Suchergebnisse

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- Vattel's Life -- Pirates and Robber Nations -- The Barbary Issue in Early-Modern Legal Doctrine -- Universalising the European Law of Nations: Vattel's Rejection of the International Legal Pluralism of the Laws of War -- Guilty Sovereigns: Warmongers and Violators of the Laws of War -- Disturbers of the Balance of Power -- Tyrants -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index.

Abstract This article argues for the fundamental importance of 'evil-naming' as a constitutive operation of modern political discourse. To achieve this goal the article first draws attention to how global, and seemingly consensual, institutional and public discourses have defined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a contemporary form of 'evil' and how the internatio­nal community has conceived of its engagement with this entity. Based on this analysis and on insights from the history of early-modern struggles against pirates and 'enemies of mankind', the article shows that political modernity has less failed to erase the 'archaic' practice of evil-na­ming than constantly relied on it. To make this claim, the article identifies discursive patterns and practical effects of evil-naming and draws out the ambivalent relationship between evil-na­ming and sovereignty and security as cornerstones of political modernity. The article concludes by engaging with the question of whether and to what extent the concept of evil can be criti­qued and dismissed as some scholars have argued.

While celebrated for bringing peace and prosperity to the region, European integration has been recently challenged by various internal and external crises that call the progressivist narrative of ever closer—and larger—union into question. Torn between regional community and global society, particularism and cosmopolitanism, and politics and technocracy, the European Union appears beset by fundamental tensions. In search of a different theoretical perspective on "the crisis," some commentators have drawn on Carl Schmitt's political theory to emphasize key issues concerning political decisions, identities, and boundaries in Europe. Yet, Schmitt comes with his own blind spots. For the purpose of a critical engagement with Schmitt's potential insights and their limits, this article contrasts his approach with that of his contemporary Alexandre Kojève, who envisioned the integration of world society through economy, law, technology, and administration, a perspective not unfamiliar to the original story of European integration. In reconsidering the dialectic between Schmitt's and Kojève's positions, this article goes beyond their apparent contradictions and discusses attempts by both authors to reconcile the opposition, from Kojève's move to Empires to Schmitt's theory of the union, thereby illuminating deep-seated dilemmas of contemporary European politics which fundamentally condition its trajectory between contestation and re-constitution.

By examining the relationship between international law and empire from early modernity to the present, this volume improves current understandings of the way international legal institutions, practices, and narratives have shaped imperial ideas about and structures of world governance