International legal structuralism arrived on the shores of international thought in the 1980s. The arrival was not well received, perhaps in part, because it was not well understood. This essay aims to reintroduce legal structuralism and hopefully pave the way for new, and more positive, receptions and understandings. This reintroduction is organized around two claims regarding the broader encounter between international lawyers and critical theory in the 1980s. The first was a jurisprudential claim about how the critics sought to show how international law was nothing more than a continuation of international politics by other means. The second was a historical claim about how the critics wanted to show that international law had never been anything but politics, and that it always would be. In the view of this essay, both of these claims about international legal structuralism were wrong, and they are still wrong today. For despite the tendency to think of it as a cover for postmodern nihilism or relentless deconstruction or both, legal structuralism offers international theorists an enriching and edifying method for rethinking the relation between law and politics on the one hand, and law and history on the other. It is in the effort to carry a brief for a reawakened legal structuralism that the essay brings focus to some of the early works of Koskenniemi and Kennedy, identifies the semiotic foundations of that work, and ultimately suggests the possibility of a second generation of international legal structuralism.

This article examines the role of spatial shape in the justification, practice, and study of territorial claims, focusing in particular on the concepts of contiguity and compactness. A territory is contiguous if all parts are connected to all other parts, and a territory is compact if all its parts are closely joined or densely packed spatially. Shaping territories to be contiguous and compact is often implicitly taken to be a worthwhile goal, in both empirical and normative assessments of territorial claims. This article focuses directly on these two concepts, taking a novel approach to the study of territory by raising questions about these foundational, but often unexamined, background assumptions. Interrogating territorial shape thus provides a useful means of examining arguments about the justice or legitimacy of the territorial rights attributed to states or peoples. The contingent origins of the concepts of contiguity and compactness suggest that evaluations of territorial shape have sometimes been based on an implicit affective ‘feel’ or emotional reaction as much as on logical or empirical argument. This conclusion allows us to rethink some of our unstated assumptions about the shapes of states and other political territories, and thus to reconsider the justice or legitimacy attributed to those claims.

For cosmopolitans, global democracy is valuable both in itself and as a means to global justice. Their preferred principle of political enfranchisement is the All Affected Principle which, given global interdependencies, means that virtually everyone should have a vote virtually everywhere. Anti-cosmopolitans want to resist that conclusion. They try to do so by appealing instead to the All Subjected Principle. But you are subject to a law whenever it claims to apply to you, and in contemporary practice states typically claim authority to make many laws that apply even to non-nationals abroad. On the All Subjected Principle, they too should have a vote over those laws. The All Subjected Principle would thus have similarly expansionary implications for the franchise as the All Affected Principle, contrary to the fondest hopes of anti-cosmopolitans.

Despite the broad consensus on the value of political legitimacy in global politics, there is still little agreement on what the specific regulative content of the principles of legitimacy ought to be. Two main paths have thus far been taken in the theoretical literature to respond to the legitimacy deficit in the global domain: one via the ideal of democracy, another via the ideal of justice. However, both have run into problems. The overall purpose of this paper is to examine these two paths in the endeavour to explore the possibilities of a third path, which investigates global political legitimacy (GPL) as a value that is at a basic level distinct from democracy and justice. The paper aims to fulfil two tasks. The conceptual task consists in identifying some characteristics of the concept of GPL that makes it distinct from political legitimacy generally, as well as showing its usefulness for normative theorizing. The normative task is twofold: first, to demonstrate that the value of GPL is reducible neither to democracy nor to justice; and second, to develop the contours of a dual account of GPL, in which both justice and democracy play essential roles.

The article analyzes the contested concept of global health through the lens of orders of worth. Drawing on pragmatist political and social theory, especially the work of Boltanski and Thévenot, I conceptualize orders of worth as moral narratives that connect visions of universal humankind to ideas about moral worth and deficiency. They thereby differ from the self/other narrative of political identity that is emphasized in International Relations scholarship. Orders of worth do not pitch a particularistic identity against foreign identities, but tie collective identity to a higher common good. They provide tools for moral evaluation and the justification of hierarchy. I use this heuristic to reconstruct four main conceptions of health in global politics: The order of survival, the order of fairness, the order of production, and the order of spirit. Each of them articulates a distinct political identity, as ‘we species’, ‘we liberals’, ‘we bodies’ and ‘we souls’, and implies different notions of virtuous and selfish conduct in the global community. These orders are derived from scholarly writings and the policies of global health institutions. Finally, I discuss the nature of compromises between the four orders regarding contested issues such as health emergencies or digital medicine.

I shall argue that in some wars both sides are (as a collective) justified, that is, they can both satisfy valid jus ad bellum requirements. Moreover, in some wars – but not in all – the individual soldiers on the unjustified side (i.e. on the side without jus ad bellum) may nevertheless kill soldiers (and also civilians as a side-effect) on the justified side, even if the enemy soldiers always abide by jus in bello constraints. The reason for this is that with regard to some forms of inflicting harm on others one may give special weight to one’s own interests and the interests of those to whom one has special responsibilities when assessing the proportionality of those acts. That is, the proportionality calculation may be agent-relative. This is in particular so in the case of foreseeably preventing innocent and non-threatening people from being saved (for instance, by shooting down a tactical bomber who would have saved them by destroying an ammunitions factory) but less so in the case of the intentional or foreseeable direct harming of innocent and non-threatening people (dropping bombs on people standing near an ammunitions factory). In the light of these considerations, I will then answer the question as to when soldiers may justifiably participate in war (and when not).

This article develops a socio-legal approach to theorizing the construction of peremptory norms in international relations. It argues that due to its focus on formalism and abstract notions of rights, traditional legal treatments have failed to acknowledge the socially constructed nature of higher order norms. To address this shortcoming, the article transfers the concept of jus cogens into the realm of International Relations. Drawing on insights from constructivism and English School theory, it situates law in the context of society and conceptualizes jus cogens as part of international society’s constitutional structure. Proceeding from the assumption that the content and identity of jus cogens depends on the normative character of international society, the article then assesses two possible ‘normative logics’ through which the peremptory status of a norm may be generated. It rejects a solidarist logic, which sees universal norms as the manifestation of cosmopolitan ideas about inalienable rights. Instead, it argues for a pluralist approach to ethics and order that depicts jus cogens as key to the development of international society towards a social site marked by diversity and respect for difference.

In International Relations arguments about historical origins provoke theoretical debates, as origins assume an emergent theoretical unit of inquiry – an international order, system, society, etc. – while at the same time defining its core properties and dynamics. By boldly casting the long 19th century as the origin of global modernity and, in turn, the modern international order, Buzan and Lawson’s The Global Transformation challenges the romance with Westphalia that undergirds so much of our theorizing. Yet, the contributions to this symposium push deeper than usual, challenging established ways of conceiving change, and suggesting very different models of proper theorizing. While all of the papers ostensibly debate large-scale systems change, three modes of change are in contention: breakpoint, evolutionary, and processual. The further one pushes towards the latter, however, the more elusive the idea of ‘system’ becomes, eroding the fundamental boundary condition that undergirds the systemic mode of theorizing that dominates the field. Similarly, a persistent theme in these contributions is Buzan and Lawson’s purported failure to theorize change. But instead of offering rival theories, contributors advance very different conceptions of theorizing, from pre-observational conceptualization to causal explanation. This not only challenges the field to reflect more systematically on the process of theorizing, but to acknowledge forms of theorizing that it currently brackets.

This article introduces an intercultural theory of international relations based on three distinctive ways of establishing self-worth: honor, face, and dignity. In each culture of self-worth, concerns with status and humiliation intervene differently in producing political outcomes. The theory explains important variation in the way states and nations relate to members of their own culture of self-worth, as well as members of other such cultures.

The use of evolutionary theory for explaining human warfare is an expanding area of inquiry, but it remains obstructed by two important hurdles. One is that there is ambiguity about how to build an evolutionary theory of human warfare. The second is that there is ambiguity about how to interpret existing evidence relating to the evolution of warfare. This paper addresses these problems, first by outlining an evolutionary theory of human warfare, and second by investigating the veracity of four common claims made against the use of evolutionary theory for explaining warfare. These claims are: (1) ancestral warfare was not frequent or intense enough to have selected for psychological adaptations in humans for warfare; (2) the existence of peaceful societies falsifies the claim that humans possess adaptations for fighting; (3) if psychological adaptations for warfare exist, then war is an inevitable and universal component of the human condition; (4) modern warfare and international politics is so qualitatively different from ancestral politics that any adaptations for the latter are inoperative or irrelevant today. By outlining an evolutionary theory of war and clarifying key misunderstandings regarding this approach, international relations scholars are better positioned to understand, engage, and contribute to emerging scholarship on human warfare across the social and evolutionary sciences.

Buzan and Lawson’s The Global Transformation establishes that many of the basic parameters of world politics originated in the ‘long 19th century’. Despite finding much to admire in their book, we are concerned that it lacks an explicit theory of change. In its drive to highlight the novelty and exceptionalism of the 19th century, it offers insufficient guidance on two key issues: first, how international relations scholars should situate Buzan and Lawson’s ‘global transformation’ in existing debates over transhistorical processes; and, second, how they should apply lessons from that transformation to understanding emergent trends in the contemporary world. We argue that a more explicit study of causal factors might help account for why the 19th century was unusual. We conclude with thoughts about how the field should proceed after The Global Transformation. In particular, it points to how concatenating changes could profoundly alter international politics – an approach we term ‘Exotic International Relations’. Buzan and Lawson’s book therefore serves as a marker for the importance of systematically theorizing how radical potentialities for transformation might rearrange existing structural assemblages in world politics.

Current economic and political developments spotlight the relationship between domestic and global governance and the impact of globalization on both. A key question is whether a sovereign state system, democratic governments, and an integrated global marketplace can coexist. The paper assesses analytic materialist arguments for their incompatibility and the key assumptions on which they rest. The paper describes the extant pressures operating to limit each of the three: how sovereignty and democracy work to constrain globalization, how globalization and sovereignty generate a democratic deficit, and how globalization and democracy lead to limitations upon, and even the transcendence of, sovereignty. How to make the three compatible, and failing that, which facet to restrain, characterizes political contestation in a globalizing age. Global and domestic governance reflect the need to reconcile the combined implications of globalization, sovereignty, and democracy, and to do so by restraining, limiting, or transforming one or more of these features.

States have rights to unilaterally determine their own immigration policies under international law and few international institutions regulate states’ decision-making about immigration. As a result, states have extensive discretion over immigration policy. In this paper, I argue that states should join international migration institutions that would constrain their discretion over immigration. Immigration restrictions are morally risky. When states restrict immigration, they risk unjustly harming foreigners and restricting their freedom. Furthermore, biases and epistemic defects pervasively influence states’ decision-making about immigration policy. States should transfer some of their decision-making authority over immigration to more reliable institutions in order to mitigate the risks that they will unjustly restrict immigration. International institutions that include the interests of potential immigrants would be more reliable with respect to immigration policy than unilateral state decision-making. Thus, states should subject their immigration policies to international control.

This essay examines the relationship between history and theory through a historical and political analysis of the rise of distinctly social theories, concepts, and practices in the ‘long 19th century’. Sociomania, obsession with things ‘socio’, is a problem in international theory. It is also a serious missed opportunity for Buzan and Lawson’s study of the 19th century. The Global Transformation contributes to international theory in showing how mainstream IR has failed to grasp the full significance of this period. But, in this crucial regard at least, so too have its authors. In adopting rather than fully historicizing the rise and expansion of social theories, works of ‘historical social science’ obscure rather than illuminate the historical and political origins of social forms of governance and thought; underestimate their significance for the history of international theory; and are unable to identify the more fundamental governance form of which the rise of the modern social realm is a concrete historical expression.

The article advances three options to create new ways for thinking about humanity. First, reject humanity and view interconnectedness as state centric rather than human centric, with international law upheld as the bedrock institution of international society. Second, thin humanity puts forward a reductionist view that the value of humankind lies in the human worth of its members – human beings. In short, humanity is the sum of its parts. Third, thick humanity, which views humankind as an independent value in its own right. From this perspective, the value of humanity lies in its ubiquity, which reveals that it is not just more, it is different, to the sum of its parts. It is important to note that this is not a purely theoretical issue. One’s view of humanity shapes one’s view of whether citizens of one state should care for the citizens of another, which lies at the heart of contemporary debates over issues such as the responsibility to protect, human security, and redistributive justice. In so doing, the article speaks to broader debates on humanity that reflects the need for greater interdisciplinary research in the future.

While considerable attention is being accorded to emotions in International Relations, this article seeks to integrate empathy into these interdisciplinary debates. It counters the dominant assumption that empathy tends to be largely benign and beneficial by conceptualizing a typology of the costs of empathy. The dimensions of costs addressed are epistemological, cognitive, emotional, material, and embodied. I argue that these costs are frequently tangible for those who make the ethical-political choice to engage in empathy in situations of conflict and political violence. Drawing on social psychology approaches, empathy is located within a framework of collective narratives, emotions, and social structures shaped by both micro- and macro-political processes. A model of empathy, which acknowledges social influences and the psychological mechanisms through which these influences may be mediated, contributes to a deeper understanding of how politics, psychology, and culture shape empathy and, crucially, helps understand the conditions which may affect the successes, limitations, and failures of empathy in the (international) political sphere. The article offers empirical illustrations of the costs of empathy drawing on examples from Israel and Palestine.

While The Global Transformation makes a compelling case for the importance of the oft-ignored 19th century for IR theory, the book also represents an opportunity for an audience for which it was probably not intended: American IR scholars working in the quantitative empirical tradition, whom it should prompt to re-think the question of how the interactions that they seek to understand are conditional on deeper material and ideational dynamics.

Debates engaging the problems of ahistoricism and Eurocentrism in International Relations (IR) theory have taken on new dimensions in recent years. Scholars from a variety of different theoretical traditions have aimed to reconstruct IR theory on stronger historical–sociological grounds, while re-orienting the study of IR away from the fetish of ‘Western’ thought and agency. Buzan and Lawson’s The Global Transformation offers a welcome contribution to these endeavours to furnish a non-Eurocentric historical sociology of international relations. This article seeks to push their project further by re-assessing the relationship between history, theory, and contingency. In particular, it interrogates whether Buzan and Lawson’s ‘configurational’ approach to the ‘global transformation’, emphasizing the contingent concatenation of historical events and social processes, results in a displacement of theory through an over-emphasis on the interaction of free-floating contingently related causes, causes that are external to any theoretical schema. This approach obscures the deeper, structural forces in the making of global modernity, most notably those that escape Buzan and Lawson’s singular focus on the ‘long 19th century’.