David L Blaney
Biographic Data
| ID | 446089 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David L Blaney |
| GIVEN NAMES | David L |
| FAMILY NAME | Blaney |
| SIGNATURE | BLANEY D L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macalester College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4248-9815 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 378 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Exhaustion of Liberal Global Justice
Duncan Bell's introduction to this fine collection of essays indicts the standard liberal fare on global justice for its blindness to the history of empire, settler colonization, and race. The implication—and a wager played out across the eleven chapters—is that we can better confront issues of poverty and inequality if we eschew the arid abstractions of analytical Rawlsianism and instead cultivate sensitivity to historical injustices surrounding…
Provincializing economics
Contemporary economics speaks about trade in the familiar abstractions of comparative advantage, tracing the modern formulation of the case for free trade made in terms of welfare maximization to late-Victorian economists like W. Stanley Jevons and Alfred Marshall. Though Jevons and Marshall did formalize theories that treat countries as if they are abstract individuals, a closer reading suggests that their thinking on trade was informed by colon…
Adam Smith’s ambiguous theodicy and the ethics of international political economy
This chapter argues that reading Adam Smith might inspire one to a different economic theology: one that owns the costs of market society, and facing honestly the evils accompanying the productive advances and moral consequences of market society. If Smith's political economy embraces Providentialist themes, contemporary international political economy (IPE) claims, by contrast, to build on the explicitly disenchanted imaginings of neoclassical e…
Intersocietal Dynamics
Anievas and Nişancioğlu's How the West Came to Rule is an ambitious book, tasking itself with nothing less than providing a non-Eurocentric account of the origins of capitalism and the rise of the power of the West. This ambition helps explain both the strengths and weaknesses of the book but also accounts for its value as a teachable text. The need to understand capitalism, Anievas and Nişancioğlu tell us, is firmly back on the popular and schol…
Worlding, Ontological Politics and the Possibility of a Decolonial IR
This article argues that attention to representational practices and epistemology, however important for expanding the boundaries of International Relations as a field of study, has been insufficient for dealing with difference in world politics, where ontological conflicts are also at play. We suggest that IR, as a latecomer to the 'ontological turn', has yet to engage systematically with 'singular world' logics introduced by colonial modernity …
International Relations in the prison of colonial modernity
This article argues that Justin Rosenberg's proposal to reground IR in an ontology of societal multiplicity fails to account for the practices by which the field has erased multiplicity from its register and has sustained its identity through suppression of difference. We posit that the prison of colonial modernity, more than that of Political Science, is at the root of IR's lack of a distinctive purpose, and that Rosenberg's gesture toward uneve…
Theodicy and international political economy
In the spirit of Martin Wight’s suggestion that international relations (IR) is a theodicy, I explore the political economy tradition. First, I examine Leibniz’s theodicy as an effort to square the existence of evil with the goodness of God’s created order. This discussion reveals the necessary incompleteness of any symbolic structure or order. Second, I read political economy as theodicy. For Hegel, the history of social life is brought to compl…
A problem with levels
Though welcome, Cohen's call for exchange across diverse perspectives in international political economy (IPE) evades the question: why have we remained unaware of or insensitive to the diversity that already exists? We follow John Hobson's claim that racism, imperialism and Eurocentrism disallow a western-dominated social science from engaging with diverse viewpoints. We argue further that a disciplinary bias towards a unit-level or atomistic un…
Claiming the International
International politics
I imagine an IR that (1) begins with conquest and the colonial experience, instead of Westphalia, (2) focuses attention on thinking and feeling IR; and (3) sees contemporary neo–neo debates as trapped within fractures in the enlightenment vision that we need to move beyond.Keywords: Todorovcanonthinking and feeling IR Additional informationNotes on contributorsDavid L. BlaneyDavid L. Blaney, James Wallace Professor of Political Science, Macaleste…
The Dark Heart of Kindness
The success of norms constructivists rests in part on their assertion of academic activism as a heroic aspect of intellectual life. Critics of this vision, however, insist on the complicity of norm scholars in creating and maintaining processes of global injustice. Frustrated with this criticism, Richard Price calls for answers to a simple question: can detractors go beyond mere criticism and provide a praiseworthy target toward which norms const…
Liberal fundamentals
Savage Economics
This innovative book challenges the most powerful and pervasive ideas concerning political economy, international relations, and ethics in the modern world. Rereading classical authors including Adam Smith, James Steuart, Adam Ferguson, Hegel, and Marx, it provides a systematic and fundamental cultural critique of political economy and critically describes the nature of the mainstream understanding of economics. Blaney and Inayatullah construct a…
International Relations from Below
This article discusses the concept of ‘international relations from below’. ‘International relations from below’ reminds us that conventional international relations — whether structural realist, liberal institutionalist, or constructivist — treats states or groups as parts that are logically independent of the larger systems of capitalism or modernity, and that this methodological device serves political purposes. In the guise of ‘science’, onto…
The Savage Smith and the temporal walls of capitalism
Indian kinship economics, which, I ... understand not as pre-capitalist but as anticapitalist, constitute a powerful and continuing critique of the waste of an expansive, acquisitive capitalism that ... [Europe] could not afford to entertain. The loss in social vision was, and is, incalculable.Eric Cheyfitz
Classical Theory in International Relations
Classical political theorists such as Thucydides, Kant, Rousseau, Smith, Hegel, Grotius, Mill, Locke and Clausewitz are often employed to explain and justify contemporary international politics and are seen to constitute the different schools of thought in the discipline. However, traditional interpretations frequently ignore the intellectual and historical context in which these thinkers were writing as well as the lineages through which they ca…
International Relations and the Problem of Difference
International Relations and the Problem of Difference has developed out of the sense that IR as a discipline does not assess the quality of cultural interactions that shape, and are shaped by, the changing structures and processes of the international system. In this work, the authors re-imagine IR as a uniquely placed site for the study of differences as organized explicitly around the exploration of the relation of wholes and parts and sameness…
Neo-Modernization? IR and the Inner Life of Modernization Theory
Since the putative end of the Cold War, modernization is increasingly reimagined as a global process— as an expanding liberal zone of peace, a global civil society, or as emerging forms of global governance. Thus, new forms of modernization theory, what we call neo-modernization, have emerged as important theories of International Relations (IR). Such a convergence of events and theory permit us to examine the logical overlap between IR and moder…
The Westphalian Deferral
Towards an Ethnological IPE
War and the Illiberal Conscience
Journal Article War and the Illiberal Conscience Get access War and the Illiberal Conscience by Latif Abul-Husn. Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. 171 pp. $42.00. David L. Blaney David L. Blaney Macalester College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 114, Issue 3, Fall 1999, Pages 536–537, https://doi.org/10.2307/2658235 Published: 15 February 2013
Elusive Paradise
The field of international relations has become turbulent,1 at least as measured by the proliferation of post-Cold War, perhaps post-Westphalian, reimaginings of global political space. One stream of such imaginings promises the rise of a new architecture of global politics shaped by a growing worldwide consciousness. The sources and compulsions of these global visions diverge radically across a fairly wide spectrum. At the risk of simplifying, p…
Reconceptualizing autonomy
Though now largely ignored or maligned, the legacy of dependency thinking remains to be claimed. Of particular importance is the way dependency theorists mobilize the logic of sovereignty as a challenge to the hierarchy constructed as a capitalist global division of labor. However, this embrace of sovereignty creates perplexities for dependency argument: though the basis for a challenge to international inequality, sovereign boundaries also contr…
Knowing Encounters
The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory
Worlding, Ontological Politics and the Possibility of a Decolonial IR
This article argues that attention to representational practices and epistemology, however important for expanding the boundaries of International Relations as a field of study, has been insufficient for dealing with difference in world politics, where ontological conflicts are also at play. We suggest that IR, as a latecomer to the 'ontological turn', has yet to engage systematically with 'singular world' logics introduced by colonial modernity …
The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory
International Relations and the Problem of Difference
International Relations and the Problem of Difference has developed out of the sense that IR as a discipline does not assess the quality of cultural interactions that shape, and are shaped by, the changing structures and processes of the international system. In this work, the authors re-imagine IR as a uniquely placed site for the study of differences as organized explicitly around the exploration of the relation of wholes and parts and sameness…
Civil society and democracy in the third world
Elusive Paradise
The field of international relations has become turbulent,1 at least as measured by the proliferation of post-Cold War, perhaps post-Westphalian, reimaginings of global political space. One stream of such imaginings promises the rise of a new architecture of global politics shaped by a growing worldwide consciousness. The sources and compulsions of these global visions diverge radically across a fairly wide spectrum. At the risk of simplifying, p…
Towards an Ethnological IPE
Prelude to a Conversation of Cultures in International Society? Todorov and Nandy on the Possibility of Dialogue
Despite post-Cold War enthusiasm about the universalization of values and social and political forms, the sense that the world is beset by a trend toward fragmentation or diversification is now widespread.1 As globalization is now challenged by fragmentation, it has been suggested that international society faces a problem of multiculturalism, even a threat to the idea of an international society itself.2 We see that the fear of multiculturalism …
The Westphalian Deferral
International Relations in the prison of colonial modernity
This article argues that Justin Rosenberg's proposal to reground IR in an ontology of societal multiplicity fails to account for the practices by which the field has erased multiplicity from its register and has sustained its identity through suppression of difference. We posit that the prison of colonial modernity, more than that of Political Science, is at the root of IR's lack of a distinctive purpose, and that Rosenberg's gesture toward uneve…
Reconceptualizing autonomy
Though now largely ignored or maligned, the legacy of dependency thinking remains to be claimed. Of particular importance is the way dependency theorists mobilize the logic of sovereignty as a challenge to the hierarchy constructed as a capitalist global division of labor. However, this embrace of sovereignty creates perplexities for dependency argument: though the basis for a challenge to international inequality, sovereign boundaries also contr…
The Dark Heart of Kindness
The success of norms constructivists rests in part on their assertion of academic activism as a heroic aspect of intellectual life. Critics of this vision, however, insist on the complicity of norm scholars in creating and maintaining processes of global injustice. Frustrated with this criticism, Richard Price calls for answers to a simple question: can detractors go beyond mere criticism and provide a praiseworthy target toward which norms const…
Neo-Modernization? IR and the Inner Life of Modernization Theory
Since the putative end of the Cold War, modernization is increasingly reimagined as a global process— as an expanding liberal zone of peace, a global civil society, or as emerging forms of global governance. Thus, new forms of modernization theory, what we call neo-modernization, have emerged as important theories of International Relations (IR). Such a convergence of events and theory permit us to examine the logical overlap between IR and moder…
A problem with levels
Though welcome, Cohen's call for exchange across diverse perspectives in international political economy (IPE) evades the question: why have we remained unaware of or insensitive to the diversity that already exists? We follow John Hobson's claim that racism, imperialism and Eurocentrism disallow a western-dominated social science from engaging with diverse viewpoints. We argue further that a disciplinary bias towards a unit-level or atomistic un…
Realizing sovereignty
Sovereignty has become controversial. The idea and practice of sovereignty are said to be increasingly undermined by the simultaneous transnationalization and localization of political, economic, and cultural space. Not only is the ability of states to control their boundaries gradually erased, but given political boundaries seem unable to account for or define the dynamics of social life. At the same time, sovereignty is indicted as supportive o…
Theodicy and international political economy
In the spirit of Martin Wight’s suggestion that international relations (IR) is a theodicy, I explore the political economy tradition. First, I examine Leibniz’s theodicy as an effort to square the existence of evil with the goodness of God’s created order. This discussion reveals the necessary incompleteness of any symbolic structure or order. Second, I read political economy as theodicy. For Hegel, the history of social life is brought to compl…
Liberal fundamentals
Civil society and democracy in the third world
Prelude to a Conversation of Cultures in International Society? Todorov and Nandy on the Possibility of Dialogue
Despite post-Cold War enthusiasm about the universalization of values and social and political forms, the sense that the world is beset by a trend toward fragmentation or diversification is now widespread.1 As globalization is now challenged by fragmentation, it has been suggested that international society faces a problem of multiculturalism, even a threat to the idea of an international society itself.2 We see that the fear of multiculturalism …
Knowing Encounters
The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory
Realizing sovereignty
Sovereignty has become controversial. The idea and practice of sovereignty are said to be increasingly undermined by the simultaneous transnationalization and localization of political, economic, and cultural space. Not only is the ability of states to control their boundaries gradually erased, but given political boundaries seem unable to account for or define the dynamics of social life. At the same time, sovereignty is indicted as supportive o…
Reconceptualizing autonomy
Though now largely ignored or maligned, the legacy of dependency thinking remains to be claimed. Of particular importance is the way dependency theorists mobilize the logic of sovereignty as a challenge to the hierarchy constructed as a capitalist global division of labor. However, this embrace of sovereignty creates perplexities for dependency argument: though the basis for a challenge to international inequality, sovereign boundaries also contr…
Elusive Paradise
The field of international relations has become turbulent,1 at least as measured by the proliferation of post-Cold War, perhaps post-Westphalian, reimaginings of global political space. One stream of such imaginings promises the rise of a new architecture of global politics shaped by a growing worldwide consciousness. The sources and compulsions of these global visions diverge radically across a fairly wide spectrum. At the risk of simplifying, p…
Towards an Ethnological IPE
War and the Illiberal Conscience
Journal Article War and the Illiberal Conscience Get access War and the Illiberal Conscience by Latif Abul-Husn. Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. 171 pp. $42.00. David L. Blaney David L. Blaney Macalester College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 114, Issue 3, Fall 1999, Pages 536–537, https://doi.org/10.2307/2658235 Published: 15 February 2013
The Westphalian Deferral
Neo-Modernization? IR and the Inner Life of Modernization Theory
Since the putative end of the Cold War, modernization is increasingly reimagined as a global process— as an expanding liberal zone of peace, a global civil society, or as emerging forms of global governance. Thus, new forms of modernization theory, what we call neo-modernization, have emerged as important theories of International Relations (IR). Such a convergence of events and theory permit us to examine the logical overlap between IR and moder…
International Relations and the Problem of Difference
International Relations and the Problem of Difference has developed out of the sense that IR as a discipline does not assess the quality of cultural interactions that shape, and are shaped by, the changing structures and processes of the international system. In this work, the authors re-imagine IR as a uniquely placed site for the study of differences as organized explicitly around the exploration of the relation of wholes and parts and sameness…
The Savage Smith and the temporal walls of capitalism
Indian kinship economics, which, I ... understand not as pre-capitalist but as anticapitalist, constitute a powerful and continuing critique of the waste of an expansive, acquisitive capitalism that ... [Europe] could not afford to entertain. The loss in social vision was, and is, incalculable.Eric Cheyfitz
Classical Theory in International Relations
Classical political theorists such as Thucydides, Kant, Rousseau, Smith, Hegel, Grotius, Mill, Locke and Clausewitz are often employed to explain and justify contemporary international politics and are seen to constitute the different schools of thought in the discipline. However, traditional interpretations frequently ignore the intellectual and historical context in which these thinkers were writing as well as the lineages through which they ca…
International Relations from Below
This article discusses the concept of ‘international relations from below’. ‘International relations from below’ reminds us that conventional international relations — whether structural realist, liberal institutionalist, or constructivist — treats states or groups as parts that are logically independent of the larger systems of capitalism or modernity, and that this methodological device serves political purposes. In the guise of ‘science’, onto…
Savage Economics
This innovative book challenges the most powerful and pervasive ideas concerning political economy, international relations, and ethics in the modern world. Rereading classical authors including Adam Smith, James Steuart, Adam Ferguson, Hegel, and Marx, it provides a systematic and fundamental cultural critique of political economy and critically describes the nature of the mainstream understanding of economics. Blaney and Inayatullah construct a…
The Dark Heart of Kindness
The success of norms constructivists rests in part on their assertion of academic activism as a heroic aspect of intellectual life. Critics of this vision, however, insist on the complicity of norm scholars in creating and maintaining processes of global injustice. Frustrated with this criticism, Richard Price calls for answers to a simple question: can detractors go beyond mere criticism and provide a praiseworthy target toward which norms const…
Liberal fundamentals
Claiming the International
International politics
I imagine an IR that (1) begins with conquest and the colonial experience, instead of Westphalia, (2) focuses attention on thinking and feeling IR; and (3) sees contemporary neo–neo debates as trapped within fractures in the enlightenment vision that we need to move beyond.Keywords: Todorovcanonthinking and feeling IR Additional informationNotes on contributorsDavid L. BlaneyDavid L. Blaney, James Wallace Professor of Political Science, Macaleste…
A problem with levels
Though welcome, Cohen's call for exchange across diverse perspectives in international political economy (IPE) evades the question: why have we remained unaware of or insensitive to the diversity that already exists? We follow John Hobson's claim that racism, imperialism and Eurocentrism disallow a western-dominated social science from engaging with diverse viewpoints. We argue further that a disciplinary bias towards a unit-level or atomistic un…
Theodicy and international political economy
In the spirit of Martin Wight’s suggestion that international relations (IR) is a theodicy, I explore the political economy tradition. First, I examine Leibniz’s theodicy as an effort to square the existence of evil with the goodness of God’s created order. This discussion reveals the necessary incompleteness of any symbolic structure or order. Second, I read political economy as theodicy. For Hegel, the history of social life is brought to compl…
Intersocietal Dynamics
Anievas and Nişancioğlu's How the West Came to Rule is an ambitious book, tasking itself with nothing less than providing a non-Eurocentric account of the origins of capitalism and the rise of the power of the West. This ambition helps explain both the strengths and weaknesses of the book but also accounts for its value as a teachable text. The need to understand capitalism, Anievas and Nişancioğlu tell us, is firmly back on the popular and schol…
Worlding, Ontological Politics and the Possibility of a Decolonial IR
This article argues that attention to representational practices and epistemology, however important for expanding the boundaries of International Relations as a field of study, has been insufficient for dealing with difference in world politics, where ontological conflicts are also at play. We suggest that IR, as a latecomer to the 'ontological turn', has yet to engage systematically with 'singular world' logics introduced by colonial modernity …
International Relations in the prison of colonial modernity
This article argues that Justin Rosenberg's proposal to reground IR in an ontology of societal multiplicity fails to account for the practices by which the field has erased multiplicity from its register and has sustained its identity through suppression of difference. We posit that the prison of colonial modernity, more than that of Political Science, is at the root of IR's lack of a distinctive purpose, and that Rosenberg's gesture toward uneve…
Political science (25 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Law (21 works) · Politics (20 works) · Law (13 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Political economy (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · International relations (8 works)