What is morality’s place within realist theories of international politics? Often realism is disregarded for having little to offer on the matter. Whilst recent research suggests this is something of a misconception, seldom have realists themselves been asked if and where any moral philosophy belongs inside their perspectives, respectively, on world politics. This is probably unfair, and not a little strange, as several realists throughout the history of international political thought have in fact had much to say about what becomes of morality between states. This paper presents a small selection of those most important contributions to the realist literature, with a particular view towards what has been said on morality within them. Identified are a handful of instances where influential realists have indeed commented on what becomes of morality in international politics, with each example then taken to be useful in some way. Next is proposed something like a complement to them, by way of reading differently the origins of the classical realist tradition. This alternative reading requires first that we consider the ancient Greek sophist Protagoras as having had something important to say about morality and about human nature in Plato’s dialogue named after him. Second, we must ask whether Protagorean moral philosophy can at all be considered relevant to the development of realist theory. I argue that it can, and suggest that we ought therefore to revisit the realist tradition's ancient Greek origins, adding next to the name Thucydides that of his contemporary Protagoras as having been first to exemplify realist theory in the history of Western international political thought.

This thesis investigates in three parts the role played by metatheory in the discipline of International Relations (IR). Part one defines metatheory as 'systematic discourse about theory' and classifies it in a typology combining elements internal or external to the discipline with intellectual or contextual aspects of theorising. Each combination has particular functions. They also add to the roles played by several modes of metatheoretical inquiry (hermeneutical, evaluative, corrective, critical and historical). The typology offered in part one clarifies the general roles of metatheory as a constraining and enabling discursive mechanism. This is also discussed in part two, addressing how IR scholars portray metatheory's role in the discipline. Arguments against and in favour of metatheory are scrutinised, leading to a qualified defence of metatheoretical research in IR. Some of the negative impact of metatheorising in IR is acknowledged, but ultimately a stronger case attempting to eliminate it from the field cannot be sustained for analytical reasons. The merits of metatheory, therefore, will depend on how it operates in particular instances. A selection of illustration cases in part three further develops the argument. The first case stresses how metatheoretical directives shaped 17th century views of the Holy Roman Empire. It indicates that metatheory can frame theoretical claims even in a weak disciplinary context. A stronger disciplinary environment frames the second case, analysing a number of IR theories on the impact of the Peace of Westphalia in the European states-system. This discussion often alludes to the notion of hierarchy. The third case examines the interaction between metatheoretical directives and theories of hierarchy. These arguments are not necessarily compatible with the metatheoretical principles argued by their authors. As a mechanism, therefore, metatheory does not relate to theory in a deterministic way. Part three itself is, of course, a metatheoretical study that further illustrates the thesis.

This thesis provides a contextualised exegesis and re-evaluation of the anarchist Pierre- Joseph Proudhon's writings on war and peace. The thesis has two claims to originality. The first lies in shedding new light on Proudhon's voluminous writings on international politics. These texts have been relatively marginalised in the broader secondary literature on Proudhon's thinking, and the thesis seeks to correct this important lacuna. In International Relations (IR), the academic discipline to which this thesis will make its most obvious original contribution, Proudhon's writings on war and peace have been almost completely ignored. By providing an anarchist approach to world politics, the thesis will also contribute to IR's historiographical and critical theoretical literature. The second claim to originality lies in using these writings and the context from which they emerged to tell a story about the evolution of the nineteenth century, the origins of the twentieth century and provide possible ways of thinking beyond the twenty first. The thesis employs a contextualist methodology that works in four ways. First, I have contextualised Proudhon's thought geo-politically, in relation to the dynamics of the balance of power in nineteenth-century Europe. Secondly, I have sought to understand Proudhon's ideas against the backdrop of the evolution of the French nation state in the mid to late nineteenth century. Third, I have shown how Proudhon's thought emerges out of the dominant intellectual currents of his day – ideas that range from the inspiration for the activism of Fourierist and Saint-Simonian feminists, to the epochal influence of Rousseau and Kant. Finally, I argue that Proudhon's thinking on world politics needs to be understood in relation to the evolution of his own thinking after Napoleon III's coup d'état of the 2nd of December 1851. I will show that Proudhon's mature anarchism, his mutualist federalism, was an engaged response to each of these social and intellectual contexts. I will argue that his critiques of these processes, and their intellectual champions, have been given an added poignancy given that he campaigned in large part against those very processes that culminated in two world wars.

A presente pesquisa pretende, de modo geral, analisar o quão sólida é a vertente normativa da Escola Inglesa das Relações Internacionais. Para tanto, em um primeiro momento é feita uma discussão acerca do lugar ocupado pela teoria política normativa na literatura de Relações Internacionais. Em seguida, são identificados os três grandes temas que unem os escritos tanto modernos quanto contemporâneos de teoria política internacional. O primeiro deles se refere à dicotomia inside/outside, o segundo tema trata da tensão particularista/universalista e o terceiro tema aponta para a diferenciação entre o sistema e a sociedade internacionais. Finalmente, a pesquisa busca nos escritos mais contemporâneos da EI as respostas para esses dilemas éticos e políticos, visando concluir se a vertente normativa dessa abordagem teórica de RI é suficientemente forte e capaz de tratar a tensão existente entre ordem e justiça nas relações internacionais. / The main objective of this research is to analyze how consistent is the normative wing of the English School of International Relations (IR). In order to reach such an objective, firstly, there is a debate about the place occupied by normative political theory in IR literature. Secondly, three main themes of both modern and contemporary writings of international political theory are identified. The first of them refers to the dichotomy inside/outside, the second one regards the tension particularism/universalism, and the third raises the difference between international system and international society. Finally, the research tries to find the answers to these ethical and political dilemmas mainly within the contemporary writings of the English School, aiming at concluding whether the normative wing of such a theoretical approach is sufficiently robust and able to deal with the tension between order and justice in international relations.

A presente pesquisa pretende, de modo geral, analisar o quão sólida é a vertente normativa da Escola Inglesa das Relações Internacionais. Para tanto, em um primeiro momento é feita uma discussão acerca do lugar ocupado pela teoria política normativa na literatura de Relações Internacionais. Em seguida, são identificados os três grandes temas que unem os escritos tanto modernos quanto contemporâneos de teoria política internacional. O primeiro deles se refere à dicotomia inside/outside, o segundo tema trata da tensão particularista/universalista e o terceiro tema aponta para a diferenciação entre o sistema e a sociedade internacionais. Finalmente, a pesquisa busca nos escritos mais contemporâneos da EI as respostas para esses dilemas éticos e políticos, visando concluir se a vertente normativa dessa abordagem teórica de RI é suficientemente forte e capaz de tratar a tensão existente entre ordem e justiça nas relações internacionais. / The main objective of this research is to analyze how consistent is the normative wing of the English School of International Relations (IR). In order to reach such an objective, firstly, there is a debate about the place occupied by normative political theory in IR literature. Secondly, three main themes of both modern and contemporary writings of international political theory are identified. The first of them refers to the dichotomy inside/outside, the second one regards the tension particularism/universalism, and the third raises the difference between international system and international society. Finally, the research tries to find the answers to these ethical and political dilemmas mainly within the contemporary writings of the English School, aiming at concluding whether the normative wing of such a theoretical approach is sufficiently robust and able to deal with the tension between order and justice in international relations.

While not uncontested, the finding that liberal democracies rarely, if ever, fight wars against each other represents one of the seminal discoveries of international relations (IR) scholarship. Nevertheless, 'democratic peace theory' (DPT) – the body of scholarship that seeks to explain the democratic peace finding – still lacks a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon. In this thesis, I argue that a primary source of this failure has been DPT's failure to recognize the importance of collective identification and trust for the eventuation of the 'liberal peace'. Building on existing DPT scholarship, most of it Realist or Rationalist in its inspiration, but also employing insights from Constructivist and Cognitivist scholarship, I develop a new model of how specific forms of collective identification can produce specific forms of trust. On this basis, I elaborate a new explanation of the liberal peace which sees it as arising out of a network of trusting liberal security communities. I then elaborate a new research design that enables a more rigorous and replicable empirical investigation of these ideas through the analysis of three historical cases studies, namely the Canada-USA, India-Pakistan, and France-Germany relationships. The results of this analysis support the plausibility of my theoretical framework, and also illuminate four additional findings. Specifically, I find that (1) IR scholarship needs a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between agents and structures; (2) 'institutionalized collaboration' is especially important for promoting collective identification; (3) DPT scholarship needs to focus more attention on the content of the narratives around which collective identification takes place; and (4) dramatic events play an important role in collective identification by triggering what I term catharses and epiphanies. I close the thesis by reviewing the implications of my findings for IR and for policymakers and by suggesting some areas worthy of additional research.

This dissertation argues that the major theories of global justice (specifically within the cosmopolitan tradition) have missed an important aspect of capitalism in their attempts to deal with the most pernicious effects of the global economic system. This is not merely a left critique of cosmopolitanism (though it is certainly that as well), but its fundamental contribution is that it applies the insights of Frankfurt School Critical Theorist Theodor Adorno’s negative dialectics to offer an internal critique of cosmopolitanism. As it stands, much of the global justice and cosmopolitanism literature takes global capitalism as an unsurpassable and a foundationally unproblematic system, often ignoring completely the relationship between the psycho-socially conditioned ideological aspects of capitalism and the horizon of achievable politics and social development. Using the philosophies and social theories of Adorno and Erich Fromm, I argue that there is a crucial psycho-social dimension to capitalism, or capitalistic mentality—represented in and functionally reproduced by transnational capitalism—that undermines the political aspirations of normative theories of cosmopolitanism, on their own terms. The project concludes with an exploration of Marxist, neo-Marxist, and post-Marxist theories as a potential source of alternatives to address the flaws within cosmopolitanism with respect to its general acceptance and under-theorizing of capitalism. The conclusion reached here is that even these radical approaches fail to take into account the near-pervasive influence of capitalism on the minds of radicals and activists working for progressive change or simply reject the potentials contained in existing avenues for global political and economic change (something which the cosmopolitan theories explored in earlier chapters do not do). Based again on the work of Adorno and Fromm, this dissertation argues that the best path forward, practically and theoretically, is by engaging cosmopolitanism and neo-/post-Marxism productively around this concept of the capitalistic mentality, building towards a praxeological theory of postcapitalist cosmopolitanism framed by a negative dialectical resuscitation of the concepts of class struggle and unlimited democracy. This postcapitalist cosmopolitanism emphasizes non-exploitative economic and political relations, cooperation, compassion, sustainability, and a participatory-democratic civic culture.