How 'Utopian' is the Foreign Policy in Thomas More's Utopia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3969983
AutoresM Jackson (0000-0001-9199-9048, The University of Sydney, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen27
Número1
Páginas57-67
Fecha de publicación2022-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2021.1929294
OpenAlexW3184950019
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas16

In his foundational text The Twenty Years’ Crisis: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (1939), E. H. Carr juxtaposes utopian and realist approaches to world politics. This dichotomy, while modified since, remains at the core of most studies in the field. Carr cites Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) as representative of idealistic, wishful, and infantile utopian thinking. By taking Carr’s analysis of Utopia literally, this article examines the foreign policies depicted in More’s book. Since these policies include assassination, regime change, slavery, pre-emptive warfare, I argue that they can hardly be called utopian in any sense of the word. In light of this conclusion, I suggest that international relations theory should be founded on more accurate examples of its categories of thought, namely utopianism and realism

Art · Art history · Dystopia · Environmental ethics · Foreign policy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Utopia · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Theory and Influence