Process sociology, the English School, and postcolonialism – understanding ‘civilization’ and world politics:A reply to the critics

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Obligations beyond the state: the individual, the state and humanity in international theory

This thesis is concerned with one way in which political philosophy and international relations might co-operate more closely with one another. The approach so formed, international relations theory, is particularly important in order to analyse and try to resolve one of the more fundamental questions in modern politics. This question concerns the right ordering of two types of obligation, the one asserting that a man's obligations are first and foremost to the state of which he is a citizen, the other asserting that as a man he has obligations to the whole of humanity and that these have first claim upon him. The first part of this thesis is concerned with these two theories of obligations and the way in which they are embedded within the theory and practice of the modern state. The argument attempts to set out the basic structure of these two points of view in order that their evaluation may take place in later parts of the thesis. In the second place, the theories of Pufendorf and Vattel are considered in order to discover the manner in which they deal with these two points of view of obligation. Their theories are found to be unsatisfactory and a more adequate theory of international obligation is traced in the writings of Kant. The third part of the thesis attempts to build upon Kant in order to take some further steps towards a theory of international relations. This section begins with the argument that the philosophy of international relations is to be understood as part of a wider enterprise, namely a theory of societies with reference to their external relations. Accordingly, the thesis attempts to distinguish a variety of principles which might be at the heart of one society's relations with another. Through the use of a 'myth' the argument proceeds to arrange these principles into a hierarchy in order to represent their distance from or proximity to a condition where international relations are organised according to principles which have their bases in Kant's thought

Social Standards of Self-Restraint in World Politics

The process sociologist, Norbert Elias (2012, p. 89) maintained that Caxton’s comment in his fifteenth century treatise on courtesy that ‘things that were once permitted are now forbidden’ could stand as the ‘motto’ for the European civilizing process that was to come. The main course of development which would revolve around the formation of modern states and the significant pacification of the relevant societies shaped different related spheres of social interaction. According to Elias, they included the standards that governed bodily functions, changes in table manners and (of particular importance for the present discussion) shifts in emotional responses to cruelty and violence. His writings were less consistent on the subject of whether actions that were once permitted in relations between states have become forbidden in the most recent phase of the modern states-system. The main objective of the following discussion is to synthesise elements of process sociology and the English School in order to determine whether the current era is distinctive if not unique

Cosmopolitan Sentiment: Politics, Charity, and Global Poverty

Duties to address global poverty face a motivation gap. We have good reasons for acting yet we do not, at least consistently. A ‘sentimental education’, featuring literature and journalism detailing the lives of distant others has been suggested as a promising means by which to close this gap (Nussbaum in Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, CUP, Cambridge, 2001; Rorty in Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, CUP, Cambridge, 1998). Although sympathetic to this project, I argue that it is too heavily wed to a charitable model of our duties to address global poverty—understood as requiring we sacrifice a certain portion of our income. However, political action, aimed at altering institutions at both a global and a local level is likely to be necessary in order to provide effective long-term solutions to poverty globally. To rectify this, the article develops an alternative dialogical account of sentimental education, suitable for motivating support for political action to address global poverty

The United Kingdom and British Empire: A Figurational Approach

Drawing upon the work of Norbert Elias and the process [figurational] sociology perspective, this article examines how state formation processes are related to, and, affected by, expanding and declining chains of international interdependence. In contrast to civic and ethnic conceptions, this approach focuses on the emergence of the nation/nation-state as grounded in broader processes of historical and social development. In doing so, state formation processes within the United Kingdom are related to the expansion and decline of the British Empire. That is, by focusing on the functional dynamics that are embedded in collective groups, one is able to consider how the UK’s ‘state’ and ‘imperial’ figurations were interdependently related to changes in both the UK and the former British Empire. Consequently, by locating contemporary UK relations in the historical context of former imperial relationships, nationalism studies can go ‘beyond’ the nation/nation-state in order to include broader processes of imperial expansion and decline. Here, the relationship between empire and nationalism can offer a valuable insight into contemporary political movements, especially within former imperial groups