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Forum
Paper Title: International Law and Political Theory: the exit for the
panopticon - Plea for a common research agenda
Description of Forum Paper:
The paper argues
that in the last century the radical separation of international law and
political theory leads to a profound but also visible crisis of international
governance. In order to describe this separation and its consequences I use a
parabola inspired by architecture of the Benthamian figure- the panopticon. In
my parabola international law and political theory are described as two
panopticon captives; the supervisor in the central tower is representing the
Power, the Hobessian Leviathan seeking for order and status-quo.
The demise the
normative dimension as a condition of science is perhaps the most influential
principle of humanistic investigation in this century. The separation of facts
and values described by Weber in Science as a Vocation has as a pendant in the
international realm the positivist doctrine of law. The difficulty of political
theory to approach a topic as international relations has one of its roots in
the plurality of systems. As mentioned early by Rousseau being a world citizen
undermines the idea of being first of all a citizen, a citizen of the
state.
The raise of
international institutions after the end of the cold war and their growing
influence on the behaviour of international subjects bring up the question of
the legitimacy of international governance. This line of thinking leads
automatically to the question of the nature of boundary between regimes,
international organizations and governance. The debate about the legitimacy of
international governance has to be conducted in a broader way even if the
concrete proposals are made for the international organizations or regimes. The
debate about the means of increasing legitimacy cannot avoid a debate about the
ends of international governance, about the nature of the international
polis.
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