Another case for the classical approach

pp. 11-35

in: Alexander Astrov, On world politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Abstract

In this book, I outline an idea of world politics as a distinct activity of thinking and speaking about the conditions of world order in terms of their desirability. World order is understood not as an arrangement of entities, be they humans, states or civilizations, but a complex of variously situated activities, including individuals as members of diverse associations of their own. This idea is advanced from within one such association, or context, contemporary International Relations, wherein it entails a theoretical position, neotraditionalism, as a rectification of the initial, "traditionalist" or "classical", approach after the advance of rationalism and subsequent reflectivist critique.