1st Edition

Political Evil in a Global Age Hannah Arendt and International Theory

By Patrick Hayden Copyright 2009
    160 Pages
    by Routledge

    160 Pages
    by Routledge

    Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most powerful political theorists. The purpose of this book is to make an innovative contribution to the newly emerging literature connecting Arendt to international political theory and debates surrounding globalization.

    In recent years the work of Arendt has gathered increasing interest from scholars in the field of international political theory because of its potential relevance for understanding international affairs. Focusing on the central theme of evil in Arendt’s work, this book weaves together elements of Arendt’s theory in order to engage with four major problems connected with contemporary globalization: genocide and crimes against humanity; global poverty and radical economic inequality; global refugees, displaced persons, and the ‘stateless’; and the destructive domination of the public realm by predatory neoliberal economic globalization. Hayden shows that a key constellation of her concepts—the right to have rights, superfluousness, thoughtlessness, plurality, freedom, and power—can help us to understand and address some of the central problems involving political evil in our global age. In doing so, this book takes Arendtian scholarship and international political theory into provocative new directions.

    Political Evil in a Global Age will be of interest to students, researchers and scholars of politics, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies.

    Introduction.  1. Violating the Human Status: The Evil of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity  2. Superfluous Humanity: The Evil of Global Poverty 3. Citizens of Nowhere: The Evil of Statelessness  4. Effacing the Political: The Evil of Neoliberal Globalization

    Biography

    Patrick Hayden is Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations at St Andrews University, UK.

    "Hayden’s book is a bold, thoughtful and original study that makes faithful use of Arendt to persuade us to look afresh at the terrible injustices of global capitalism." -- Finn Bowring, Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK