1st Edition
International Relations as Politics among People Hermeneutic Encounters and Global Governance
Pioneering a hermeneutic methodology for analyses of global governance, this is the first monograph that makes Hans-Georg Gadamer’s and Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic philosophy relevant for global politics research. Drawing on the concept of "horizon" as the element that captures the dynamics of understanding in social interaction in order to analyse processes of international politics, this book shows that what is required is the embeddedness of meanings and ideas in human action and reflection. By advancing theory-building with regard to particular questions of global governance, it reconceptualises international relations as "politics among people". Providing a contextualised constructivist approach that highlights the importance of processes to which people are central, it challenges the use of collective concepts such as "state" and "nation" as units of analysis which continue to dominate international relations but which cloud the details of interaction processes.
The two case studies of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and Germany in NATO’s mission "Operation Allied Force" in Kosovo in 1999 are structured around this contextualised constructivist approach developed in the monograph. The studies reveal how interaction processes can be made accountable, leading to new vantage points of our understanding of governance problems.
This book will be of interest to scholars interested in global governance, the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricœeur and hermeneutic philosophy, the UN, humanitarian interventions, and foreign policy analysts.
1. Introducing Politics among People
Why politics among people?
Beyond anarchy – meaningful politics in strange places
Aims of the book: hermeneutic situations and how to find them
The horizon of Politics among People: knowledge and power
Performances and topoi
Outline of the book
2. Hermeneutic approaches to meaning
Making sense
Delineating hermeneutic performances
Competent performances
Performativity
Being
Horizons, memory and the politics of performance
Meaning and (neuro-)science
Knowledge and the path to knowing
3. The topoi of interpretive research
Hermeneutic research
Topoi
Criteria of validity in interpretive research
Proceeding by comparison and sequence
Finding topoi
4. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
The case: bringing UNCLOS as politics among people to IR
Outline of the case study: data and the process of analysis
Comte’s positivism
Humanity: making the Law of the Sea
Objectivity: delimiting the continental shelf
Expertocracy: who gets to participate in the endless re-making of the Law of the Sea?
Summary
Conclusion
5. Humanity and German Intervention in Kosovo 1999
The case: intervention and the concern for humanity
Outline of the case study: data and the process of analysis
The topos of ‘Humanity’
From pacifism to intervention
Founding the Greens
Green Foreign Policy during the 1990s
The Responsibility to Intervene
Conclusion
6. Horizons of politics
How to deal with politics among people?
Hermeneutic encounters
Hermeneutic methodology
The cases
Reflection
Towards new horizons
Biography
Hannes Hansen-Magnusson is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Cardiff University, UK. His research is located in international relations with particular interests in global governance, focusing on actors and practices at the transnational level and the role of culture in international politics.