusion surrounding rationalism/rationality in IR arises due to a failure to distinguish between rationalism as an epistemological position (the observer rationality assumption) and rationality as an ontological position (the rational actor assumption). We use this distinction to examine carefully the relationship between the concepts of rationalism/rationality in realist theory. (shrink)

A growing number of left-wing scholars criticize practices of transnational solidarity. Pointing to the cooptation of “globalism” by neoliberal capitalism, these scholars utilize this critique to advance leftwing nationalism. In this article, I reconstruct symptomatic texts of this genre and identify the critique of (liberal) cosmopolitanism as the common denominator in their calls for nationalizing the Left. As a consequence of their opposition to cosmopolitanism, these authors reject freedom of movement or global justice activism. In order to examine whether the (...) project of transnational solidarity is affected by this critique, I reconstruct its justifications in Critical Theory and postcolonial-feminist theory. Hauke Brunkhorst and Chandra Mohanty exemplarily theorize transnational solidarity in different ways, but each based on a substantial critique of liberal cosmopolitanism. By that, I show that a principled return to nationalism derived from a critique of cosmopolitanism is informed by coincidental evidence that rejects practices of transnational solidarity because of their alleged embeddedness in cosmopolitan reason. Drawing on La Via Campesina, I illustrate principles of a transnational solidarity project that is not justified with liberal cosmopolitan ideas. Their experiences challenge the nationalist/statist critique while not falling back into naïve and/or neoliberal cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

Theology is a neglected resource in international relations scholarship; it is, more often than not, characterised as a threat to political order because it is seen as a cradle of fanaticism and irrationality. Postsecular scholarship challenges this view by exploring the persistence of theological ideas and religious belief in political discourse and practice. Political Theology of International Order is my own contribution to this type of scholarship. This article engages responses from five distinguished scholars. It considers the implications of taking (...) theology seriously when theorising international order; the veracity of narratives that frame the study of international relations; and new directions and possibilities that arise out of the book. (shrink)

It is often argued that cosmopolitanism faces unique motivational constraints, asking more of individuals than they are able to give. This ‘motivational problem’ is held to pose a significant challenge to cosmopolitanism, as it appears unable to transform its moral demands into motivated political action. This article develops a novel response to the motivational problem facing cosmopolitanism, arguing that self-interest, alongside appeals to sentiment, can play a vital and neglected, transitional role in moving towards an expanded cosmopolitical condition. The article (...) explicates the ‘motivational problem’, analyses the relationship between self-interest and sentimental cosmopolitanism in addressing it, and develops a series of claims that self-interest can be one important component in what we label as ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’. In doing so, we argue that self-interested motivations can be compatible with sentiment-based approaches, rendering them more plausible. In addition, two expected critiques of self-interested ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’ are tackled: (A) That it cannot address feasibility constraints, and (B) That self-interested motivations cannot meet what an ‘authentic’ cosmopolitanism entails. We refute and challenge these critiques and outline three conditions in which self-interest can advance a transitional form of cosmopolitanism, while also being compatible with cosmopolitanism writ large. (shrink)

Certain realist critics of U.S. foreign policy put forth an alternative model of “offshore balancing” as a definitively rational alternative to what they regard as the current, and utterly disastrous, policy of “liberal hegemony.” They predict that the public will eventually recognize the hollowness of liberalism and demand a foreign policy rooted in hardnosed realism. They also promise that this rational outline will also be a positive good, maximizing national interests and moral values with no tradeoffs between them. I argue (...) that offshore balancing packages realist arguments in an idealist framework, whereby the good is both self-evident and bound to triumph. This inhibits the actual realist task of revealing the harsh facts of politics, which inevitably interfere with preferences. Offshore balancing traps itself between its claim of inevitability, which undercuts the need for advocacy, and desirability, which pushes against its inevitability. The only way they can resolve this contradiction is with an increasingly caustic account of liberalism as so utterly wrong and immoral that its opponents earn the mark of reason and goodness by sheer virtue of their opposition. Offshore balancing subordinates its account of the world as it is to a demand of how the world must not be. (shrink)

This review supplements William Bain’s Political Theology of International Order by sketching out two historical threads that are inseparable from the histories of European thought and order that occupy the book. There are gestures toward both strands along the margins of Bain’s account, in a few observations and footnotes. They also have important implications for the place of political theological difference in this story and for the status of colonialism, hierarchy, and resistance. First, I expand on some of the book’s (...) references to non-Christians and discuss the place of Islamic theology. Second, reflecting on Luther in relation to Muslim empires and adapting Bain’s acknowledgment of Grotius’s justifications for colonialism, I highlight the significance of hierarchy, enmity, and violence for a number of the thinkers mentioned, especially what their political theologies authorize in relation to non-Christians. These two sets of observations can help us imagine a complementary story less about international order than about the politics of proselytization and colonization. It also raises questions about the work that political theology as an analytic can do, especially when we globalize political theory and international political thought. I conclude by pondering the place of resistance in relation to imposed order and immanent order. (shrink)

William Bain’s book does a brilliant job excavating some key conceptual underpinnings of our contemporary discussions about order, but he has perhaps underplayed the importance of nominalism in structuring our present.

This article reviews Wiliam Bains book and places it in the wider discussion of seciularization vs. secularism taking place in the social science. in general.

A brief introduction to the roundtable on William Bain, Political Theology of International Order.

Some of the themes found in William Bain’s book, Political Theolog of International Order, were prefigured in his chapter on Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society. This article looks back to that earlier chapter and draws on some of the themes while providing a critical reading of them and Bain’s larger project.

William Bain sustains his audacious claim to write a landmark in international relations thought. His view that the medieval theological debate between imposed order and immanent order structures contemporary thought about international order is largely compelling, especially in light of his demonstration that certain thinkers such as Hobbes and Grotius served as transmission belts, carrying this debate into modernity. He also persuasively shows that imposed order, or nominalism, dominates today’s schools of international relations thought, while immanent order only whispers its (...) dissent. I raise two questions in critical conversation. First, while Bain argues persuasively that political theology persists after Westphalia, which he seeks to debunk as a milestone in secularization, nevertheless Westphalia stands as a milestone in the marginalization of religion (though not political theology) as an influential force in politics. Second, while Bain demurs from choosing between imposed and immanent order on normative grounds, his claim that the choice is a matter of faith appears to be a choice for imposed order. Clarifying this normative question is an apposite task for this important author’s next book. (shrink)

The decade-long search for Osama bin Laden—in which a manhunt was conducted as part of a full-scale war—was a watershed moment for US foreign policy in the twenty-first Century. Bin Laden was not simply elusive, but ephemerally ghost-like. Similar Militarized Interstate Manhunts (MIMs) are also deeply ingrained in the security politics of the US at its Southwestern border. Specifically, the militarized cross-border pursuits of Pancho Villa in the 1910s and The Apache Kid in the 1890s, serve as analogs to the (...) “War on Terror,” especially regarding the allegedly-novel chasing of “ghostly” targets. Building on Jacques Derrida, we explore the role of an “absent/presence” by analyzing the claims of the ghostliness of the target in the context of concurrent claims about the unprecedented nature of events. These cases highlight the importance of the “absent/presence” in making military manhunts thinkable, and explain how the pursuit of “spectral” bodies authorizes exceptional military acts that would otherwise be violations of state sovereignty. (shrink)