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A Snapshot of International
Political Theory in Spring 2006*
Our survey of the journal issues current during March
2006 revealed a good number of interesting articles in International
Political Theory (IPT). These
were spread across some twenty journals (of the forty surveyed). There were concentrations, as one
might expect, in journals like Ethics and International Affairs, but also in special issues of
others, notably the Journal of Social Philosophy and Social Philosophy and
Policy. There are rich seams of IPT
articles in journals whose titles mention none of the words
ÒInternationalÓ, ÒPoliticalÓ or ÒTheoryÓ!
The purpose of this very brief report is to draw
attention to the wider range of good articles from which our special
recommendations were drawn.
Global distributive justice continues to be a prominent
theme in the current literature.
It is the topic of the special issue of Social Philosophy and
Policy (23.1,
Jan 2006). Edited by the Paul, Miller and Paul team, the issue is also
published in book form as Justice and Global Politics (Cambridge University Press,
2006). This is a top flight collection with a number of eminent
contributors. As well as Iris
Marion Young, whose article we have featured, they include Chandran
Kukathas (with thought-provoking scepticism about global justice), Samuel
Freeman (offering a closely reasoned defence of RawlsÕs Law of Peoples), Neera K Badhwar (on the
nature and limits of obligations to give international aid), and Nobel
Laureate James M. Buchanan (reflecting on difficulties for global
justice). (For the full
list of authors, titles and abstracts visit
the issueÕs webpage.) An innovative approach to the global justice debate is
Daryl GlaserÕs ÔThe Limits to Global Redistribution: thinking like an
egalitarian labour movementÕ (Global Society 20.2, 2006), which raises
interesting questions from a novel perspective. The ongoing debate about
how to square nationalist and cosmopolitan obligations has a contribution
from Gillian Brock in ÔWhat do we owe co-nationals and non-nationals? why
the liberal nationalist account fails and how we can do betterÕ (Journal
of Global Ethics
1.2, 2005). Andrew Dobson addresses the motivational vacuum he identifies
at the heart of cosmopolitanism, and, in place of its reliance on the thin
connection of common humanity, he theorises a ÔThick CosmopolitanismÕ (Political
Studies, 54.1,
2006) which finds the roots of global obligations in the recognition of our
ecological interdependence.
Just war theory is of course another prominent theme. James Turner Johnson gives his take
on ÔThe Just War Idea: the state of the questionÕ in Social Philosophy
and Policy 23.1
(2006), commending adherence to the historical
substance of just war tradition. Jeff McMahan, by contrast, in ÔJust
Cause for WarÕ in Ethics and International Affairs 19.3 (2005) offers a provocative challenge to much of the just war
tradition. Alec WalenÕs ÔThe Doctrine of Illicit IntensionsÕ (Philosophy
and Public Affairs, 34.1, 2006), while perhaps not falling squarely within
the field of IPT, is a good philosophical discussion of a relevant moral
issue. Also to mention
is the journal Global Society which has a Special Issue (20.1, 2006) on Preventive
Action and Humanitarian Intervention from perspectives within current IR
theory.
Transnational democracy is the theme of a special issue
of the Journal of Social Philosophy which contains a number of very good articles by
authors such as Thomas Christiano, Omar Dahbour, James Bohman, Alistair M
Macleod, and the journalÕs editor, Carol Gould. Incidentally, the IPT focus
of this issue is not a one-off, as the journal has for a while now been
regularly featuring IPT articles in numbers to rival Ethics and
International Affairs. Another useful
article, tracking historical shifts in understandings of civil society and
cautioning against excessive hopes in its role in globalizing democracy, is
Brett BowdenÕs ÔCivil Society, the State, and the Limits to Global Civil
SocietyÕ (Global Society, 20.2, 2006). Mark F. Plattner, ÔInternationalism and DemocracyÕ (Philosophy, 80.4, 2005) contrasts
liberal internationalism and globalism in their understanding of the nature
of the political order.
Thinkers from the history of international thought figure in Howard L. Williams,
ÔBack from the USSR: Kant, Kalingrad and World PeaceÕ (International
Relations,
20.1, 2006) and in Kari Polanyi-Levitt, ÔKeynes
and Polanyi: the 1920s and the 1990sÕ (Review of International Political
Economy, 13.1, 2006) which as well as
providing an interesting comparison of KeynesÕ and Polanyi's theorizing
also introduces some new writing of Polanyi's from the 1930s.
With any snapshot, one has to select the
subject to frame. For this one, a wider lens could have captured on one
side articles of Moral Philosophy relating to global or international
issues and, on the other, articles on debates internal to or metacritical
of explanatory International Relations Theory. The relative dirth of
political theoretical reflection on International Political Economy, seems,
by contrast, to reflect its low profile in the literature. Nor have many issues in
International Law attracted the concerted attention of political theorists
in the period of this survey. Within the field of focus, the theme of human
rights, too, was less discernible than might have been expected, given the
amount of writing on it in recent years - or perhaps that is the reason.
One also has to strain to detect work on issues of global environmental
politics, but I suspect that may be to come.
Tim Hayward
* Thanks go to the IPT BeaconÕs
Editorial Board members for input into the survey on which this report is
loosely based. Sole responsibility nevertheless rests with the author for
the views and judgements expressed .
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