Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: It seems that we are in the midst of crisis. Global markets, consumers and citizens, financial institutions, global regulatory and governing institutions, and states are all, in different ways, attempting to address a historical moment that seems poised for either monumental change or monumental disappointment (or both). This paper is premised on the notion that in order to make sense of this moment-- one that marks a tremendous stress on the global capitalist system-- it is necessary and prudent to turn back to scholars who also addressed moments of significant upheaval and worked through those crises in terms of both practice and theory. For international relations as a discipline, this turning back is not new; however, the theorists to whom this paper turns are at best an odd configuration and (on the surface, at least) appear as non-commensurate thinkers.



In the late 1930s and 1940s, British intellectuals EH Carr and Martin Wight took up the problem of the “international system” in ways that engaged the inter-war period and challenged liberal assumptions that “power politics” could be regulated (or even abandoned) through the pursuit of the “right” global institutions. Carr and Wight, though contemporaries, did not share political outlooks or ideologies. Although Carr is most often recalled as a “realist par excellence” and Wight as one of the early members of the “English School”, it is clear that Wight was not in favour of Carr’s scholarship and did not extend an invitation to Carr to participate in the famous British Committee. However, both men attempted to make sense of the early 20th century in terms of its moments of crisis and profound change; and, in different ways both were looking for an historical actor to effect change. For Wight, this is often only implied in his studies of the global distribution of power and colonial subjects. For Carr, it is the implied actor embedded in his “ethical realism” and imbricated in the idealist critique of Utopianism in the Twenty Years Crisis. It is the argument of this paper, however, that both Carr’s and Wight’s analysis of global change is incomplete without a dialectic of human agency open to the “third world” not merely as subject but as historical actor. It is in the realm of actors and historical subjects, that Dunayevskaya enters the discussion. The paper argues that when brought into critical conversation, the Marxist Humanist thought of Raya Dunayevskaya reveals the contours of today’s crisis in historical context and points to the need for a humanist theory of global transformation that is implied but undeveloped in the other works. Moreover, the very idea of a “third world subject” as historical actor at this moment of crisis, one that appears so dominated by “American” institutions of global economics, is particularly provocative.



No doubt, this is a difficult reading to conduct and the thinkers engaged are each deserving of particular attention. Yet, to realize the thesis proposed above, the paper will develop in three parts. The first part will introduce those elements in the scholarly works of each thinker that provide insight to our current crisis and share a commonality of analysis such that a conversation among the three is even conceivable. Although the work of Wight and Carr will be more familiar to an international studies audience, it is likely that Dunayevskaya will be entirely foreign and special attention will be given to her works. The second part of the paper will assess what global transformation looks like to each thinker and identify “who” is a potential actor in such a cause. It is at this point that consideration will be given to the agency of third world and colonial peoples as transformative historical actors rather than excluded or surplus populations. Finally, part three of the paper will argue that the identification of such a historical subject is both a theoretical and practical necessity to realize change and to grasp the full meaning of the current crisis. Ultimately, ethical realism, power politics and Marxist humanism are brought together to envision an emancipated and free future that recasts both international and human relations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper re-assesses aspects of Martin Wight?s work. In the process, it questions many of the common interpretations of his texts. In doing so, it also forces IR to re-evaluate the English School of IR.