Mervyn Frost
Biographic Data
| ID | 3684301 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mervyn Frost |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mervyn |
| FAMILY NAME | Frost |
| SIGNATURE | FROST M |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5573-1332 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Practice Theory and International Relations: A reply to our critics
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Ethical traps in international relations
We elaborate a little noticed strategy generally used by weaker actors both in domestic and international politics: the ethical trap. Actors who fall into such traps lose ethical standing and influence at home as well as abroad. We explore the concept of the trap and distinguish it from policy interventions and escalation in which there is no deliberate enticement. We document historical instances of successful ethical trapping both within states…
Practice Theory and International Relations
Are social practices actions, or institutional frameworks of interaction structured by common rules? How do social practices such as signing a cheque differ from international practices such as signing a peace treaty? Traversing the fields of international relations (IR) and philosophy, this book defends an institutionalist conception of practices as part of a general practice theory indebted to Oakeshott, Wittgenstein and Hegel. The proposed pra…
Two conceptions of international practice: Aristotelian praxis or Wittgensteinian language-games ?
Scholars from the recent ‘practice turn’ in International Relations have urged us to rethink the international realm in terms of practices. The principal exponents of the turn, Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot, have refurbished Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice to produce their own account of international practices. In a review of the practice turn, Chris Brown has argued that Bourdieu’s notion of practice shares basic affinities with Aristo…
Pensando eticamente sobre refugiados: Um Caso Para a Transformação Da Governança Global
Todos nós, participantes da política global contemporânea, enfrentamos uma série de problemas basicamente éticos envolvendo refugiados. Esses problemas éticos apresentados a nós estão se tornando mais urgentes a cada dia. As perguntas estão se tornando mais aguçadas como resultado da grande onda de refugiados entrando na Europa devido à atual guerra que ocorre na Síria. Nesse artigo, pretendo realizar três coisas. Primeiro, mostrarei que, no caso…
Understanding international practices from the internal point of view
The article is written in response to a recent flurry of studies on international practices. In investigating this theme, International Relations scholars have drawn on diverse traditions in sociology, philosophy and organisational theory such as Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Dewey’s and James’ pragmatism, communities of practice approach and actor-network theory. One preliminary question presupposed by these investigations however is, what stan…
Two conceptions of international practice: Aristotelian praxis or Wittgensteinian language-games
Scholars from the recent ‘practice turn’ in International Relations have urged us to rethink the international realm in terms of practices. The principal exponents of the turn, Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot, have refurbished Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice to produce their own account of international practices. In a review of the practice turn, Chris Brown has argued that Bourdieu’s notion of practice shares basic affinities with Aristo…
Théorie constitutive: Reconnaissance, Éthique Et Politique Dans Les Relations Internationales 1
Ses travaux portent sur les questions thiques en relations internationales
On Teaching Ethics in International Relations: Questions and Answers
Journal Article On Teaching Ethics in International Relations: Questions and Answers Get access Mervyn Frost Mervyn Frost King's College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Perspectives, Volume 13, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 7–9, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-3585.2011.00450.x Published: 11 January 2012
Ethical Competence in International Relations
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory
Global Ethics
This provocative and original book challenges the commonplace that contemporary international interactions are best understood as struggles for power. Eschewing jargon and theoretical abstraction, Mervyn Frost argues that global politics and global civil society must be understood in ethical terms. International actors are always faced with the ethical question: So, what ought we to do in circumstances like these? Illustrating the centrality of e…
The Delinquency of Anarchical Societies: Transformation, Not Punishment; Restyling, Not Rehabilitation
This article explores the ways in which we hold participants in dispersed practices to ethical account for the accumulated consequences of their individual actions over time. This ‘holding to account’ is quite different to that found within centralised practices such as a state or a corporation. In the case of a state, for example, we hold presidents, prime ministers (and others) to account in terms of well understood norms of ethical behaviour i…
Global ethics: Anarchy, Freedom & International Relations
Tragedy, Reconciliation and Reconstruction
This article explores the uses of tragedy as a mode of analysis in international relations. In tragic analyses, actors are portrayed as acting ethically, but through their deeds they bring about consequences that are contrary to the values in the name of which the deeds were undertaken. The good deeds bring about ethically obnoxious consequences. The article demonstrates how tragic analyses can be made of the actions of collective actors such as …
Can Dispersed Practices Be Held Ethically Accountable
This article offers a positive answer to: can dispersed practices, such as global civil society and the society of democratic states, be held ethically accountable? To clarify this kind of ethical judgement, a contrast is made between the ways we hold individuals ethically accountable within social practices, awarding praise/blame to individuals (individual persons or collective actors such as states), and the way in which we deploy critical theo…
Justice and Sovereignty
In Cosmopolitan Justice Darrel Moellendorf sets out to develop a Rawlsian theory of justice applicable to the sphere of international relations broadly conceived.1 He develops his ethical theory through an exploration of the tensions which he perceives between the early work of John Rawls found in A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, and his later work, The Law of Peoples.2 Moellendorf’s central claim is that in the latter work Rawls, in…
Constitutive Theory and Moral Accountability: Individuals, Institutions, and Dispersed Practices
In this chapter I shall argue that the most interesting and important ethical judgements are not those upon the conduct of either individuals or institutions, but are on the ethical forms of the practices within which both individuals and multi-person actors are constituted as actors of a certain kind.
Tragedy, Ethics and International Relations
This article considers the charge that scholars in the field of ethics in international relations have been remiss in not paying attention to tragedy in international affairs. The classical tragedies in drama had political content and were fundamentally concerned with ethical issues. Prima facie it would seem that tragedy would be pertinent to scholars researching international ethics. The case is made that the notion of tragedy is useful in norm…
Constituting Human Rights: Global civil society and the society of democratic states
Putting the world to rights: Britain's ethical foreign policy
Although the announcement of New Labour's ‘ethical foreign policy’ has received much attention, the content of the ethical theory which informs Britainís international practice has not come under scrutiny. This paper suggests that, surprisingly, a rather sophisticated ‘neo‐Hegelian’ ethical theory underlines Labour's foreign policy, providing a constitutive theory of individuality. Contra realism, this theory does not stress state sovereignty at …
A turn not taken: Ethics in IR at the millenium
In everyday life we often engage in ethical argument about what ought to be done in international affairs; in a rough and ready fashion we engage in normative theory. It is odd then to find that for most of its history, scholars in the discipline of International Relations (IR) have seldom explicitly engaged in this kind of theorizing. The reasons for their avoiding it are now well known. Certain developments in the discipline over the past few d…
Migrants, Civil Society and Sovereign States: Investigating an Ethical Hierarchy
Many actors in global politics profess both a commitment to basic human rights and to a system of sovereign democratic states. There are clear tensions between these commitments which become apparent when seeking ethical answers to the increasingly urgent problem of migrants who cross state boundaries in pursuit of better life chances elsewhere. Is it possible to achieve a coherence between a commitment to individual human rights and to sovereign…
The ethics of nationalism
Simon Caney, David George and Peter Jones (eds.), National Rights, International Obligations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 213 pp
A reply to Paul Bacon
Tragedy, Ethics and International Relations
This article considers the charge that scholars in the field of ethics in international relations have been remiss in not paying attention to tragedy in international affairs. The classical tragedies in drama had political content and were fundamentally concerned with ethical issues. Prima facie it would seem that tragedy would be pertinent to scholars researching international ethics. The case is made that the notion of tragedy is useful in norm…
Ethical Competence in International Relations
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Understanding international practices from the internal point of view
The article is written in response to a recent flurry of studies on international practices. In investigating this theme, International Relations scholars have drawn on diverse traditions in sociology, philosophy and organisational theory such as Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Dewey’s and James’ pragmatism, communities of practice approach and actor-network theory. One preliminary question presupposed by these investigations however is, what stan…
Putting the world to rights: Britain's ethical foreign policy
Although the announcement of New Labour's ‘ethical foreign policy’ has received much attention, the content of the ethical theory which informs Britainís international practice has not come under scrutiny. This paper suggests that, surprisingly, a rather sophisticated ‘neo‐Hegelian’ ethical theory underlines Labour's foreign policy, providing a constitutive theory of individuality. Contra realism, this theory does not stress state sovereignty at …
The Role of Normative Theory in IR
A turn not taken: Ethics in IR at the millenium
In everyday life we often engage in ethical argument about what ought to be done in international affairs; in a rough and ready fashion we engage in normative theory. It is odd then to find that for most of its history, scholars in the discipline of International Relations (IR) have seldom explicitly engaged in this kind of theorizing. The reasons for their avoiding it are now well known. Certain developments in the discipline over the past few d…
Migrants, Civil Society and Sovereign States: Investigating an Ethical Hierarchy
Many actors in global politics profess both a commitment to basic human rights and to a system of sovereign democratic states. There are clear tensions between these commitments which become apparent when seeking ethical answers to the increasingly urgent problem of migrants who cross state boundaries in pursuit of better life chances elsewhere. Is it possible to achieve a coherence between a commitment to individual human rights and to sovereign…
Ethical traps in international relations
We elaborate a little noticed strategy generally used by weaker actors both in domestic and international politics: the ethical trap. Actors who fall into such traps lose ethical standing and influence at home as well as abroad. We explore the concept of the trap and distinguish it from policy interventions and escalation in which there is no deliberate enticement. We document historical instances of successful ethical trapping both within states…
On Teaching Ethics in International Relations: Questions and Answers
Journal Article On Teaching Ethics in International Relations: Questions and Answers Get access Mervyn Frost Mervyn Frost King's College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Perspectives, Volume 13, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 7–9, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-3585.2011.00450.x Published: 11 January 2012
The Delinquency of Anarchical Societies: Transformation, Not Punishment; Restyling, Not Rehabilitation
This article explores the ways in which we hold participants in dispersed practices to ethical account for the accumulated consequences of their individual actions over time. This ‘holding to account’ is quite different to that found within centralised practices such as a state or a corporation. In the case of a state, for example, we hold presidents, prime ministers (and others) to account in terms of well understood norms of ethical behaviour i…
Tragedy, Reconciliation and Reconstruction
This article explores the uses of tragedy as a mode of analysis in international relations. In tragic analyses, actors are portrayed as acting ethically, but through their deeds they bring about consequences that are contrary to the values in the name of which the deeds were undertaken. The good deeds bring about ethically obnoxious consequences. The article demonstrates how tragic analyses can be made of the actions of collective actors such as …
Can Dispersed Practices Be Held Ethically Accountable
This article offers a positive answer to: can dispersed practices, such as global civil society and the society of democratic states, be held ethically accountable? To clarify this kind of ethical judgement, a contrast is made between the ways we hold individuals ethically accountable within social practices, awarding praise/blame to individuals (individual persons or collective actors such as states), and the way in which we deploy critical theo…
Ethics and International Politics
Normative theory and international relations: Overcoming the Posittvist Bias
Few scholars in the discipline of international relations have devoted their energy to normative theory. One of the reasons why they have eschewed normative theory stems from an unexamined epistemological assumption which is held in common by most of the scholars in the field. According to this assumption only those theories which are in the last instance grounded in fact are capable of producing scientific knowledge properly so called. On this v…
Constituting a new world order: What states, whose will, what territory?
The Role of Normative Theory in IR
A reply to Paul Bacon
Ethics and International Politics
The ethics of nationalism
Simon Caney, David George and Peter Jones (eds.), National Rights, International Obligations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 213 pp
A turn not taken: Ethics in IR at the millenium
In everyday life we often engage in ethical argument about what ought to be done in international affairs; in a rough and ready fashion we engage in normative theory. It is odd then to find that for most of its history, scholars in the discipline of International Relations (IR) have seldom explicitly engaged in this kind of theorizing. The reasons for their avoiding it are now well known. Certain developments in the discipline over the past few d…
Migrants, Civil Society and Sovereign States: Investigating an Ethical Hierarchy
Many actors in global politics profess both a commitment to basic human rights and to a system of sovereign democratic states. There are clear tensions between these commitments which become apparent when seeking ethical answers to the increasingly urgent problem of migrants who cross state boundaries in pursuit of better life chances elsewhere. Is it possible to achieve a coherence between a commitment to individual human rights and to sovereign…
Putting the world to rights: Britain's ethical foreign policy
Although the announcement of New Labour's ‘ethical foreign policy’ has received much attention, the content of the ethical theory which informs Britainís international practice has not come under scrutiny. This paper suggests that, surprisingly, a rather sophisticated ‘neo‐Hegelian’ ethical theory underlines Labour's foreign policy, providing a constitutive theory of individuality. Contra realism, this theory does not stress state sovereignty at …
Constituting Human Rights: Global civil society and the society of democratic states
Constitutive Theory and Moral Accountability: Individuals, Institutions, and Dispersed Practices
In this chapter I shall argue that the most interesting and important ethical judgements are not those upon the conduct of either individuals or institutions, but are on the ethical forms of the practices within which both individuals and multi-person actors are constituted as actors of a certain kind.
Tragedy, Ethics and International Relations
This article considers the charge that scholars in the field of ethics in international relations have been remiss in not paying attention to tragedy in international affairs. The classical tragedies in drama had political content and were fundamentally concerned with ethical issues. Prima facie it would seem that tragedy would be pertinent to scholars researching international ethics. The case is made that the notion of tragedy is useful in norm…
Can Dispersed Practices Be Held Ethically Accountable
This article offers a positive answer to: can dispersed practices, such as global civil society and the society of democratic states, be held ethically accountable? To clarify this kind of ethical judgement, a contrast is made between the ways we hold individuals ethically accountable within social practices, awarding praise/blame to individuals (individual persons or collective actors such as states), and the way in which we deploy critical theo…
Justice and Sovereignty
In Cosmopolitan Justice Darrel Moellendorf sets out to develop a Rawlsian theory of justice applicable to the sphere of international relations broadly conceived.1 He develops his ethical theory through an exploration of the tensions which he perceives between the early work of John Rawls found in A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, and his later work, The Law of Peoples.2 Moellendorf’s central claim is that in the latter work Rawls, in…
Global Ethics
This provocative and original book challenges the commonplace that contemporary international interactions are best understood as struggles for power. Eschewing jargon and theoretical abstraction, Mervyn Frost argues that global politics and global civil society must be understood in ethical terms. International actors are always faced with the ethical question: So, what ought we to do in circumstances like these? Illustrating the centrality of e…
The Delinquency of Anarchical Societies: Transformation, Not Punishment; Restyling, Not Rehabilitation
This article explores the ways in which we hold participants in dispersed practices to ethical account for the accumulated consequences of their individual actions over time. This ‘holding to account’ is quite different to that found within centralised practices such as a state or a corporation. In the case of a state, for example, we hold presidents, prime ministers (and others) to account in terms of well understood norms of ethical behaviour i…
Global ethics: Anarchy, Freedom & International Relations
Tragedy, Reconciliation and Reconstruction
This article explores the uses of tragedy as a mode of analysis in international relations. In tragic analyses, actors are portrayed as acting ethically, but through their deeds they bring about consequences that are contrary to the values in the name of which the deeds were undertaken. The good deeds bring about ethically obnoxious consequences. The article demonstrates how tragic analyses can be made of the actions of collective actors such as …
Ethical Competence in International Relations
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory
On Teaching Ethics in International Relations: Questions and Answers
Journal Article On Teaching Ethics in International Relations: Questions and Answers Get access Mervyn Frost Mervyn Frost King's College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Perspectives, Volume 13, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 7–9, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-3585.2011.00450.x Published: 11 January 2012
Théorie constitutive: Reconnaissance, Éthique Et Politique Dans Les Relations Internationales 1
Ses travaux portent sur les questions thiques en relations internationales
Understanding international practices from the internal point of view
The article is written in response to a recent flurry of studies on international practices. In investigating this theme, International Relations scholars have drawn on diverse traditions in sociology, philosophy and organisational theory such as Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Dewey’s and James’ pragmatism, communities of practice approach and actor-network theory. One preliminary question presupposed by these investigations however is, what stan…
Two conceptions of international practice: Aristotelian praxis or Wittgensteinian language-games
Scholars from the recent ‘practice turn’ in International Relations have urged us to rethink the international realm in terms of practices. The principal exponents of the turn, Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot, have refurbished Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice to produce their own account of international practices. In a review of the practice turn, Chris Brown has argued that Bourdieu’s notion of practice shares basic affinities with Aristo…
Two conceptions of international practice: Aristotelian praxis or Wittgensteinian language-games ?
Scholars from the recent ‘practice turn’ in International Relations have urged us to rethink the international realm in terms of practices. The principal exponents of the turn, Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot, have refurbished Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice to produce their own account of international practices. In a review of the practice turn, Chris Brown has argued that Bourdieu’s notion of practice shares basic affinities with Aristo…
Political science (26 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Law (21 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Politics (18 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (14 works) · International relations (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Law and economics (11 works)