Human Beings in International Relations

by Daniel Jacobi, Annette Freyberg-Inan

Overview

Since the 1980s, the discipline of International Relations has seen a series of disputes over its foundations. However, there has been one core concept that, although addressed in various guises, had never been explicitly and systematically engaged with in these debates: the human. This volume is the first to address comprehensively the topic of the human in world politics. It comprises cutting-edge accounts by leading scholars of how the human is (or is not) theorized across the entire range of IR theories, old and new. The authors provide a solid foundation for future debates about how, why, and to which ends the human has been or must (not) be built into our theories, and systematically lay out the implications of such moves for how we come to see world politics and humanity's role within it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107116252
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/11/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	394
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Daniel Jacobi is Research Associate and Lecturer at Goethe University in Frankfurt as well as a Research Associate in the Cluster of Excellence 'Formation of Normative Orders'.

Annette Freyberg-Inan is Professor of International Relations at the Technical University Darmstadt and Research Affiliate at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research and its program group on 'Political Economy and Transnational Governance'.

Table of Contents

Introduction: human being(s) in international relations Daniel Jacobi and Annette Freyberg-Inan; Part I. International Political Anthropology: 1. Between fear and despair: human nature in realism Annette Freyberg-Inan; 2. 'Human nature' and the paradoxical order of liberalism Stephen J. Rosow; 3. Disciplining human nature: the evolution of American social scientific theorizing Jennifer Sterling-Folker and Jason F. Charrette; 4. The Marxist perspective from 'species-being' to natural justice Chris Brown; 5. In biology we trust: biopolitical science and the elusive self Duncan Bell; 6. Greeks, neuroscience, and international relations Richard Ned Lebow; 7. Constructivism, realism, and the variety of human natures Samuel Barkin; 8. Feminism and the figure of Man Elisabeth Prügl; Part II. International Political Post-Anthropology: 9. Realism, agency, and the politics of nature Colin Wight; 10. A global human condition Mauro J. Caraccioli; 11. Imagining man – forgetting society? Benjamin Herborth; 12. On the social (re)construction of the human in world politics Daniel Jacobi; 13. Observing visions of man Oliver Kessler; 14. Who is acting in international relations? Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Nicholas J. Rowland; Conclusion: toward an International Political (Post-)Anthropology Annette Freyberg-Inan and Daniel Jacobi.

Editorial Reviews

"Human Beings in International Relations is a theoretical treasure trove. Jacobi and Freyberg-Inan make us aware of a remarkable variety of theoretical perspectives on ‘thinking the human’. They make those perspectives resonate with or contradict each other, unburying many research paths that must have been there all along, but still await our analysis."
Stefano Guzzini, Danish Institute for International Studies, Uppsala University and Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro

"Talk of "human nature", once common in international theory and international studies, has been much less prominent in recent decades. But thinking about the category of "the human" can never be too foreign to any account of social life, and international affairs are no exception. This remarkable volume foregrounds both the extent to which our existing theoretical tools are interwoven with assumptions about human nature, and makes possible a series of considerations reaching beyond those assumptions."
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Associate Dean, School of International Service, American University, Washington DC

'It is a collection that accomplishes to a large extent what the editors Jacobi and Freyberg-Inan in their introduction promise to deliver: 'a comprehensive, balanced, open-minded, and up-to-date study of the human element, its relation to world politics, and our ways of producing knowledge about them.' Asli Calkivik, International Studies Review

From the Publisher