Hannah Arendt and International Relations: Readings Across the Lines

240 Pages·2005·1.174 MB·English

by  Anthony F. Lang Jr., John Williams (eds.)

annah rendt and
H A
nternational elations
I R
annah rendt and
H A
nternational elations
I R
eadings cross the ines
R A L
Edited by
Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
John Williams
ISBN 978-0-230-60613-5 ISBN 978-1-4039-8150-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403981509
HANNAHARENDTANDINTERNATIONALRELATIONS
© Anthony F.Lang,Jr.and John Williams,2005.
Reprint of the original edition 2005
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Hannah Arendt and international relations :readings across the
lines / edited by Anthony F.Lang,Jr.,John Williams.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Arendt,Hannah.2.International relations.I.Lang,Anthony F.,
1968– II.Williams,John,1969–
JC251.A74H326 2005
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ontents
C
Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction 1
John Williams with Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
2. Hannah Arendt: A Biographical and Political Introduction 27
Patricia Owens
3. Hannah Arendt, Violence, and the Inescapable
Fact of Humanity 41
Patricia Owens
4. Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Transitional Justice 67
Andrew Schaap
5. Hannah Arendt and “The Right to Have Rights” 95
Bridget Cotter
6. Hannah Arendt’s Critical Realism: Power, Justice, and
Responsibility 113
Douglas Klusmeyer
7. Governance and Political Action: Hannah Arendt on
Global Political Protest 179
Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
8. Hannah Arendt and the International Space In-Between? 199
John Williams
9. Between International Politics and International Ethics 221
Anthony F. Lang, Jr. with John Williams
List of Contributors 233
Index 235
cknowledgments
A
T
his book was conceived, as with more academic projects than most
are prepared to admit, in a bar. A chance introduction over a drink in
the Chicago Hilton during the 2001 ISA Convention resulted in each
of the editors discovering that they were not, as they had tended to
think, the only person in International Relations (IR) with an interest
in Hannah Arendt. The first vote of thanks therefore goes to our
mutual friend, William Bain, who effected the introduction.
From these chance and unlikely beginnings, we embarked on a
project to put together a panel on Hannah Arendt for the 2002 ISA
Convention. Given our impression that we were the only people in IR
with such an interest, this looked like a tall order. We could provide
two papers, but looking for two more, a chair and a discussant would,
we thought, be pretty difficult. However, this insular impression was
soon revealed to be wholly false and we easily established two panels
on Arendt as there turned out to be many people who shared such an
interest. Thanks therefore must go to those who helped us find our
panelists, especially Andy Schaap and Patricia Owens for their sugges-
tions on participants, and to the discussants, Kim Hutchings and
Molly Cochran, who did that job with their characteristic good
humor, good grace, and intellectual insight. Both wished us well as we
declared our intention to develop the papers on those panels into a
book, and have expressed supportive interest in its progress ever since.
John Williams would like to thank the British Academy who sup-
ported financially the presentation at the 2002 ISA Convention of the
paper that has become the chapter on an international in-between.
Our next vote of thanks goes to Toby Wahl at Palgrave, who agreed
with a surprising readiness to take on a book on Arendt and interna-
tional relations. He has been very helpful throughout the somewhat
protracted process of putting it together, showing understanding and
encouragement through some difficult stages of developing the
viii Acknowledgments
finalversion. We would also like to acknowledge that an earlier version
of the chapter by Andrew Schaap appeared as “Forgiveness, Recon-
ciliation, and Transitional Justice,” in Contemporary Political
Theory2, no. 1: 77–88 and is included here by permission of Palgrave
Macmillan.
Our families have also provided a great deal of support during this
process, too, and their contribution deserves recognition and our very
considerable thanks.
Finally, these acknowledgments began with the metaphor of con-
ception and they finish with the reality of death. The project of put-
ting this book together has covered a period marked by the death of
John Williams’s father in November 2001 and Tony Lang’s mother in
December 2003. They never met or knew one another but both
played similar roles in providing the encouragement, support, love,
and companionship that helped us, and continues to help us after they
have gone, to pursue intellectual and personal fulfilment. We would
thus like to dedicate this book to their memory.
h a p t e r 1
C
ntroduction
I
John Williams with Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
Why Hannah Arendt?
International Relations (IR) theory has benefited greatly from a
growing interaction with political theory and philosophy over the last
20 years.1 Via postmodernism and the work of Foucault, Derrida,
Rorty, and Lyotard continental theory has become an accepted part of
theoretical discourse.2The Frankfurt School Critical Theory, exempli-
fied by the work of Habermas, has also carved out a significant niche.3
In International Political Economy (IPE), the work of Antonio
Gramsci has inspired perhaps the most dynamic analysis of economic
globalization, and certainly one with a powerful critical voice.4
Traditional stalwarts of political theory courses, such as Kant, Mill,
and Bentham, have regained prominence via the democratic peace
literature and issues such as cosmopolitan democracy and global
citizenship.5The revival of normative theory also owes a great deal to
political theory and philosophy with both cosmopolitan and commu-
nitarian camps often identifying themselves with Kant and Hegel,
respectively.6 Even realism, often seen as lacking in philosophical
sophistication, has looked to its theoretical roots. This is most obvious
in the use of neoclassical economic analogies and rational choice
theory in neorealism, but has also involved a consideration of thinkers
such as Carl Schmitt—adding the, admittedly problematic, weapon of
the twentieth century’s most trenchant critic of liberalism to the
armory of policy-oriented, problem-solving pragmatism.7
The process, hopefully, is becoming increasingly two-way with
political theorists waking up to the eroding credibility of a basic
2 John Williams with Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
distinction between domestic and international politics and the need
for two different sorts of theory. Martin Wight’s famous account of
why there is no international theory of comparable sophistication to
domestic political theory is less and less persuasive, both as a description
of the situation and as a justification for it.8
One significant absentee from these interactions is Hannah
Arendt.9 This book is a first effort at highlighting ways in which her
rich and rewarding, if also sometimes frustrating, political thought can
be used to enhance and stimulate our understanding of aspects of
international politics. This book’s chapters look at issues ranging from
Douglas Klusmeyer’s Arendtian take on classical realism—Arendt was
a close friend of Hans Morgenthau—to contemporary international
political issues such as Anthony Lang’s look at the antiglobalization
movement and Andrew Schaap’s analysis of post-conflict justice. There
is also a diversity of approaches, with chapters such as Bridget Cotter’s
on human rights and Patricia Owens’ on the public sphere paying close
attention to Arendt’s texts and standing as considerable works of
Arendt scholarship. John Williams, on the other hand, draws inspiration
from Arendt’s ideas and categories, but asks for more license in their use
in his account of an emerging international space “in-between.”
This may suggest that Arendt is a theorist of almost limitless appli-
cability, making her relative obscurity in IR’s return to political theory
especially striking. However, the chapters are united by a recognition
that Arendt’s is a very individual politics, not just in its distinctiveness,
but in its focus upon individuals as political agents, acting within
specific circumstances, but always retaining a unique character and
capable of unpredictable and surprising acts of great political signifi-
cance. Individuals have tended to fare badly in international relations,
with its focus on states and institutions and the great, impersonal
forces of anarchy, war, balance of power, and the movements of capital.
Thus, Arendt is not a solution to the problems of IR theory in any and
all of its guises. However, while the contributors make good cases for
her special applicability in their areas, this chapter hopes to show that
she can be a stimulating read for a wider variety of IR theorists.
The chapter is thus divided into three main sections: First is
Arendt’s radical attack on the failures of most traditional political
thought and the development of a distinctive approach of her own.
Second, this introduction touches on the issue of plurality and
its political ramifications. Finally, it considers her thought about
institutions, including the law.
Additionally, this introduction serves as something of a “primer”
for those unfamiliar with her work. This is not a comprehensive
Introduction 3
covering of all Arendt’s contributions, but it should prove helpful in
getting the most from subsequent chapters.10 Where possible, we
highlight contrasts or illuminate points by drawing examples from
International Relations, hopefully helping orientate those coming to
the book from IR. Those familiar with Arendt’s work may find these
choices unusual or somewhat forced, but we ask their forbearance.
Hannah Arendtand the Failure
of Political Theory
Hans Morgenthau: What are you? Are you a conservative? Are you a
liberal? Where is your position within the contemporary possibilities?
Hannah Arendt: I don’t know. I really don’t know and I’ve never
known. And I suppose I never had any such position. You know the left
think I am a conservative, and the conservatives sometimes think I am
of the left or I am a maverick or God knows what. And I must say I
couldn’t care less.11
Arendt’s frustration with the limits of standard political categories,
whether in day-to-day political debate or in political theory was
significant.12Her cavalier attitude to such conventions rests ultimately
on a bold, even chilling, assertion. The vast majority of the political
philosophy of the last 2,500 years is nothing of the sort.13
Arendt asserts that we have been obsessed by “ruling” and not by
politics in our thinking.14While she has nothing directly to say about
IR theory, she would doubtless regard international relations as guilty
of the same charge. “Ruling” is about relieving the mass of the popu-
lation from the need to engage in politics via grand schemes and
plans, concentrated on institutions. The goal of this approach is to rid
us of the need for participatory politics and to concentrate responsi-
bility for managing these schemes and institutions in the hands of a
small, professional class of political “craftsmen.”15
Arendt argues that the modern version of this move is rooted in the
Enlightenment search for Archimedean points as the basis of universal
categories and truths, something of which she is highly critical—“neither
truth nor reality is given. ...”16 Such a search is one of the principal
reasons for the lack of true political philosophy in the modern
world.17Arendt attacks the consequent imposition of human schemes
upon the natural world via the generation of facts.18She refers approv-
ingly to Heisenberg’s remark that the natural sciences are now so tied
up in a web of human making that via science, “instead of nature
or the universe . . . man encounters only himself.”19 Politics has