In this bold intervention, Cudworth and Hobden draw on recent advances in thinking about complexity theory to call for a profound re-envisioning of the study of international relations. As a discipline, IR is wedded to the enlightenment project of overcoming the 'hazards' of nature, and thus remains constrained by its blinkered 'human-centred' approach. Furthermore, as a means of predicting major global-political events and trends, it has failed consistently. Instead, the authors argue, it is essential we develop a much more nuanced and sophisticated analysis of global political systems, taking into account broader environmental circumstances, as well as social relations, economic practices and formations of political power. Essentially, the book reveals how the study of international politics is transformed by the understanding that we have never been exclusively human. An original work that is sure to provoke heated debate within the discipline, Posthuman International Relations combines insights from complexity theory and ecological thinking to provide a radical new agenda for a progressive, twenty-first century, International Relations.

Posthumanism represents a significant new research direction both for International Relations and the social sciences. It emerges from questions about inter-species relations which challenge dominant perceptions of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing the human species as ‘in nature’ posthumanist thinking considers the species as ‘of nature’. The work of posthumanist thinkers has sought to dispute accepted notions of what it means to be human, raising profound questions about our relations with the rest of nature. The volume commences with an overview of the influence thinkers have had on the development of posthumanist thinking. Key ideas in International Relations are interrogated and reconceptualised and specific case studies are presented with a focus on inter-species relations. The work allows for a consideration of the limits of the posthumanist move and provides space for critics to argue that such an approach opens the discipline up to a biological determinism, and that a focus on inter-human relations should mark the boundaries of the discipline. The essays collected in this volume provide an overview of contributions from posthumanist thinkers with the particular intention of providing a succinct introduction to the area and should appeal to scholars and students in Politics, IR and philosophy.

Building a conversation between relational cosmology, developed in natural sciences, and critical social theory, this book seeks to develop a new perspective on how to think relationally in and around the study of IR.

This textbook introduces advanced students of International Relations (and beyond) to the ways in which the advent of, and reflections on, the Anthropocene impact on the study of global politics and the disciplinary foundations of IR. The book contains 24 chapters, authored by senior academics as well as early career scholars, and is divided into four parts, detailing, respectively, why the Anthropocene is of importance to IR, challenges to traditional approaches to security, the question of governance and agency in the Anthropocene, and new methods and approaches, going beyond the human/nature divide. Chapter 9, “Security in the Anthropocene” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book traces and conceptualises the changing notion of democracy and demonstrates how democracy promotion finds itself at the heart of contemporary international discourses and policies. Democracy promotion is widely considered to constitute a hypocritical and failed ‘grand international narrative’ of the 1990s and has allegedly been replaced by other, more pressing and academically more captivating concerns, such as conflict management, statebuilding and climate change. This book challenges this position and argues that the core notions of democracy promotion, such as empowerment, inclusion and responsiveness, are a key concern of contemporary international policymakers. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt as well as John Dewey, it investigates the notion of democracy and modality of its promotions through the policy fields of conflict management, statebuilding and climate change. The central development, the book observes, is the reconceptualisation of democracy from the constituted sphere of the public to the lived relations of the social. The book argues that the novel rationality of democracy and its promotion offers a particular solution to governing impasses in a world perceived to be globalised and complex, which accounts for democracy’s current but neglected centrality. This book will be of much interest to students of democracy, intervention, statebuilding, global governance and IR in general.

From Human to Post Human Security in Latin America provides a fresh look to some acute problems regarding human security in Latin America: human rights and dignity, water, food and health insecurities. This is essential reading for professionals, practitioners, and those interested in human security in Latin America.

Discussing cutting-edge debates in the field of international ethics, this key volume builds on existing work in the normative study of international relations. It responds to a substantial appetite for scholarship that challenges established approaches and examines new perspectives on international ethics, and that appraises the ethical implications of problems occupying students and scholars of international relations in the twenty-first century. The contributions, written by a team of international scholars, provide authoritative surveys and interventions into the field of international ethics. Focusing on new and emerging ethical challenges to international relations, and approaching existing challenges through the lens of new theoretical and methodological frameworks, the book is structured around five themes: • New directions in international ethics • Ethical actors and practices in international relations • The ethics of climate change, globalization, and health • Technology and ethics in international relations • The ethics of global security Interdisciplinary in its scope, this book will be an important resource for scholars and students in the fields of politics and international relations, philosophy, law and sociology, and a useful reference for anyone who wishes to acquire ‘ethical competence’ in the area of international relations.

Asks how, why and to what ends humans appear in international relations theories and how this makes us interpret world politics.

Comprising a plurality of perspectives, this timely Handbook is an essential resource for understanding past and current challenges to democracy, justice, social and gender equality, identity and freedom. It shows how critical international relations (IR) theory functions as a broad-based and diverse critique of society.

This book brings together the emerging insights of what posthumanism, new materialism and affect theory mean for ‘the man question’. The contributors to this book interrogate the question of how ‘Man’ as a gendered being is entangled with nature, culture, materiality and corporeality, and they explore ways to unsettle men’s sense of sovereignty to decentre anthropocentric masculinity. Men have to move from the centre of privilege which grants them supremacy before they can open themselves to the decentred, embodied, affective, vulnerable and relational self that is necessary to embrace the posthuman. This book explores the extent to which this is possible. The book will be of interest to academics, students and scholars across a range of disciplines who are engaging with the intersections of feminist studies with posthumanism and new materialism, especially as they relate to critical studies of men and masculinities. Chapters on fathering, pornography, ageing, affect, embodiment, entanglements with technology and nature and the implications of these issues for changing men and masculinities and the politics of critical masculinity studies’ engagement with posthuman feminisms will interest students and academics across these diverse disciplines.