The disciplinary history of international relations (IR) is usually told as a
succession of theor... more The disciplinary history of international relations (IR) is usually told as a succession of theories or “isms” that are connected to academic schools. Echoing the increasing criticism of this narrative, we present in this article a new perspective on the discipline. We introduce concepts from linguistics and its method of digital discourse analysis (DDA) to explore discursive shifts and terminological entrepreneurship in IR. DDA directs attention away from schools of thought and “heroic figures” who allegedly invented new theories. As we show exemplarily with the rise of “regime theory,” there were entire generations of IR scholars who (more or less consciously) developed new vocabularies to frame and address their common concerns. The terminological history of “international regime” starts in nineteenth century international law, in which French authors already used “régime” to describe transnational forms of governance that were more than a treaty but less than an international organization. Only in the 1980s, however, was an explicit definition of “international regime” forged in American IR, which combined textual elements already in use. We submit that such observations can change the way in which we understand, narrate, and teach the discipline of IR. DDA decenters IR theory from its traditional focus on schools and individuals and suggests unlearning established taxonomies of “isms.” The introduction of corpus linguistic methods to the study of academic IR can thus provide new epistemological directions for the field.
While contingency and negation are relatively well-established notions in the theoretical analysi... more While contingency and negation are relatively well-established notions in the theoretical analysis of international relations, their practical implications remain underconceptualised. In order to discuss the question of how to act under conditions of contingency and negation, this article, in a first step, triangulates both with Aristotelian noesis. Such triangulation suggests that the consequences of political action cannot be predicted and always have inadvertent consequences due to the contingent and historically and intellectually negated and refutable (even self-refutable) character of politics. It therefore appears as irresponsible to enact policies with interminable consequences. Rather, responsible political action-which is responsible precisely as, and only if, it accounts for contingency and negation-must hence act only in such a way that its consequences are reversible. In a second step, policy theory is critically reviewed in light of reversibility and its underlying philosophical principles, trying to bridge political philosophy and policy studies for a mutually enriched analysis of politics. Such a bridging exercise not only brings enhanced normative reflection into policy studies, but also, in reverse, hints at the crucial aspect of the non-linear unfolding of action consequences, which is, in addition to questions for a future research agenda, discussed in the concluding section. These discussions are understood as a twofold, yet interlinked, contribution: first, to develop a concept of reversibility as a practical response to the philosophical notions of contingency and negation; and, second, to bridge two different paradigms, encouraging the synergy of scholarly expertise for the management of contemporary international and global problems.
This article seeks to reconceptualise emancipation in critically theorising International Relatio... more This article seeks to reconceptualise emancipation in critically theorising International Relations (IR) by developing 'thin' and 'thick' versions of normativity and applying them as conditions for a pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. We start with the premise that 'critical IR' is both Eurocentric and a-normative, and argue that a normative engagement with critical discourses both inside and outside the West is necessary to recapture its emancipatory promise. Drawing on the work of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Derrida, we develop 'thin' and 'thick' versions of normativity. The former, we argue, operates as a critical corrective of thick normative positions, reclaiming their openness to difference, while not making substantive moral or political claims itself. We then apply these version of normativity to examine the possibility of a global pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. Cosmologies, we argue, refer to sets of ontological and epistemological claims about the human condition that are inherently normative. 'Thin' normativity applied to the 'thick' claims of cosmologies prevents the essentialisation and hierarchisation of cosmological difference(s) by revealing and de-constructing the latter's potentially discriminatory, exclusionary, and violent tendencies. In so doing, it facilitates a global inter-cosmological dialogue which we regard as the objective of a post-western, critical IR.
This Introduction presents the seven closely interlinked papers that explore the theme of this Sp... more This Introduction presents the seven closely interlinked papers that explore the theme of this Special Issue, and one of the enduring existential questions for International Relations: the nuclear condition in the twenty-first century. The Special Issue is the second to come from two workshops sponsored by a UK Leverhulme grant, and it builds upon the first, more theoretical Special Issue, which brought Classical Realist and Critical Theory texts into dialogue. The major concern in the first Special Issue—the focus on modernity, crises, and humanity—is taken up here in more grounded practical terms, framed around the existential fears of nuclear annihilation. Each of the contributions re-assess the contemporary nuclear condition from within the theoretical frameworks provided by Classical Realism and Critical Theory. The engagement with both traditions allows the contributors to diagnose what is new, and what remains constant, in the contemporary nuclear condition.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Intern... more This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence Newcastle University ePrints-eprint.ncl.ac.uk Behr H. The populist obstruction of reality: Analysis and response.
... Freier Zugang (Open Access) Zugang für Abonnent/innen oder durch Zahlung einer Gebühr. Islami... more ... Freier Zugang (Open Access) Zugang für Abonnent/innen oder durch Zahlung einer Gebühr. Islamischer Terrorismus: Gruppen und ihre regionale und globale Vernetzung. Hartmut Behr. Literaturhinweise. Volltext: PDF.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14650040801991654, May 20, 2008
Since the end of the Cold War, states and civil societies face a radically different security sit... more Since the end of the Cold War, states and civil societies face a radically different security situation. In addition to state-to-state threats, transnational security issues have risen to previously unknown relevance. I will argue that - in order to create effective counter-policies against ...
... Friday, September 2, 4:15pm, Hartmut Behr The EU and Legacies of Imperial Rule ? ... relates ... more ... Friday, September 2, 4:15pm, Hartmut Behr The EU and Legacies of Imperial Rule ? ... relates to. Patrocinium, while difficult to translate, is somewhat easier to define. Hartmut Behr places the word into its context as a distinct and manageable concept: 'an interna-...
Das Eingangszitat verdeutlicht die Spannung, welche die Frage nach der Möglichkeit universeller o... more Das Eingangszitat verdeutlicht die Spannung, welche die Frage nach der Möglichkeit universeller oder der Notwendigkeit kulturspezifischer Kategorien und Konzepte für den politikwissenschaftlichen Systemvergleich in interkultureller Perspektive birgt. So waren sich die Gründer der ...
The idea and study of international society can be applied empirically to Europe and the Europe U... more The idea and study of international society can be applied empirically to Europe and the Europe Union (EU), with a significant overlap between the idea of Europe and the EU being symbolized as EUrope. As the example of EUrope demonstrates, the development of international society genuinely depends upon violence in its peripheries, in EUrope's case exemplified by colonialism and imperialism of European states: states of which most are now core members of the European Union, but until only some 50 years ago have been fierce and violent colonizers of the world. As such, the study of Europe and the EU is ontologically linked to the study of colonialism and post-colonialism what founds and necessitates epistemologically an historical and comparative approach. The refusal of this ontology and epistemology may enable to study internal policy processes, but would remain within self-centric and solipsistic foci on the European 'Self' and would thus block systematically all attempts to interrelate the EU to the world. Such a refusal would further render it impossible to envision the EU as an international or even global actor conducting policies other than hegemonic and paternalistic (even if self-understood as benevolent).
Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union, 2006
Einleitung: Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union: Zwischen nationalen Traditionen und E... more Einleitung: Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union: Zwischen nationalen Traditionen und Europäisierung Hartmut Behr 1. Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union Das Thema, Politik und Religion'erfasst seit geraumer Zeit auch die Europäische Union (EU) ...
The disciplinary history of international relations (IR) is usually told as a
succession of theor... more The disciplinary history of international relations (IR) is usually told as a succession of theories or “isms” that are connected to academic schools. Echoing the increasing criticism of this narrative, we present in this article a new perspective on the discipline. We introduce concepts from linguistics and its method of digital discourse analysis (DDA) to explore discursive shifts and terminological entrepreneurship in IR. DDA directs attention away from schools of thought and “heroic figures” who allegedly invented new theories. As we show exemplarily with the rise of “regime theory,” there were entire generations of IR scholars who (more or less consciously) developed new vocabularies to frame and address their common concerns. The terminological history of “international regime” starts in nineteenth century international law, in which French authors already used “régime” to describe transnational forms of governance that were more than a treaty but less than an international organization. Only in the 1980s, however, was an explicit definition of “international regime” forged in American IR, which combined textual elements already in use. We submit that such observations can change the way in which we understand, narrate, and teach the discipline of IR. DDA decenters IR theory from its traditional focus on schools and individuals and suggests unlearning established taxonomies of “isms.” The introduction of corpus linguistic methods to the study of academic IR can thus provide new epistemological directions for the field.
While contingency and negation are relatively well-established notions in the theoretical analysi... more While contingency and negation are relatively well-established notions in the theoretical analysis of international relations, their practical implications remain underconceptualised. In order to discuss the question of how to act under conditions of contingency and negation, this article, in a first step, triangulates both with Aristotelian noesis. Such triangulation suggests that the consequences of political action cannot be predicted and always have inadvertent consequences due to the contingent and historically and intellectually negated and refutable (even self-refutable) character of politics. It therefore appears as irresponsible to enact policies with interminable consequences. Rather, responsible political action-which is responsible precisely as, and only if, it accounts for contingency and negation-must hence act only in such a way that its consequences are reversible. In a second step, policy theory is critically reviewed in light of reversibility and its underlying philosophical principles, trying to bridge political philosophy and policy studies for a mutually enriched analysis of politics. Such a bridging exercise not only brings enhanced normative reflection into policy studies, but also, in reverse, hints at the crucial aspect of the non-linear unfolding of action consequences, which is, in addition to questions for a future research agenda, discussed in the concluding section. These discussions are understood as a twofold, yet interlinked, contribution: first, to develop a concept of reversibility as a practical response to the philosophical notions of contingency and negation; and, second, to bridge two different paradigms, encouraging the synergy of scholarly expertise for the management of contemporary international and global problems.
This article seeks to reconceptualise emancipation in critically theorising International Relatio... more This article seeks to reconceptualise emancipation in critically theorising International Relations (IR) by developing 'thin' and 'thick' versions of normativity and applying them as conditions for a pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. We start with the premise that 'critical IR' is both Eurocentric and a-normative, and argue that a normative engagement with critical discourses both inside and outside the West is necessary to recapture its emancipatory promise. Drawing on the work of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Derrida, we develop 'thin' and 'thick' versions of normativity. The former, we argue, operates as a critical corrective of thick normative positions, reclaiming their openness to difference, while not making substantive moral or political claims itself. We then apply these version of normativity to examine the possibility of a global pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. Cosmologies, we argue, refer to sets of ontological and epistemological claims about the human condition that are inherently normative. 'Thin' normativity applied to the 'thick' claims of cosmologies prevents the essentialisation and hierarchisation of cosmological difference(s) by revealing and de-constructing the latter's potentially discriminatory, exclusionary, and violent tendencies. In so doing, it facilitates a global inter-cosmological dialogue which we regard as the objective of a post-western, critical IR.
This Introduction presents the seven closely interlinked papers that explore the theme of this Sp... more This Introduction presents the seven closely interlinked papers that explore the theme of this Special Issue, and one of the enduring existential questions for International Relations: the nuclear condition in the twenty-first century. The Special Issue is the second to come from two workshops sponsored by a UK Leverhulme grant, and it builds upon the first, more theoretical Special Issue, which brought Classical Realist and Critical Theory texts into dialogue. The major concern in the first Special Issue—the focus on modernity, crises, and humanity—is taken up here in more grounded practical terms, framed around the existential fears of nuclear annihilation. Each of the contributions re-assess the contemporary nuclear condition from within the theoretical frameworks provided by Classical Realism and Critical Theory. The engagement with both traditions allows the contributors to diagnose what is new, and what remains constant, in the contemporary nuclear condition.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Intern... more This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence Newcastle University ePrints-eprint.ncl.ac.uk Behr H. The populist obstruction of reality: Analysis and response.
... Freier Zugang (Open Access) Zugang für Abonnent/innen oder durch Zahlung einer Gebühr. Islami... more ... Freier Zugang (Open Access) Zugang für Abonnent/innen oder durch Zahlung einer Gebühr. Islamischer Terrorismus: Gruppen und ihre regionale und globale Vernetzung. Hartmut Behr. Literaturhinweise. Volltext: PDF.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14650040801991654, May 20, 2008
Since the end of the Cold War, states and civil societies face a radically different security sit... more Since the end of the Cold War, states and civil societies face a radically different security situation. In addition to state-to-state threats, transnational security issues have risen to previously unknown relevance. I will argue that - in order to create effective counter-policies against ...
... Friday, September 2, 4:15pm, Hartmut Behr The EU and Legacies of Imperial Rule ? ... relates ... more ... Friday, September 2, 4:15pm, Hartmut Behr The EU and Legacies of Imperial Rule ? ... relates to. Patrocinium, while difficult to translate, is somewhat easier to define. Hartmut Behr places the word into its context as a distinct and manageable concept: 'an interna-...
Das Eingangszitat verdeutlicht die Spannung, welche die Frage nach der Möglichkeit universeller o... more Das Eingangszitat verdeutlicht die Spannung, welche die Frage nach der Möglichkeit universeller oder der Notwendigkeit kulturspezifischer Kategorien und Konzepte für den politikwissenschaftlichen Systemvergleich in interkultureller Perspektive birgt. So waren sich die Gründer der ...
The idea and study of international society can be applied empirically to Europe and the Europe U... more The idea and study of international society can be applied empirically to Europe and the Europe Union (EU), with a significant overlap between the idea of Europe and the EU being symbolized as EUrope. As the example of EUrope demonstrates, the development of international society genuinely depends upon violence in its peripheries, in EUrope's case exemplified by colonialism and imperialism of European states: states of which most are now core members of the European Union, but until only some 50 years ago have been fierce and violent colonizers of the world. As such, the study of Europe and the EU is ontologically linked to the study of colonialism and post-colonialism what founds and necessitates epistemologically an historical and comparative approach. The refusal of this ontology and epistemology may enable to study internal policy processes, but would remain within self-centric and solipsistic foci on the European 'Self' and would thus block systematically all attempts to interrelate the EU to the world. Such a refusal would further render it impossible to envision the EU as an international or even global actor conducting policies other than hegemonic and paternalistic (even if self-understood as benevolent).
Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union, 2006
Einleitung: Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union: Zwischen nationalen Traditionen und E... more Einleitung: Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union: Zwischen nationalen Traditionen und Europäisierung Hartmut Behr 1. Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union Das Thema, Politik und Religion'erfasst seit geraumer Zeit auch die Europäische Union (EU) ...
“Difference has become a significant concern of the study of international
politics and also in p... more “Difference has become a significant concern of the study of international politics and also in peace and conflict studies. Yet, approaches to understanding or incorporating issues of difference into the analysis of international order have often tended to come to rest on essentialising notions of ethnicity or other forms of identity, which also are relegated to a state of lesser importance than westernised notions of secular citizenship, cosmopolitan toleration, and free-flowing capital. This important book engages with the difficult and necessary task of envisioning peace-with-difference in international politics. Without advances in this area, as Professor Behr outlines, difference is destined to undermine order when instead it might be constitutive of peace.” Prof. Oliver Richmond, University of Manchester, UK “Hartmut Behr makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the fundamental problems centering around our conventional concept of peace. With the help of phenomenological, anti-essentialist thinkers, he reveals that the concept of peace, as deployed in the Western tradition of political and philosophical thought as well as in international politics, is a hegemonic and imperial concept that suppresses and assimilates difference, thus effacing otherness for the sake of the self. He eloquently invites us on a thrilling but serious journey towards reconceptualizing a non-hegemonic peace that is hospitable to difference.” Takashi Kibe, Professor of Political Theory and Director of the Peace Research Institute, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan “Philosophically grounded, Politics of Difference not only produces one of the most compelling critiques of ‘imperial peace’ and its genealogies, but offers with sustained intellectual vigour an original discourse on the ontology of our times. It is truly a tour de force.” Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Chair in International Politics, Aberystwyth University, UK
Hartmut Behr's A History of International Political Theory: Ontologies of the International is a ... more Hartmut Behr's A History of International Political Theory: Ontologies of the International is a fascinating critical reconsideration of how generations of political thinkers have appraised the interplay between universal and particular interests among the relations of states in their understandings of "the world" from Western antiquity through the present-day. This richly nuanced and comprehensive analysis of the many epistemological and ontological complexities in disciplined thinking about "international" affairs will be essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how these complexities affect our moral reasoning and political decisions about war and peace, identity and difference, locality and globality as humanity deals with the strategic challenges of the twenty-first century.'
Timothy W. Luke, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Taking the relationship between universalism and particularism as his starting point, Behr provides a panoramic historical vision of international political theory. In its attempt to reconstruct a philosophical genealogy of war and peace, and a renewed ethics, this original and remarkably wide-ranging book is as challenging as it is ambitious: it deserves widespread attention across International Relations and beyond.
Professor Michael C Williams, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa
The present translation of Morgenthau’s study The Concept of the
Political ( La notion du “pol... more The present translation of Morgenthau’s study The Concept of the
Political ( La notion du “politique” et la théorie des différends internationaux) from 1933 is, therefore, the first endeavor to make his European writings more accessible to students of International Relations, particularly of the English-speaking academia, by presenting a translation of his original French text.
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Papers by Hartmut Behr
succession of theories or “isms” that are connected to academic schools. Echoing the increasing criticism of this narrative, we present in this article a new perspective on the discipline. We introduce concepts from linguistics and its method of digital discourse analysis (DDA) to explore discursive shifts and terminological entrepreneurship in IR. DDA directs
attention away from schools of thought and “heroic figures” who allegedly
invented new theories. As we show exemplarily with the rise of “regime
theory,” there were entire generations of IR scholars who (more or less
consciously) developed new vocabularies to frame and address their common concerns. The terminological history of “international regime” starts in nineteenth century international law, in which French authors already used “régime” to describe transnational forms of governance that were more than a treaty but less than an international organization. Only in the 1980s, however, was an explicit definition of “international regime” forged in American IR, which combined textual elements already in use. We submit that such observations can change the way in which we understand, narrate, and teach the discipline of IR. DDA decenters IR theory from its traditional focus on schools and individuals and suggests unlearning established taxonomies of “isms.” The introduction of corpus linguistic methods to the study of academic IR can thus provide new epistemological directions for the field.
succession of theories or “isms” that are connected to academic schools. Echoing the increasing criticism of this narrative, we present in this article a new perspective on the discipline. We introduce concepts from linguistics and its method of digital discourse analysis (DDA) to explore discursive shifts and terminological entrepreneurship in IR. DDA directs
attention away from schools of thought and “heroic figures” who allegedly
invented new theories. As we show exemplarily with the rise of “regime
theory,” there were entire generations of IR scholars who (more or less
consciously) developed new vocabularies to frame and address their common concerns. The terminological history of “international regime” starts in nineteenth century international law, in which French authors already used “régime” to describe transnational forms of governance that were more than a treaty but less than an international organization. Only in the 1980s, however, was an explicit definition of “international regime” forged in American IR, which combined textual elements already in use. We submit that such observations can change the way in which we understand, narrate, and teach the discipline of IR. DDA decenters IR theory from its traditional focus on schools and individuals and suggests unlearning established taxonomies of “isms.” The introduction of corpus linguistic methods to the study of academic IR can thus provide new epistemological directions for the field.
politics and also in peace and conflict studies. Yet, approaches to
understanding or incorporating issues of difference into the analysis of
international order have often tended to come to rest on essentialising
notions of ethnicity or other forms of identity, which also are relegated
to a state of lesser importance than westernised notions of secular citizenship,
cosmopolitan toleration, and free-flowing capital. This important
book engages with the difficult and necessary task of envisioning
peace-with-difference in international politics. Without advances in this
area, as Professor Behr outlines, difference is destined to undermine
order when instead it might be constitutive of peace.”
Prof. Oliver Richmond, University of Manchester, UK
“Hartmut Behr makes a significant contribution to our understanding of
the fundamental problems centering around our conventional concept
of peace. With the help of phenomenological, anti-essentialist thinkers,
he reveals that the concept of peace, as deployed in the Western tradition
of political and philosophical thought as well as in international
politics, is a hegemonic and imperial concept that suppresses and assimilates
difference, thus effacing otherness for the sake of the self. He eloquently
invites us on a thrilling but serious journey towards reconceptualizing a
non-hegemonic peace that is hospitable to difference.”
Takashi Kibe, Professor of Political Theory and Director of the Peace
Research Institute, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
“Philosophically grounded, Politics of Difference not only produces one
of the most compelling critiques of ‘imperial peace’ and its genealogies,
but offers with sustained intellectual vigour an original discourse on the
ontology of our times. It is truly a tour de force.”
Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Chair in International Politics,
Aberystwyth University, UK
Timothy W. Luke, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Taking the relationship between universalism and particularism as his starting point, Behr provides a panoramic historical vision of international political theory. In its attempt to reconstruct a philosophical genealogy of war and peace, and a renewed ethics, this original and remarkably wide-ranging book is as challenging as it is ambitious: it deserves widespread attention across International Relations and beyond.
Professor Michael C Williams, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa
Political ( La notion du “politique” et la théorie des différends internationaux) from 1933 is, therefore, the first endeavor to make his European writings more accessible to students of International Relations, particularly of the English-speaking academia, by presenting a translation of his original French text.