International relations, political theory and the problem of order/ Rengger

xix, 239 hal.; 21 cm

International relations, political theory and the problem of order/ Rengger

xix, p. 239; 21 c

International relations, political theory and the problem of order/ Rengger

xix, p. 239; 21 c

From nature to history, and back again : Blumenberg, Strauss and the Hobbesian community

This article explores the origins of the problematic of political community by considering it in relation to the founding principles of 'modern thought'. These principles are identified with the extirpation of moral values and ends from nature, in keeping with the rise of a 'disenchanted' and mechanical scientific world-view. The transition from an 'ancient' to a 'modern' world-view is elaborated by drawing upon the work of Hans Blumenberg and Leo Strauss. The 'demoralization' of nature, it is claimed, projects the formation of the political commons into the space of history, a space within which community must be produced via artifice on the part of the willing subject. This Leitbild of modern community is examined through a reading of Hobbes's Leviathan which, it is claimed, stands as the founding attempt to remember the political commons from the sphere of human immanence, without recourse to natural or theological externality. However, it is argued, nature occupies an intermediary and ambiguous position in Hobbes's thought, at once transcended and reinscribed into political life as a 'hedonist anthropology' that defines the human animal. Further, Hobbes's insistence that conventionally produced standards need be misrecognized as necessary and non-contingent undermines their legitimacy from the standpoint of human autonomy. This failure to break decisively with the appeal to nature leads to a political community that is at best a simulacrum, far removed from the vision of ethical unity that characterizes the classical conception of the polis and political life. Yet, it is argued, Hobbes's strategy nevertheless presents the key to subsequent attempts to complete a political 'revolt' against nature, as developed in the thought of Rousseau, Kant and Hegel

The European Union and a Changing Europe: Establishing the Boundaries of Order

This article seeks to explore the relationship between the European Union (EU) and the changing European order, with particular respect to the ways in which the EU structures and shapes the boundaries between itself and the broader European arena. It evaluates a range of available international relations theories, and adopts a 'critical neoliberal-institutionalist' approach to the problem. It applies this approach by assessing the EU's boundary-constructing and boundary-maintaining behaviour in a number of areas, before developing two models of the EU's role: the 'politics of exclusion' and the 'politics of inclusion'. After spending most of its life practising the 'politics of exclusion', the EU has moved towards a 'politics of inclusion' to reflect the changing demands of the European order. Nevertheless, the tensions between the two types of politics will continue to be a central feature of the EU's role. Copyright 1996 BPL.