Files and links (2)
Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
The Imagination and International Relations
International Studies Quarterly, Vol.66(3), pp.1-12
2022
Abstract
The imagination is at the heart of what it means to be human. For this reason, it has been the subject of close examination across time and locale. Yet, while international relations (IR) researchers often mobilize the term rhetorically, its character and operations remain underconceptualized in the discipline and disconnected from the rich literatures that explore this vital faculty. This article identifies a commonsense account of the imagination in IR's most pervasive discourse on order and anarchy. Taking its cues from the Hobbesian tradition, here a distinctly monological imagination is fearful and pessimistic, rooted in the overriding dread of a sudden and violent death. We draw out its underlying assumptions by foregrounding the deliberate, systematic, and sustained construction of the imagination in Hobbes’ Leviathan, where it acts as a crucial and animating impetus for the Hobbesian subject, including in the oft-analogized “state of nature” scenario. We argue that this Hobbesian imagination has been superseded by a multidisciplinary contemporary scholarship that presents a markedly different view. Anyone thinking seriously about the imagination today should disagree with the Hobbesian account, reconsider theories of international relations predicated on it, and explore the political possibilities entailed in other approaches.
Details
- Title
- The Imagination and International Relations
- Authors
- Caitlin Sparks (Author)Shannon Brincat (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Sustainability Research ClusterTim Aistrope (Author) - University of Kent
- Publication details
- International Studies Quarterly, Vol.66(3), pp.1-12
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Date published
- 2022
- DOI
- 10.1093/isq/sqac024
- ISSN
- 1468-2478; 0020-8833
- Copyright note
- © The Author(s) (2022). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Organisation Unit
- Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; Tropical Forests and People Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; Forest Research Institute; School of Law and Society; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99656596602621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
247 File views/ downloads
126 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- International Relations
- Political Science