1 Introduction
Chris Brown has been one of the most important figures in constituting International Political Theory (IPT). Others have played crucial roles as well, including some of those included in this volume. Yet it is Brown, arguably, who has been central to putting political theory in conversation with international relations theory. His ability to synthesize, critically assess, and push the boundaries of these adjacent theoretical perspectives has helped to frame world politics in ways that go beyond traditional and often staid debates. Perhaps even more importantly, Brown has connected sophisticated theoretical debates, both in contemporary and historical theory, with pressing dilemmas of global politics in the current age. He has consistently refused to keep theory distinct from the âworldâ and has also refused to let the âworldâ of politics resist normative theorizing. In so doing, he has brought forth the centrality of âjudgmentâ, the ability to draw upon forms of political wisdom to critique political practice . The cultivation of judgement about world politics is where Brownâs IPT makes its most distinctive mark.
This introductory chapter will situate Brownâs work in relation to wider themes in IPT. We provide some context to Brownâs development as a scholar, looking to the ways in which his ideas emerged in relation to different debates in both political theory and international relations. The first section provides a brief intellectual biography. The second section explores the idea of IPT through an engagement with three books through which he has defined the field: International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (IRT) (1992); Sovereignty , Rights and Justice (SRJ) (2002) and International Society, Global Polity: An Introduction to International Political Theory (ISGP) (2015). In the first work, he poses communitarianism against cosmopolitanism , in the second he poses sovereignty against rights, and in the third he poses international society against global polity.1 These overlapping frames, while different in important ways, reflect a core facet of Brownâs approachânegotiating the space between a world of states and a world of individuals. This structure remains at the heart of many treatments of IPT, and has, as such, shaped the theoretical orientation of many in the field. As Brown has moved away from his initial framing of the field in this way, this section instead looks more directly to how he understands the task of IPT; that is, how he moves from an idea of ânormative theoryâ to IPT. We will also briefly address the issue of Brownâs relation to the âEnglish Schoolâ of International Relations in this context, as this is an approach which also seeks to locate a relationship between the individual and the state, especially with the emergence of recent debates about âworld societyâ (Buzan 2004).
The next part of the introduction looks to his engagement with the predominant liberal international order, particularly the ways in which powerful states in the Atlantic and wider European context have shaped discourses on human rights, humanitarian intervention, and the use of military force. This section looks at how Brown both defends and critiques liberal internationalism. For instance, he has argued in defence of human rights, yet also pointed out that such rights cannot work without developing cultural frameworks that enable the practice of such rights (Brown 2010b). He has defended the importance of a global polity in which rights and democracy are prominent, yet also noted that objections to universalism are not the result of simple selfish interests but arise from a principled resistance to colonialism and a valid moral defence of sovereignty (Brown 2015: 216). This section also explores briefly his reflections on cultural pluralism, an issue that animates a great deal of his work.
The concluding section of the introduction turns to the theme of political judgement, which appears throughout his career and especially in the collection of essays entitled Practical Judgement in International Political Theory: Selected Essays (2010). Brown draws his idea of judgement from a broadly Aristotelian account, though he is by no means confined to the ancient Greek understanding of this term. Inspired by Aristotle rather than following him, Brown points to the contextual process by which individuals in positions of leadership must make decisions about difficult matters. But those decisions are not simply for leaders. He writes for a wider audience than just the elites, having published books for classroom use, including his bestselling textbook, Understanding International Relations (Brown and Ainley 2009). He argues he is in the business of âpublic educationâ which is relevant for the student as much as for the leader, suggesting that âwe must try to cultivate the faculty for judgment in ourselves that we hope [political leaders] will also cultivateâ (Brown 2010a: 249).
2 Intellectual Biography
One of the defining features of Brownâs scholarship is that he is grounded in both historical and contemporary international affairs. Indeed, he notes that âanyone who wishes to be taken seriously as a theorist of international relations had better be steeped in international history and have a very good knowledge of current affairs as well as a familiarity with the classics of political thoughtâ (Brown 2010a: 2). Theorists of IPT have benefited from this grounding not only by reading his work, but taking his classes, engaging with him at conferences, and even interacting with him on social media. In all these realms, Brown refuses to remain in the world of pure theory (though he is well-grounded in this as well, as will become evident below) but demands that theorists take seriously the tensions and complexities of the contemporary international order.
This grounding in politics and history comes, perhaps, from the trajectory by which Brown became part of academia.2 In 1963, at age 18, Brown left his state Grammar School with better than expected exam results, and entered the Civil Service as an executive officer in what was then the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. His âAâ levels gave him the opportunity to go to university if he wished, and after sampling the Civil Service he decided he did so wish, taking three years unpaid leave in 1965 to attend the LSE and read for the BSc (Econ). Initially he intended to study history as his special subject, but in the first year of the degree he fell under the influence of Philip Windsor and so transferred to International Relations. After receiving a First (a much more difficult achievement at that time than it is in the modern British university), Brown received a scholarship from the Ford Foundation-funded Centre for International Studies at LSE, left the Civil Service, and so began working towards his PhD.
Brown took up a post at Kent University before completing his PhD. In fact, he abandoned his thesis, which was on uses of history in international theory and the rise of post-behaviourist scholarship, a topic which informs some of his scholarship to this day. He realized in the 1990s that having a PhD might be a benefit, so took one on the basis of his then recently published book, International Theory: New Normative Perspectives (1992) through a staff scheme at Kent. Outside of a short stint as a visiting lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Brown remained at Kent until 1994. For four years, he was Professor of Politics at Southampton University, and was then appointed to a chair in International Relations at the LSE in 1998, where he remained until his retirement in 2014.
Brown published only a few works during his early career, a period which allowed him to read widely and deeply across political theory and international relations, something, he notes, which is less available to many scholars in academia today as the pressure to publish has become intense (Brown 2010a: 3). Brownâs ability to speak to so many different theoretical traditions and connect those with contemporary political events both domestic and international reflects the benefits of reading before seeking to publish. He also notes that he benefited greatly from colleagues outside of his department as well as inside at Kent University, for they provided him insights into trends in the humanities that enabled him to better appreciate postmodern theoretical developments. The increasingly specialized nature of academic scholarship today militates against such humanistic learning, a fact that contemporary scholars of IPT should recognize and perhaps work towards altering. Indeed, one might argue that IPT can only work within a humanistic approach, for it requires training and knowledge of a broad range of different theoretical ideas.
This background knowledge was further enhanced during his time in the USA, where he shared a department with Jean Bethke Elshtain and William Connolly during the academic year 1981â1982, the former a leading feminist (and later realist) thinker of international relations and the latter one of the most prominent postmodernist political theorists whose work continues to inform scholars in IR. Brown notes that Connolly has been a major influence on this thinking, particularly in coming to grips with the complexity of pluralism within liberal societies, though it is unclear whether or not Brown would continue to follow some of Connollyâs political and theoretical ideas (Brown 2010a: 4).
Brown published only one journal article and one report in the 1970s, both on International Political Economy (IPE). These publications came, in part, through the influence of Susan Strange , who was seeking to develop IPE as a separate field within IR. Brownâs work returns to Strange at different points in his career (e.g., Brown 2002: 232â235), though perhaps her bigger influence is that, like Brown, she sought to carve out a space within a dominant discourse for an alternative framing of International Relations (IR). Beginning with his 1981 publication in the Review of International Studies (Brown 1981), Brown began to push IR scholars to a greater engagement with political and ethical theory. This work culminated in his book, IRT, which set the stage for his framing of IPT, explored in more detail in the next section.
3 Framing and Reframing IPT
As noted in the introduction to this chapter, three of Brownâs books constitute a theoretical framework that integrates a range of theoretical positions in order to better understand and evaluate international relations. Only the third is written explicitly as a textbook, though really all three do not fall easily into a âtextbookâ or âmonographâ category; undoubtedly, this reflects Brownâs approach to his career, where teaching and research inform each other. Brown has authored a bestselling general IR textbook as well, Understanding International Relations , now in its fourth edition (2009). This text should not be ignored in developing an understanding of how Brown conceives of IPT, for it presents IR theory as inclusive of ethical considerations, something that many other textbooks refuse to do, though we do not address it here at any length.3
In IRT, Brown proposes a conceptual distinction between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism as a way to categorize thinking within IR theory. This framing does not capture all the possible theories, but B...