J Rosenberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 1580 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Rosenberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Rosenberg |
| SIGNATURE | ROSENBERG J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2950-1541 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 546 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1931 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Multiplicity and the problem of ‘society
This article seeks to address a major shortcoming of the idea of Societal Multiplicity in international theory: its lack of a worked-out definition of what counts as ‘a society’. The article supplies this definition in four steps. First, it reviews some difficulties in defining ‘society’, arguing that these arise in part from the historical separation of social and international theory. Second, it interweaves resources from both traditions to arg…
Forum: Debating the Chinese School(s) of IR Theory
The papers in this Forum, along with eight papers consecutively published in previous and current issues of this journal, constitute a special symposium, which engages in a dialogue between the “Chinese School” of International Relations (IR) theory and “Western” IR theories. The contributors are renowned Western theorists representing various Western paradigms and leading Chinese theorists from the three branches of the Chinese School, namely “m…
Multiplicity and ‘The International’ as Critique – A Forum
This forum reconsiders the standing of ‘the international’ in relation to ‘critique’. Is this relation best understood in ways reminiscent of the ‘Fourth Great Debate’, where the international, associated with political realism, was targeted for deconstruction by critical approaches drawn from outside International Relations? Or is the international, on the contrary, itself a source of potential critique needing to be excavated and utilized, as r…
Debating Uneven and Combined Development/Debating International Relations: A Forum
This forum arises from an online event on the theory of uneven and combined development (UCD). Following an introduction which proposes a ‘special affinity’ between UCD and International Relations (IR), four presenters at that event discuss their ‘view from outside’ UCD, including perspectives from Global Historical Sociology, Realism, Decolonial theory and Gramscian Marxism. Meanwhile four members of the audience add their views on UCD and disci…
Introduction: The international of everything
This text introduces the Special Issue on Multiplicity. It sets out the broad research programme of Multiplicity, considers some criticisms that have been made of this programme and then summarises the contributions to the Special Issue
National adequation and critical originality in the work of Antonio Candido
In June 2014, the Warwick Research Collective (WReC) co-hosted a conference on ‘Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development’. A key question raised during the conference, and subsequently continued
Results and prospects: An introduction to the CRIA special issue on UCD
This paper introduces the Special Issue on Uneven and Combined Development (UCD). It begins by briefly outlining the idea of UCD and reviewing its history – from its origins in the writings of Leon Trotsky to its contemporary renaissance in the field of international studies. A second section then introduces the contributions to this Special Issue, showing how they amount to a powerful new wave of UCD studies
UCD and IPE: An introduction to the forum
What is the significance of UCD for the field of International Political Economy? In 2019, Justin Rosenberg and Chris Boyle argued that Trotsky’s idea provided an understanding of capitalist world
Multiplicity: A new common ground for international theory
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Uneven and combined development: A defense of the general abstraction
This article responds to criticisms of the current revival of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD), particularly those aimed at the idea of a ‘general abstraction’ of UCD. Three main charges have been pressed: that UCD is not a real theory; that its transhistorical extension has reduced it to an unhistorical reification; and that its language of ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’ betrays its enduring Eurocentric foundations. The article argues not only t…
Multiplicity: What's the Big Deal
Trotsky’s error: Multiplicity and the secret origins of revolutionary Marxism
Uneven and Combined Development uniquely incorporated societal multiplicity into Marxist theory. So why did its first application end in Stalinist dictatorship? This paper seeks an answer by turning the idea back on itself, applying it first to Trotsky’s doctrine of ‘permanent revolution’ and then to Marx’s original idea of revolution. Trotsky hoped that Russia’s ‘revolution of backwardness’ would be rescued by ‘advanced’ revolutions in the West,…
Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development
This article uses the theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD) to produce a novel explanation of 'Brexit and Trump' - the two shock political events of 2016. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, we identify the global conjuncture of historicalunevennessin which the votes occurred: how the neoliberal transformation of the advanced capitalist countries was synchronized with the radically different process of primitive accumulation i…
Ir 101
The elusive international
This piece responds to the critical commentaries offered in this forum. I re-state the core aspects of the thesis and emphasize four themes related to theory in response to the critics: (1) Levels of Theory, (2) Locations of Theory, (3) Disciplines of Theory and (4) Ideologies of Theory
Confessions of a Sociolator
Following recent critiques of ‘the social’ in international theory, this text revisits a contribution the author made to ‘the social turn’ in 1994. While C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination appears to survive the recent critiques, the passage of time has nonetheless revealed a quite different weakness in the author’s use of it: namely, its neglect of ‘the international’ as an object of theory. This neglect, which is indeed common to alm…
International Relations in the prison of Political Science
In recent decades, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any 'big ideas' that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. Fi…
Pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas de sociologie historique internationale
Les études de sociologie historique font face à un défi similaire à celui examiné par Martin Wight dans son article intitulé « Why is There noInternational Theory ? ». Les théories sociales classiques ont conceptualisé la « société » au singulier ontologique, léguant à leurs successeurs le problème de l’analogie domestique qui a opiniâtrement résisté aux tentatives de fournir une théorie sociale des Relations Internationales. Pour surmonter ce pr…
Kenneth Waltz and Leon Trotsky: Anarchy in the mirror of uneven and combined development
The ‘philosophical premises’ of uneven and combined development
Recent debates over Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development’ (U&CD) have focused on its potential in the field of International Relations, but they have not established the source of this potential. Does it derive from the philosophical premises of dialectics? The present article argues that the idea of U&CD in fact involves an innovation as fundamental for Marxist dialectics as for other branches of social theory. And it also arg…
For Older People, Being Black and Single Linked to Nonmonogamous Partnerships
Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development. Part II: Unevenness and political multiplicity
Where does ‘the international’ come from? What accounts for its existence as a dimension of the human world? This article attempts an answer, in three steps, using the idea of ‘uneven and combined development’ (U&CD). First, a depth model is constructed, comparing different ways of linking uneven development with international relations. Thus far, it turns out, these ways have all presupposed the fact of political multiplicity, rather than explai…
Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development: A reply to the CRIA forum
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJustin Rosenberg11 I would like to record my thanks also to Simon Bromley and Barry Buzan, each of whom has, at different times, sought to alert me to exactly the problems that I now find myself compelled to address
Uneven and combined development: The social-relational substratum of ‘the international’? An exchange of letters
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJustin Rosenberg 11 The authors would like to thank Alex Anievas and an anonymous reviewer for valuable suggestions in preparing this exchange for publication
And the Definition of Globalization Is …? A Reply to ‘In at the Death?’ by Barrie Axford
I had resolved never to write again on ‘globalization’. But Barrie Axford's critique of my ‘Post Mortem’ is too good to ignore. On first reading, I didn't know whether to feel more humbled by the a
Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem
Why is There No International Historical Sociology
Historical sociological studies in IR face a challenge similar to that discussed by Martin Wight in ‘Why is There no International Theory?’ Classical social theorists conceptualized ‘society’ in the ontological singular, leaving their successors with a ‘domestic analogy’ problem which has dogged attempts to provide a social theory of International Relations. Overcoming this problem requires an expansion of the premises of social theory to incorpo…
Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development. Part II: Unevenness and political multiplicity
Where does ‘the international’ come from? What accounts for its existence as a dimension of the human world? This article attempts an answer, in three steps, using the idea of ‘uneven and combined development’ (U&CD). First, a depth model is constructed, comparing different ways of linking uneven development with international relations. Thus far, it turns out, these ways have all presupposed the fact of political multiplicity, rather than explai…
Uneven and combined development: The social-relational substratum of ‘the international’? An exchange of letters
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJustin Rosenberg 11 The authors would like to thank Alex Anievas and an anonymous reviewer for valuable suggestions in preparing this exchange for publication
International Relations in the prison of Political Science
In recent decades, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any 'big ideas' that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. Fi…
Kenneth Waltz and Leon Trotsky: Anarchy in the mirror of uneven and combined development
Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development
This article uses the theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD) to produce a novel explanation of 'Brexit and Trump' - the two shock political events of 2016. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, we identify the global conjuncture of historicalunevennessin which the votes occurred: how the neoliberal transformation of the advanced capitalist countries was synchronized with the radically different process of primitive accumulation i…
The ‘philosophical premises’ of uneven and combined development
Recent debates over Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development’ (U&CD) have focused on its potential in the field of International Relations, but they have not established the source of this potential. Does it derive from the philosophical premises of dialectics? The present article argues that the idea of U&CD in fact involves an innovation as fundamental for Marxist dialectics as for other branches of social theory. And it also arg…
Isaac Deutscher and the Lost History of International Relations
I would like to express my thanks to the Deutscher Committee for the great honour of this award. The Isaac and Tamara Deutscher memorial prize is a uniquely valuable institution in many ways but the most valuable aspect is surely the legacy of Deutscher himself. For Isaac Deutscher
International Relations — The ‘Higher Bullshit’: A Reply to the Globalization Theory Debate
Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development: A reply to the CRIA forum
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJustin Rosenberg11 I would like to record my thanks also to Simon Bromley and Barry Buzan, each of whom has, at different times, sought to alert me to exactly the problems that I now find myself compelled to address
The International Imagination: IR Theory and 'Classic Social Analysis
What's the matter with realism
International relations, as an academic discipline, is not known for its strength in the area of theory. It has no immediate equivalent to the rich contrasts of perspective generated in sociology by the legacy of Max Weber, Marx and Durkheim—a lack so felt that Martin Wight once wrote a paper called ‘Why is there no International Theory?’ His own answer was, in part, that there is nothing further to theorize after the discovery of the repetitive …
Debating Uneven and Combined Development/Debating International Relations: A Forum
This forum arises from an online event on the theory of uneven and combined development (UCD). Following an introduction which proposes a ‘special affinity’ between UCD and International Relations (IR), four presenters at that event discuss their ‘view from outside’ UCD, including perspectives from Global Historical Sociology, Realism, Decolonial theory and Gramscian Marxism. Meanwhile four members of the audience add their views on UCD and disci…
Interview With Ken Waltz Conducted by Fred Halliday and Justin Rosenberg
1. Personal and academic backgroundF.H. It would be very interesting if you could say something about your own personal and academic background. What were the experiences that led you to write Man, the State and War
Introduction: The international of everything
This text introduces the Special Issue on Multiplicity. It sets out the broad research programme of Multiplicity, considers some criticisms that have been made of this programme and then summarises the contributions to the Special Issue
Results and prospects: An introduction to the CRIA special issue on UCD
This paper introduces the Special Issue on Uneven and Combined Development (UCD). It begins by briefly outlining the idea of UCD and reviewing its history – from its origins in the writings of Leon Trotsky to its contemporary renaissance in the field of international studies. A second section then introduces the contributions to this Special Issue, showing how they amount to a powerful new wave of UCD studies
Multiplicity: A new common ground for international theory
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Uneven and combined development: A defense of the general abstraction
This article responds to criticisms of the current revival of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD), particularly those aimed at the idea of a ‘general abstraction’ of UCD. Three main charges have been pressed: that UCD is not a real theory; that its transhistorical extension has reduced it to an unhistorical reification; and that its language of ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’ betrays its enduring Eurocentric foundations. The article argues not only t…
Confessions of a Sociolator
Following recent critiques of ‘the social’ in international theory, this text revisits a contribution the author made to ‘the social turn’ in 1994. While C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination appears to survive the recent critiques, the passage of time has nonetheless revealed a quite different weakness in the author’s use of it: namely, its neglect of ‘the international’ as an object of theory. This neglect, which is indeed common to alm…
Multiplicity and ‘The International’ as Critique – A Forum
This forum reconsiders the standing of ‘the international’ in relation to ‘critique’. Is this relation best understood in ways reminiscent of the ‘Fourth Great Debate’, where the international, associated with political realism, was targeted for deconstruction by critical approaches drawn from outside International Relations? Or is the international, on the contrary, itself a source of potential critique needing to be excavated and utilized, as r…
Multiplicity: What's the Big Deal
Trotsky’s error: Multiplicity and the secret origins of revolutionary Marxism
Uneven and Combined Development uniquely incorporated societal multiplicity into Marxist theory. So why did its first application end in Stalinist dictatorship? This paper seeks an answer by turning the idea back on itself, applying it first to Trotsky’s doctrine of ‘permanent revolution’ and then to Marx’s original idea of revolution. Trotsky hoped that Russia’s ‘revolution of backwardness’ would be rescued by ‘advanced’ revolutions in the West,…
The elusive international
This piece responds to the critical commentaries offered in this forum. I re-state the core aspects of the thesis and emphasize four themes related to theory in response to the critics: (1) Levels of Theory, (2) Locations of Theory, (3) Disciplines of Theory and (4) Ideologies of Theory
Secret origins of the state: The structural basis of raison d'état
The Italian city-state system occupies a special place in the canon of orthodox international relations. For, as Martin Wight says, ‘it was among the Italian powers that feudal relationships first disappeared and the efficient, self-sufficient secular state was evolved, and the Italian powers invented the diplomatic system’. And of course this was not all they invented. In addition to the earliest modern discourse of Realpolitik (‘Machiavelli’, C…
Jewish Pedagogic Literature
After Exterminism
The signing of an inf Treaty at the Washington Summit of December 1987 has brought to a symbolic (if illusory) close a dramatic episode in postwar history. It will not, it seems, mark a decisive reversal in the nuclear arms race. Compensatory adjustments, on the nato
A Non-Realist Theory of Sovereignty: Giddens' The Nation-State and Violence
What's the matter with realism
International relations, as an academic discipline, is not known for its strength in the area of theory. It has no immediate equivalent to the rich contrasts of perspective generated in sociology by the legacy of Max Weber, Marx and Durkheim—a lack so felt that Martin Wight once wrote a paper called ‘Why is there no International Theory?’ His own answer was, in part, that there is nothing further to theorize after the discovery of the repetitive …
Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations
Secret origins of the state: The structural basis of raison d'état
The Italian city-state system occupies a special place in the canon of orthodox international relations. For, as Martin Wight says, ‘it was among the Italian powers that feudal relationships first disappeared and the efficient, self-sufficient secular state was evolved, and the Italian powers invented the diplomatic system’. And of course this was not all they invented. In addition to the earliest modern discourse of Realpolitik (‘Machiavelli’, C…
The International Imagination: IR Theory and 'Classic Social Analysis
Isaac Deutscher and the Lost History of International Relations
I would like to express my thanks to the Deutscher Committee for the great honour of this award. The Isaac and Tamara Deutscher memorial prize is a uniquely valuable institution in many ways but the most valuable aspect is surely the legacy of Deutscher himself. For Isaac Deutscher
Interview With Ken Waltz Conducted by Fred Halliday and Justin Rosenberg
1. Personal and academic backgroundF.H. It would be very interesting if you could say something about your own personal and academic background. What were the experiences that led you to write Man, the State and War
Hobsbawm's Century
Review of The Age of Extremes: A History of the World 1914–1991 by Eric Hobsbawm.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
One-Third of Teenagers Experience Abuse within Heterosexual Relationships
In the US nearly one-third of adolescents who have recently been in a heterosexual relationship have been abused by their partners. To determine the prevalence of violence within heterosexual relationships among adolescents researchers examined the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Add Health respondents were asked to give social and demographic information and to report on up to three romantic relations…
Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem
Why is There No International Historical Sociology
Historical sociological studies in IR face a challenge similar to that discussed by Martin Wight in ‘Why is There no International Theory?’ Classical social theorists conceptualized ‘society’ in the ontological singular, leaving their successors with a ‘domestic analogy’ problem which has dogged attempts to provide a social theory of International Relations. Overcoming this problem requires an expansion of the premises of social theory to incorpo…
And the Definition of Globalization Is …? A Reply to ‘In at the Death?’ by Barrie Axford
I had resolved never to write again on ‘globalization’. But Barrie Axford's critique of my ‘Post Mortem’ is too good to ignore. On first reading, I didn't know whether to feel more humbled by the a
Partner Violence During Pregnancy Increases Risk Of Adverse Outcomes
Having Children with Multiple Partners Is Associated With Women?s Perception of Lower Social Support
Having Children with Multiple Partners Is Associated with Women’s Perception of Lower Social Support
Women who have had children with multiple partners are less likely than others to feel supported by their family and friends, according to analyses of data on mothers of an urban U.S. cohort of children.1 Multipartnered fertility was negatively associated with women’s belief that if they needed it, someone would give them money or a place to live, or help them with child care. The association appears to be bidirectional, with multipartnered ferti…
International Relations — The ‘Higher Bullshit’: A Reply to the Globalization Theory Debate
Uneven and combined development: The social-relational substratum of ‘the international’? An exchange of letters
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJustin Rosenberg 11 The authors would like to thank Alex Anievas and an anonymous reviewer for valuable suggestions in preparing this exchange for publication
Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development: A reply to the CRIA forum
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJustin Rosenberg11 I would like to record my thanks also to Simon Bromley and Barry Buzan, each of whom has, at different times, sought to alert me to exactly the problems that I now find myself compelled to address
Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development. Part II: Unevenness and political multiplicity
Where does ‘the international’ come from? What accounts for its existence as a dimension of the human world? This article attempts an answer, in three steps, using the idea of ‘uneven and combined development’ (U&CD). First, a depth model is constructed, comparing different ways of linking uneven development with international relations. Thus far, it turns out, these ways have all presupposed the fact of political multiplicity, rather than explai…
For Older People, Being Black and Single Linked to Nonmonogamous Partnerships
Pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas de sociologie historique internationale
Les études de sociologie historique font face à un défi similaire à celui examiné par Martin Wight dans son article intitulé « Why is There noInternational Theory ? ». Les théories sociales classiques ont conceptualisé la « société » au singulier ontologique, léguant à leurs successeurs le problème de l’analogie domestique qui a opiniâtrement résisté aux tentatives de fournir une théorie sociale des Relations Internationales. Pour surmonter ce pr…
Kenneth Waltz and Leon Trotsky: Anarchy in the mirror of uneven and combined development
The ‘philosophical premises’ of uneven and combined development
Recent debates over Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development’ (U&CD) have focused on its potential in the field of International Relations, but they have not established the source of this potential. Does it derive from the philosophical premises of dialectics? The present article argues that the idea of U&CD in fact involves an innovation as fundamental for Marxist dialectics as for other branches of social theory. And it also arg…
Political science (30 works) · Sociology (29 works) · Philosophy (21 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Law (20 works) · Law (17 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (15 works) · International relations (13 works)