ABSTRACT
Engaging across these thematics, the volume illustrates the conceptual, methodological, and
practical elements of dialectical analyses of world politics that can be taken up in future research.
The volume does not claim to be an introduction to dialectics, nor that it could somehow offer
a comprehensive account of the rich complexity of dialectical thought: dialectics spans a long
history, the concept is itself essentially contested, and any attempt to cover all of its facets
would be a monumental, if not impossible, undertaking (see Haug, 2005). What the volume
does achieve, however, is to provide a forum for a diverse range of dialectical approaches on
key issues in world politics, from global security to postcolonial resistances, from the theoretical
problems of reification and complexity, to the study of the global futures and the intercultural
historical expressions of dialectics. By canvassing such a broad array of ideas-inclusive of
scholars critical of aspects of dialectics-the volume draws attention to the extraordinary
benefits of thinking dialectically, that is, in thinking beyond the appearance of world politics
to its actuality (Hegel, 1975, p. § 131). In this way, the volume retains the critical and revolu-
tionary essence of dialectics that Marx (1986, p. 29) and many thinkers before and after him have
held to be the core of dialectical thought.
