International Political Theory after Hobbes

CAMILLA BOISEN Research Associate at the National History Museum, Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark DAVID BOUCHER Professor in the School of European Studies at Cardiff University, Wales, UK GLEN NEWEY Professor in the School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy at Keele University, UK RAIA PROKHOVNIK Reader in Politics at the Open University, UK SERGEI PROZOROV Collegium Research Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland GABRIELLA SLOMP Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, UK TOM SORELL John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, UK ROB WALKER Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada HOWARD WILLIAMS Professor in the Department of International Politics at the University of Abersytwyth, Wales, UK MICHAEL WILLIAMS Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, Canada

The idea of international political theory after Hobbes is a timely and lively focus through which to raise key questions about international politics, and to set up dialogues between historical political theory and contemporary theories of international relations about the legacy of Hobbes in international politics.

The idea of international political theory after Hobbes is a timely and lively focus through which to raise key questions about international politics, and to set up dialogues between historical political theory and contemporary theories of international relations about the legacy of Hobbes in international politics. The move by political theorists towards consideration of the international realm and the consequent blurring of the distinction between domestic and international politics over recent years has been marked. In the light of these changes, the role of Hobbes in the dominant realist theory of International Relations requires urgent re-examination. This book makes an important and distinctive contribution to the argument that international political theory is moving beyond the reading of Hobbes as a founding theorist of the modern state in an inter-state system perpetuated by orthodox International Relations. The volume brings together a set of internationally-respected researchers with an expertise on Hobbes’ views on international relations in the context of the history of political thought, Hobbesian realism, and on Hobbes and contemporary international political theory.