This thesis examines key determining factors influencing bilateral relations between two small states that emanate from different regions but continuously interacting in the international political system. In doing this, the researcher will focus on Malaysia's relations with Saudi Arabia (with the emphasis more on the Malaysian side). The main reason for choosing Malaysia and Saudi Arabia as the case study is because both countries have significant characteristics which they largely share with most of the other small states such as the overwhelming dominance of one single political regime and the idiosyncratic element that control the administration of these two countries (UMNO party for Malaysia and the Al-Saud family for Saudi Arabia), the dependent position (as peripheral states) in the international political economy, and also sharing co-ideological affiliation of Islam. Upon the employment of the multi-level approach with the incorporation of the empirical textuality (see Chapter II), the study has identified four key determining factors that largely influence Malaysia's relations with Saudi Arabia. The four key determining factors are; the nature of state and regime interest, economic determinants, religious affiliation, and the membership in small states' organizations. Throughout the discussion, however, the study has found that the four key determining factors do not uniformly indicate that the character of Malaysia's relations with Saudi Arabia is intimate. Instead, the relations are variable according to the four determining factors discussed. The thesis has supplied two main original contributions for the development of knowledge in the international relations field. Firstly, the analysis of Malaysia's relations with Saudi Arabia can be considered as a `pioneering' study, and secondly, the employment of the multi-level approach with the incorporation of the empirical textuality may encourage other researchers to evaluate any bilateral relations between two countries, specifically those originating from different regions.

This project critically interrogates the conceptualisation of the multitude in the works of Hardt and Negri. It challenges two of their central claims. Firstly, their assertion that early modernity is best understood through the lens of the conceptual battle between Hobbes and Spinoza, in terms of the people versus the multitude. Secondly, their contention that the multitude is the primary agent of radical politics in the twenty-first century. In terms of early modernity, this project examines the role the multitude plays in the thought of three republican theorists, Marsilius of Padua, Machiavelli and Spinoza. These theorists provide an equivocal account of the multitude, but also develop a coherent political project. This involves placing articulation - through consent, communication and the common notions - at the forefront of a new, mass, participatory and egalitarian politics. These three theorists do not oppose the people to the multitude, nor sovereignty to democracy, as Hardt and Negri claim. Rather, they develop a mobile account of political sovereign power founded on articulation. Hardt and Negri identify the multitude as the emergent agent of a contemporary communist politics. This identification is based on their reading of Spinoza's conceptualisation of the multitude, alongside broad historical developments in the second half of the twentieth century. They again oppose democracy to sovereignty, and express this opposition through hostility towards traditional organisational forms of the left, in particular, political parties and trade unions. Instead, they embrace the network as the appropriate form of organisation for the multitude. As in my discussion of the early modern period, this project argues that contemporary politics cannot be understood through the sovereignty-democracy dichotomy theorised by Hardt and Negri. Instead I defend an account of hegemony, which draws on Laclau's conceptualisation of articulation in political struggles. This entails developing a mobile account of sovereign power, allied to the development of Gramsci's account of hegemony. I demonstrate the conceptual links between Machiavelli's account of consent and more recent accounts of hegemony. Machiavelli's account of consent, in turn, is indebted to Marsilius' earlier contribution to this debate, and serves as a guide for Spinoza's subsequent development of a new form of politics based on communication and the common notions.

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Over the past few decades, a number of prominent scholars have attempted to apply Wittgenstein’s philosophy to the study of International Relations (IR). These applications have taken diverse forms and directions; nevertheless, many involve using Wittgenstein’s philosophy to criticise certain purportedly ‘scientific’ approaches to studying IR that have conventionally been labelled as ‘positivist’ within the discipline. One popular line of objection that is pursued in this context argues that ‘positivist’ approaches to IR are committed to a problematic representational view of language – called the ‘mirror’ or ‘picture’ view – which Wittgenstein decisively criticised in his later work. While many IR scholars and interpreters of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy would be sympathetic to the overall aim and direction of this line of argument, I contend that there are some problems with it which have the result that it does not support the conclusions that it is meant to. I therefore use the identification of these problems as the starting point for developing an alternative application of the relevant aspects of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to IR, which can replace the anti-­‐representationalist objection and provide a more sophisticated way to criticise ‘positivist’ IR scholars that overcomes the problems identified.

This thesis investigates the problematic of social and political complexity. It attempts to answer the question of how power operates in a world of complex and globalised social, political, and economic systems. The basic claims of the thesis are as follows. Firstly, we can find the tools to understand social complexity in complexity theory. In turn, the conceptual innovations of complexity theory can be deployed to rethink the pre-existing political theoretical tradition of hegemony. We argue that the most significant existing theories of hegemony have been produced in relation to moments of increasing real world social complexity, and that there exists an under-developed seam of thinking already within the tradition which evokes key concepts from complexity theory. Therefore, the flaws in existing theories of hegemony can be remedied by conceptualising the complexity of hegemony in a rigorous way using the formal resources of complexity theory. To do so, the thesis first defines the necessary conditions for and properties of complex systems, as investigated by complexity science. It then outlines a general theory of social and political complexity. It develops an original reading of Gramscian hegemony, while critically appraising Laclau and Mouffe’s articulatory variant of the concept. It then brings together insights from the field of complexity theory to rethink the basic concepts of hegemony, before applying the theory to the investigation of the persistence of Neoliberalism after the 2008 financial crisis. In so doing, it establishes the grounds for a new theory of complex hegemony, reworking existing political theory to better explain the complex dynamics of our contemporary world.

The concept of order in international politics, despite its very frequent use in all strands of ir literature, is seldom explicitly addressed as an object of analytical reflection and definition, and remains often opaque. This research aims to clarify the nature of order as a concept within ir theory, by highlighting its constitutive elements and by positioning it within the horizon of current political-philosophical and sociological discussions. This thesis starts with a literature review showing the limitedness of the ways in which order is employed as a concept in many ir theoretical works, while underscoring its critical problematisation as the main path towards its clarification. Following and integrating Nicholas Rengger’s seminal work on the topic, this research argues that the concept of order, which entails the double nature of a descriptive/explanatory but also normative account of reality, has to be understood within a philosophical discussion of the political, lying between the two poles of political theology (Carl Schmitt) and the sociological theory of secularisation (Jürgen Habermas). While introducing and discussing the two authors, this thesis illustrates the roles which they have assumed in inspiring ir theoretical work (in critical theory), pointing at the limits of their established readings within the discipline and offering new perspectives, which should essentially rely on a more direct critical politicisation of the sacred. This thesis proceeds with an exploration of the problem of order in the modern condition, through a reconstruction and a discussion of the common Weberian genealogy in both Schmitt and Habermas, focusing on the importance of the sociology of religion for the conceptualisation of the political in modernity (Schmitt) and of the concepts of rationality and rationalisation (Habermas) respectively. Against this background, a critique of the Habermasian view on secularisation is developed, as Habermas’s argument appears to be an incomplete answer to the problem of the symbolic relations between the religious and the political, and hence of his conceptualisation of political order, a problem which is also reflected at the level of international politics. Note: translations of original texts in this thesis are done by the author unless otherwise specified.

The thesis is concerned with the nature of human action presupposed by normative theory; it is about recognising and articulating the fragility of the human within the context of human needs and assumptions made by international ethical theory. The primary aim of the thesis is to establish the existence of two basic needs necessary for moral action, to determine a global obligation to enable the meeting of those needs, and to articulate a necessary reconceptualisation of the state system in line with the demands of that obligation. The thesis makes this argument in three parts. By exploring and revealing the vulnerability and finitude of the individual actor, looking at the notion and language of ‘need’, and demonstrating what is involved in being held morally responsible, Part One seeks to provide an objective and universalist account of the prerequisites of moral action, establishing two basic needs: autonomy and freedom. The second Part of the thesis is dedicated to showing why there is a corresponding obligation – a ‘Global Principle’ – to meet these needs, an obligation which is cosmopolitan in scope and source. In its attempt to articulate a rationally-derived core and primary principle of justice, the thesis hopes to contribute to the cosmopolitan discourse of IPT. Part Three shows in what way the international system, with an emphasis on the state, needs to be reconceived; it argues that the state needs to be reconceptualised as a transparent enactor of the derivative duties of the Global Principle (through political and socio-economic reform) ensuring identification of the individual as the primary actor of responsibility within the international. Overall, the thesis aims to identify and acknowledge the limitations of the human and the necessity of some external provisions in order to enable her to become a normatively accountable actor. It aims to highlight what normative theory both assumes and reinforces about human action, arguing that only once the discourse of IPT has recognised the uniquely needing nature of the individual can she become a meaningful and free actor within the international arena.

The phenomenon of displacement is a fundamental source of social, political and economic tensions in the contemporary world. Despite this centrality there has been relatively little sustained theoretical engagement with this phenomenon within the discipline of International Relations (IR). In this thesis I will therefore develop a phenomenological approach, drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, in order to explore ways in which the placed experience of ethical proximity is disrupted through logics of spatial mediation. I will then apply this phenomenological approach to a reading of four fundamental narratives of displacement in the western philosophical tradition: Exodus, Odyssey, Crusade and Conquest. Through these narratives, I will argue, that we find a process of the subsumption of place within spatial totalities in which inter-personal relations are mediated in relation to the projects of the totality. Ultimately, I will suggest this process of totalisation has shaped the fundamental structure of modern international theory. I will also suggest, however, that the placidness of everyday life constantly disrupts this totalisation.

The aim of my thesis is to reconceptualise the English School of International Relations according to what I describe as the history/theory dialectic. The origins of this dialectic are sought in the thought of E. H. Carr, Herbert Butterfield, and Martin Wight, who drew attention to the interpenetration of history and theory. In their capacity as historians, the writers examined in my thesis struggled with problems normally associated with theoretical work in International Relations and elsewhere and tried to combine personal and impersonal accounts of history. They also emphasised the role of the historian which is no different from that of the theorist in attributing meaning to a series of apparently unrelated events. As international theorists, Butterfield, Wight and Carr underlined the historicity of international theory, and offered a historicist conceptualisation of international change that assigned priority to European interests and values. Their belief in the co-constitution of history and theory, has important consequences for contemporary English School debates concerning the proper definition of the relationship between order and justice, international society and world society, pluralism and solidarism. What lies at the end of the history/theory dialectic is not an unproblematic combination of opposites but the recognition of the need to be cautious towards the categories we use in order to capture and analyse a multidimensional reality which is subject to change.

The core argument of this work is that the individualist conceptions of agency and responsibility inherent in the contemporary ethical structure of international relations are highly problematic, serve political purposes which are often unacknowledged, and have led to the establishment of an international institutional regime which is limited in the kind of justice it can bring to international affairs. Cosmopolitan liberalism has led to the privileging of the discourse of rights over that of responsibility, through its emphasis on legality and the role of the individual as the agent and subject of ethics; this has culminated in the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC, described by its supporters as the missing link in human rights enforcement, is a result of changing conceptions of agency and responsibility beyond borders – normative discourse has moved from state to individual, from politics and ethics to law, and from peace to justice, but I argue that it has not yet moved beyond the dichotomy of cosmopolitan and communitarian thinking. I contend that neither of these two positions can offer us a satisfactory way forward, so new thinking is required. The core of the thesis therefore explores alternative views of agency and responsibility – concepts which are central to international political theory, but not systematically theorized within the discipline. I outline models of agency as sociality and responsibility as a social practice, arguing that these models both better describe the way we talk about and experience our social lives, and also offer significant possibilities to broaden the scope of international justice and enable human flourishing. I end the research by considering the implications of these more nuanced accounts of agency and responsibility for ongoing theorising and practice.