Recasting the Hobbesian Legacy in International Political Theory

Abstract

Thomas Hobbes is one of the most familiar figures in international political theory, and the idea a ‘Hobbesian tradition’ continues to be one of the structuring intellectual devices in the field of International Relations (IR). As an exemplar of theories of conflict based on human nature, or as a thinker whose vision of the state of nature as a state of war provides inspiration for understanding international anarchy, or simply as the symbol of an enduring pessimism about the possibilities for progress in world politics, Hobbes remains one of IR’s most enduringly influential thinkers. My purpose in this chapter is not to provide another analysis of Hobbes thinking as a viable model for theories of International Relations (IR), or to provide a critique of prevailing attempts to do so.1 Instead, I seek to explore an enlarged sense of what the Hobbesian tradition might be in international political theory by bringing it together with important strands in political theory from which it has remained largely severed. The visions of Hobbes found in these explorations are marked by different (and in many ways more intriguing) concerns than have traditionally dominated analogous treatments in studies of world politics. But they also foreground the importance of one of IR’s defining concerns – war – and thus show the need for a more extensive and intensive engagement between political theory and a revivified appreciation of what a Hobbesian tradition in international political theory might look like.KeywordsInternational RelationPolitical PhilosophyPolitical TheoryPolitical OrderWorld PoliticsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.