Published online: 15 April 2021 ; The comment expands the logic of the critique of the 'judicialisation' in the global era and suggests that arguments in support of this development often engage in confirmatory research which weighs the 'evidence' in light of our wishes and political projects. The talk about 'learning' and 'dialogue' cannot sustain this form of judicial paternalism (at best) as an instantiation of emancipation or celebrate it as a victory for law by dispensing with politics. It is just a politics by other means. But in this politics some traditional remedies for insuring the accountability of the 'rulers' (or rule-handlers) have been weakened. The comment adds several critical observations about the practices of discourse, law, politics and judging which cannot camouflage the problem of power and its legitimisation. Thus we had better consider also a political alternative which relies on a variety of different institutional solutions where courts have to compete with other institutions without fixed hierarchies and where different sources of legitimacy stand in tension with each other. ; This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - CUP Transformative Agreement (2020-2022)
Este artículo aborda el tema de la naturaleza del conocimiento en los asuntos prácticos. Tradicionalmente esta cuestión ha sido abordada recurriendo a la construcción teórica ["theory-building"] y poniendo en juego una serie de criterios epistemológicos independientes que, supuestamente, garantizan los postulados formulados dentro de un marco teórico. En este contexto, la universalidad, entendida como generalidad, y la fiabilidad de los "datos" a lo largo de la historia son criterios particularmente poderosos que establecen la "verdad" de las proposiciones teóricas por medio de "tests" y, así, contribuyen a acumular "conocimiento". Pero este ideal del conocimiento "teórico" malinterpreta de forma significativa tanto el tipo de conocimiento que necesitamos para adoptar decisiones prácticas, como el de la "historia" para constituirnos en agentes. Al utilizar el argumento de Bull del segundo debate como contrapunto, y al revisar también las controversias relativas a la paz democrática y al papel de los estudios macro-históricos, primero me centro en la naturaleza de la "historicidad" y la situacionalidad [situatedness] de todo el conocimiento práctico. En segundo lugar, intento clarificar cómo el conocimiento del pasado que se relaciona con las elecciones prácticas en esa "historia" no es simplemente un almacén de datos fijos, sino un producto de la memoria, la cual está profundamente implicada tanto en nuestras construcciones de la identidad como de los proyectos políticos que perseguimos. En tercer lugar, esbozaré los criterios para la generación de conocimiento que son más apropiados cuando afrontamos problemas prácticos ; This article raises the issue about the nature of knowledge in practical matters. Traditionally this question has been answered by pointing to 'theory-building' and to field independent epistemological criteria that are supposed to provide the knowledge warrants for the assertions made within a theoretical framework. In this context universality, i.e. generality and transhistorical reliability of the 'data', are particularly powerful criteria that establish the 'truth' of theoretical propositions through 'tests' and thus contribute to cumulative 'knowledge'. But this ideal of 'theoretical' knowledge significantly misunderstands both the type of knowledge we need when we make practical choices and that of 'history' in constituting us as agents. In using Bull's argument in the second debate as a foil, and in revisiting also the controversies concerning the democratic peace and the role of macro-historical studies I first elaborate on the nature of the 'historicity' and situatedness of all practical knowledge. In a second step, I attempt to clarify how the knowledge of the past relates to practical choices in that 'history' is not simply a storehouse of fixed data, but a product of memory, which in turn is deeply involved in our constructions of identity and of the political projects we pursue. In a third step I adumbrate the criteria for knowledge generation that are more appropriate when we face practical problems
This paper examines the changing meaning of 'territoriality' by focusing on the problem of representation. It examines the two-dimensional homogenous space as it has been increasingly used in 'mapping' the international system as an area of mutually exclusive zones of jurisdiction. This way of mapping has reinforced the notion of 'sovereignty' as exclusion, despite the growth of competing jurisdictional claims based on a variety of principles, which the emergence of private international law attempted to mediate during the heydays of the nation state. It also placed international regimes and international organizations 'above' the state where they became 'invisible', thereby again reinforcing the territorial conception of law and politics. The new systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and Gunther Teubner claims to provide a better representation of contemporary social and political reality, as it no longer uses the part/whole distinction as its main conceptual tool and is thus more open to 'legal pluralism' both domestically and internationally. Nevertheless, the conceptualization of autonomous functional systems does not do justice to the special role that law plays in constituting and transforming these supposedly autonomous 'auto-poietic' systems. For that reason the new systems theory fails to address also problems of non-territorial 'imperial' formations as evidenced by the political project of 'governance' and 'best practices', universal human rights, and extra-territorial regulation as exemplified e.g. by the European REACH initiative and the EU's neighborhood policy.
How can secular Western IR theory deal with religion? Bringing in the debates on religion in the public sphere, the paper's goal is to foster a deeper understanding of the nexus between religion and international relations. Religion in global politics challenges the notion of a secular world order based on contract and custom in a system of states, as they had developed since the Westphalian settlement. According to this foundational myth religion mattered only domestically, and there only within the 'private' realm. The forces of globalization inevitably transcend the traditional boundaries of the state and also the fundamental distinction between the public and the private. The ongoing IR debate based on terrorism, and asymmetric conflict is decidedly too narrow to understand this fundamental challenge. It is here that the discussion in political theory which focused on the changing configuration of the public sphere (public/private distinction) attains it importance for the IR debate about religion in a global perspective. It supplements the debate in international relations that addresses the re-drawing of boundaries that had traditionally marked the internal/ external (global) distinction, but offers more than Huntington or Norris and Inglehart. For both of them the decisive breaks in the tectonics of world politics are cultural fault-lines where a secular segment of the world population is facing a religious one. The problem with this kind of argument is that of a dangerous selffulfilling prophecy. Contrary to others who still hope to round up the wagons and fight back the passing raids of the challengers, Habermas has understood that it does not make much sense trying to push religion into the camp of fundamentalism. In our paper we use Habermas's notion of a post-secular society in a global perspective to understand the challenge of the Westphalian system without running into the trap of a clash of civilizations. To do so, we contrast Habermas's suggestion of a post-secular society with Berger's claim of the desecularization of the world and Connolly's deep pluralism and politics of becoming. Based on Chambers's interpretation of Habermas we offer a strong and a weak reading of the concept of a post-secular society and argue that only a strong reading can meet the needs of a global public sphere.
