Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: While the revival of the concept of 'imperialism' appears to be a reaction to recent political challenges, I will argue that it has always been at the core of liberal thought in International Relations. While liberal internationalism enlists the authority of Kant, at its heart we find the security dilemma between liberal and nonliberal states as well as the propagation of particularist law under a universal guise. This un-Kantian liberal thought, however, has a classical precedent in John Stuart Mill with whom it shares the justification of imperialist policies. And yet, a historically sensitive reading of Mill and Kant can explain the striking failures of liberal internationalism in spreading liberal institutions as well as reducing international conflicts.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Education for a cosmopolitan outlook is highly regarded in many circles. In practice, it is usually interpreted to mean cultivation of tolerance, self-distancing from any particular set of ethical or civic commitments, and the like. In both temper and social base, this kind of cosmopolitan educational agenda very much aligns with the prevailing tendencies of liberal globalisation. At the same time, many high-culture critics of liberal modernity are reacting against this loose cosmopolitanism, charging it with relativism and even nihilism. In contrast, they often reaffirm a particular tradition of classical and humanistic learning, such as the "great books" curricula that gained favour among many conservatives a decade ago. In this paper, I suggest space for an alternative approach to cosmopolitan self-cultivation. It would be unlike both the loose liberal cosmopolitanism that brackets or thins out ethical content, and the "great books" traditionalism that focuses on just one civilisation and neglects or disdains others. In short, it would resurrect the ethical truths that modernity has assaulted, and it would do so while bridging traditions. By exploring the universal temper that lay latent within all the major premodern civilisations, I suggest room for a vision of elite education that involves an integrated familiarity with the high-culture classics of the European, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and other traditions. This approach urges a cosmopolitanism that takes seriously the ethical parallels across civilisations. Its practitioners would be impelled to view themselves as the successors of older elite culture-bearing strata: the mandarins, clerics, and literati. It also means embedding cosmopolitanism in a demanding pattern of self-cultivation on which the various strands of classical social thought can shed light. I close by suggesting that this kind of intellectual exploration and praxis is indispensable, if we are to forge a rich global political culture and a greater ethical sensitivity among the world's governing strata.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Though often implicit, the concept of alienation animates current debates over the effects of new work practices—flexible technologies, customization, collaboration, network organizations, etc.—on workers. Using Marx’s formulation of alienated labor and data on the web industry gathered from interviews with 60 workers, this paper argues that existing concepts of alienation are inadequate for capturing the relationships among workers, tools, and labor processes that exist in new work organizations. Marx assumes that production is industrial (standardized and fixed), that employers own the means of production, that ownership is coextensive with control, and that only relationships between workers and employers are significant in shaping the experience of work. By contrast, the web production industry is characterized by customization, rapid change, distributed ownership, and worker collaboration. While these phenomena may produce alienation, it is not the alienation of which Marx speaks. I conclude by raising new question about potentially alienated labor that are more appropriate to new work contexts.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper I explore the historical roots of the anthropocentric character of contemporary sociology. I argue that the current resistance within the discipline to attending to the roles that non-human animals play in society is a legacy of the classical social theorists. It will be demonstrated that the classical social theorists from across the conceptual micro-macro continuum reified the culture/nature dichotomy through their writings, and that in attempting to explain social phenomena several notable classical theorists juxtaposed culture with nature and generally drew a sharp boundary between humans and non-human animals in particular. As a result, the discipline has been resistant to exploring interactions between the human and natural worlds, especially interactions involving other animals, since many theories of human sociality were constructed by drawing an impermeable boundary between human and animal capabilities. This paper is a modest step in interrogating how specific classical social theorists reified the problematic culture/nature dichotomy and used non-human animals to drive an intellectual wedge between the perceived poles of culture and nature.