Graham M Smith | University of Leeds (original) (raw)
Papers by Graham M Smith
Bristol University Press eBooks, Feb 16, 2022
In recent decades ‘responsibility’ has become a prominent idea in international political discour... more In recent decades ‘responsibility’ has become a prominent idea in international political discourse. Against this backdrop, international policy and scholarly communities contemplating China’s rise regularly as “whether, when, and how” China will become a “responsible” great power. This article reviews, unpacks and questions understandings of responsibility in the debates about China. One strand of these debates argue that China can become responsible by adopting and promoting the existing status quo; the other argues that China acts responsibly when it challenges the unfair hegemony of the status quo. This article argues that both of these debates operate with a remarkably similar understanding of responsibility. Whether China adopts existing rules and norms, or whether it establishes rules and norms of its own, responsibility is understood to be rule and norm compliance. The article explores the possibility of an alternative understanding of responsibility suggested by Derrida. It...
Contemporary Political Theory, 2016
China’s Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory
This chapter explores the ontology of relations between China and the West. The portrayal of Chin... more This chapter explores the ontology of relations between China and the West. The portrayal of China as a friendlier kind of great power in an effort to ease fears of its rise has represented new ways of relating in a way that transcends Western understandings and the tendency to slip into the relationship of dominion and enmity. The chapter highlights how the reintroduction of friendship in international relations had contributed to the growing affluence of Chinese politics and scholarship. It notes the role of friendship in the ontology of relationships. Thus, friendship was used as a central political category to cultivate virtue and co-constitution.
This workshop brought into conversation some of the interlocutors from the Chinese and Western tr... more This workshop brought into conversation some of the interlocutors from the Chinese and Western traditions who have argued for the study of politics to turn its focus from the prevalence of enmity to the possibility of friendship. There is a wealth of thinking about friendship in both the Chinese and Western traditions and even significant overlap between the two perspectives. Yet, to date, there has been little direct dialogue between these interlocutors, and little development of cross- cultural understandings of friendship and its importance for politics. The workshop contributed to the construction of a cross-cultural exploration of friendship and politics, moving ‘beyond the West’ through engagement with Chinese thought on the mainland and on Taiwan. Looking at models and practices of friendship in politics in both the Chinese and Western traditions, the workshop explored friendship in both its normative and analytical dimensions, and understood it have both theoretical and empi...
The Good Society, 2019
Must friendship involve reciprocity? Drawing on resources in the thought of Aristotle, Nietzsche,... more Must friendship involve reciprocity? Drawing on resources in the thought of Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Blanchot this article advances two claims. First, there isn't simply one form of reciprocity but various forms. The article names two such forms. “Reciprocity as exchange” casts reciprocation as active and involves exchange of benefits in a recognized cycle. In contrast, “reciprocity as correspondence” tolerates degrees of inactivity and connects friends by mutual admiration or commonality of purpose. Second, the article claims that while reciprocation is a feature of some friendships it is not necessary to all. It is possible to conceive of friendship without reciprocation. In these alternative friendships it is the separateness of the friends rather than their togetherness which is central. The article concludes that this minor strand of reciprocation suggests a form of political friendship based around a common heterogeneity, difference, and otherness.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2019
This co-authored text represents the output of the research project 'Futures of Global Relations'... more This co-authored text represents the output of the research project 'Futures of Global Relations', led by Astrid H. M. Nordin, the first meeting of which was funded by the Chiang-Ching Kuo Foundation and the Lancaster Institute for Social Futures.
Political Studies Review, 2018
What kind of a concept is friendship, and what is its connection to politics? Critics sometimes c... more What kind of a concept is friendship, and what is its connection to politics? Critics sometimes claim that friendship does not have a role to play in the study of politics. Such objections misconstrue the nature of the concept of friendship and its relation to politics. In response, this article proposes three approaches to understanding the concept of friendship: (1) as a ‘family resemblance’ concept, (2) as an instance of an ‘essentially contested’ concept, and (3) as a concept indicating a problématique. The article thus responds to the dismissal of friendship by undertaking the groundwork for understanding what kind of a concept friendship might be, and how it might serve different purposes. In doing so, it opens the way for understanding friendship’s relation to politics.
History of European Ideas, 2005
This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building... more This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building on previous scholarship exploring the social dimensions of Kierkegaard's thought, I argue that for Kierkegaard the modern understanding and practice of politics should be understood as 'despair'. Thus, whilst Kierkegaard's criticisms of politics might have been produced in an ad hoc fashion, this article argues that there is an underlying principle which guides these criticisms: that politics is subordinate to, and must be grounded in, spiritual or religious selfhood. In this way the modern phenomena of democracy, liberalism, the press, and the crowd can all be seen as representative of a form of community which falls far short of the potential that human beings can and should achieve. Such a community would see individuals recognising themselves and each other as spiritual beings, and taking responsibility for themselves and others. That modern politics fails to understand the human being as an essentially spiritual entity related to others through God can only lead us to conclude that, from Kierkegaard's point of view, modern politics suffers from the sickness of despair. Whilst Kierkegaard might be criticised for failing to provide us with a more detailed picture of a polity shaped by the religious contours he promotes, he clearly offers an intriguing and suggestive contribution to our understanding not only of the limitations of politics, but also the relationship between a normative human and political ontology, with the former providing the basis for the latter.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2008
This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka's posthumous work The Trial. In this n... more This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka's posthumous work The Trial. In this novel, the main protagonist (Joseph K.) is subject to an arrest and trial conducted by the ambiguous authority of a shadowy court and its officials. This article explores Joseph K.'s experience of being subject to the Law, and relates this to our own understanding and experience of political subjectivity in modern times. K.'s doomed search for order through a ‘permanent resolution’ of his case is related to the modern desire for order: Specifically, the desire for both philosophical and political frameworks that provide narratives or certainty. Here modernity is understood to be characterized by an anxiety brought about by a crisis in authorship and authority. The article then considers K.'s desire for justice and the Law, and his entanglement with the power of the court, as analogous to the modern experience of the triad of justice–law–power, which is subsumed under the banner of ‘sovereignty’. In particular, the article explores K.'s inability to locate, read, or fix the Law; a problem that is also reflected in the aporia of sovereignty as justice–law–power. K.'s experience alerts us to the contradictions in the triad justice–law–power; contradictions that occur as although each member of the triad is dependent upon the other two, each member of the triad also seeks to exclude or deny this dependency. Thus, read politically, K.'s struggle in The Trial can be seen as a reflection of the modern struggle with sovereignty as the triad justice–law–power, and the impasse that K. reaches is also the impasse that modernity has reached.
Political Studies Review, 2010
Over the past two decades interest in ‘friendship’ shown by scholars of politics has been intensi... more Over the past two decades interest in ‘friendship’ shown by scholars of politics has been intensifying. This review highlights some of this literature and research. The first section sets the scene and discusses the foundations for the engagement with friendship, outlining the analytical, descriptive and normative dimensions of the concept. The second section examines both published work and conference papers on this topic. The flavour and scope of a representative sample of this body of work is arranged into three categories: (a) political ideas; (b) national and international politics; (c) feminism and gender. The concluding section offers a brief sketch of the contours of the research trajectory of this idea in politics, suggesting that the study of friendship will help to illuminate reciprocal horizontal relations that can transform our view of the political.
China’s Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory, 2022
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2018
Chinese government representatives and scholars have attempted to ameliorate fears about China's ... more Chinese government representatives and scholars have attempted to ameliorate fears about China's rise by portraying China as a new and friendlier kind of great power. It is claimed that this represents a new way of relating which transcends problematic Western understandings of Self-Other relations and their tendency to slip into domination and enmity. This article takes such claims as a point of departure, and analyses them with focus on the explicit discussions of friendship in international relations theory. Paying attention to current Chinese thinking which emphasizes guanxi relationships, friendship can contribute to the development of genuinely relational international relations thinking and move beyond a focus on ossified forms of friendship and enmity
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2019
Recent debates in International Relations seek to decolonise the discipline by focusing on relati... more Recent debates in International Relations seek to decolonise the discipline by focusing on relationality between self and other. This article examines the possibilities for preserving a particular type of otherness: 'radical otherness' or 'alterity'. Such otherness can provide a bulwark against domination and colonialism: there is always something truly other which cannot be assimilated. However, two problems arise. First, if otherness is truly inaccessible, how can self relate to it? Does otherness undermine relationality? Second, can we talk about otherness without making it the same? Is the very naming of otherness a new form of domination? This article draws out and explores the possibilities for radical otherness in Sinophone and Anglophone relational theorising. It addresses the difficulties presented by the need for a sense of radical otherness on the one hand, and the seeming impossibility of either detecting it, or relating to it, on the other. By constructing a typology of four accounts of otherness, it finds that the identification and preservation of radical otherness poses significant problems for relationality. Radical otherness makes relationality between self and other impossible, but without radical otherness there is a danger of domination and assimilation. This is common to both Sinophone and Anglophone endeavours.
Global Discourse, 2018
What role can friendship play in contemporary politics? This article answers this question by sho... more What role can friendship play in contemporary politics? This article answers this question by showing how friendship supplements one of the central tropes of modern European thought: community. It argues that both the recent phenomenon of populism and more traditional political practice rely on this trope. This results in a politics which focuses on identity and difference, inclusion and exclusion. Ultimately this form of politics seeks an immanence which is impossible to achieve. In contrast, friendship offers a new way of thinking about politics as it focuses on open-ended relations between persons based not on sameness, but otherness and difference. The article articulates five key features of this understanding of friendship: (1) that it is a relationship; (2) between self and other; (3) which exists between the friends; which is (4) extendable into a network but not a unity; and (5) it eschews all programmes or projects. In this way, friendship suggests not a project or a programme, but an ethos. This article concludes by claiming that friendship is the open-ended and ongoing encounter with the other, and its politics holds a shared space open for the potential that this encounter brings.
British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2009
This article assesses the recent history and possible future of political theory in Britain. Part... more This article assesses the recent history and possible future of political theory in Britain. Part One surveys the difficulties that political theory has faced. In particular, it focuses on the relationship between political theory and three developments in the study of politics: (i) the divorce of Anglo-American and continental political theory; (ii) the rise of the idea of a political science; and (iii) the tendency to narrow the focus of Anglo American political theory around the themes of liberalism and justice. In Part Two the article focuses on the nature of both seeing and being seen by political theory. In doing so a conception of political theory is developed that views it as the activity of seeing ourselves reflected with others. Such an account of political theory advances it as (i) a social activity; that (ii) focuses on the importance of understanding; and (iii) involves a perspectivism based around a reflective seeing with others. This opens a space for a pluralistic political theory—a pluralism that reflects both perspectives and change, but one that is always limited by the reality, values and value of others, and the possibility of a shared understanding.
British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2005
Using the motif of Cerberus, the three-headed monster watchdog of Hades, this article attempts to... more Using the motif of Cerberus, the three-headed monster watchdog of Hades, this article attempts to bring ‘security’ to light. Specifically, it addresses two related questions. The primary question is: What does ‘security’ mean?. Here it is argued that ‘security’ is related to ‘order’ and is a reflection not of a positive value in and of itself, but the relative success of any given order to realise its core values in relation to other orders. Therefore, ‘security’ is found to be like Cerberus insofar as it exists not as an independent value or being, but only in relation between two orders. Having located ‘security’ within this conceptual framework, the article then addresses its second question: What are the effects of security?. The motif of Cerberus suggests that security ‘bites’ in three ways: first, that specific measures of security control the members of an order; second, that the identification of security threats reinforce certain persons and structures of the order as being the definers of the order; and finally, that the implementation of certain security measures can change and transform the order itself. In this way the analysis offered here brings ‘security’ to light not only as an inherently political term connected to political values, but to provide foundations for critiquing the rhetorical use of ‘security’ in contemporary political discourse and thought.
Contemporary Political Theory
This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka’s posthumous work The Trial. In this novel... more This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka’s posthumous work The Trial. In this novel, the main protagonist (Joseph K.) is subject to an arrest and trial conducted by the ambiguous authority of a shadowy court and its officials. This article explores Joseph K.’s experience of being subject to the Law, and relates this to our own understanding and experience of political subjectivity in modern times. K.’s doomed search for order through a ‘permanent resolution’ of his case is related to the modern desire for order:Specifically, the desire for both philosophical and political frameworks that provide narratives or certainty. Here modernity is understood to be characterized by an anxiety brought about by a crisis in authorship and authority. The article then considers K.’s desire for justice and the Law, and his entanglement with the power of the court, as analogous to the modern experience of the triad of justice–law–power, which is subsumed under the banner of ‘sovereignty’. In particular, the artile explores K.’s inability to locate, read, or fix the Law; a problem that is also reflected in the aporia of sovereignty as justice– law–power. K.’s experience alerts us to the contradictions in the triad justice–law– power; contradictions that occur as although each member of the triad is dependent upon the other two, each member of the triad also seeks to exclude or deny this dependency. Thus, read politically, K.’s struggle in The Trial can be seen as a reflection of the modern struggle with sovereignty as the triad justice–law–power, and the impasse that K. reaches is also the impasse that modernity has reached.
International Politics, 2011
What contribution can a theorization of friendship offer to the understanding of the world of sta... more What contribution can a theorization of friendship offer to the understanding of the world of states? It is argued here that the contemporary view of friendship eclipses a longer and broader appreciation. As such, the view of friendship that identifies it as affective, private and particular (here termed the contemporary-affective view) is one instance of a much wider cluster of ideas sharing overlapping characteristics. So conceptualized, ‘friendship’ is the concern with what binds person-to-person. It is a concern with the nature and fabric of the political. Seen from this vantage point, friendship highlights what an analysis through the state tends to overshadow: the enduring affinities, identifications and bonds that permeate the dynamics of the world of states. Thus, friendship need not remain the preserve of the premodern (Aristotle), nor be usurped as an adjunct to sovereignty and power (Schmitt), but investigated as an ongoing site of analysis for phenomena within, between and beyond states.
Other by Graham M Smith
We invite papers for a series of linked panels to form a workshop on the theme of Friendship, Pol... more We invite papers for a series of linked panels to form a workshop on the theme of Friendship, Politics and International Realtions. Papers are invited on any aspect of friendship and politics/international relations, but papers which speak to the following themes will be especially welcome: Friendship, time and trust; Friends, enemies, strangers; Friendship among nations: mutuality and bonding; Friendship and high office; Decolonising friendship.
Bristol University Press eBooks, Feb 16, 2022
In recent decades ‘responsibility’ has become a prominent idea in international political discour... more In recent decades ‘responsibility’ has become a prominent idea in international political discourse. Against this backdrop, international policy and scholarly communities contemplating China’s rise regularly as “whether, when, and how” China will become a “responsible” great power. This article reviews, unpacks and questions understandings of responsibility in the debates about China. One strand of these debates argue that China can become responsible by adopting and promoting the existing status quo; the other argues that China acts responsibly when it challenges the unfair hegemony of the status quo. This article argues that both of these debates operate with a remarkably similar understanding of responsibility. Whether China adopts existing rules and norms, or whether it establishes rules and norms of its own, responsibility is understood to be rule and norm compliance. The article explores the possibility of an alternative understanding of responsibility suggested by Derrida. It...
Contemporary Political Theory, 2016
China’s Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory
This chapter explores the ontology of relations between China and the West. The portrayal of Chin... more This chapter explores the ontology of relations between China and the West. The portrayal of China as a friendlier kind of great power in an effort to ease fears of its rise has represented new ways of relating in a way that transcends Western understandings and the tendency to slip into the relationship of dominion and enmity. The chapter highlights how the reintroduction of friendship in international relations had contributed to the growing affluence of Chinese politics and scholarship. It notes the role of friendship in the ontology of relationships. Thus, friendship was used as a central political category to cultivate virtue and co-constitution.
This workshop brought into conversation some of the interlocutors from the Chinese and Western tr... more This workshop brought into conversation some of the interlocutors from the Chinese and Western traditions who have argued for the study of politics to turn its focus from the prevalence of enmity to the possibility of friendship. There is a wealth of thinking about friendship in both the Chinese and Western traditions and even significant overlap between the two perspectives. Yet, to date, there has been little direct dialogue between these interlocutors, and little development of cross- cultural understandings of friendship and its importance for politics. The workshop contributed to the construction of a cross-cultural exploration of friendship and politics, moving ‘beyond the West’ through engagement with Chinese thought on the mainland and on Taiwan. Looking at models and practices of friendship in politics in both the Chinese and Western traditions, the workshop explored friendship in both its normative and analytical dimensions, and understood it have both theoretical and empi...
The Good Society, 2019
Must friendship involve reciprocity? Drawing on resources in the thought of Aristotle, Nietzsche,... more Must friendship involve reciprocity? Drawing on resources in the thought of Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Blanchot this article advances two claims. First, there isn't simply one form of reciprocity but various forms. The article names two such forms. “Reciprocity as exchange” casts reciprocation as active and involves exchange of benefits in a recognized cycle. In contrast, “reciprocity as correspondence” tolerates degrees of inactivity and connects friends by mutual admiration or commonality of purpose. Second, the article claims that while reciprocation is a feature of some friendships it is not necessary to all. It is possible to conceive of friendship without reciprocation. In these alternative friendships it is the separateness of the friends rather than their togetherness which is central. The article concludes that this minor strand of reciprocation suggests a form of political friendship based around a common heterogeneity, difference, and otherness.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2019
This co-authored text represents the output of the research project 'Futures of Global Relations'... more This co-authored text represents the output of the research project 'Futures of Global Relations', led by Astrid H. M. Nordin, the first meeting of which was funded by the Chiang-Ching Kuo Foundation and the Lancaster Institute for Social Futures.
Political Studies Review, 2018
What kind of a concept is friendship, and what is its connection to politics? Critics sometimes c... more What kind of a concept is friendship, and what is its connection to politics? Critics sometimes claim that friendship does not have a role to play in the study of politics. Such objections misconstrue the nature of the concept of friendship and its relation to politics. In response, this article proposes three approaches to understanding the concept of friendship: (1) as a ‘family resemblance’ concept, (2) as an instance of an ‘essentially contested’ concept, and (3) as a concept indicating a problématique. The article thus responds to the dismissal of friendship by undertaking the groundwork for understanding what kind of a concept friendship might be, and how it might serve different purposes. In doing so, it opens the way for understanding friendship’s relation to politics.
History of European Ideas, 2005
This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building... more This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building on previous scholarship exploring the social dimensions of Kierkegaard's thought, I argue that for Kierkegaard the modern understanding and practice of politics should be understood as 'despair'. Thus, whilst Kierkegaard's criticisms of politics might have been produced in an ad hoc fashion, this article argues that there is an underlying principle which guides these criticisms: that politics is subordinate to, and must be grounded in, spiritual or religious selfhood. In this way the modern phenomena of democracy, liberalism, the press, and the crowd can all be seen as representative of a form of community which falls far short of the potential that human beings can and should achieve. Such a community would see individuals recognising themselves and each other as spiritual beings, and taking responsibility for themselves and others. That modern politics fails to understand the human being as an essentially spiritual entity related to others through God can only lead us to conclude that, from Kierkegaard's point of view, modern politics suffers from the sickness of despair. Whilst Kierkegaard might be criticised for failing to provide us with a more detailed picture of a polity shaped by the religious contours he promotes, he clearly offers an intriguing and suggestive contribution to our understanding not only of the limitations of politics, but also the relationship between a normative human and political ontology, with the former providing the basis for the latter.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2008
This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka's posthumous work The Trial. In this n... more This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka's posthumous work The Trial. In this novel, the main protagonist (Joseph K.) is subject to an arrest and trial conducted by the ambiguous authority of a shadowy court and its officials. This article explores Joseph K.'s experience of being subject to the Law, and relates this to our own understanding and experience of political subjectivity in modern times. K.'s doomed search for order through a ‘permanent resolution’ of his case is related to the modern desire for order: Specifically, the desire for both philosophical and political frameworks that provide narratives or certainty. Here modernity is understood to be characterized by an anxiety brought about by a crisis in authorship and authority. The article then considers K.'s desire for justice and the Law, and his entanglement with the power of the court, as analogous to the modern experience of the triad of justice–law–power, which is subsumed under the banner of ‘sovereignty’. In particular, the article explores K.'s inability to locate, read, or fix the Law; a problem that is also reflected in the aporia of sovereignty as justice–law–power. K.'s experience alerts us to the contradictions in the triad justice–law–power; contradictions that occur as although each member of the triad is dependent upon the other two, each member of the triad also seeks to exclude or deny this dependency. Thus, read politically, K.'s struggle in The Trial can be seen as a reflection of the modern struggle with sovereignty as the triad justice–law–power, and the impasse that K. reaches is also the impasse that modernity has reached.
Political Studies Review, 2010
Over the past two decades interest in ‘friendship’ shown by scholars of politics has been intensi... more Over the past two decades interest in ‘friendship’ shown by scholars of politics has been intensifying. This review highlights some of this literature and research. The first section sets the scene and discusses the foundations for the engagement with friendship, outlining the analytical, descriptive and normative dimensions of the concept. The second section examines both published work and conference papers on this topic. The flavour and scope of a representative sample of this body of work is arranged into three categories: (a) political ideas; (b) national and international politics; (c) feminism and gender. The concluding section offers a brief sketch of the contours of the research trajectory of this idea in politics, suggesting that the study of friendship will help to illuminate reciprocal horizontal relations that can transform our view of the political.
China’s Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory, 2022
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2018
Chinese government representatives and scholars have attempted to ameliorate fears about China's ... more Chinese government representatives and scholars have attempted to ameliorate fears about China's rise by portraying China as a new and friendlier kind of great power. It is claimed that this represents a new way of relating which transcends problematic Western understandings of Self-Other relations and their tendency to slip into domination and enmity. This article takes such claims as a point of departure, and analyses them with focus on the explicit discussions of friendship in international relations theory. Paying attention to current Chinese thinking which emphasizes guanxi relationships, friendship can contribute to the development of genuinely relational international relations thinking and move beyond a focus on ossified forms of friendship and enmity
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2019
Recent debates in International Relations seek to decolonise the discipline by focusing on relati... more Recent debates in International Relations seek to decolonise the discipline by focusing on relationality between self and other. This article examines the possibilities for preserving a particular type of otherness: 'radical otherness' or 'alterity'. Such otherness can provide a bulwark against domination and colonialism: there is always something truly other which cannot be assimilated. However, two problems arise. First, if otherness is truly inaccessible, how can self relate to it? Does otherness undermine relationality? Second, can we talk about otherness without making it the same? Is the very naming of otherness a new form of domination? This article draws out and explores the possibilities for radical otherness in Sinophone and Anglophone relational theorising. It addresses the difficulties presented by the need for a sense of radical otherness on the one hand, and the seeming impossibility of either detecting it, or relating to it, on the other. By constructing a typology of four accounts of otherness, it finds that the identification and preservation of radical otherness poses significant problems for relationality. Radical otherness makes relationality between self and other impossible, but without radical otherness there is a danger of domination and assimilation. This is common to both Sinophone and Anglophone endeavours.
Global Discourse, 2018
What role can friendship play in contemporary politics? This article answers this question by sho... more What role can friendship play in contemporary politics? This article answers this question by showing how friendship supplements one of the central tropes of modern European thought: community. It argues that both the recent phenomenon of populism and more traditional political practice rely on this trope. This results in a politics which focuses on identity and difference, inclusion and exclusion. Ultimately this form of politics seeks an immanence which is impossible to achieve. In contrast, friendship offers a new way of thinking about politics as it focuses on open-ended relations between persons based not on sameness, but otherness and difference. The article articulates five key features of this understanding of friendship: (1) that it is a relationship; (2) between self and other; (3) which exists between the friends; which is (4) extendable into a network but not a unity; and (5) it eschews all programmes or projects. In this way, friendship suggests not a project or a programme, but an ethos. This article concludes by claiming that friendship is the open-ended and ongoing encounter with the other, and its politics holds a shared space open for the potential that this encounter brings.
British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2009
This article assesses the recent history and possible future of political theory in Britain. Part... more This article assesses the recent history and possible future of political theory in Britain. Part One surveys the difficulties that political theory has faced. In particular, it focuses on the relationship between political theory and three developments in the study of politics: (i) the divorce of Anglo-American and continental political theory; (ii) the rise of the idea of a political science; and (iii) the tendency to narrow the focus of Anglo American political theory around the themes of liberalism and justice. In Part Two the article focuses on the nature of both seeing and being seen by political theory. In doing so a conception of political theory is developed that views it as the activity of seeing ourselves reflected with others. Such an account of political theory advances it as (i) a social activity; that (ii) focuses on the importance of understanding; and (iii) involves a perspectivism based around a reflective seeing with others. This opens a space for a pluralistic political theory—a pluralism that reflects both perspectives and change, but one that is always limited by the reality, values and value of others, and the possibility of a shared understanding.
British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2005
Using the motif of Cerberus, the three-headed monster watchdog of Hades, this article attempts to... more Using the motif of Cerberus, the three-headed monster watchdog of Hades, this article attempts to bring ‘security’ to light. Specifically, it addresses two related questions. The primary question is: What does ‘security’ mean?. Here it is argued that ‘security’ is related to ‘order’ and is a reflection not of a positive value in and of itself, but the relative success of any given order to realise its core values in relation to other orders. Therefore, ‘security’ is found to be like Cerberus insofar as it exists not as an independent value or being, but only in relation between two orders. Having located ‘security’ within this conceptual framework, the article then addresses its second question: What are the effects of security?. The motif of Cerberus suggests that security ‘bites’ in three ways: first, that specific measures of security control the members of an order; second, that the identification of security threats reinforce certain persons and structures of the order as being the definers of the order; and finally, that the implementation of certain security measures can change and transform the order itself. In this way the analysis offered here brings ‘security’ to light not only as an inherently political term connected to political values, but to provide foundations for critiquing the rhetorical use of ‘security’ in contemporary political discourse and thought.
Contemporary Political Theory
This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka’s posthumous work The Trial. In this novel... more This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka’s posthumous work The Trial. In this novel, the main protagonist (Joseph K.) is subject to an arrest and trial conducted by the ambiguous authority of a shadowy court and its officials. This article explores Joseph K.’s experience of being subject to the Law, and relates this to our own understanding and experience of political subjectivity in modern times. K.’s doomed search for order through a ‘permanent resolution’ of his case is related to the modern desire for order:Specifically, the desire for both philosophical and political frameworks that provide narratives or certainty. Here modernity is understood to be characterized by an anxiety brought about by a crisis in authorship and authority. The article then considers K.’s desire for justice and the Law, and his entanglement with the power of the court, as analogous to the modern experience of the triad of justice–law–power, which is subsumed under the banner of ‘sovereignty’. In particular, the artile explores K.’s inability to locate, read, or fix the Law; a problem that is also reflected in the aporia of sovereignty as justice– law–power. K.’s experience alerts us to the contradictions in the triad justice–law– power; contradictions that occur as although each member of the triad is dependent upon the other two, each member of the triad also seeks to exclude or deny this dependency. Thus, read politically, K.’s struggle in The Trial can be seen as a reflection of the modern struggle with sovereignty as the triad justice–law–power, and the impasse that K. reaches is also the impasse that modernity has reached.
International Politics, 2011
What contribution can a theorization of friendship offer to the understanding of the world of sta... more What contribution can a theorization of friendship offer to the understanding of the world of states? It is argued here that the contemporary view of friendship eclipses a longer and broader appreciation. As such, the view of friendship that identifies it as affective, private and particular (here termed the contemporary-affective view) is one instance of a much wider cluster of ideas sharing overlapping characteristics. So conceptualized, ‘friendship’ is the concern with what binds person-to-person. It is a concern with the nature and fabric of the political. Seen from this vantage point, friendship highlights what an analysis through the state tends to overshadow: the enduring affinities, identifications and bonds that permeate the dynamics of the world of states. Thus, friendship need not remain the preserve of the premodern (Aristotle), nor be usurped as an adjunct to sovereignty and power (Schmitt), but investigated as an ongoing site of analysis for phenomena within, between and beyond states.
We invite papers for a series of linked panels to form a workshop on the theme of Friendship, Pol... more We invite papers for a series of linked panels to form a workshop on the theme of Friendship, Politics and International Realtions. Papers are invited on any aspect of friendship and politics/international relations, but papers which speak to the following themes will be especially welcome: Friendship, time and trust; Friends, enemies, strangers; Friendship among nations: mutuality and bonding; Friendship and high office; Decolonising friendship.