Contemporary theory of international politics faces a twofold problem: the critical engagement with legacies of national power politics in connection to 20th Century International Relations and the regeneration of notions of humanity. This book contributes to this engagement by a genealogy of thoughts on war, peace, and ethics.

​This handbook provides an exploration of the field of International Political Theory (IPT), which in its broadest terms, examines the ways in which ideas about justice, sovereignty, and legitimacy shape international politics. It is a comprehensive resource for those interested in understanding the philosophical, political, and legal issues that arise from interactions between states, peoples, and global actors. The two volumes of the handbook cover a wide range of topics, from the foundations of international political thought to the latest debates in the field. They are designed to give readers a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and arguments within international political theory and provide an introduction to the main debates in the field. Volume 1 takes us from the ancient world to the formation of the modern state system as we lay the groundwork for a critical understanding of changes in, and challenges to, core ideas such as sovereignty, international law and territorial integrity. The contributions to this volume explore the European domination of the discipline providing insights into how it came to conceive the world in its own image. They also focus on non-Western perspectives and reactions to European hegemony.

This volume offers an accessible and wide-ranging introduction to the history of international political thought. Taking as its starting-point the various concepts people have used to think about differences between political communities, the book explores changing perceptions of international politics from antiquity to the twentieth century. As well as discussing well-known themes such as relations between independent sovereign states and the tension between raison d'état and a universal code of natural law, it also examines less familiar ideas which have influenced the development of international political thought such as the distinction between civilization, national culture and barbarism, religious attitudes towards infidels, and theories about racial difference and imperialism. Among the key thinkers covered are Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Kant, Marx and Morgenthau, alongside less commonly studied figures such as Herodotus, Pope Innocent IV, Herder, Constant and Zimmern. Each chapter concludes with a guide to further reading which will help students to develop a more detailed understanding of the subject. Written with the beginner student in mind, this lively textbook is an ideal introduction for anyone studying international political thought.

Presenting the first critical analysis of Carl Schmitt's The Nomos of the Earth and how it relates to the epochal changes in the international system that have risen from the collapse of the ‘Westphalian’ international order. There is an emerging recognition in political theory circles that core issues, such as order, social justice, rights, need to be studied in their global context. Schmitt’s international political thought provides a stepping stone in these related paths, offering an alternative history of international relations, of the genesis, achievements and demise of the ‘Westphalian system.’ Writing at a time when he believed that the spatial, political and legal order—the nomos of the earth—had collapsed, he highlighted the advent of the modern state as the vehicle of secularization, tracing how this interstate order was able to limit and ‘rationalize and humanize’ war. Providing a large number of case studies including: global terrorism, humanitarian intervention and US hegemony, this book will give further impetus to, and expand, the nascent debate on the significance of Schmitt’s legal and political thought for international politics. The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, law and history.

Good addition to handbooks programme, no direct competitiors HIST section of ISA is growing each year Faced with an uncertain future, an increasing number of scholars have looked to the past for guidance, patterns and ideas. This tendency has been clear, despite theoretical and methodological difference, this book will fill a lacuna.

This book assesses the impact of the work of Chris Brown in the field of International Political Theory. The volume engages with general issues of IPT as well as basic issues such as the use and role of practical reasoning and presents a nuanced understanding about issues regarding the legitimacy of war and violence. It explores questions that pertain to human rights, morality, and ethics, and generally an outlook for devising a ‘better’ world. The project is ideal for audiences with interest in International Relations, Ethics and Morality Studies and International Political Theory.

'A lucid, comprehensive analysis of normative approaches to international relations, and an original contribution to critical theory' - Andrew Linklater, University of Keele `Hutchings combines a valuable account of the current state of the art with a lucid expositon of her own, highly distinctive, position. This will be required reading for students in international political theory, and indeed anyone interested in normative issues in international relations' - Chris Brown, London School of Economics and Political Science Providing an invaluable overview of the competing schools of thought in traditional and contemporary international theory, this book

This reader has been assembled in response to increasing dissatisfaction among a growing number of international relations scholars with the currently dominant theory of realism as well as in recognition of the large number of newly independent states which are having to write new constitutions and develop foreign relations. The book includes excerpts and essays from political theory and international relations which provide a starting point for further study of these subjects. It draws together writings representing two distinct traditions and demonstrates their interconnections. In political theory, excerpts are drawn from classical texts which have an important bearing on problems of international relations. In international relations, the collection includes essays which have had a seminal influence on the development of this discipline.

This is the first of four volumes to be published as part of this book series, on the life and work of Richard Ned Lebow. In a career spanning six decades, Richard Ned Lebow has made important contributions to the study of international relations, political and intellectual history, motivational and social psychology, philosophy of science, and classics. He has authored, coauthored or edited 30 books and almost 250 peer-reviewed articles. These four volumes are excerpts from this corpus. The first volume includes an intellectual autobiography, bibliography, and assessments of Lebow's contributions to diverse fields by respected authorities. It shows how a scholar's agenda evolves in response to world events and his efforts to grapple with them theoretically and substantively. It elaborates pathways for addressing these events and their consequences in an interdisciplinary manner, and offers new concepts and methods for doing so. Richard Lebow's research bridges international relations, psychology, history, classics, political theory and philosophy of science. He is author, coauthor, or editor of 34 books and almost 250 peer reviewed articles. Contributors to the book are: Simon Reich – Mervyn Frost - Janice Gross Stein - Stefano Guzzini – Markus Kornprobst - Harald Müller - Christian Wendt - Robert English.

The idea of international political theory after Hobbes is a timely and lively focus through which to raise key questions about international politics, and to set up dialogues between historical political theory and contemporary theories of international relations about the legacy of Hobbes in international politics. The move by political theorists towards consideration of the international realm and the consequent blurring of the distinction between domestic and international politics over recent years has been marked. In the light of these changes, the role of Hobbes in the dominant realist theory of International Relations requires urgent re-examination. This book makes an important and distinctive contribution to the argument that international political theory is moving beyond the reading of Hobbes as a founding theorist of the modern state in an inter-state system perpetuated by orthodox International Relations. The volume brings together a set of internationally-respected researchers with an expertise on Hobbes’ views on international relations in the context of the history of political thought, Hobbesian realism, and on Hobbes and contemporary international political theory.