Politics & International Studies, Trending Research

International or not, being Human is being ‘Global’

This book chapter explains the purposeful diminution of the human in theoretical understandings of the international.

Author

Deepshikha Shahi, Associate Professor, Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

Summary

International is always ‘inter-human’. It is so simply because the state and non-state bodies—as major institutional carriers of the (inter)national—are not only formed by human beings but also entail interactions among human beings.

This chapter explains the purposeful diminution of the human in theoretical understandings of the international. It examines how the revival of the human in international relations (IR) can pursue an alternative theoretical pathway, a pathway which is less dualist and more monist.

The chapter also shows how this more monist pathway is likely to induce a genuine ‘Global’ spirit within and without IR. The monist experience of being human, and being Global releases sweeping connotations for political realities falling within or without the purview of IR.

Since IR cannot make itself devoid of human consciousness, it must engage with those aspects of human consciousness that remain underexplored due to the predominance of (neo-)Kantian phenomenal-scientific-rational theories.

Published in: Globalizing International Theory

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