ABSTRACT

This topical and timely book critically explores contemporary liberal international relations theory. In the fifty years since the declaration of human rights, the language of international relations has come to incorporate the language of justice and injustice. The book argues that if justice is to become the governing principle of international politics, then liberals must recognise that their political preferences cannot be the preconditions of global ethics. The hierarchy of international political ethics must be constructed afresh so that the first principles of justice are accessible to all agents as political and ethical equals.
This book will be essential reading for students and scholars in politics, international relations, political theory and ethics.

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|29 pages

Setting the scene

International relations as political theory

chapter 3|25 pages

Developmental communitarianism

Liberal ambitions, secular approaches

chapter 4|29 pages

Critical constructivism

Onora O'Neill on moral and institutional cosmopolitanism

chapter 5|29 pages

Secular Hegelianism

Mervyn Frost and the limits of developmental communitarianism

chapter 6|30 pages

Michael Walzer

Moral creativity and the minimalist universalism of reiteration

chapter |5 pages

Conclusions