Political Theory

H09(a) - Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Statehood

Date: Jun 13 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 365

Chair/Président/Présidente : Antonio Franceschet (University of Calgary)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Antonio Franceschet (University of Calgary)

Rethinking Grounded Normative Theory: Hazim Ali (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Political theory often concerns itself with categories, from freedom and equality to citizenship and social justice, that presume a bounded national setting within which these categories are thought to function. To the extent that a state of closure and pre-given boundaries is taken as an already satisfied condition and an appropriate analytical starting point, it precludes a proper investigation of new categories emerging from global transformations that do neatly map onto the condition of sovereign territoriality presupposed by political theory. A study of non-citizens for example, cannot appeal to the logic of citizens versus aliens if neoliberal markets today enable temporary residents to live indefinitely without having to apply for naturalization, contradicting the principle that one is either an insider or outsider for political purposes. In my own research on second-generation expatriates in the Persian Gulf, I argue that political theory cannot properly address the experience of such groups without engaging with sociological approaches that capture the complex empirical reality of living in a context in which non-citizens are included through their exclusion. At the same time, sociology is unable to think normatively through this experience due to its heavy reliance on descriptive approaches and must equally engage with political theory to ensure that questions of justice do not escape a new global reality that seems too complex to be fairly represented by questions of right and wrong. I argue therefore that theorists should not allow their fundamental assumptions of political community blind them to how that community is transforming under pressures of globalization yet they should also not abandon the project of identifying what justice requires in this new global reality.

Spatial International Political Thought: Marion Trejo (York University)
Abstract: Recent scholarship of international relations as put forward by Matthew Specter in “The Atlantic Realists” (2022) suggests that realism and geopolitics share a common intellectual history. According to Specter, there is an entanglement of US and German historical experiences about empire building and empire justification (politically and academically) centered around the concept of lebensraum. The following paper furthers Specter’s claims and argues that there has been a resurgence of geopolitical thought in the XXI century, both academically and politically, which uses a racialized (like lebensraum) and gendered concepts of space to justify empire building today. To support this claim, I will analyze the notions of space that define American and Russian foreign policy imaginaries today as seen in the imperial contest over Ukraine.