Pub Date : 2021-09-11DOI: 10.1177/17550882211044876
William E DeMars
After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, both nations experienced a profound need for a new and encompassing story of what it meant to be Japanese, and to be American, in the permanent nuclear age. This article is a thought experiment to juxtapose the writings and personas of two people who helped their respective societies answer those needs and questions during the early Cold War: Takashi Nagai—medical radiologist, and survivor of the American atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and Albert Wohlstetter—leading American civilian nuclear strategist for the RAND Corporation in the 1950s. Using a combination of mythopeic analysis, biography and illuminative juxtaposition, the study discovers surprising similarities and analogies between the two cases. They each enact and propose interesting variations of sacrificial causalities—claims that human nuclear sacrifices past or promised can bring peace by deterrence now or peace by abolition soon enough. This is an important study now, as both Japan’s nuclear pacifism and the American nuclear umbrella in Northeast Asia are coming under more severe questioning than perhaps ever before.
{"title":"Sacrificial causalities of nuclear weapons: Takashi Nagai and Albert Wohlstetter","authors":"William E DeMars","doi":"10.1177/17550882211044876","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211044876","url":null,"abstract":"After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, both nations experienced a profound need for a new and encompassing story of what it meant to be Japanese, and to be American, in the permanent nuclear age. This article is a thought experiment to juxtapose the writings and personas of two people who helped their respective societies answer those needs and questions during the early Cold War: Takashi Nagai—medical radiologist, and survivor of the American atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and Albert Wohlstetter—leading American civilian nuclear strategist for the RAND Corporation in the 1950s. Using a combination of mythopeic analysis, biography and illuminative juxtaposition, the study discovers surprising similarities and analogies between the two cases. They each enact and propose interesting variations of sacrificial causalities—claims that human nuclear sacrifices past or promised can bring peace by deterrence now or peace by abolition soon enough. This is an important study now, as both Japan’s nuclear pacifism and the American nuclear umbrella in Northeast Asia are coming under more severe questioning than perhaps ever before.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"66 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48593645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-18DOI: 10.1177/17550882211039747
Kyle B. T. Lambelet
Standard stories about the development of the study of nonviolent struggle characterize the maturation of the field as moving from principle to pragmatics, norm to technique. This big story about the field’s development is crystalized in the supposed dichotomy between principled and pragmatic nonviolence; a dichotomy that though common sense for those teaching and researching the repertoires of nonviolent struggle occludes the elision of critical normativity. Through a genealogical retrieval of Gene Sharp’s reading of Max Weber, this article unsettles this story. I argue that the turn to technique in the study of nonviolent struggle is itself a normative turn. Redescribing the turn to technique as itself normative, however, is not enough for a comprehensive description of the dynamics of nonviolent struggle. I develop this insight further by arguing that a recovery of the virtue of prudence, or practical reason, is necessary for a full account of nonviolent struggle.
{"title":"Nonviolent struggle between norm and technique","authors":"Kyle B. T. Lambelet","doi":"10.1177/17550882211039747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211039747","url":null,"abstract":"Standard stories about the development of the study of nonviolent struggle characterize the maturation of the field as moving from principle to pragmatics, norm to technique. This big story about the field’s development is crystalized in the supposed dichotomy between principled and pragmatic nonviolence; a dichotomy that though common sense for those teaching and researching the repertoires of nonviolent struggle occludes the elision of critical normativity. Through a genealogical retrieval of Gene Sharp’s reading of Max Weber, this article unsettles this story. I argue that the turn to technique in the study of nonviolent struggle is itself a normative turn. Redescribing the turn to technique as itself normative, however, is not enough for a comprehensive description of the dynamics of nonviolent struggle. I develop this insight further by arguing that a recovery of the virtue of prudence, or practical reason, is necessary for a full account of nonviolent struggle.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"148 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47267127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-10DOI: 10.1177/17550882211034704
L. Peperkamp
Peace plays a central role in the ethics of war and peace, but this proves to be an enormous challenge. In a recent article, Elisabeth Forster and Isaac Taylor grapple with this important topic. They argue that certain concepts in just war theory—aggression, legitimacy, and peace—are essentially contested and susceptible to manipulation. Because the rules are interpreted and applied by the very states that wage war, it is as if the fox is asked to guard the chicken coop—a recipe for disaster. To avoid manipulation of the theory and make the goal of peace attainable, they defend “minimalism” in the ethics of war and peace. This paper responds to and builds on their article. After nuancing the analysis, I will argue (a) that their minimalism does not solve the problem since the proposed alternative concept is equally prone to misuse, and (b) that their minimalism is mistargeted. What I propose is to specify and ground the rules of war without raising the standard too high, to disentangle jus ad bellum and jus post bellum and see peace as guiding principle for jus post bellum, and to interpret that in a minimalist way.
{"title":"Restraining the fox: Minimalism in the ethics of war and peace","authors":"L. Peperkamp","doi":"10.1177/17550882211034704","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211034704","url":null,"abstract":"Peace plays a central role in the ethics of war and peace, but this proves to be an enormous challenge. In a recent article, Elisabeth Forster and Isaac Taylor grapple with this important topic. They argue that certain concepts in just war theory—aggression, legitimacy, and peace—are essentially contested and susceptible to manipulation. Because the rules are interpreted and applied by the very states that wage war, it is as if the fox is asked to guard the chicken coop—a recipe for disaster. To avoid manipulation of the theory and make the goal of peace attainable, they defend “minimalism” in the ethics of war and peace. This paper responds to and builds on their article. After nuancing the analysis, I will argue (a) that their minimalism does not solve the problem since the proposed alternative concept is equally prone to misuse, and (b) that their minimalism is mistargeted. What I propose is to specify and ground the rules of war without raising the standard too high, to disentangle jus ad bellum and jus post bellum and see peace as guiding principle for jus post bellum, and to interpret that in a minimalist way.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"110 - 122"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46781854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-07DOI: 10.1177/17550882211028778
Ulrich J. Franke, Matthias Hofferberth
In 1995, the UN Commission on Global Governance published their “Our Global Neighbourhood” report and the academic journal “Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations” was launched. Both events in retrospect play a significant role in the emergence of global governance thinking and practice in world politics. Despite inherent ambiguities, this idea since then gained massive traction and became both a modality and a heuristic of world politics. Advancing a pragmatist framework, we unpack global governance in terms of the beliefs which underline and guide it. These beliefs are important since they, as rules for action, define the scope of global governance as a theoretical and a political concept. Reconstructing these beliefs directly from the 1995 report, the article highlights the inherent conflations of normative and analytical commitments indicative of global governance. As a projection surface of all kinds, we believe such a reconsideration of global governance is important to (a) reveal the baselines of its thinking and practice, (b) indicate how its normative and analytical ambitions overlap and conflate, and (c) contribute to a more reflective discussion on the idea which explicitly considers its inherent normativity. At the same time, we hope to show the value of a pragmatist framework on beliefs for the study of world politics.
{"title":"Proclaiming a prophecy empty of substance? A pragmatist reconsideration of global governance","authors":"Ulrich J. Franke, Matthias Hofferberth","doi":"10.1177/17550882211028778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211028778","url":null,"abstract":"In 1995, the UN Commission on Global Governance published their “Our Global Neighbourhood” report and the academic journal “Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations” was launched. Both events in retrospect play a significant role in the emergence of global governance thinking and practice in world politics. Despite inherent ambiguities, this idea since then gained massive traction and became both a modality and a heuristic of world politics. Advancing a pragmatist framework, we unpack global governance in terms of the beliefs which underline and guide it. These beliefs are important since they, as rules for action, define the scope of global governance as a theoretical and a political concept. Reconstructing these beliefs directly from the 1995 report, the article highlights the inherent conflations of normative and analytical commitments indicative of global governance. As a projection surface of all kinds, we believe such a reconsideration of global governance is important to (a) reveal the baselines of its thinking and practice, (b) indicate how its normative and analytical ambitions overlap and conflate, and (c) contribute to a more reflective discussion on the idea which explicitly considers its inherent normativity. At the same time, we hope to show the value of a pragmatist framework on beliefs for the study of world politics.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"312 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211028778","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49625632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-06DOI: 10.1177/17550882211029463
A. Meine
The paper assesses the questions if and, if yes, how the republican conception of free statehood can and should inform a compelling understanding of a legitimate post-Westphalian political order. To answer these questions, it, first, reconstructs the foundational arguments of republican internationalists in favour of free states and, second, assesses the points of contention republican cosmopolitans raise. Third, it develops an alternative approach, a republicanism of plural polities: Based on a relational and multi-dimensional understanding of citizenship, the paper questions the strong internationalist reliance on the citizenship-state-nexus and on statehood in general, but also takes issue with cosmopolitans’ neglect of the boundedness of democratic self-determination. A republicanism of plural polities as a multi-perspectival approach to democratic institution-building in and beyond the state is open to constellations of plural polities of different forms and on different political levels while simultaneously recognising the particularity of each ‘free polity’. It thereby adds a new dimension to debates on the political forms legitimate institutions can assume under post-Westphalian conditions and opens avenues for research on inter-polity relations, on more complex constellations of self-rule and shared rule as well as of multilateral decision-making, on sovereignty and independence. The latter are exemplified by reference to the European context.
{"title":"Free states for free citizens!? Arguments for a republicanism of plural polities","authors":"A. Meine","doi":"10.1177/17550882211029463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211029463","url":null,"abstract":"The paper assesses the questions if and, if yes, how the republican conception of free statehood can and should inform a compelling understanding of a legitimate post-Westphalian political order. To answer these questions, it, first, reconstructs the foundational arguments of republican internationalists in favour of free states and, second, assesses the points of contention republican cosmopolitans raise. Third, it develops an alternative approach, a republicanism of plural polities: Based on a relational and multi-dimensional understanding of citizenship, the paper questions the strong internationalist reliance on the citizenship-state-nexus and on statehood in general, but also takes issue with cosmopolitans’ neglect of the boundedness of democratic self-determination. A republicanism of plural polities as a multi-perspectival approach to democratic institution-building in and beyond the state is open to constellations of plural polities of different forms and on different political levels while simultaneously recognising the particularity of each ‘free polity’. It thereby adds a new dimension to debates on the political forms legitimate institutions can assume under post-Westphalian conditions and opens avenues for research on inter-polity relations, on more complex constellations of self-rule and shared rule as well as of multilateral decision-making, on sovereignty and independence. The latter are exemplified by reference to the European context.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"274 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211029463","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46330893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-03DOI: 10.1177/17550882211020386
A. Spitzer
In recent decades, decisionmakers have increasingly faced conflicts juxtaposing demands for self-determination and inclusion. Political theorists term this juxtaposition “the boundary problem.” They have offered normative solutions, especially for “just inclusion,” proposing what states owe to exogenous individuals like migrants and refugees. Meanwhile, as I show, legal scholars have developed parallel observations regarding what I term “just exclusion,” concerning how self-determination by sub-state collectives, such as minority nations, interacts with the inclusion rights of members of the majority. I make, first, a descriptive contribution, showing decisionmakers how political theories of “just inclusion” and legal theories of “just exclusion” are complementary, uniting to frame the boundary problem. Second, I make a prescriptive contribution, deploying this frame to lay out a stepwise approach so decisionmakers can more logically work through boundary-problem conflicts.
{"title":"Approaching the boundary problem: Self-determination, inclusion, and the unpuzzling of transboundary conflicts","authors":"A. Spitzer","doi":"10.1177/17550882211020386","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211020386","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, decisionmakers have increasingly faced conflicts juxtaposing demands for self-determination and inclusion. Political theorists term this juxtaposition “the boundary problem.” They have offered normative solutions, especially for “just inclusion,” proposing what states owe to exogenous individuals like migrants and refugees. Meanwhile, as I show, legal scholars have developed parallel observations regarding what I term “just exclusion,” concerning how self-determination by sub-state collectives, such as minority nations, interacts with the inclusion rights of members of the majority. I make, first, a descriptive contribution, showing decisionmakers how political theories of “just inclusion” and legal theories of “just exclusion” are complementary, uniting to frame the boundary problem. Second, I make a prescriptive contribution, deploying this frame to lay out a stepwise approach so decisionmakers can more logically work through boundary-problem conflicts.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"244 - 261"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211020386","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45593803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-29DOI: 10.1177/17550882211020393
Ali Fuat Birol
International relations have always been related to a particular sense of living together, both as a concept and as an academic field shaped by some practices of being-together. The question of how international relations perceive a way of living together (as being-together in a common space) has been addressed from the early forms of post-structuralist quests by trying to deal with the issues such as inside/outside, identity/difference, but has not been intensely focused on the issue of common and its alternative perceptions by approaching the fundamental relationship between the ontological status of being-in and being-together. In this article, with focusing on how a particular way of being-in-a-common is related to a certain ontology of international relations, I will utilize French philosopher Jean Luc Nancy’s re-writing of Heideggerian notion of Mitsein (being-with) in order to problematize the phenomenon of the international as an intermediate category that defines our meanings of living-together and our relationship with this world.
{"title":"The sense of being-in-common and international relations","authors":"Ali Fuat Birol","doi":"10.1177/17550882211020393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211020393","url":null,"abstract":"International relations have always been related to a particular sense of living together, both as a concept and as an academic field shaped by some practices of being-together. The question of how international relations perceive a way of living together (as being-together in a common space) has been addressed from the early forms of post-structuralist quests by trying to deal with the issues such as inside/outside, identity/difference, but has not been intensely focused on the issue of common and its alternative perceptions by approaching the fundamental relationship between the ontological status of being-in and being-together. In this article, with focusing on how a particular way of being-in-a-common is related to a certain ontology of international relations, I will utilize French philosopher Jean Luc Nancy’s re-writing of Heideggerian notion of Mitsein (being-with) in order to problematize the phenomenon of the international as an intermediate category that defines our meanings of living-together and our relationship with this world.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"225 - 243"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211020393","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42284722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-29DOI: 10.1177/17550882211021438
A. Hoseason
This article argues that the normative promise of recognition theory in International Relations has become increasingly inadequate to the cross-cutting and intersecting issues characteristic of a globalised and fragmented world. Engaging in critical readings of cosmopolitan forms of recognition theory, the critique of sovereignty and Markell’s influential critique of recognition theory, I suggest that the increasing ontological specificity of recognition theory in IR has come at the expense of its ability to develop links between different areas of international politics. The result is a failure to deal with recognition’s simultaneity, or the co-existence of analytically distinct and internally coherent recognition orders that is characteristic of the international. Building on this insight, I argue that a more historically-sensitive and materialist approach to recognition can be grounded in the concept of multiplicity. By opening recognition up to processes of interaction, and not merely reproduction, multiplicity frames the international more clearly as a historical presupposition, rather than a limit, of recognition. Furthermore, placing recognition struggles within the state, international institutions or transnational movements in relation to each other ensures that IR can contribute to the further development of recognition theory by situating recognition struggles at the intersection of different moral geographies.
{"title":"Recognition, multiplicity and the elusive international","authors":"A. Hoseason","doi":"10.1177/17550882211021438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211021438","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that the normative promise of recognition theory in International Relations has become increasingly inadequate to the cross-cutting and intersecting issues characteristic of a globalised and fragmented world. Engaging in critical readings of cosmopolitan forms of recognition theory, the critique of sovereignty and Markell’s influential critique of recognition theory, I suggest that the increasing ontological specificity of recognition theory in IR has come at the expense of its ability to develop links between different areas of international politics. The result is a failure to deal with recognition’s simultaneity, or the co-existence of analytically distinct and internally coherent recognition orders that is characteristic of the international. Building on this insight, I argue that a more historically-sensitive and materialist approach to recognition can be grounded in the concept of multiplicity. By opening recognition up to processes of interaction, and not merely reproduction, multiplicity frames the international more clearly as a historical presupposition, rather than a limit, of recognition. Furthermore, placing recognition struggles within the state, international institutions or transnational movements in relation to each other ensures that IR can contribute to the further development of recognition theory by situating recognition struggles at the intersection of different moral geographies.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"205 - 224"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211021438","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46755824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-28DOI: 10.1177/17550882211020409
J. Drolet, Michael C. Williams
Across the globe, radical conservative political forces and ideas are influencing and even transforming the landscape of international politics. Yet IR is remarkably ill-equipped to understand and engage these new challenges. Unlike political theory or domestic political analyses, conservatism has no distinctive place in the fields’ defining alternatives of realism, liberalism, Marxism, and constructivism. This paper seeks to provide a point of entry for such engagement by bringing together what may seem the most unlikely of partners: critical theory and the New Right. Important parts of today’s New Right represent self-conscious appropriations of Critical themes and thinkers—turning them to self-declared “reactionary” ends. Developing outside the confines of the academy, these forms of thought have woven insights from across Critical theory into new and mobilizing forms of conservative ideology, seeking to link that ideology to social forces that play increasingly active roles in global politics. Our intention here is not to somehow blame Critical perspectives for the ideas of the New Right, either directly or by association. Rather, we seek to show how an engagement with Critical theory helps us understand the New Right, while also demonstrating some of the direct challenges the New Right poses for critical perspectives.
{"title":"From critique to reaction: The new right, critical theory and international relations","authors":"J. Drolet, Michael C. Williams","doi":"10.1177/17550882211020409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211020409","url":null,"abstract":"Across the globe, radical conservative political forces and ideas are influencing and even transforming the landscape of international politics. Yet IR is remarkably ill-equipped to understand and engage these new challenges. Unlike political theory or domestic political analyses, conservatism has no distinctive place in the fields’ defining alternatives of realism, liberalism, Marxism, and constructivism. This paper seeks to provide a point of entry for such engagement by bringing together what may seem the most unlikely of partners: critical theory and the New Right. Important parts of today’s New Right represent self-conscious appropriations of Critical themes and thinkers—turning them to self-declared “reactionary” ends. Developing outside the confines of the academy, these forms of thought have woven insights from across Critical theory into new and mobilizing forms of conservative ideology, seeking to link that ideology to social forces that play increasingly active roles in global politics. Our intention here is not to somehow blame Critical perspectives for the ideas of the New Right, either directly or by association. Rather, we seek to show how an engagement with Critical theory helps us understand the New Right, while also demonstrating some of the direct challenges the New Right poses for critical perspectives.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"23 - 45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211020409","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47469573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-28DOI: 10.1177/17550882211010201
Aidan Hehir, C. Lanza
In this article, we advance a framework that highlights the relational nature of rivalry emergence and its ongoing manifestations, before illustrating this framework in practice through an analysis of the rivalry between Serbs and Albanians over the issue of Kosovo. We argue that the locus of rivalry lies in the inherently social character of human desire and the destructive reciprocity elicited by human mimetic behaviour. The manner in which rivals portray their plight, and legitimise their cause, is, we argue, a function of their desire to acquire that which they imagine the other has. As such, rather than adhering to the conventional view that rivalries are characterised by difference, we argue that rivals share a set of common goals/desires. Thus, though rivalries are characterised by mutual antipathy – and the attendant devotion to constructing self-serving myths – this is but a superficial manifestation of an underlying mimetic dynamic. To focus only on how myths are constructed and instrumentally employed, is not sufficient when seeking to explain the persistence of rivalries. Rather, we must understand the underlying desires the respective rivals seek to fulfill through the proliferation of these myths if we are to truly understand the nature of the rivalry.
{"title":"Mimetic rivalry in practice: The case of Kosovo","authors":"Aidan Hehir, C. Lanza","doi":"10.1177/17550882211010201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211010201","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we advance a framework that highlights the relational nature of rivalry emergence and its ongoing manifestations, before illustrating this framework in practice through an analysis of the rivalry between Serbs and Albanians over the issue of Kosovo. We argue that the locus of rivalry lies in the inherently social character of human desire and the destructive reciprocity elicited by human mimetic behaviour. The manner in which rivals portray their plight, and legitimise their cause, is, we argue, a function of their desire to acquire that which they imagine the other has. As such, rather than adhering to the conventional view that rivalries are characterised by difference, we argue that rivals share a set of common goals/desires. Thus, though rivalries are characterised by mutual antipathy – and the attendant devotion to constructing self-serving myths – this is but a superficial manifestation of an underlying mimetic dynamic. To focus only on how myths are constructed and instrumentally employed, is not sufficient when seeking to explain the persistence of rivalries. Rather, we must understand the underlying desires the respective rivals seek to fulfill through the proliferation of these myths if we are to truly understand the nature of the rivalry.","PeriodicalId":44237,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Political Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":"2 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17550882211010201","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45411178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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