This thesis investigates the philosophical presuppositions of Kenneth N. Waltz's Theory of International Politics focusing, primarily, on its epistemology and ontology. It offers a taxonomy of epistemological and ontological theories that is useful for providing an enhanced understanding of Waltz's theory but also for revealing some of its problematic features. These include the incompatibility between Waltz's ontology and his deductive approach and a number of occasions on which Waltz requires from the theories of others the fulfilment of a number of criteria that his own intellectual system does not meet. The argument is in part informed by a comparison (encouraged by Waltz himself) between International Relations and Physics. The thesis thus supplies an assessment of the 'internal' coherence of the theory and its 'external' applicability. It also addresses the issue of the extent to which the tradition that Waltz founded can be expected to lead to a promising intellectual path. In doing so, it discusses the question of what, if anything, 'progress' might consist in. This thesis does not aim at creating a new approach for appraising theories of International Relations. Its purpose is to clarify the nature of Waltz's philosophical commitments, and their appropriateness to the tasks he set himself, by making use of already existing philosophical standpoints. Its contribution lies more in examining Waltz's theory - and potentially other theories of International Relations - from an angle that, while available, has not been, so far, extensively used. The approach adopted may facilitate the appreciation of the benefits of drawing a useful distinction: that which separates those problems that are philosophical and have to be acknowledged as such from those that can more effectively be addressed by the discipline of International Relations.

In varying ways, scholars working in the discipline of International Studies have found themselves, often implicitly, wrestling with the question of what should and should not count as harm and the implications of this for wider social life. Core to this tension is the way in which the discipline can be understood as lying between the explanatory concerns of a social science and a normative endeavour concerned with the reduction or mitigation of avoidable harm. This thesis argues that this tension results in an understanding of the problem of harm as a particular problem-field defined by a set of questions that motivate various aspects of theoretical activity. However, it attempts to address the problem of harm as a whole through the lens of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. In doing so, it aims to draw out the implications of the problem of harm for the discipline of International Studies and social science more broadly. The importance accorded to the problem of harm in Critical Theory is the source of considerable problems for an understanding of how social science might operate due to the way that normative concern serves to overwhelm attempts at explanation. This thesis considers Linklater?s sociology of harm conventions a way of rebalancing this equation such that some practical conclusions may be drawn. However, the theoretical underpinnings of this project in the process sociology of Norbert Elias serve to preclude sufficient engagement with normative questions. A reconstruction of the sociology of harm conventions through the ontology of critical realism serves to resituate the production of sociological knowledge with regard to normative concern, and re-theorise the link between them. Following this reconstruction it becomes possible, through Critical Theory, to address the kind of theory that is needed in order to interrogate the problem of harm in International Studies.

Having identified a prevalence of the discipline to treat the state as a person, the thesis critically engages with the idea of psychological state personhood in IR, prominently put forward by Alexander Wendt. As a result, an alternative conception in the form of the constructed state-as-person is suggested which argues that the state-as-person is best understood as a metaphor and utilises constructionist psychology to point out that self and emotions are best located at the discursive level. In contrast to Wendt, who insists on the reality of the state-as-person, this thesis argues that the state is a real social structure which is made intelligible through the idea of state personhood. Agency firmly rests with individual human beings, acting alone or in groups. Concepts such as the state-as-person become relevant when they engage in the production and reproduction of the social structure. Wendt's position on the role of metaphors and his conception of psychological personhood are areas in which this thesis suggests an alternative perspective. It is argued that metaphors are more than figures of speech and need to be taken seriously as theory-constitutive elements in IR scholarship. Constructionist psychology is utilised to present an alternative vision of how people make sense of themselves and how self and emotions are created discursively. In this regard this thesis aligns itself with the 'emotional turn' in the discipline to argue against the dichotomous treatment of rationality and emotions and to suggest that emotions should be treated as forms of knowledge. With the constructed state-as-person, this thesis presents an account of the state that allows for theorising about self and emotions of states. With regard to systemic interactions, this thesis points to the importance of culturally specific concepts of self and emotions and, ultimately, suggests that anarchy is what we make of it.

This thesis, rising from the field of reflexive International Relations (IR), is an engagement with knowledge production in the domain of international relations. Guided by sociology of knowledge, it offers a critique of representations of the international produced by IR theory and practice. The thesis argues that such representations may gain power to frame the thinking and policy action with respect to objects beyond their immediate description. In my work I expose how thinking about international relations in particular ways affects conceptions of and policies implemented with regard to the state. I focus specifically on the idea of international society developed by International Relations theory and the idea of international community, flourishing in policy practice. Both are contrasted with representations of the international produced in Russia with particular reference to the idea of the Russian World. The idea of international society and the cognate concept of international community reinforce the production of universal norms and standards of what a state is and should be. They are conducive to thinking about a state in terms of well-functioning institutions allowing it to meet international standards and to form part of the society of states. The idea of the Russian World, in turn, facilitates the portrayal of Russia as a polity greater than a state and helps legitimize disregard for the sovereignty of other post-Soviet states. Constructing the international in terms of a confrontation between the Russian World and the West requires efforts to strengthen a polity transcending Russian borders. In the broader scheme, the research project is dedicated to thinking through similarities in the processes of knowledge production cutting across easily permeable boundaries between the academia and policy practice, the West and Russia.

Political realism has enjoyed a renaissance in International Relations (IR). Recent studies have provided insightful accounts of its timeless virtues and philosophical depth. Although the concept of human nature has long been the philosophical basis of realism, it has now become a largely discredited idea. The thesis, Political Realism, Freud, and Human Nature in International Relations, provides an important re-examination of the concept of human nature in realist international-political theory with special reference to one of the truly consequential figures of Western thought: Sigmund Freud. The thesis questions whether human nature is really dead and also asks whether human nature ought to be dead. Examining a variety of theorists from Morgenthau to Mearsheimer commonly invoked as classical and post-classical realism's foremost proponents, the thesis shows that contemporary realism has not eliminated the concept of human nature from its study of world politics. Further, the thesis offers a powerful argument for the necessity of a sophisticated theory of human nature within realism, seeing Freud as offering the most appropriate starting point. This study will interest IR theorists and historians of international thought as well as Freud scholars.

The neo-Gramscian perspective, inspired by Robert Cox, has been in the forefront of developments in critical International Relations theory since the early-1980s. Derived from the historicist tradition in social science, including the work of Gramsci, Cox's method of historical structures - which comprise ideas. material capabilities, and institutions - challenged the positivism and trans-historical essentialisation of state power characteristic of traditional IR. Extending the method of historical structures to the understanding of the international system, Cox elaborated a triadic model of that system which comprised the mutual interactions between social forces engendered in production, forms of state, and world orders. This approach enabled Cox to develop a more sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of international change than that offered by the narrow state-centrism of traditionallR. Framing his approach within an interpretation of key ideas drawn from Gramsci's The Prison Notebooks, Cox created a space for the discussion of Marxist ideas in IR, previously largely resistant to Marxism. Cox, however, does not consider himself a Marxist and rejects important elements of Marxist theory. The critique of Cox and the neo-Gramscians that I develop in this thesis is based on a Marxist approach to social scientific explanation, and more specifically on the state capitalist perspective whose founder, Tony Cliff, conceived it as a return to classical Marxism, which the dominant versions of Marxism in the mid-twentieth century had, he argued, abandoned. The state capitalist perspective, developed as an attempt to understand the novel phenomenon of Stalinism in the USSR and its satellites, is mobilised throughout the thesis. Firstly against Cox's criticism that a focus on the fundamental relations of the mode of production leads to static and ahistorical analysis and, more widely, against his prioritisation of the role of ideas in shaping world orders. In particular, the Gramscian concept of hegemony, central to the neo-Gramscian perspective, IS criticised as providing an inadequate, and idealist, understanding of periods of relative social and political stability, which are explained instead by reference to the coercive aspects, broadly defined, of capitalism's dominant social relations. Coercion has been central to the imperialist structuring of the modern world system and, I argue, the concepts of imperialism and inter-imperialist rivalry retain their explanatory power even in what the neo-Gramscians refer to as the contemporary ·transnationalist' era

The self-identified intellectual currents known in Britain as New Liberalism and the Third Way can be seen as domestic political responses to two periods of 'globalisation' - understood here as a specific type of transformational change occasioned by simultaneous technological, economic, social and political shift. The resulting changes in perceptions of time, speed and distance alter political and popular understandings of relations between local, national and international, and between society, state and economy. It is also indicative of a shift in the development of the state; from the 'premodern' to the 'modern' in the first timeframe, and the 'modern' to a new stage that could be termed 'global' more recently. New Liberalism and the Third Way were both developed as elite-led, domestic, synthesising political philosophies in the face of an electoral threat brought about by societal change and external economic challenge. These examples suggest that the current globalisation debate is flawed as it treats as a single phenomenon different aspects of change and fails to recognise the implications of the similarities between these two periods. There is no suggestion that there are only two periods of change only that systemic change is qualitatively different. International Relations as an academic discipline is responding inadequately because of a reluctance to overcome the tendency to downplay links between domestic and international spheres and levels of state development. By comparing these specific periods of transformation and their political ideologies in the British context, this thesis will explore the relationship between international and domestic political ideology at times of such change and suggest that the result is a specific kind of transitional politics born of both innovation and necessity. Finally, while this kind of political engagement has been neglected by international relations, it may prove to be evidence of stages of development in the state.

This thesis outlines an idea of world politics as a distinct activity of thinking and speaking about the overall conditions of world order in terms of their desirability. World order is understood not as an arrangement of entities, be they humans, states or civilizations, but a complex of variously situated activities conducted by individuals as members of diverse associations of their own. This idea is advanced from within one such association, or context, contemporary International Relations, wherein it entails a metatheoretical position, neotraditionalism, as a rectification of the initial, 'traditionalist' or 'classical', approach after the advance of rationalism and subsequent reflectivist critique. Since loose talk about traditions does not constitute a tradition, neotraditionalism is presented by drawing on the resources of a well-trimmed manner of thinking and speaking about human associations, political philosophy, again, understood not as a body of doctrine but a context-specific human activity which can be experienced only through concrete exhibitions of individual intelligence. Therefore, throughout the thesis, a conversation on the place of politics in human experience is re-enacted. Its major participants are R.G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott. Its major achievement is the conditional unity of understanding and conduct, tradition and individuality, the subject of inquiry and the manner in which it is conducted. As such, this conversation is neither an antiquarian item nor a timeless ideal, but an instance of an association to be desired, and thus an example which, once comprehended, that is, both understood and included into one's own context, becomes a historically enacted disposition for the activity of politics.

Seeking to tackle the widely acknowledged democratic deficit of current international affairs, the argument presented here for consequentialist cosmopolitanism sets itself apart from other international political theories, in that it provides a normative framework for an all-inclusive global politics. Such a framework offers a critical alternative to the phenomenon of international political exclusion as legitimised by a number of influential theories of justice, including realism, nationalism, contractarianism, harm theory and the cosmopolitan project. Deriving from an examination of international consequentialist thought over the last two hundred years, the model developed here combines a new ethical interpretation of consequentialist principles with a new political interpretation of cosmopolitan principles. From this combination, a theory of consequentialist cosmopolitanism is drawn which utilises a single principle of justice on different levels of political action. That principle is the maximisation of the world welfare condition. Within this setting, the promotion of global welfare is pursued through the deployment of procedural instruments in terms of rights. In particular, the right to freedom of choice and the right to political participation form the core of the normative project. The institutional recognition of these rights as universal entitlements, in fact, is crucial in order to delineate an enfranchising conception of political agency in each level of political action, including the global. Evidence in favour of the proposed version of non-exclusionary cosmopolitanism is provided in examples of two case studies of such enlarged citizenship: a horizontal case concerned with migration, and a vertical case regarding supranational institutions as embedded in a system of cosmo-federal democracy.

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