Realism and international law: the challenge of John H. Herz

Sylvest, Casper

doi:10.1017/s1752971910000242

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 91 publications

(134 reference statements)

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“…Not only did Morgenthau provide a glowing introduction to the new collection but also he had been instrumental in turning the instigator of the project, Kurt Dreifuss of the Society for a World Service Federation, towards Mitrany’s original 1943 version (Ashworth, 2013: 59). While John Herz was certainly more critical of what he saw as the downplaying of power politics in the functional approach, he also (in the words of Casper Sylvest) ‘accepted the integrative logic in David Mitrany’s functionalist theory of international politics’ (Sylvest, 2010: 436). While Frederick Schuman had shared Mitrany’s analysis of the state system, he ultimately backed an idea of international federation that was at odds with the logic of the functional approach (Scheuerman, 2010: 254, 267).…”

Section: David Mitrany and The Classical Realistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

David Mitrany on the international anarchy. A lost work of classical realism?

Ashworth

2017

Journal of International Political Theory

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Although David Mitrany’s international thought is not usually associated with the concept of the international anarchy, I argue that his analysis actually compares two forms of anarchical order. The first form is the order associated with the relations between states, while the second is his functional alternative to this order. The functional approach is anarchical in the sense that it remains an order without an orderer. In first analysing the dynamics and failings of the inter-state order, and then suggesting pragmatic process-orientated solutions to those failings, I argue that Mitrany follows a similar approach to his classical realist contemporaries.

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Section: David Mitrany and The Classical Realistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

David Mitrany on the international anarchy. A lost work of classical realism?

Ashworth

2017

Journal of International Political Theory

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“…Still, in his estimation, true universalism was likely to emerge from 'a revolution in minds and attitudes rather than in a shape of a mass movement' (Herz, 1959: 349). He critically assessed functionalist ideas and discussed ways in which international law could, in limited ways, express and help internalize a growing universalism (Sylvest, 2010). Political authority ought to (but so far did not) reflect the sociological conditions of the modern world, including global threats to survival.…”

Section: Away From the Brink: Globality And Political Imaginationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming nuclear politics? Nuclear realism, the H-bomb and globality

Sylvest¹,

Munster

2014

Security Dialogue

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As nuclear weapons are again becoming the subject of critical scholarship and progressive activism, this article seeks to widen the perspective of critical security studies in relation to nuclear weapons and to provide a better understanding of the historical precursors of current ambitions. We do so by focusing on the central decade of the thermonuclear revolution (ca 1952–1963) and on a body of thought we term ‘nuclear realism’. Nuclear realists were united by the central conviction that liberal modernity could survive collective suicide only by radically rethinking and transforming its foundations. Günther Anders, John Herz, Lewis Mumford and Bertrand Russell take centre stage, and we highlight that the central pillars in their project of nuclear critique was a dissection of the legacy of the Enlightenment and an incisive examination of its implications for (international) politics in the nuclear age. These dimensions came together in their critique of the prevailing concept of deterrence. In an attempt to reclaim nuclear politics for a wider public, nuclear realists stressed the absolute centrality of imagination as a strategy for unmasking the power and rationality of a growing national security establishment, on the one hand, and bringing a distinct, alternative vision of global politics and security into view, on the other. This comprehensive yet multifaceted project, while afflicted by its own challenges, is deeply relevant for today’s nuclear politics.

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“… 22. See particularly the excellent treatments in Sylvest (2010) and Scheuerman (2009b); for the broad context, see McCormick (2002). …”

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confidence: 99%

In the beginning: The International Relations enlightenment and the ends of International Relations theory

Williams

2013

European Journal of International Relations

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The question of endings is simultaneously a question of beginnings: wondering if International Relations is at an end inevitably raises the puzzle of when and how 'it' began. This article argues that International Relations' origins bear striking resemblance to a wider movement in post-war American political studies that Ira Katznelson calls the 'political studies enlightenment.' This story of the field's beginnings and ends has become so misunderstood as to have almost disappeared from histories of the field and accounts of its theoretical orientations and alternatives. This historical forgetting represents one of the most debilitating errors of International Relations theory today, and overcoming it has significant implications for how we think about the past and future development of the field. In particular, it throws open not only our understanding of the place of realism in International Relations, but also our vision of liberalism. For the realism of the International Relations enlightenment did not seek to destroy liberalism as an intellectual and political project, but to save it. The core issue in the 'invention of International Relations theory' -its historical origins as well as its end or goal in a substantive or normative sense -was not the assertion of realism in opposition to liberalism: it was, in fact, the defence of a particular kind of liberalism.

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Realism and international law: the challenge of John H. Herz

Cited by 8 publications

References 91 publications

David Mitrany on the international anarchy. A lost work of classical realism?

David Mitrany on the international anarchy. A lost work of classical realism?

Reclaiming nuclear politics? Nuclear realism, the H-bomb and globality

In the beginning: The International Relations enlightenment and the ends of International Relations theory

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