This article analyzes the relationship between speed, identity, and collective action, incorporating insights from Lacan and Fanon into social movements studies. I make this intervention given that social movement scholarship has not adequately theorized how the accelerated pace of political communication impacts identity formation. As I argue, Lacan’s conceptualization of psychosis is apropos for exploring how the speed of information circulation can impede coherent identities to take shape. Fanon makes Lacan’s work on psychosis explicitly political, offering a way to conceive of collective action that emphasizes forging a humanist identity through struggle. Combining his political and clinical writings, especially from Alienation and Freedom , I develop Fanon’s humanist identity work by emphasizing the dialectical nature of relationship building that challenges how colonialism engenders alienation and depersonalization. Fanon’s emphasis on sustained work through oppressive institutions, I call political time, while Lacan’s understanding of momentary episodes of delusion, are indicative of psychotic time.
Edmund Burke is often read as a proponent of a substantive model of international legitimacy that prizes the unity and cultural homogeneity of the international order. This article contends that such conceptions derive from a focus on Burke’s notion of the European Commonwealth at the expense of his work on the British Empire. A reading of Burke that proposes a more pluralist conception of his international theory is then developed. By drawing parallels between Burke’s portrayals in Europe and the Americas of the loss of international legitimacy through the loss of “peoplehood,” tracing connections between Burke’s writings on the risks of permanent revolution and unlimited empire in continental Europe, Ireland, and India, and showing how Burke feared the possible moral and political effects of imperial misrule more than he prized the unity of empire in America and India, the article argues that Burke prioritized protecting political order at various scales and preventing perpetual chaos and violence over maintaining or expanding an international order unified by a shared culture.
In the contemporary ethics of immigration, the "conventional view" is often assumed to be restrictionist: the claim that states have a moral right to control immigration. But has this view always been considered "conventional"? A review of major political theories on human mobility and political power, from the 16th to the18th century, suggests not. The restrictionist view on immigration was far from being the "conventional view." Instead, freedom of movement was supported across a wide range of political theories, both rights-based and consequentialist. During the 16th-17th centuries, denying innocent people their freedom of movement was seen as an injustice, an unjustified hostility, and therefore a potential justification for retaliating with war. In the 17th-18th centuries, sovereigns were commonly advised to attract immigrants and discourage emigration. Consequentialist arguments drawn from mercantilism, physiocracy, and classical economics often favoured liberal mobility policies. The rediscovery of this intellectual history challenges the assumption that immigration control is the natural or default starting point for normative debate. It demonstrates both that restrictionism is a historically contingent and relatively recent position, and that freedom of movement is a topic that has been strikingly neglected in contemporary political theory.
Post-nationalists argue that nationalism is morally indefensible and should be replaced by non-national forms of solidarity. This article challenges this argument by showing that, under prevailing international norms, nationalism remains a structurally important resource for territorially concentrated groups contesting domination. The article makes three central claims. First, because international law and political practice recognize "peoples" as the primary bearers of self-determination rights, groups seeking autonomy face strong incentives to frame their claims in national terms. Second, drawing on contemporary cases, the article shows that nationalist discourses perform two functions: it forges internal solidarity for collective action, and it renders grievances legible to external audiences through globally recognized narratives. Third, the article introduces the concept of nationalist mobilizational infrastructure (NMI) to theorize this dual function and argues that categorically delegitimizing nationalist narratives risks restricting the interpretive resources through which marginalized actors articulate and gain attention for their claims. The article concludes that moral evaluation of nationalism must be contextual and trade-off-sensitive, attentive both to the harms nationalism can produce and to the constrained alternatives available to those who invoke it.
This article re-examines Hobbesian sovereignty and Kropotkinian mutual aid under the extreme conditions of post-collapse life. It introduces the "scarred original position," a concept in which actors do not enter as abstract individuals but as survivors marked by the memory of systemic catastrophe. This reframing alters the classical premises: Hobbes's state of nature becomes a remembered possibility rather than an imminent experience, while Kropotkinian sociability is tempered by the historical fragility of reciprocity. For Hobbes, coherence is preserved through the creation of a "cold covenant": a pre-emptive, deliberated, and ritualized act of instituting authority before crisis erupts. Historical memory replaces immediacy as the ground of fear, ensuring that sovereignty remains ontologically Hobbesian even when founded on foresight. Kropotkinian mutual aid, by contrast, retains coherence through its refusal of domination and its emphasis on reciprocity, though it must accept vulnerability and fragility as integral to its fidelity. In dialog, the two models show that both can maintain coherence under collapse, but only in scarred form. Hobbesian sovereignty is haunted by memories of failed Leviathans, while anarchist communitarianism is haunted by its precariousness. The scarred original position thus reveals that post-collapse political orders emerge not from pure beginnings but from inherited fears, solidarities, and traumas.
Friendship is a concept often evoked on the international stage and which has a long history in international thought. Despite falling to the sidelines for some time, it is experiencing a resurgence of interest. This paper sets out the position of friendship in the international thought of Hugo Grotius. I show that Grotius develops a law of friendship (amicitiae lex) which he incorporates into his just war theory. I argue that he makes a conceptual distinction between allies (socii) and friends (amici). The distinction concerns the underlying legal bases upon which they are founded. I therefore argue that we can map this distinction onto another of Grotius's distinctions, that between perfect and imperfect rights. This is an important point because an infringement of a perfect right can result in war, but an infringement of an imperfect right cannot. Additionally, I highlight the supererogatory character to which Grotius accords friendship. I conclude by arguing that friendship is an important concept in Grotius's international thought. I also suggest that Grotius is an instructive figure not only for those engaged in friendship's revival but also for those concerned with the identity and relations of states.
Rita Floyd’s The Duty to Secure provides a thoughtful and rigourous account of the ethics of responding to some of the world’s key global challenges. In this essay, I focus on two issues. The first concerns her discussion of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and claims that her theory of mandatory securitisation will help to refocus the struggling norm. The second concerns rising global authoritarianism and what this means for her theory.
The Duty to Secure: From Just to Mandatory Securitization (2024) extends Just Securitization Theory (JST), originally developed in The Morality of Security: A Theory of Just Securitization (2019), with a theory of the moral obligation to use emergency measures to safe valuable referent objects from objective existential threats. Morally mandatory securitization includes prescriptions setting out when the duties to secure and to securitize apply, on who has such duties, and to whom . In this article, I defend the theory against five critics. All of these see value in and need for the general project of rethinking the ethics of securitization, but all disagree with some aspects. Including, the theory’s communitarian roots, the usage of revisionist just war theory to derive moral principles, and/or the attempt to refocus the responsibility to protect (RtoP) norm. I use the available space to defend my choices. I conclude by pointing out directions for future research on the ethics of securitization.
Rita Floyd’s work on securitisation and the just war is original and creative, but the version of the just war she employs – the analytical approach to just war theory – limits the applicability of her ideas.
Immanuel Kant defines existence – in this article comprehended as the security of Self – as practical and objective rationality, as a category guided by a priori principles that metaphysically employ a categorical imperative to all humans. Friedrich Nietzsche defines existence as a dynamic, artistic process of creation, which can be shaped by a will to power to either overcome or exercise influence. Georg W. F. Hegel defines existence neither as Being nor as Non-Being, but as a continuous process of Becoming. Beyond binaries of to be or not to be, the question arises how can agency be created to maintain security of Self and Others and, utmost importantly, is there a moral duty for it? “The duty of other-securitization, as indeed the duty of self-securitization,” Floyd argues, “rests on a prior duty of politicization.”
In this forum contribution, I suggest extending Jason Ralph’s pragmatic constructivism towards a more inclusive and ethically strong robust feminist-pragmatist perspective. While I value Ralph’s integration of classical pragmatism into constructivist IR theory – particularly his emphasis on lived experience and normative evaluation – I argue that his framework can be strengthened by incorporating feminist care ethics and grounded normative theory. These approaches deepen Ralph’s two evaluative tests of “inclusionary reflexivity” and “deliberative practical judgement” by foregrounding attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness in global politics. I also critique the reliance on formal deliberative institutions and scientific expertise, urging greater recognition of informal, grassroots, and experiential knowledge.
This response focuses on three points: pragmatic constructivism and the relationship to democracy; valuation in international society and communities of practice; pragmatism and feminism.
This paper represents an existing critique of Alexander Wendt’s theory of a ‘world state’ and invites responses to a new international theory. The argument is that Wendt’s account of the global identity formation of a ‘world state’ is paradoxical. It depicts the most authoritative agents in international politics as cyphers of a structural change that is one-sided and ultimately unifying rather than, as he implies, mutually constituted and defined by relentless struggle. This ‘agent–structure problem’ is addressed in this paper through a dialogue with Michael Oakeshott’s political philosophy. A more complex ideal type of a ‘world state’ is constructed and contrasted with Wendt’s. This frames an inquiry into the political rhetoric that drives a project of global reform between 2012 and 2022. A new theory of a ‘world state’ is elaborated with reference to: (i) the ‘foundations’ of agent-centred otherness in an international practice of the United Nations Security Council; and (ii) the structure to the moral judgements of a ‘We’. The theoretical conclusion is the logic of these events reveals the origins of a divisive conflict in an international practice which is irreconcilable with Wendt’s ‘progressive’ speculation about the uncontested future of global identity.
Jason Ralph's On Global Learning is a powerful scholarly achievement that deserves the sustained engagement afforded leading international political theorists such as Cynthia Enloe, Friedrich Kratochwil, Nicholas Rengger, J. Ann Tickner, and RBJ Walker. This forum represents a welcome start. By way of a limited contribution, my aim is to push forward an ongoing debate with Ralph on the politics of Constructivism in IR theory. The question on the table, in short, is: What are IR Constructivism's political and ethical commitments?
The climate crisis represents one of greatest threats to humankind, but also one of the greatest opportunities for positive social transformation. Given the many social ills that already degrade wellbeing, many people desire a more equitable, just, and livable world. Some people may believe because of climate change "we are doomed," yet I argue this represents a misunderstanding of the situation. We have the means to curtail global warming and enhance social wellbeing through making key systemic changes. Drawing from the work of Herbert Marcuse and Andre Gorz, I examine the opportunity for social transformation in the face of the climate crisis and how we can envision and pursue a "better" society in terms of human flourishing and sustainability. I discuss their concept of "destructive production" and their support for work time reduction and advertising restrictions. These strategies represent key, yet overlooked, steps to help mitigate climate change and improve wellbeing.
It can take decades for a single drop of water to filter through the earth to get to an aquifer. The water in aquifers, or underground collections of water, is therefore aged. Understanding this, Indigenous peoples in the Pacific have long been active in safeguarding these deep waters, knowing that our futures are determined by what is beneath us. This is demonstrated in various Pacific and Indigenous-led movements to protect water, including the movement to protect Mauna Kea, a mountain in Hawai. i and the proposed site of the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). This article will explore the movement to prevent the construction of the TMT, as well as other connected movements in the Pacific, as acts of futurity. While many analyses of this and other movements focus on what happens on land, this article will focus on the aquifers beneath us, arguing that the efforts to prevent construction, destruction, and devastation represent the ways Hawaiian, Pacific, and other Indigenous peoples not only dream of better futures but create them in the present, maintaining an ancestral sense of radical hope in the deep waters that have fed, and will continue to feed, generations.
