Search

My paper for presentation is a second draft (first draft was presented at BISA 2007) of the theoretical framework chapter for a longer project with the working title 'Consequentialist evaluation of security for cooperative International Society'. This project builds on my existing work where I have argued that security studies must be concerned with the consequences or effects of securitisation and desecuritisation, making a case for the existence of positive and negative securitisation and desecuritisation. Positive and negative hereby are derived from what in moral philosophy is known as a consequentialist ethic whereby an action's moral rightness is to be judged by its consequences, for security thus, the hitherto largely ignored question of securitisation for whom takes centre stage. So far, I have completed this, what I call 'consequentialist evaluation of security' for the environmental sector of security only [Floyd, Rita (2007) 'Towards a consequentialist evaluation of security: Bringing together the Copenhagen School and the Welsh School of Security Studies, Review of International Studies 33(2) & Floyd, Rita (2007) Typologies of Securitisation and Desecuritisation: The case of US environmental security 1993-2006 unpublished doctoral thesis University of Warwick]. My paper for presentation at this conference is the theoretical framework for the consequentialist evaluation of security for the remaining sectors of security, identified by the Copenhagen school of security studies as military, societal, economic and political security [Buzan, Barry et al (1998) Buzan, Barry; Waever, Ole; de Wilde, Jaap (1998) Security: A New Framework for Analysis (London: Lynne Rienner)]. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Hobbes is typically associated in international relations theory with the realist tradition. Conversely, he is often depicted as hostile to the idea of morality in international affairs and to the just war tradition in particular. It is curious then that Hobbes associated his own project quite closely with that of Hugo Grotius, the so-called father of International Law, and that later just war thinkers such as Pufendorf and Vattel engaged rather vigorously with Hobbes? work. Indeed, even in the 20th century, Michael Walzer treats Hobbes? thoughts pertaining to anticipatory war alongside these more standard just war thinkers, as does Richard Tuck. Perhaps this is not surprising when once considers that Hobbes was concerned with the question of when the use of force is appropriate in international relations, and that he invoked the idea of natural law in his writings. Hobbes? enquiries, then, were constituted to some degree by just war-oriented questions. Yet there is also good reason for deeming Hobbes an alien to the just war tradition. For a start, the response which he offered to these just war questions suggest a negation of the very idea of just war. His conviction that international affairs reflects a war of all against all precludes even the possibility of a tranquillitas ordinas, a touchstone commitment within the just war tradition. This paper will examine how we may relate Thomas Hobbes to the just war tradition. It will pay particular attention to how we construct the parameters of the just war tradition as to include or exclude a thinker such as Thomas Hobbes. According to J.G.A. Gunnell, traditions, such as that of the just war, comprise nothing more than retrospective analytical constructions which produce a rationalized version of the past. He argues that they represent mythologies composed by those who invoke them. Moreover, each and every such mythology is designed to serve particular ends, to privilege some reading of history or other, and to provide us with a crib-sheet for dealing with the problems facing us today. Inevitably, each such reading serves to circumscribe the potential development of the tradition in question in different ways. For instance, they may posit the recognition of some timeless truths or normative commitments as constitutive of the tradition, or they may associate the tradition with the heritage of a cluster of carefully selected classical thinkers. Accordingly, where new thinking strays from these templates it may be disregarded as falling beyond the bounds of the tradition. This has been the fate of Thomas Hobbes. This paper looks to examine why this has been the case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of an overall focus on governance in international political economy, the corruption issue has catapulted from the margins of academic and policy discourse on international affairs to a position as one of the central problems facing transition economies and the developing world today. But the irreducibly normative character of anti-corruption discourse is in tension with the predominantly rationalist, technical and instrumental justifications for open markets which have come to dominate the academic and institutional discourse on international political economy. The omissions and oversights of neo-liberal discourse lead analysts to evade and obscure, rather than directly engage, core problems of politics and ethics; this may have practical consequences for anti-corruption efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If ethics are often treated as marginal to global politics, then they are doubly excluded from analyses of global economic governance: here, the traditional division between the domestic as the site of politics and the international as a realm of amoral relations is compounded by a second division between politics and economics. Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank rely on such distinctions when their leaders insist on the essential neutrality of their efforts to manage global economic affairs. Although political economists have challenged these institutions? claims to political neutrality, they have rarely questioned their appeals to ethical neutrality. Yet moral assumptions and moral arguments do in fact play a crucial role in economic governance. The paper challenges the sustainability of the double denial of ethics in economic governance, pointing to the normative assumptions underpinning the very separation between the international and the domestic and politics and economics. The role of moral assumptions in economic governance, from the most basic premises of economic theory to more complex efforts to sustain legitimacy for economic governance strategies, is examined. The conclusion demonstrates the practical role of moral arguments in economic governance both historically and today. Although ethics have always played a central role in economic governance, we are witnessing an important shift today as international economic institutions have begun to move away from their traditional appeal to technical neutrality and become increasingly explicit in their use of moral arguments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the charge that scholars in the field of ethics in international relations have been remiss in not paying attention to tragedy in international affairs. The classical tragedies in drama had political content and were fundamentally concerned with ethical issues. Prima facie it would seem that tragedy would be pertinent to scholars researching international ethics. The case is made that the notion of tragedy is useful in normative international relations theory as it enables us to see ethical dilemmas clearly and to consider possible transformations of our international practices. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]