Sergei Prozorov - Theory of the Political Subject: Void Universalism II

With a level of philosophical sophistication rarely found in the discipline of international relations, Sergei Prozorovs texts issue challenges that no one interested in politics in general and global politics in particular should ignore.

Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawaii Manoa, USA

Taken together, Ontology and World Politics and Theory of the Political Subject represent the most ambitious re-articulation of the ontological and ethical foundations of universalism to date by one of the most brilliant and provocative scholars of his generation. I can thus warmly recommend these volumes to anyone with an interest in cutting-edge international political theory.

Jens Bartelson, Professor of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden

Drawing on a wide range of sources in political theory and philosophy, Prozorov develops a novel and ambitious defense of universalism. He does so not against, but through approaches that critique global models for their hegemonic and excluding nature. The result is a re-articulation of universalism that seeks to affirm difference and plurality through concepts of community, equality and freedom.

Roland Bleiker, Professor of International Relations, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia

THEORY OF THE POLITICAL SUBJECT

Together these two companion volumes develop an innovative theory of world politics, grounded in the reinterpretation of the concepts of world and politics from an ontological perspective.

Theory of the Political Subject continues the project of reconstruction of political universalism begun in Ontology of World Politics . Having redefined world politics in terms of the affirmation of the universal ontological axioms of freedom, equality and community in an infinite multiplicity of particular situations or worlds, in this book Prozorov focuses on the way this affirmation is actually practised, analysing the conditions for the emergence within a world of the subject of its radical transformation. Drawing on the contemporary reassessment of the notion of the subject in Continental political thought, particularly the work of Alain Badiou, Prozorov defines the political subject in terms of ones subtraction from the positive order of ones world, the weakening of ones particular identity that makes possible ones participation in the affirmation of the universal. The book proceeds with outlining the path of the political subject within its world, from the point of its inception to its confrontation with ethical, epistemic and other limits to its activity. This account of the subjective aspect of world politics also offers new and stimulating perspectives on such key issues of political theory as the relation of politics to human nature, the role of violence in politics and the conditioning of politics by philosophical or scientific knowledge.

Systematic and accessible, these works will be key reading for all students and scholars of political science and international relations.

Sergei Prozorov is University Lecturer in World Politics at the University of Helsinki and Academy of Finland Research Fellow. He is the author of four books, the most recent being The Ethics of Postcommunism . He has also published numerous articles on political philosophy and international relations in major international journals.

Interventions

Edited by Jenny Edkins, Aberystwyth University and Nick Vaughan-Williams, University of Warwick

As Michel Foucault has famously stated, knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting. In this spirit the EdkinsVaughan-Williams Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge mainstream understandings in international relations. It is the best place to contribute post disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the world recycled in IRs traditional geopolitical imaginary.

Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawaii at Mnoa, US

The series aims to advance understanding of the key areas in which scholars working within broad critical post-structural and post-colonial traditions have chosen to make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses of important topics.

Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology, politics and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and textual studies in international politics.

Critical Theorists and International Relations

Edited by Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams

Ethics as Foreign Policy

Britain, the EU and the other

Dan Bulley

Governing Sustainable Development

Partnership, protest and power at the world summit

Carl Death

Insuring Security

Biopolitics, security and risk

Luis Lobo-Guerrero

Foucault and International Relations

New critical engagements

Edited by Nicholas J. Kiersey and Doug Stokes

International Relations and Non-Western Thought

Imperialism, colonialism and investigations of global modernity

Edited by Robbie Shilliam

Autobiographical International Relations

I, IR

Edited by Naeem Inayatullah

War and Rape

Law, memory and justice

Nicola Henry

Madness in International Relations

Psychology, security and the global governance of mental health

Alison Howell

Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt

Geographies of the nomos

Edited by Stephen Legg

Politics of Urbanism

Seeing like a city

Warren Magnusson

Universality, Ethics and International Relations

A grammatical reading

Vronique Pin-Fat

The Time of the City

Politics, philosophy, and genre

Michael J. Shapiro

Beyond Biopolitics

Theory, violence and horror in world politics

Franois Debrix and Alexander D. Barder

The Politics of Speed

Capitalism, the state and war in an accelerating world

Simon Glezos

Politics and the Art of Commemoration

Memorials to struggle in Latin America and Spain

Katherine Hite

Indian Foreign Policy

The politics of postcolonial identity

Priya Chacko

Politics of the Event

Time, movement, becoming

Tom Lundborg

Theorising Post-Conflict Reconciliation

Agonism, restitution and repair

Edited by Alexander Keller Hirsch

Europes Encounter with Islam

The secular and the postsecular

Luca Mavelli

Re-Thinking International Relations Theory via Deconstruction

Badredine Arfi

The New Violent Cartography

Geo-analysis after the aesthetic turn

Edited by Sam Okoth Opondo and Michael J. Shapiro

Insuring War

Sovereignty, security and risk

Luis Lobo-Guerrero

International Relations, Meaning and Mimesis

Necati Polat

The Postcolonial Subject

Claiming politics/governing others in late modernity

Vivienne Jabri

Foucault and the Politics of Hearing

Lauri Siisiinen

Volunteer Tourism in the Global South

Giving back in neoliberal times

Wanda Vrasti

Cosmopolitan Government in Europe

Citizens and entrepreneurs in postnational politics

Owen Parker