Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the implications of the current Anglo-American war on rogue states from an English School perspective, arguing that the war and the diplomacy surrounding it exhibit traits of all three of the School's analytic traditions (viz. balance of power for freedom language in the new National Security Statement). However, I suggest that what may be most interesting for historical reasons is to consider the war's Kantian elements. This will lead to a discussion of major-power ambitions/normative projects and their effects upon an evolving international society, drawing heavily from English School literature and its conceptual lexicon. This must touch on the sub-literature on the international vs. world society debate, the conditions for solidarism, etc., with hopefully interesting conclusions about the implications of the war on rogue states for understandings of international history. The paper is a theoretical excursus building from a larger book project on the diplomacy of the Iraq War, December 2001-May 2003.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper attempts to develop a Hobbes-like argument for a sovereign granting a form of religious liberty to its citizens. It will first clarify Hobbes’ actual argument against religious toleration. It then demonstrates flaws in that argument which, given hobbesian assumptions as to the duty/interests of the sovereign, show that in some cases where the citizenry is religiously diverse and that many of those citizens hold strong religious views, the sovereign ought to practice a careful brand of religious toleration.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract: "Hobbesian Temptations" by Harlan Wilson

Thomas Hobbes claimed to present a
science of politics that would be of truly
universal applicability. I take this claim
seriously. I try to show how a close reading
of Hobbes can help us better understand the
problematic logic of fear and mutual protection
that seems to drive much political life, especially
contemporary politics. The analysis reflects back
on Hobbes' theory, showing its limitations as a
theory of fear, protection, and security. I
conclude with some suggestions about how the
analysis might apply to environmental
politics.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the role of the body in Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy, particularly as set forth in Leviathan. By rendering the body the most indubitable claim we have for both the value and the reality of the self, Hobbes invents a means by which to discipline that aspect of the human mind most prone to undercutting individual security as well as disturbing peaceable collective arrangements. For Hobbes, the body is a mute but immoveable barricade against the appropriating sway of ideational claims invariably circulating in the public realm. Leviathan attempts to reveal the extent to which public ideas of the self can – and must – be dissociated from ideological and rhetorical creativity and manipulation. Hobbes consequently insists on a notion of self-literality (through reference to human embodiment) as the mainstay of public and political ideas of the self, all the while allowing, however privately, that we may be more than we can prove ourselves to be.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Hobbes’ Leviathan offers a dramatic portrait of the remaking of human nature from its natural quarrelsome state to an artificial state constrained by covenants and presided over by the imposing figure of the Leviathan itself. This re-making entails certain key changes to that primal nature which transform the brutish face of man to something more sociable – indeed, something more womanly. Scholars have noted in passing the feminization of male nature which seems to occur in Leviathan, but there has been little exploration of this provocative thesis. In this paper, I will attempt to begin such a systematic exploration. I will first examine the definition of male nature which Hobbes lays out at length in Book I, with particular attention to his negative depictions of the virtues traditionally associated with manliness, such as ambition, courage, and honor – all of which Hobbes critiques as barriers to civil society. I will then argue that Hobbes offers the corrective to the problem of manliness through a list of “laws of nature” which not only runs counter to male nature but seems instead to embody attributes traditionally coded as feminine, including a prudent fearfulness, a desire for peace and security, sociability, and modesty, among others. Finally, I will argue that rather than excluding women from the social contract, Hobbes in reality has substituted women everywhere for men in his artificial society, and Leviathan itself, though sporting still the body of a man, may yet wear a woman’s face.