Event

Most students of international relations quite naturally assume that their inquiries are confined to a preexisting international domain distinct from its component parts as well as from other domains of inquiry. But how and when did this international realm emerge, and how has its existence become so widely taken for granted? Whereas scholars have long disputed exactly when this happened, they have been in broad agreement that this happened as a consequence of a largely simultaneous transition from a world of empires to a world of states.

In his talk, Jens Bartelson will sketch the outlines of an alternative account of the emergence of the international realm focused instead how relations between different polities have been conceptualized across a variety of cultural and historical contexts from the sixteenth century to the present day, arguing that rather than superseding a world of empires, the international realm is best understood as a continuation of that world by other means: as an empire of the international.

This event is hosted by NUPI's Centre for Historical International Politics (CHIP).

Jens Bartelson received his doctorate from the University of Stockholm in 1993. His fields of interest include international political theory, the history of political thought, political philosophy and social theory. Jens Bartelson has written mainly about the concept of the sovereign state, the philosophy of world community, and the concept of war in international thought.

He is the author of War in International Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Visions of World Community (Cambridge University Press, 2009), The Critique of the State (Cambridge University Press, 2001), A Genealogy of Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press, 1995), as well as of articles in leading journals in international relations, international law, political theory, and sociology.