Towards an international political theology. An exploration into the eschatological bearing of Henri Bergson, Arnold Toynbee and Martin Wight in international relations theory
Abstract I propose to consider the question, in what way is theology fundamental to the understanding of IR theory? In light of the resurgence of religious interest in global affairs revealing a disciplinary incapacity within IR to deal with the theo-political aspect of its historicity, this thesis brings into focus the hidden dimension of theology in IR theory to argue that there are theological underpinnings in the relationship between IR theory and international history within the discursive history of IR. My argument presupposes that IR and more so International Political Theology is an aesthetic and eschatological endeavour that operates in meta-Christian structures within which a continuing hierarchy privileges the theological over the political representative of the totalising nature of theology. The revival of metaphysics and the Messianic turn in political thought to an extent in response to the 'End of History' thesis marked the renewal of interest in temporal matters that reopened the 'bureau of eschatology.' Taking account of the inherently eschatological nature of theology the aim of this thesis to discern the theme of eschatology in the intellectual history of IR. If IR is about the predicament of history (history is a predicament because it is suspended and not yet accomplished) and if theology is about eschatology then the primary argument of this thesis is that theology is so fundamental to IR theory because IR's object of study (order, a privileged future or utopia) is theology's ultimate point of reference (the katechon and eschatology). The focus of the research into the theological underpinnings centres on an interpretation of the writings of Henri Bergson, Arnold Toynbee and Martin Wight with the aim of tracing and revealing the eschatological dimension embedded in their scholarship. My original contribution to scholarship is to classify three distinct eschatological types gnostic, millenarian and dialectical and to bring these together in a typology of eschatology. The interpretations ...