Popularizing International Politics: Human Agency and the Politics of World Order
Popularizing International Politics: Human Agency and the Politics of World Order

Summary/Abstract: This article articulates a politics of the world as process, which is imperative as globalizing forces render boundaries unintelligible; trans-border issues occupy international public policy makers as subjects for global governance; and human agents increasingly act in the realm of world politics. Rather than tackling the infinite details of each of these, I instead concentrate on their convergence. I find in Marx and Carr a language and a logic (even if they are rudimentary) with which to recognize the centrality of human agency in a politics of the world. I then turn to Hannah Arendt, whose global conception of politics, which centered on the generative power of human agents, helps us extricate Marx and Carr’s accounts from statist boundaries. Finally, I apply their insights to the institutional and normative dimensions of Hedley Bull’s underdeveloped concept of world order. Together, their insights enable us to rethink anarchy as a space for political activity.

• Details
• Contents