Theory Talks has their latest excellent interview now online – this time with Beate Jahn.
International Relations Theory is profoundly entangled with the thought of classical theorists such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Their concepts and ideas serve as the universal foundations upon which the edifices of our discipline are built. Yet rarely are the core concepts we borrow from them problematized as cultural constructs that in and by themselves served to legitimate violence and domination. Beate Jahn has dedicated herself to unearthing some of contemporary IR’s classical underpinnings, linking contemporary intervention to classical constructions of self and other through philosophy. In this Talk, Jahn—among others—elaborates on the cultural construction of the state of nature; relates it to the identity processes at work in liberalism; and explains the importance of classical theory in International Relations.
