A prominent feature of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order is diverse call... more A prominent feature of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order is diverse calls for justice, including epistemic and historic justice. For a long time, that order understood itself in liberal terms and as capable of delivering justice accordingly. Asking a second-order question, about how questions of justice are framed in the international order, leads us to the conclusion that the liberal order’s account of the connections that make the system hang together is partial, if not deeply flawed. Building on long-established and more recent traditions of scholarship aligned with the Global South, we introduce a different account of international order and its core dynamics: complex indebtedness. Such an account enables not only a better appreciation of the justice claims currently being made in and against the liberal international order, it also more plausibly explains their origins, interconnections, and multiscalar and polymorphic character. By facing squarely the political parameters of indebtedness, we can make better sense of how to approach claims for justice in the present and future. The argument is illustrated with the examples of struggles for racial justice, white nationalism and South-South co-operation.
As presently constituted, the analysis of `ideas' is deficient in two key respects. First, de... more As presently constituted, the analysis of `ideas' is deficient in two key respects. First, despite presenting itself as an alternative to the dominant rationalist perspective on international relations and foreign policy, the turn to `ideas' represents only a minor modification of that tradition, rather than a serious challenge to it. Second, the retention of the rationalist framework has had problematical implications for how `ideas' are conceptualized. Although explicitly defined as shared beliefs, we argue that the metaphors structuring rationalist analyses lead them to conceptualize `ideas' as objects. As an alternative, we offer a constructivist account of ideas as `symbolic technologies' that enable the production of representations. This different metaphor enables us to address directly the difficulties for analysis stemming from a conception of ideas as objects. It also opens up for examination a range of empirical phenomena overlooked by rationalist anal...
This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and... more This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and perspectives within the wider discipline of International Relations, and its implications for Security Studies. It first considers the genealogies of postcolonialism, tracing its emergence in a set of transnational debates about the mutually constitutive relations between knowledge and imperialism. It then discusses the standard account of world history as organized around Westphalian sovereignty which informs Security Studies and shows how postcolonialism puts it in question. It also explores the relationship between culture and imperialism according to postcolonialism; Subaltern Studies and its significance to postcolonialism; the concepts of Orientalism and Occidentalism; and how contrapuntal analysis enables a postcolonial critique of Security Studies. The chapter concludes by asking what it might mean to decolonize Security Studies and whether there can be a postcolonial Security S...
This chapter explores the transnational security governance of diasporas as a window onto the glo... more This chapter explores the transnational security governance of diasporas as a window onto the global making of policing. Using the Tamil diaspora in Britain as case study, it argues that policing – understood as governance directed to the production of security (Johnston, 2000) – is interwoven with and co-constituted by the challenges to order that policing articulates as transnational threats and seeks to extinguish. Focusing on the intimate relations between policing in the metropole and liberal order-making in the periphery, it demonstrates the mutual implication of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ and of ‘liberal’ and ‘non-liberal’ worlds.
Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 2002
This essay uses Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, one of the most widely read account... more This essay uses Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, one of the most widely read accounts of international politics in recent years, as a vehicle to rethink International Relations' engagement with the notion of empire. We begin with the observation that Westphalian models of the international obscure the role of imperial relations in world politics. We go on to develop a conception of the international as a `thick' set of social relations, consisting of social and cultu ral flow s as wellas political-military and economic interactions, which often take place in a context of imperial hierarchy. Retrieving the imperial thus offers a way out of the `territorial trap' set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range of phenomena occluded by IR's central categories. From this perspective, we analyse Empire as an innovative but flawed effort to take seriously the imperial character of international relations. In particular, we focus on the role of the multitude in worl...
To date, the only account of the `zone of peace' among states in the core of the internationa... more To date, the only account of the `zone of peace' among states in the core of the international system is that found in the democratic peace debates. We rework the conceptual parameters through which the object of analysis — the zone of peace — is defined in the democratic peace debates. Specifically, we historicize the concepts — `democracy' and `war' — that enable the identification of zones of peace and war, and contextualize those histories in processes of globalization. This enables us to offer an alternative account of the emergence of zones of peace and war in the international system and of the central unit of analysis in the democratic peace debates, the sovereign and territorial liberal democratic state. This account conceives of the international system as a whole and recognizes the mutually constitutive character of relations between the zones. It opens up a research agenda focused not on why democratic states do not war with one another but on the internation...
In this article, we critique the Eurocentric character of security studies as it has developed si... more In this article, we critique the Eurocentric character of security studies as it has developed since World War II. The taken-for-granted historical geographies that underpin security studies systematically misrepresent the role of the global South in security relations and lead to a distorted view of Europe and the West in world politics. Understanding security relations, past and present, requires acknowledging the mutual constitution of European and non-European worlds and their joint role in making history. The politics of Eurocentric security studies, those of the powerful, prevent adequate understanding of the nature or legitimacy of the armed resistance of the weak. Through analysis of the explanatory and political problems Eurocentrism generates, this article lays the groundwork for the development of a non-Eurocentric security studies.
Richard Ashley's writings in the 1980s are central to the production of post-structuralist or... more Richard Ashley's writings in the 1980s are central to the production of post-structuralist or ‘dissident’ scholarship in International Relations (IR). In this article, I use analysis of the standard dissident view of Ashley's writings to examine the interpretive practices through which the community of dissident scholars was produced textually. Dissident ‘thinking space’ in the discipline was produced in part through the exclusion of Marx, capital and class, despite these being present in Ashley's writings throughout this period. Similar interpretive practices were applied to the writings of Michel Foucault, with similar effects. This exclusion has negative consequences for dissident scholarship, in particular analysis of historicity and the place of capitalism in contemporary world politics. Overcoming these problems requires reading the work of Ashley and other founders of dissident scholarship in a different way are attentive to the silences of thinking space.
In a brilliant discussion of power in world politics, Cynthia Enloe has argued that, while much o... more In a brilliant discussion of power in world politics, Cynthia Enloe has argued that, while much of international relations scholarship has been obsessed with power, the discipline has in fact dramatically “ under estimat[ed] the amounts and varieties of power it takes to form and sustain any given set of relationships between states” (1996: 186). She criticizes in particular the tendency of IR scholars to study only the powerful on the assumption that such a focus will provide insights into and explanations of world politics. Instead, she argues, if we focus on the “margins, silences and bottom rungs” (ibid.: 188), we can see the myriad forms and the astonishing amounts of power that are required for the system to exist at all. In this chapter we take up Enloe's challenge. Specifically, we explore power in global governance by examining the increase in and transformation of policing that accompanies, and indeed helps to produce, the globalization of a neoliberal form of capitali...
Introduction, T. Barkawi, M. Laffey Realist spaces, liberal bellicosities - reading the democrati... more Introduction, T. Barkawi, M. Laffey Realist spaces, liberal bellicosities - reading the democratic theory, D. Blaney state identity and interstate practices - the limits to democratic peace in South Asia, H. Muppidi the downside of democracy - the modern tradition of ethnic and political cleansing, M. Mann how German is it? - military professionalism and the democratic peace, T.R.W. Kubik war inside the free world - the US and the Cold War in the Third World, T. Barkawi Warfare, Security and Democracy in East Asia, B. Cumings democracy, peace - what's not to love?, M. Rupert democracy and peace in the global revolution, M. Shaw the international relations of democracy, liberalism and war directions for future research, R. Duvall, J. Weldes.
... Share. Laffey, Mark and Dean, Kathryn (2002) 'A Flexible Marxism for Flexible Times: glo... more ... Share. Laffey, Mark and Dean, Kathryn (2002) 'A Flexible Marxism for Flexible Times: globalization and historical materialism.' In: Rupert, M. and Smith, H., (eds.), Historical Materialism and Globalisation: Essays on Continuity and Change. London: Routledge, pp. 90-109. ...
This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and... more This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and perspectives within the wider discipline of International Relations, and its implications for Security Studies. It first considers the genealogies of postcolonialism, tracing its emergence in a set of transnational debates about the mutually constitutive relations between knowledge and imperialism. It then discusses the standard account of world history as organized around Westphalian sovereignty which informs Security Studies and shows how postcolonialism puts it in question. It also explores the relationship between culture and imperialism according to postcolonialism; Subaltern Studies and its significance to postcolonialism; the concepts of Orientalism and Occidentalism; and how contrapuntal analysis enables a postcolonial critique of Security Studies. The chapter concludes by asking what it might mean to decolonize Security Studies and whether there can be a postcolonial Security S...
A prominent feature of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order is diverse call... more A prominent feature of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order is diverse calls for justice, including epistemic and historic justice. For a long time, that order understood itself in liberal terms and as capable of delivering justice accordingly. Asking a second-order question, about how questions of justice are framed in the international order, leads us to the conclusion that the liberal order’s account of the connections that make the system hang together is partial, if not deeply flawed. Building on long-established and more recent traditions of scholarship aligned with the Global South, we introduce a different account of international order and its core dynamics: complex indebtedness. Such an account enables not only a better appreciation of the justice claims currently being made in and against the liberal international order, it also more plausibly explains their origins, interconnections, and multiscalar and polymorphic character. By facing squarely the political parameters of indebtedness, we can make better sense of how to approach claims for justice in the present and future. The argument is illustrated with the examples of struggles for racial justice, white nationalism and South-South co-operation.
As presently constituted, the analysis of `ideas' is deficient in two key respects. First, de... more As presently constituted, the analysis of `ideas' is deficient in two key respects. First, despite presenting itself as an alternative to the dominant rationalist perspective on international relations and foreign policy, the turn to `ideas' represents only a minor modification of that tradition, rather than a serious challenge to it. Second, the retention of the rationalist framework has had problematical implications for how `ideas' are conceptualized. Although explicitly defined as shared beliefs, we argue that the metaphors structuring rationalist analyses lead them to conceptualize `ideas' as objects. As an alternative, we offer a constructivist account of ideas as `symbolic technologies' that enable the production of representations. This different metaphor enables us to address directly the difficulties for analysis stemming from a conception of ideas as objects. It also opens up for examination a range of empirical phenomena overlooked by rationalist anal...
This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and... more This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and perspectives within the wider discipline of International Relations, and its implications for Security Studies. It first considers the genealogies of postcolonialism, tracing its emergence in a set of transnational debates about the mutually constitutive relations between knowledge and imperialism. It then discusses the standard account of world history as organized around Westphalian sovereignty which informs Security Studies and shows how postcolonialism puts it in question. It also explores the relationship between culture and imperialism according to postcolonialism; Subaltern Studies and its significance to postcolonialism; the concepts of Orientalism and Occidentalism; and how contrapuntal analysis enables a postcolonial critique of Security Studies. The chapter concludes by asking what it might mean to decolonize Security Studies and whether there can be a postcolonial Security S...
This chapter explores the transnational security governance of diasporas as a window onto the glo... more This chapter explores the transnational security governance of diasporas as a window onto the global making of policing. Using the Tamil diaspora in Britain as case study, it argues that policing – understood as governance directed to the production of security (Johnston, 2000) – is interwoven with and co-constituted by the challenges to order that policing articulates as transnational threats and seeks to extinguish. Focusing on the intimate relations between policing in the metropole and liberal order-making in the periphery, it demonstrates the mutual implication of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ and of ‘liberal’ and ‘non-liberal’ worlds.
Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 2002
This essay uses Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, one of the most widely read account... more This essay uses Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, one of the most widely read accounts of international politics in recent years, as a vehicle to rethink International Relations' engagement with the notion of empire. We begin with the observation that Westphalian models of the international obscure the role of imperial relations in world politics. We go on to develop a conception of the international as a `thick' set of social relations, consisting of social and cultu ral flow s as wellas political-military and economic interactions, which often take place in a context of imperial hierarchy. Retrieving the imperial thus offers a way out of the `territorial trap' set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range of phenomena occluded by IR's central categories. From this perspective, we analyse Empire as an innovative but flawed effort to take seriously the imperial character of international relations. In particular, we focus on the role of the multitude in worl...
To date, the only account of the `zone of peace' among states in the core of the internationa... more To date, the only account of the `zone of peace' among states in the core of the international system is that found in the democratic peace debates. We rework the conceptual parameters through which the object of analysis — the zone of peace — is defined in the democratic peace debates. Specifically, we historicize the concepts — `democracy' and `war' — that enable the identification of zones of peace and war, and contextualize those histories in processes of globalization. This enables us to offer an alternative account of the emergence of zones of peace and war in the international system and of the central unit of analysis in the democratic peace debates, the sovereign and territorial liberal democratic state. This account conceives of the international system as a whole and recognizes the mutually constitutive character of relations between the zones. It opens up a research agenda focused not on why democratic states do not war with one another but on the internation...
In this article, we critique the Eurocentric character of security studies as it has developed si... more In this article, we critique the Eurocentric character of security studies as it has developed since World War II. The taken-for-granted historical geographies that underpin security studies systematically misrepresent the role of the global South in security relations and lead to a distorted view of Europe and the West in world politics. Understanding security relations, past and present, requires acknowledging the mutual constitution of European and non-European worlds and their joint role in making history. The politics of Eurocentric security studies, those of the powerful, prevent adequate understanding of the nature or legitimacy of the armed resistance of the weak. Through analysis of the explanatory and political problems Eurocentrism generates, this article lays the groundwork for the development of a non-Eurocentric security studies.
Richard Ashley's writings in the 1980s are central to the production of post-structuralist or... more Richard Ashley's writings in the 1980s are central to the production of post-structuralist or ‘dissident’ scholarship in International Relations (IR). In this article, I use analysis of the standard dissident view of Ashley's writings to examine the interpretive practices through which the community of dissident scholars was produced textually. Dissident ‘thinking space’ in the discipline was produced in part through the exclusion of Marx, capital and class, despite these being present in Ashley's writings throughout this period. Similar interpretive practices were applied to the writings of Michel Foucault, with similar effects. This exclusion has negative consequences for dissident scholarship, in particular analysis of historicity and the place of capitalism in contemporary world politics. Overcoming these problems requires reading the work of Ashley and other founders of dissident scholarship in a different way are attentive to the silences of thinking space.
In a brilliant discussion of power in world politics, Cynthia Enloe has argued that, while much o... more In a brilliant discussion of power in world politics, Cynthia Enloe has argued that, while much of international relations scholarship has been obsessed with power, the discipline has in fact dramatically “ under estimat[ed] the amounts and varieties of power it takes to form and sustain any given set of relationships between states” (1996: 186). She criticizes in particular the tendency of IR scholars to study only the powerful on the assumption that such a focus will provide insights into and explanations of world politics. Instead, she argues, if we focus on the “margins, silences and bottom rungs” (ibid.: 188), we can see the myriad forms and the astonishing amounts of power that are required for the system to exist at all. In this chapter we take up Enloe's challenge. Specifically, we explore power in global governance by examining the increase in and transformation of policing that accompanies, and indeed helps to produce, the globalization of a neoliberal form of capitali...
Introduction, T. Barkawi, M. Laffey Realist spaces, liberal bellicosities - reading the democrati... more Introduction, T. Barkawi, M. Laffey Realist spaces, liberal bellicosities - reading the democratic theory, D. Blaney state identity and interstate practices - the limits to democratic peace in South Asia, H. Muppidi the downside of democracy - the modern tradition of ethnic and political cleansing, M. Mann how German is it? - military professionalism and the democratic peace, T.R.W. Kubik war inside the free world - the US and the Cold War in the Third World, T. Barkawi Warfare, Security and Democracy in East Asia, B. Cumings democracy, peace - what's not to love?, M. Rupert democracy and peace in the global revolution, M. Shaw the international relations of democracy, liberalism and war directions for future research, R. Duvall, J. Weldes.
... Share. Laffey, Mark and Dean, Kathryn (2002) 'A Flexible Marxism for Flexible Times: glo... more ... Share. Laffey, Mark and Dean, Kathryn (2002) 'A Flexible Marxism for Flexible Times: globalization and historical materialism.' In: Rupert, M. and Smith, H., (eds.), Historical Materialism and Globalisation: Essays on Continuity and Change. London: Routledge, pp. 90-109. ...
This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and... more This chapter examines postcolonialism, a recent and increasingly influential set of positions and perspectives within the wider discipline of International Relations, and its implications for Security Studies. It first considers the genealogies of postcolonialism, tracing its emergence in a set of transnational debates about the mutually constitutive relations between knowledge and imperialism. It then discusses the standard account of world history as organized around Westphalian sovereignty which informs Security Studies and shows how postcolonialism puts it in question. It also explores the relationship between culture and imperialism according to postcolonialism; Subaltern Studies and its significance to postcolonialism; the concepts of Orientalism and Occidentalism; and how contrapuntal analysis enables a postcolonial critique of Security Studies. The chapter concludes by asking what it might mean to decolonize Security Studies and whether there can be a postcolonial Security S...
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