The Vulnerable Subject Beyond Rationalism in International Relations

by Beattie, Amanda Russell; Schick, Kate

• ISBN13: 9780230293465
• ISBN10: 0230293468
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-12-14
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

International Relations scholarship has typically engaged with vulnerability as a problem to be solved through 'rational' attempts to craft a global order marked by universality, predictability and stability. By recovering an awareness of the persistently vulnerable human subject, this book argues that we can re-engage with issues of emotion, relationality, community and history that are often excluded from the study of global politics. This collection proposes an agonistic approach to international ethics and politics, eschewing a rationalism that radically privileges white Western conceptions of the world and that actively oppresses alternative voices. The Vulnerable Subject addresses issues such as trust, judgement, climate change, identity, and post-colonial relations, allowing for a profound rethinking of one of the core driving assumptions at the heart of international politics.

Author Biography

AMANDA RUSSELL BEATTIE is a Lecturer at Aston University, UK. She researches topics at the intersection of international political theory and political philosophy and is author of Justice and Morality: Human Suffering, Natural Law and International Politics and War, Torture and Terrorism: Rethinking the Rules of International Security (co-authored with Anthony Lang, Jr.) KATE SCHICK is a Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research lies at the intersection between contemporary political theory and critical security studies and focuses particularly on responses to trauma and suffering in international theory. She is author of Gillian Rose: A Good Enough Justice (2012).

Table of Contents

Introduction; A.R.Beattie & K.Schick
PART I:

A Place of Greater Safety? Securing Judgement in International Ethics; K.Hutchings
Gillian Rose and Vulnerable Judgement; K.Schick
Vulnerability, Moral Luck & the Morality of Natural Law; A.R.Beattie
Trust, Rationality and Vulnerability in International Relations; T.Michel
PART II
'The Damage was permanent, there would always be scars': Vulnerability and Accountability in a Post-rational World; B.J.Steele
Who will Provide the West with Therapy?; R.Shilliam
Pathological Vulnerability and the Politics of Climate Change; E.Gammon
Between Self-esteem and Self-respect: Vulnerability in Japanese Foreign Policy; R.Nakano
Conclusion; A.R.Beattie