The Vulnerable Subject—Beyond Rationalism in International Relations

International Relations scholarship has typically engaged with vulnerability as a problem to be solved through 'rational' attempts to craft a global order marked by universality, predictability and stability. By recovering an awareness of the persistently vulnerable human subject, this book argues that we can re-engage with issues of emotion, relationality, community and history that are often excluded from the study of global politics. This collection proposes an agonistic approach to international ethics and politics, eschewing a rationalism that radically privileges white Western conceptions of the world and that actively oppresses alternative voices. The Vulnerable Subject addresses issues such as trust, judgement, climate change, identity, and post-colonial relations, allowing for a profound rethinking of one of the core driving assumptions at the heart of international politics.

AMANDA RUSSELL BEATTIE is a Lecturer at Aston University, UK. She researches topics at the intersection of international political theory and political philosophy and is author of Justice and Morality: Human Suffering, Natural Law and International Politics and War, Torture and Terrorism: Rethinking the Rules of International Security (co-authored with Anthony Lang, Jr.) KATE SCHICK is a Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research lies at the intersection between contemporary political theory and critical security studies and focuses particularly on responses to trauma and suffering in international theory. She is author of Gillian Rose: A Good Enough Justice (2012).