Andrew Linklater

Men and citizens in the theory of international relations

Acknowledgements - Preface - PART 1: FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY - The Case for International Political Theory - Men and Citizens in International Relations - Internal and External Concepts of Obligation in the Theory of International Relations - PART 2: FROM RATIONALISM TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY - Introduction to Part Two - Pufendorfs Theory of International Relations - Vattels Society of States - Kantian Ethics and International Relations - The Dissolution of Rationalist International Theory - Freedom and History in the Political Theory of International Relations - PART 3: A HIERARCHY OF FORMS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Introduction to Part Three - From Tribalism to Political Society - From Citizenship to Humanity - Concluding Remarks - Notes and References - Select Bibliography - Index

Beyond realism and Marxism : critical theory and international relations

Acknowledgements - Introduction - Power, Order and Emancipation in International Theory - Marx and the Logic of Universal Emancipation - The Nation and the Species - Class, State and Nation in the Theory of Capitalist Imperialism - Marxist and Neo-Marxist Theories of Inequality and Development - The States-System and the World-System - Class and State in International Relations - Conclusions - Notes and References - Select Bibliography - Index

Citizenship and Sovereignty in the Post-Westphalian State

Traditional concepts of citizenship and sovereignty have come under pressure from the combined challenge of globalization and the subnational revolt. Against this background this article sets out an argument for new visions of the state in which subnational and transnational citizenship are strengthened and in which one central purpose of the state is mediating different loyalties at the subnational, national and international levels. The analysis explores various connections between Bulls reflections on a possible post-Westphalian order in Europe, discourse ethics and the idea of cosmopolitan democracy. The article concludes with some observations about the nature of citizenship in the post-Westphalian state.

The Evolving Spheres of International Justice

Recent discussions about globalization and increasing global inequalities of wealth have reawakened interest in the possibility of a just international order. The unequal distribution of wealth remains central to discussions of global justice but it is not the sole consideration. Additional issues are raised by the democratic deficit in international relations, the growing importance of cross-border harm, the need for cooperation to protect the environment and the treatment of non-human species. These different spheres of justice prompt the question of whether states can act as agents of reform, encouraged by the more progressive forces in global civil society. A related issue is whether the interplay between the states-system and global civil society will lead to more cosmopolitan forms of national and international law. Answers to these questions require new advances in normative and empirical inquiry.

The Problem of Community in International Relations

This paper is concerned with the problem of community in international relations. It begins with some brief observations about the nature of state-formation in early modern Europe and proceeds to discuss key philosophical, sociological, and practical questions that have become central to the history of international thought. In their different ways, these questions have raised issues of moral inclusion and exclusion. The recurrent philosophical questions have been concerned with whether or not there is any rationale for the states inclusion of citizens and exclusion of noncitizens from the moral community. The main sociological questions have focused on whether or not the dominant principles of inclusion and exclusion in the international states system are changing. Questions of practice have raised the issue of whether foreign policy ought to be concerned with these principles or with preventing them from changing. Various schools of thought have endeavored to answer one or more of these questions, but no single perspective has answered all three systematically and successfully. This paper sketches the manner in which a critical form of international theory can develop a distinctive approach to the issues raised above and suggests some new directions for critical international relations theory. The argument of this paper is set out in five sections: First is a discussion of the philosophical, sociological, and practical problems that have long been central to international relations theory. The brief section that follows claims that a critical solution to these problems should recover the project begun in different ways by Kant and Marx. With this in mind, the third section considers some criticisms of ethical universalism and suggests how the defense of a universal community can be developed. The fourth section then suggests some new directions for the sociology of international relations. It argues for a sociology of the

The problem of harm in world politics: implications for the sociology of states‐systems

Martin Wights Systems of states is renowned for setting out a grand vision of the sociology of states-systems which has undoubted importance for contemporary efforts to build connections between historical sociology and international relations. Wights interest in the fate of conceptions of the unity of humankind in different states can be developed in a study of the impact of cosmopolitan harm conventions in states-systems. What is most interesting from this point of view is how far different international systems regarded harm to individuals as a problem which all states, individually and collectively, should strive to solve. A central question for such an approach is whether the modern states-system has progressed in making unnecessary suffering a moral problem for the world as a whole.

Global civilizing processes and the ambiguities of human interconnectedness

Increased social power over the millennia has led to remarkable achievements in varied spheres of endeavour while introducing new possibilities for more destructive forms of harm over greater distances. Efforts to create moral frameworks to protect persons from senseless harm have been critical replies to the ambiguities of human interconnectedness. Over the millennia, societies have become entangled in global ‘civilizing processes’ such as the systems of communication that now encompass humanity as a whole, enabling different peoples to become better attuned to each other. Societies of states have immense significance for that long-term development. They have been arenas in which independent communities have discovered the prospects for, as well as the constraints on, agreements on norms that can be anchored in the most readily available points of solidarity between strangers — those vulnerabilities to mental and physical suffering that are shared by human beings everywhere. The recovery of ‘universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view’ can examine the contribution that international societies have made to global civilizing processes that harness such solidarities to restrain the human capacity to cause violent and non-violent harm to distant peoples. It can support the normative project of promoting global civilizing processes that employ unprecedented levels of collective power to reduce the tragic effects of the ambiguities that have accompanied long-term trends towards higher levels of human interconnectedness.

The harm principle and global ethics

Various international legal conventions create the obligation not to cause ‘serious bodily or mental harm’ to members of ones society or to other social groups. The existence of these obligations raises the question of whether widespread aversion to pain and suffering provides the best foundation for ‘moral progress’ in world politics. Support for a global version of the harm principle is evident in various liberal moral and political writings, but these are vulnerable to two lines of criticism. Some critics have argued that the concept of harm is more complex and elusive than liberals suggest; others that the liberal version of the harm principle is inadequate because it privileges the negative obligation to avoid injury over positive obligations of rescue. Having reviewed these debates, this paper argues for a global version of the harm principle which defends negative and related positive obligations.

The transformation of political community: E. H. Carr, critical theory and international relations

The obsolescence of war in the relations between the leading industrial powers, and the declining significance of national sovereignty in the context of globalization are frequently cited as key indicators of the steady decline of the Westphalian era. For an insightful overview, see J. Richardson, ‘The End of Geopolitics?’, in R. Leaver and J. Richardson (eds.), Charting the Post-Cold War (Boulder, CO, 1993). The transformation of world politics has encouraged the formations of new linkages between the study of change in international relations and the normative consideration of alternative principles of world politics. Imagining new forms of political community has emerged as a major enterprise in the contemporary theory of the state and international relations. W. Connolly, ‘Democracy and Territoriality’, in M. Ringrose and A. J. Lerner (eds.), Reimagining the Nation (Buckingham, 1993); D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Global Governance (Cambridge, 1995); W. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and the Culture (Oxford, 1989); A. Linklater, ‘Community’, in A. Danchev (ed.), Fin de Siecle: The Meaning of the Twentieth Century (London, 1995); and R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge, 1993). In this context, E. H. Carr’s writings on the crisis of world politics in the first part of the twentieth century acquire a relevance for contemporary debates which his reputation for Realism has served to distort. His writings contain a striking analysis of the changing nature of the modern state and the possibility of new forms of political association. Carr’s observations about these subjects are as profound as they are inspiring, and they are rich in their significance for the contemporary theory and practice of international relations. They make significant contributions in three areas: the empirical analysis of the transformation of the modern state, especially but not only in Europe; the embryonic but increasingly sophisticated normative analysis of how the nation-state ought to evolve, and what it ought to become; and the evolving discussion of how the study of internation relations might be reformed to tackle the dominant moral and political questions of the epoch. These questions are concerned above all else with the metamorphosis of political community.

Torture and Civilisation

The global anti-torture norm has been one of the main examples of a global civilising process. It refl ects modern sensibilities to cruelty and excessive force which were highlighted in Norbert Eliass account of the ‘civilising process’. The idea of defending civilisation has also been used to defend torture in the war against terror. Exceptional methods are needed, it has been argued, to protect civilised ways of life. Notions of constitutional or ‘civilised torture’ have been introduced to try to harmonise these competing views. They have been employed in the attempt to reconcile civilised self-images with the use of excessive force. The future role of torture in the ‘war against terror’ depends on the interplay between these competing conceptions of the civilising process.