The New Ethical Terrain in International Relations

Dramatic recent events and processes of change in the early 21st Century have raised important questions about the scope of ethical conduct in foreign and security policy, and whether ambitions in this regard are expanding or contracting. The section brings together theoretical and empirical research exploring the impact of recent events and processes on the global ethical landscape and the future prognosis for ethical conduct in international politics. Political turmoil associated with the Arab Spring, has again raised a debate on how the ‘international community’ might respond to violent conflict, mass atrocity crimes and the flow of displaced people across borders. There is the associated question of the long-term legacy of the fusion of other-regarding ethical discourse and Western military interventionism during the last decade. Furthermore, in a period of financial austerity, has a focus on the wellbeing of non-citizens become a less popular proposition? Will emerging powers or states that have weathered the crisis more effectively come to re-shape the contours of the debate on global ethics? The section aims to address the overall question of whether more consistent narratives and practices of other-regarding ethical foreign policy might be emergent, or whether recent events may have made this a more remote possibility. The section seeks contributions that engage with the broad themes of context, content, prominence and practice in their explorations of this new ethical terrain: i) Contexts and Content The section seeks to explore how recent political contexts, such as the War on Terror, the Global Economic Crisis and the Arab Spring, have impacted upon the scope of ethical concern and the content of ethical commitments. Have these political contexts strengthened or weakened the influence of other-regarding ethics in foreign policy discourse? How have these contexts influenced the ways in which ethical commitments are constituted and represented discursively in different states? ii) Prominence and Practice: The section will also explore the prominence of other-regarding ethics within foreign policy formulations. What kind of balance is struck between commitments to non-citizens, and those of international stability and the national interest? Has this balance shifted in light of recent political contexts? About the Conveners: Dr Jonathan Gilmore (Co-chair) is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Kingston University. His research centres on the ways in which cosmopolitan ethical commitments feature in the rhetoric and practice of contemporary foreign and security policy, in particular the adaptation of national militaries to human security tasks. Recent publications include “A kinder, gentler counter-terrorism: Counterinsurgency, human security and the War on Terror” (Security Dialogue, 42(1), 2011), “Protecting the Other: the process and practice of cosmopolitanism” (European Journal of International Relations, forthcoming) and “Still a Force for Good? Good International Citizenship in British Foreign and Security Policy” (British Journal of Politics and International Relations, forthcoming). He is currently writing a book on The Cosmopolitan Military: Armed Force and Armed Conflict and the Protection of Human Security in the 21st Century, for Palgrave-Macmillan to be published in 2014. Dr Kelly Staples is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester. Her research focuses on the discourses and practices of inclusion and membership in the state system. Her recent research addresses the particular ways in which international institutions and frameworks relating to refugees and stateless persons constitute the scope and limits of ethical consideration. Recent journal articles include “Statelessness and the politics of misrecognition” (Res Publica, 18: 1, 2012) and “Statelessness, sentimentality and human rights: A critique of Rorty’s liberal human rights culture” (Philosophy and Social Criticism, 37: 8, 2011). She is author of Retheorising Statelessness: A Background Theory of Membership in World Politics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).