bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Historical Just War Tradition
Authors: O'Driscoll Cian
Published: April 2018

In what circumstances, if any, would the recourse to war be justified? What restraints should be binding on any such use of force? The pre-eminent framework for addressing these questions is the just war tradition. Boasting a history that can be traced back to ancient Rome, this corpus has been distilled over time into a set of principles that bear on two poles, the jus ad bellum, the norms that govern the resort to war, and the jus in bello, the constraints binding on its prosecution. Scholars dispute the composition of these poles, but all concur that the former turns on “just cause,” “proper authority,” and “right intention,” while the latter includes “proportionality” and “discrimination.” This chapter discusses the prizes and pitfalls that attend the study of the ethics of war in light of the historical just war tradition.
Humanitarianism and Human Rights
Authors: Barnett Michael N.
Published: April 2018

This chapter adopts an interpretivist perspective to map the differences between human rights and humanitarianism in the contemporary period. It opens by briefly examining the case for their similarity, focusing on the shared discourse of humanity and historical origins. Notwithstanding these common orientations, each field of study and practice constructs strikingly different histories, showcasing different turning points, identity-defining events, and narratives. These alternative narratives expose some fundamental divisions between these fields. The subsequent section sets out the case for difference between human rights and humanitarianism in the post-Cold War period. It suggests that a fundamental difference is that human rights revolves around legal discourse whose purpose is to further human flourishing and humanitarianism around moral sentiments whose purpose is to rescue lives at immediate risk. These contrasting discourses account for differences in the following areas: purpose; principles; politics; and practices.
Democracy and Global Governance
Authors: Gould Carol C.
Published: April 2018

Is it feasible to democratize the powerful institutions of global governance that currently work to advance globalization processes, making them more responsive to the needs and interests of the people affected by their policies? This chapter discusses the motivation for addressing this “democratic deficit” at the transnational level, in the context of the inequalities in power and resources engendered by globalization and its institutional framework. It critically analyses two main lines of argument put forward for democratization of global governance—the “all subjected” and the “all affected” principles—and then proposes a reformulation of them for this new context. It concludes by considering some concrete directions for fulfilling democratic norms transnationally, including ways of introducing greater transparency and accountability in transnational institutions, as well as more extensive changes that would enable people to gain substantial control over the forces and structures that currently profoundly affect them.
International Relations and International Political Theory
Authors: Brown Chris
Published: April 2018

During its formative years, the discipline of International Relations (IR) combined explanatory, normative, descriptive, and interpretative understandings of international relations, but over the last few decades the mainstream discipline has focused on explanation, relegating normative and interpretive issues to a secondary status within the field. International Political Theory (IPT) has developed as a response to this neo-positivist turn; the ultimate aim of IPT is to reshape the discourse and return to a discipline where explanatory and normative issues are not separated. IPT draws on the history of international thought, theories produced by modern analytical political theorists and critical theorists, and the contribution of IR theorists who have maintained an interest in normative issues.
Accountability in Global Economic Governance
Authors: MacDonald Kate
Published: April 2018

Contemporary theoretical debates surrounding accountability in global economic governance have often adopted a problem-focused analytical lens—centred on real-world political controversies surrounding the accountability of global governing authorities. This chapter explores four distinctive problems of global accountability for which empirical inquiry has usefully informed normative analysis: first, the problem of unaccountable power within global governance processes; second, the problem of decentred political authority in global governance; third, problems establishing appropriate foundations of social power through which normatively desirable transnational accountabilities can be rendered practically effective at multiple scales; finally, problems associated with the need to traverse significant forms of social and cultural difference in negotiating appropriate normative terms of transnational accountability relationships. In relation to each, this chapter examines how systematic engagement between empirical and normative modes of analysis can both illuminate the theoretical problem and inform practical political strategies for strengthening accountability in global economic governance.
Global Governance in the “Anthropocene”
Authors: Biermann Frank
Published: April 2018

The concept of an Anthropocene is now widely used in a variety of contexts, communities, and connotations. This chapter explores the possible consequences of this paradigmatic turn for the field of International Political Theory (IPT), arguing that the notion of an Anthropocene is likely to change the way we understand political systems both analytically and normatively, from the village level up to the United Nations. This makes the Anthropocene one of the most demanding, and most interesting, research topics for the field of IPT. The chapter first lays out the manifold new challenges for IPT that have been brought about by the concept of the Anthropocene, and then illustrates these challenges with an example: the increasing need of governments to define and agree upon “desirable” futures for planetary evolution.
International Political Theory Meets International Public Policy
Authors: Barry Christian
Published: April 2018

How should International Political Theory (IPT) relate to public policy? Should theorists aspire for their work to be policy-relevant, and if so in what sense? When can we legitimately criticize a theory for failing to be relevant to practice? In this chapter, I argue that it counts heavily against a theory if it is not precise enough to guide policy and reform given certain empirical assumptions, but that theorists should be very cautious when engaging with questions of policy and institutional design. Some principles of IPT can be criticized for being insufficiently precise, but a degree of abstraction from concrete policy recommendations is a virtue, rather than a vice, of IPT. I discuss this issue with reference to John Rawls’s principle of a duty of assistance.
Fair Trade Under Fire
Authors: Hassoun Nicole
Published: April 2018

This chapter defends a conditional approach to arguing about fair trade. It suggests that this approach shows why a common objection to arguments about fairness in trade is misguided—in that the arguments for fairness in trade from different perspectives are often inconsistent. The chapter suggests that much inconsistency can be avoided if we offer conditional arguments for or against principles governing fairness in trade. We should not assume, for instance, that principles are justified because they are part of any given practice. Rather, we can suggest adopting the principles if the practice is justified. Arguments for fair trade may also depend on features of our non-ideal world. Although we might hope to arrive at a complete account of what fair trade requires, we can make some extremely important moral progress even in the absence of such a theory.
International Law and International Political Theory
Authors: Simpson Gerry
Published: April 2018

This chapter probes the way in which description, prescription, and critique form a congeries of approaches that together, in turn, produce an intellectual field that might be described as the political theory of international law (though it is hardly one thing, and some of it refuses altogether the injunctions of traditional political theory). All of this will lead to an examination of two particular problems of international diplomacy to which political theories of international law appear to have responded: namely, intervention and war crimes trials, and an engagement with two interdisciplinary turns (to History and to International Relations) through which international law has enlivened its habits of thought and theoretical inclinations.
The Ethical Foundations of Aid
Authors: Collier Paul
Published: April 2018

Despite its long history, aid for poor countries has never had a secure ethical rationale. “Poverty reduction” is inadequate: I show that people who are equally poor, but in countries with different circumstances, should not be equally eligible. I ground the rationale for aid in two psychologically instinctive duties of rescue: for humanitarian aid the rescue is from catastrophe, for development assistance it is from mass despair. I argue that the common practice of making aid conditional upon policy—whether economic, as developed by the International Financial Institutions, or social and environmental as required by NGOs—is both unethical and counterproductive. Instead, I develop the advantages and limitations of aid for mutual benefit.
A Feminist Practical Ethics of Care
Authors: Robinson Fiona
Published: April 2018

This chapter builds a picture of a critical, feminist ethics of care as a feminist practical ethics for international relations. It focuses on care ethics as a moral framework for addressing the challenges of humanitarianism—in a manner that foregrounds human needs while not depoliticizing or taking for granted the category of “human.” A care ethics approach furthers the transformative aims of feminism, while refusing to cast “women-and-children” as vulnerable victims in need of protection. The ethics of care also offers a substantive focus for policy and practice around diverse and competing needs for care. Far from confining women to their roles as carers, this approach exposes patterns of gender inequality in care practices, while retaining a focus on the contribution of the voice and labour of care—in multiple and diverse forms—for all social groups and communities.
The Ethics of Recognition in International Political Theory
Authors: Geis Anna
Published: April 2018

Studies on recognition in international politics deal with the (de-)legitimation of specific actors and the political dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in international society. Misrecognition, which actors experience as humiliation, disrespect, or false representations of their identity, is seen as a major cause of political resistance. This chapter first outlines the emerging body of literature on recognition in international relations. The following sections focus on three politicized issue areas in contemporary conflict settings: the struggles for (status) recognition by so-called “emerging powers”; the recognition processes that occur through negotiations with terrorist groups; and the recognition of individuals as victims in violent conflicts. The final section discusses the pitfalls of the normatively loaded concept of “recognition” in many of these studies. While (mis)recognition is certainly a key concept with which to understand the central dynamics of social and political conflicts, a generous politics of recognition cannot provide a panacea to all of these ills.
Republicanism and International Political Theory
Authors: Slaughter Steven
Published: April 2018

In recent decades republican political theory has gone through a significant revival in the form of neo-Roman republicanism, as chiefly articulated by Philip Pettit. Despite this revival, International Political Theory has tended to overlook republican political theory, and the international dimensions of republicanism are still a subject of debate. Yet at the core of republicanism is the idea that the citizen is central to the way that power and liberty can be institutionalized in both domestic and world politics. This chapter contends that republican theory needs to complement the institutional and constitutional account of republican government exemplified by Pettit, with a greater focus on republican citizenship and the variegated civic efforts conducted by citizens and activists to promote liberty in the context of globalization. This broader consideration of citizens acting both through and beyond the state also requires engagement with critical forms of political theory.
The Case for Ideal Theory
Authors: Valentini Laura
Published: April 2018

Theories of international political morality are often criticized for being too ideal. In this chapter, I unpack and examine this “excessive idealism critique.” I distinguish between two versions of it: one targets the use of idealizations in international political theorizing, the other focuses on insensitivity to feasibility constraints. I argue that, in both cases, the excessive idealism critique is only partially successful. While the use of idealizations and lack of attention to feasibility constraints may be contingently problematic, often they are not. I reach this conclusion by discussing the excessive idealism critique in relation to theories of global justice, of global democracy, and of the just war.
International Political Theory and the Real World
Authors: Brown Chris , Eckersley Robyn
Published: April 2018

This chapter introduces and defends the themes around which the Handbook has been constructed: the importance of an engagement between International Political Theory (IPT) and “real-world” politics, and the need to establish links between IPT and the empirical findings of International Relations scholars. The “new realist” critique of “moralism” is examined along with the more general critique of ideal theory, and both are found to hit a very narrow target. The conventional distinction between “critical theory” and “problem-solving theory” is also challenged, and each is defended as an equally important, albeit different, stage in the life of a theory. The second half of this chapter sets out the principles upon which the Handbook is organized, and provides a guide to each section and chapter.
Biology, Evolution, and International Security
Authors: McDermott Rose , Hatemi Peter K.
Published: April 2018

Current dominant understandings in international security, especially those drawn from notions of classical economic rationality, do not accurately map onto identified human cognitive architecture and processes. As a result, they are limited in their ability to accurately predict human behavior, including violence. After discussing core findings from work in neurobiology, the chapter argues for a greater inclusion of biological factors into the study of international relations. In so doing, there is no intention to negate the influence of larger structural factors, but rather to advocate for the value of including individual variance to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of international relations. The chapter concludes with some speculations about some of the most important questions that might be profitably explored from this perspective going forward.
Religion and International Security
Authors: Philpott Daniel
Published: April 2018

This chapter on religion and international security begins by arguing that religion was largely absent from International Relations (IR) theory since its modern founding in early modern Europe, mirroring its lack of influence on actual IR during the same period. Over the past four decades, though, religion has resurged in its global political influence, while, over the past decade-and-a-half, a literature on religion and IR has appeared and developed. The chapter then looks at this literature, particularly at scholarship that argues for and against religion’s inherently violent nature; that sees religion as a force for both peace and violence; that describes and tracks trends in religious war and religious terrorism; that argues for and against Islam’s proneness to violence; and that seeks to theorize the varying political stances of religious actors. The chapter closes with an analysis of a normative debate on religious freedom.
The Economics of War and Peace
Authors: Caverley Jonathan D.
Published: April 2018

This chapter identifies important changes and continuities taking place in the economics of war and peace. While the economic benefits of conquest have shrunk, there remain many incentives for states to fight each other. Both unipolarity and globalization make peace more likely. Despite contemporary fears, neither appears in danger of ending any time soon. The costs of building a modern military and fighting a modern war continue to rise, a trend that redounds to the United States’ advantage. As has been the case since the Cold War’s end, any undermining of these factors will be due to the unipole’s own actions in pursuit of a domestically-oriented populism and illiberalism.
Arms Control
Authors: Erickson Jennifer L.
Published: April 2018

Arms control attempts to manage the acquisition and use of weapons in international politics, with the goal of preventing the outbreak of war and limiting war’s brutality. Yet experts debate whether arms control can meet these goals in practice. This chapter traces the modern development of arms control, covering its nineteenth-century foundations, the League of Nations, nuclear weapons in the Cold War, and recent “humanitarian” arms control initiatives. Yet the chapter also observes that new weapons and new actors challenge the foundations of existing regimes and raise questions about the form and functioning of future agreements. Even as arms control evolves, understanding it continues to depend on understanding the complex interplay between material and normative pressures states face in domestic and international politics. As concerns about weapons proliferation persist and the domains of conflict expand, arms control will remain a central issue on the international agenda.
Nationalism and International Security
Authors: O'Leary Brendan , Sambanis Nicholas
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores the concept and measurement of nationalism and its implications for international security. It surveys canonical approaches and recent contributions to the literature that revise earlier simplistic understandings of nationalist conflict and national identification. It explores the uses of nationalism in diversionary war, self-determination movements, and great power Realpolitik competition, drawing insights from social psychology to explain the changing salience of national identity and analyzing the conditions under which nationalism can foster violent conflict within or between states. Complex connections between nationalism and war are outlined, highlighting the inherently contingent nature of national conflict. Analysts have been quick to predict the decline of nationalist conflict. The chapter considers the broad set of conditions that are consistent with such predictions, while also identifying scenarios in which nationalist conflicts can proliferate.
Energy Security
Authors: Bros Thierry
Published: April 2018

For 100 years, states have put a major emphasis on energy security. This is about to change as a result of five revolutions: US shale gas, US shale oil, worldwide renewable growth, energy efficiency, and energy storage. The world is now facing an unlimited amount of energy and should restrain fossil fuels use to avoid undesirable climate changes. The power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is becoming irrelevant as should, in the future, the concept of energy security. Energy security is still relevant for armies that need oil to power their tanks, ships, and aircrafts. But for how long?
Migration
Authors: Klotz Audie
Published: April 2018

Migration as a potential security concern should be analyzed through the politics of threat construction. This chapter delineates the salience of migration along three dimensions of security: interstate, societal, and human. For each dimension, it draws upon iconic contributions to the literature and recent scholarly interventions. Along the way, the chapter weaves examples from around the world to underscore that, at a time when the security implications of migration are grabbing headlines around the world, the inclusion of migration within security studies also requires a reassessment of the field’s Eurocentric roots. In particular, the chapter pushes for rethinking the nation state as a building block of our theories.
International Security and Development
Authors: Tschirgi Necla
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines two interrelated questions: How do challenges in the development arena contribute to global insecurity today? What types of research, policies, and strategies can best contribute to alleviating, mitigating, and preventing these threats? The chapter argues that after a lengthy period during the Cold War when development and security were artificially separated, these twin agendas gradually started to come closer in the 1990s under a new era of liberal internationalism. However, the re-emergence of hard security threats after 9/11 have interrupted efforts toward greater alignment between development and security Many of the challenges that currently confront the international system have their roots in the development arena and require concerted efforts by development and security analysts and actors. The chapter analyzes the perfect storm of developmental factors that are building up to threaten international security and examines possible avenues for greater cooperation between the two fields for preventive action.
Drone Proliferation in the Twenty-first Century
Authors: Kreps Sarah , Fuhrmann Matt , Horowitz Michael
Published: April 2018

What are the causes and consequences of the proliferation of armed unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones? The chapter outlines several potential reasons why actors might acquire the technology: operational incentives, technological availability, regime type, and emulation before discussing the consequences of this acquisition. The consequences of drone proliferation are context dependent: drone proliferation carries potentially significant consequences for counter-terrorism operations and domestic control in authoritarian regimes. Drones lower the costs of using force by eliminating the risk to pilots, making some states—especially democracies—more likely to carry out targeted attacks against suspected militants. This technology also provides autocratic leaders with a new tool to bolster their domestic regime security. The chapter’s analysis has implications for a range of policy issues: the regulation of drone exports, the management of hotspots such as East Asia and the Middle East, and defense against potential terrorist attacks on the homeland.
Alliances
Authors: Rynning Sten , Schmitt Olivier
Published: April 2018

This chapter provides an overview of the literature on alliances. It discusses the classical scholarship dealing with the formation of alliances and their impact on the international system, but also assesses trending debates on the relationship between alliances and, on the one hand, the maintenance of international order, and on the other, the nature of multinational military interventions. The study of alliances has traditionally focused on states and war, with alliances being a tool with which the former could manage the latter. In recent years, the field has widened, taking into account alliances’ evolving and contested relationship to both broader collective security institutions and narrower and supposedly more effective coalitions. As they change in character, alliances will continuously define the frontier between cooperation and conflict and be of central concern to security studies scholars.
Liberal Approaches
Authors: Owen John M.
Published: April 2018

Liberalism always has been concerned with the security of the individual against violence and deprivation. Liberal approaches to international security focus on institutions, or collectively held rules, as mediating between material variables and international outcomes. States are arenas of contestation among individuals and groups, and differ according to their institutions. International realms are distinguished by the number, type, and membership of institutions. The realms are linked: liberal democracies construct and maintain liberal international institutions. As the increase of peaceful, wealthy democracies since the Second World War shows, these states have relatively secure citizens and enjoy comparative international success. In the future, the liberal order could be weakened by the ongoing rise of nonliberal China; escalations of transnational terrorism; and alienation from liberalism within the wealthy democracies. Future liberal security scholarship should attend to differences among non-democracies; causal links between domestic and international institutions; and the co-evolution of states and the international environment.
INGOs and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships
Authors: Beisheim Marianne , Ellersiek Anne , Lorch Jasmin
Published: April 2018

This chapter analyses two groups of non-profit external non-state governance actors that are active in areas of limited statehood (ALS): international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs). After some examples of the collective goods these actors provide in contexts of limited statehood, their effectiveness is assessed in terms of output, outcome, and impact. It is found that in ALS, the activities of MSPs and INGOs can become part of the solution, but may also exacerbate existing problems. Empirical research shows that it is already demanding for INGOs and MSPs to produce good output in ALS, let alone broader impact. The analysis provides insights on the conditions under which INGOs and MSPs can—and cannot—successfully provide governance in ALS and how their activities impact limited statehood itself. Finally, the findings are discussed against the background of recent trends affecting governance by external state and non-state actors in ALS.
‘Traditional’ Authorities
Authors: Förster Till , Koechlin Lucy
Published: April 2018

This contribution explores the role of ‘traditional’ authorities in governance arrangements and how the term ‘tradition’ was used and constructed by local as well as external actors. First, it outlines how tradition was previously discussed and eventually deconstructed in scholarly debates. Second, it looks at how tradition is conceived as an emic notion in the social sciences today, in particular in anthropology and sociology, and how it is used as a legitimizing claim to the past by political actors in areas of limited statehood in West and East Africa. Third, its role in settings of legal pluralism where ‘traditional’ or ‘customary’ norms are recognized parallel to civil law is examined. The fourth section develops a more theoretical perspective on ‘traditional’ authorities and processes of political articulation in governance arrangements. Finally, the contribution concludes by outlining the relevance of this approach for a post-structuralist social theory of governance.
Theories of Development and Areas of Limited Statehood
Authors: Krasner Stephen D.
Published: April 2018

Three different analytic approaches have informed studies of development: modernization theory, institutional capacity, and rational choice institutionalism. For modernization theory, areas of limited statehood would become smaller and smaller over time. For institutional capacity approaches, areas of limited statehood might become smaller over time, but only if the capacity of the state increases, which might or might not happen. Rational choice institutionalism suggests that areas of limited statehood would be normal for most polities. Governance might be provided in areas of limited statehood by actors other than the national state, but only if such service provision does not threaten the position of rulers. If islands of excellence are created by actors other than the national state in areas of limited statehood, they will remain isolated islands that will not diffuse to other parts of the polity where they might be a threat to rulers.
Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Democracy
Authors: Berger Tobias , Lake Milli
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines the promotion of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy by external actors in areas of limited statehood. It begins with the definition of key terms and a brief overview of the historical trajectory in which contemporary interventions by external actors unfold. We then discuss cross-cutting issues and introduce the key actors involved in the promotion of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy. Analysing each of these issue areas in turn, we make three overarching arguments. Firstly, we highlight the multiplicity of outcomes that result from external interventions, whose impacts prove highly unevenly and spatially dispersed. Secondly, we emphasize the crucial influence of local actors and pre-existing institutions in shaping the outcomes of any governance intervention. Finally, we note that external actors have tended to rely on state-centric conceptualizations of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.
Health
Authors: Holzscheiter Anna
Published: April 2018

This chapter will introduce health as a policy field and carve out the implications of limited statehood for health governance. It will discuss broader trends in the literature on health governance in areas of limited statehood and introduce major controversies revolving around the notions of effectiveness, legitimacy, and sustainability. The chapter starts by discussing different definitions of health governance, arguing that the differentiation between domestic and global health governance makes little sense in the face of contemporary developments. It further engages with the question of which actors are involved in health governance, their motivations, resources, and core areas of activity. The chapter goes on to discuss how limited statehood affects health governance—nationally and globally—using the case of polio eradication. The last part will introduce the reader to issues of effectiveness and legitimacy with a particular focus on contemporary debates about the legitimacy of non-state actors in global health.
Environmental and Natural Resources
Authors: Hamann Ralph , Hönke Jana , O’Riordan Tim
Published: April 2018

The environment and natural resources constitute a particularly urgent and complex governance domain. A linear relationship is commonly assumed between statehood and environmental performance, but this is not supported by the data, nor the expansive literatures that focus on communities and social networks, on the one hand, and on markets and voluntary action by market-based actors, on the other. ‘Hybrid’ or ‘mixed’ forms of governance involving collaboration between state, business, and civil society actors have emerged, but the effectiveness and legitimacy of such collaboration is likely constrained in areas with very limited statehood. As statehood increases, prospects for such mixed governance improve, though this depends inter alia on characteristics of the state, such as its commitment to participatory and deliberative decision-making. Overall, statehood clearly plays an important role in environmental governance and its outcomes, but in a more multidimensional and often indirect way than commonly assumed.
A Historical-Sociological Perspective on Statehood
Authors: Schlichte Klaus
Published: April 2018

States outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) appear to display ‘limited statehood’ when measured against an idealized image of statehood. This general statement, however, conceals multiple dynamics of state domination. Discussions about these dynamics have been centred around concepts like neopatrimonialism, the developmental state, and post-socialism. There are now two main tendencies regarding how states currently change: either they revive as developmental states, or they become increasingly internationalized sites of rule, which can be labelled internationalized states. Various kinds of agencies are then involved in politics, but it might be a euphemism to label all of this ‘governance’, since these complex changes are full of contradictions and power competition.
Normative Political Theory
Authors: Jacob Daniel , Ladwig Bernd , Schmelzle Cord
Published: April 2018

The state was long seen as the only institution able to govern legitimately. The empirical limitations of statehood in many parts of the world, as well as the normative ambivalences inherent to statehood, however, have led to a renewed interest in the legitimacy of non-state governance. A prominent approach holds that non-state governance is legitimate if and to the extent that it contributes to normatively desirable outcomes, such as an increase in security. This chapter argues that this approach faces four problems that severely limited the scope of legitimate governance by non-state actors in areas of limited statehood. They concern the definition of goods, the inclusiveness of governance services, the accountability of non-state actors, and the reliable assignment of responsibilities. We contend that these problems highlight the need for public institutions and explore whether and how non-state actors can assume public roles under conditions of limited statehood.
Anthropological Perspectives on the Limits of the State
Authors: Brandel Andrew , Randeria Shalini
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines how anthropological work on the state and political power not only complements, but also contests the political scientific conception of limited statehood. The two disciplines are no longer distinguished by the methods they employ, or their analytical dispositions, or the regions of the world where they conduct research. Here it is suggested instead that anthropology continues to be defined by its commitment to challenging universalizing social scientific assumptions on the basis of ethnography that theorizes from everyday experience. Drawing on examples both from the global South and North, we delineate how anthropology nuances various conceptions of limits of state power, particularly those that structure the binaries of West and non-West, public and private, state and non-state, formal and informal, national and trans- or supranational, on which much of the discussion of state capacity, or its partial absence, is predicated.
A Global History of Governance
Authors: Herren Madeleine
Published: April 2018

This chapter explains how concepts and practices of global governance intertwined modern nation-building and imperialism since the late nineteenth century. The main argument is that multilayered forms of networked governance, now a characteristic of the twenty-first century’s porous borders, are closely connected to colonial power settings. The first section introduces the historical rationale for the interdisciplinary discourse on global governance and limited statehood analysis. Focusing on the coincidence of imperialism and nation-building, the chapter unveils the colonial power settings as a basis for the development of multilayered networked governance. The examples chosen address global governance problems, claims, and discussions that remain as pertinent today. They include the Congo Free State and the period of power transition after World War I with the League of Nations as its main actor. The chapter discusses periods of crises and war, as well as the changing status and entitlements of individuals.
The Unconscious in Phenomenology
Authors: Lanfredini Roberta
Published: April 2018

The expression “phenomenology of the unconscious” seems to have an undoubted oxymoronic quality. In phenomenology, the concept of a phenomenon is strictly concerned with consciousness and with its transcendental structure. Nevertheless, there exists in phenomenology, and especially from Husserl onwards, a strong sensitivity to the passive, receptive, affective dimension, understood as a dark, confused dimension, not lit up by the intentional ray. On the other hand, the profoundly epistemological character of Husserl’s phenomenology does not seem to allow for an absolute unconscious. Insofar as it is submerged in an abyss, the unconscious is in fact always a “thing” of consciousness. The transformation of phenomenological gnoseology into phenomenological ontology, the profound revisiting of the notion of temporal flow, the emergence of the theme of the impersonal in Merleau-Ponty, and that of otherness in Ricoeur grants us more radical tools with which to sound that “dark depth” from which phenomenology starts out.
Conscience
Authors: Moskalewicz Marcin
Published: April 2018

This article proposes a phenomenological view of conscience and argues that it plays a role in the pathogenesis of some mental illness. Taking advantage of Kępiński’s concept of biological conscience, Heidegger’s notion of the call of conscience, and von Gebsattel’s idea of existential neurosis, the article claims that these different epistemological accounts of conscience refer to the phenomenon of temporal becoming. Original conscience, unlike its psychological manifestation, embodies primary values and helps to overcome nihilism that is the root of human suffering. It reveals nothingness and opens the horizon of expectations toward the possibilities of being, which in turn enables the transcendence of oneself. Presented understanding of conscience is relevant for values-based practice by pointing at a shared framework of becoming that conditions the very possibility of finding an agreement between conflicting worldviews.
Introduction
Authors: Medvetz Thomas , Sallaz Jeffrey J.
Published: April 2018

This chapter provides a concise summary of the life, work, and significance of the late sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. His life, the authors argue, must be understood in the context of twentieth-century French society. His own personal trajectory through the French academic hierarchy must be put in the context of the expansion of mass education in France during the late twentieth century. His concern with power and domination can be traced back to his experience as an unwilling soldier in France’s colonial occupation of Algeria. His eventual ascent to the top of France’s academic hierarchy resulted in a series of critical studies of the French elite: the professoriate, artists, writers, and so on. This retelling of Bourdieu’s biography is followed by a summary of the subsequent chapters of the Handboook.
Bourdieu and Organizations
Authors: Hallett Tim , Gougherty Matthew
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines the relationship between Bourdieu’s sociology and organizational research, some of the ways he has been influential, how his ideas have been used, and new opportunities to push his research. In helping to spark the cultural turn in sociology, Bourdieu indirectly influenced the new institutionalist approach within organizational sociology. Although organizations were rarely the primary focus of his own work, we argue that there are traces of an organizational sociology in some of his canonical books. Much like his other work, this implicit approach is centered on the field-capital-habitus triumvirate. However, organizational scholars influenced by Bourdieu tend to focus on and modify the concepts of field and capital. Given recent calls to apply Bourdieu’s full conceptual framework to the study of organizations, we examine the promise and the potential pitfalls of incorporating Bourdieu’s concepts into the scholarship on the micro-foundations of institutions, especially as it relates to social interaction.
Bourdieu’s Capital(s)
Authors: Neveu Erik
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores three central questions. The first section describes the four core varieties of capitals: cultural, social, economic, and symbolic. It highlights some peculiarites of Bourdieu’s approach: the focus on symbolic capital, a definition of social capital different from those of North American. A second section questions the limits of economic metaphors. Bourdieu borrows from the lexicon of economics (capitals, conversion rates). But he devotes attention to the sociopolitical dimension of the struggles for defining the conversion rates between capitals and warns that “rational” actions are one historical dimension of a complex space of “reasonable” actions. Finally, the chapter discusses the question of the number of capitals. Should one add to Bourdieu’s list something like a bodily or erotic capital? If each field values a specific capital, should researchers produce an endless list of specific capitals, or are these specific capitals always combinations of the four basic ones?
Habitus and Beyond
Authors: Benzecry Claudio E.
Published: April 2018

Chapter abstract Pierre Bourdieu coined the concept of habitus to capture the connection between embodiment, cognition, processes of singularization and temporalization, and the collective. This chapter discusses the aporias that result from this semantic ambition. It starts with a presentation of the many uses of habitus in Bourdieu’s own work; what follows is how the concept has been deployed in research by US sociologists; the third and main section of the chapter looks at the aporias provoked by the concept’s extension and the many critical avenues pursued by other scholars after it. This last section focuses less on criticisms to Bourdieu’s oeuvre and more on scholarship produced in tension with dispositional accounts of social action. The author presents six conversations that point at conceptual or semantic connections that are taken for granted in habitus and that have been examined by scholars such as Lahire, Steinmetz, Wacquant, Auyero, Elias, and Boltanski.
Bourdieusian Field Theory and the Reorientation of Historical Sociology
Authors: Steinmetz George
Published: April 2018

Chapter abstract This chapter explores some of the ways Bourdieusian theory is reinvigorating historical sociology. The first section reconstructs Bourdieu’s increasingly serious engagement over the course of his career with historians and historical material. It argues that Bourdieu generated and encouraged among his students a unique approach to historical sociology. The second section argues that the historical turn in Bourdieu’s work is firmly grounded in the fundamentally historicity of his two key theoretical concepts, habitus and field. The third section sketches an agenda for future work in historical sociology based on Bourdieu’s mature theory. The final section surveys recent social research using Bourdieusian field theory, arguing that this constitutes an unacknowledged and growing tendency within historical sociology.
Four Transversal Principles for Putting Bourdieu to Work
Authors: Wacquant Loïc
Published: April 2018

Chapter abstract This chapter spotlights four transversal principles that undergird and animate Bourdieu’s research practice, and can fruitfully guide inquiry on any empirical front: the Bachelardian imperative of epistemological rupture and vigilance; the Weberian command to effect the triple historicization of the agent (habitus), the world (social space, of which field is but a subtype), and the categories of the analyst (epistemic reflexivity); the Leibnizian-Durkheimian invitation to deploy the topological mode of reasoning to track the mutual correspondences between symbolic space, social space, and physical space; and the Cassirer moment urging us to recognize the constitutive efficacy of symbolic structures. The chapter also flags three traps that Bourdieusian explorers of the social world should exercise special care to avoid: the fetishization of concepts, the seductions of “speaking Bourdieuse” while failing to carry out the research operations Bourdieu’s notions stipulate, and the forced imposition of his theoretical framework en bloc.
Field Theory from a Transnational Perspective
Authors: Sapiro Gisèle
Published: April 2018

This chapter provides a new reading of field theory from a transnational perspective in light of the criticism taking issue with its alleged “methodological nationalism.” The field is an abstract concept that allows for the methodological autonomization of a space of activity defined in relational terms, provided that this autonomization is historically and sociologically grounded. As a result, fields are not necessarily limited to the perimeters of the nation-state. After reviewing the process of differentiation of fields and the phenomena of dependence and embeddedness, the chapter addresses the phenomena of nationalization and the role of the state in the formation of fields, then analyzes different modes and strategies of internationalization in relation to the structure of international power struggles, and to the tensions between state, market, and field borders. Finally, indicators of the emergence of transnational fields are proposed. In conclusion, the chapter comes back to the question of comparativism.
Subjective Well-Being
Authors: Oishi Shigehiro , Diener Ed , Lucas Richard E.
Published: April 2018

This chapter describes the literature on subjective well-being, or a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life as a whole. Researchers have developed reliable and valid self-report measures of subjective well-being. They have also shown that various personality traits are associated with subjective well-being. Significant life events do affect one’s subjective well-being; there are, however, individual variations in the speed with which people adapt to life events. Furthermore, predictors of subjective well-being vary across nations. Several interventions studies have been conducted. Although there are many effective interventions on subjective well-being, it is not yet known whether these interventions last for an extended period of time and work well for most people. Important future directions include the development of reliable and valid non-self-report measures, the effects of life events and societal conditions, and the development of interventions that last for an extended period of time.
Our Lady and the Saints
Authors: de Gaál Emery
Published: April 2018

This chapter considers the nature and development of Mariology—the theology of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God—within the context of the Church understood as the communion of saints. The chapter begins by detailing the gradual unfolding of Marian theology and devotion in the Church from the New Testament until the sixteenth century. The development and proclamation of the dogmas of the immaculate conception and of the assumption are then studied. Treatment of Mary and the Church is followed by discussion of the theology of sainthood. The chapter ends with reference to Vatican II’s emphasis on Mary’s role within the Church.
The CouncilS of Trent and Vatican I
Authors: Washburn Christian D.
Published: April 2018

This chapter considers two important ecumenical councils of the Church in the modern era: Trent (1545–63) and Vatican I (1869–70). The chapter examines in detail the key teachings of each council. The reform decrees of Trent will only be discussed in so far as they touch upon dogmatic decrees. In the case of Trent the chapter identifies the key documents from the many sessions of the council over its twenty-year history, offering a clear guide to ways in which its teachings on revelation, grace, and justification offered a precise Catholic response to the emergent theologies of Protestantism. Vatican I’s key teachings on revelation, the knowledge of God, and the status of the papacy are similarly treated.