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Republican security theory revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2011

JORG KUSTERMANS
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Abstract

Republicanism is getting increasing attention in International Relations. Engaging Daniel Deudney's Republican Security Theory, it is argued that republicanism should be interpreted in ideological terms, that it is a polysemous tradition of political thought, and that it matters because it is socially embodied in world political practice. Special attention is given to republicanism's relationship to the question of technology. A short case study of the Cold War illustrates the central claims of the argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 2269 - 2292
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2011

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References

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81 Clearly, Schmitt despised romanticism's celebration of the private self. He even devoted a book to combating political romanticism. However, within the spectrum of modern republicanism, Schmitt's analysis does incline toward the romantic side. John McCormick likewise comes to the conclusion that Schmitt ultimately aestheticised violence and the state. McCormick, John, ‘Fear, Technology, and the State: Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and the Revival of Hobbes in Weimar and National Socialist Germany’, Political Theory, 22:4 (1994), p. 626CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Compare Carl Schmitt, Political Romanticism.

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