Abstract
The English liberal, L.T. Hobhouse, had no doubt that he was witnessing the most ‘visible and tangible outcome of a false and wicked doctrine’ as he sat annotating Hegel’s writings on freedom in his Highgate garden during a German air-raid in 1917.1 Hobhouse’s critical remarks prefigured the ‘Hegel myth’ in which Hegel was portrayed as a champion of state power and military force.2 Later, Hegel, along with Nietzsche, was thought to have prepared the intellectual groundwork for the rise of Fascism, an interpretation which was stated unequivocally by Sir Karl Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies but debunked in the late 1960s and 1970s.3 The impression which may prevail at present is that Hegel’s writings expressed strident realism rather than proto-Fascism.4
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
L.T. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State: A Criticism (London, 1951), pp. 5–6.
W. Kaufmann (ed.), Hegel’s Political Philosophy (New York, 1970), ch. 10.
J. Morrow, ‘British Idealism, “German Philosophy” and the First World War’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 28, 1982, pp. 380–90.
Sir Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies (London, 1945), vol. 2, ch. 12.
F. Northedge, ‘Peace, War and Philosophy’, Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, vol. 6, pp. 63–7 (New York, 1976).
F. Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d’Etat and its Place in Modern History (London, 1962), p. 357.
C. Friedrich, Constitutional Reason of State: The Survival of the Constitutional Order (Providence, Rhode Island, 1957), pp. 92 and 97.
Z. Pelczynski (ed.), Hegel’s Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives (Cambridge, 1971), p. 15.
S. Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge, 1972), p. 207.
J.E. Toews, Hegelianism: The Path towards Dialectical Humanism, 1805–1841 (Cambridge, 1980), p. 33.
M.L. Shanley and C. Pateman (eds), Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory (Pennsylvania, 1991), p. 134.
M. Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford, 1975), pp. 262–3. See also Friedrich, op. cit., pp. 92–3.
Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, ed. J. O’Malley (Cambridge, 1970). On the question of reconciliation with social contradictions
G. Lukács, The Young Hegel: Studies in the Relationship Between Dialectics and Economics (London, 1975), pp. 70 and 146. For an analysis of the differing views of Hegel and Marx on the subject of reconciliation with society,
M.O. Hardiman, ‘The Project of Reconciliation: Hegel’s Social Philosophy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 21, 2, Spring 1992, pp. 165–95.
R. Plant, ‘Economic and Social Integration in Hegel’s Political Philosophy’, in D.P. Verene (ed.), Hegel’s Social and Political Thought: The Philosophy of Objective Spirit (New Jersey, 1980).
M. Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions (Leicester, 1991), pp. 53–4.
S. Hoffmann, The State of War: Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics (London, 1965), pp. 65–6.
Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses (trans. with an introduction by G.D.H. Cole) (London, 1968), p. 110.
J. Thompson, Justice and World Order: A Philosophical Inquiry (London, 1992), ch. 7.
R. Plant, Hegel (London, 1973)
C. Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge, 1975).
Z. Pelczynski (ed.), Hegel’s Political Writings (Oxford, 1964), p. 210.
R.J. Vincent, ‘Grotius, Human Rights and Intervention’, in H. Bull, B. Kingsbury and A. Roberts (eds), Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford, 1990), p. 243 (author’s italics).
Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree, (New York, 1956), p. 308.
T. O’Hagan, ‘On Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Moral and Political Philosophy’, in S. Priest (ed.), Hegel’s Critique of Kant (Oxford, 1987), p. 157
J. Plamenatz, Man and Society (London, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 266–7.
S. Smith, Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism: Rights in Context (Chicago, 1989), pp. 164 and 169. Martin Wight called this revolutionism which is based on the value of ‘doctrinal uniformity’, International Theory: The Three Traditions op. cit., pp. 41–2.
W.H. Walsh, Hegelian Ethics (London, 1969), p. 22.
M. Riedel, Between Tradition and Revolution: The Hegelian Transformation of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 49–50, refers to the ‘universal mind’ which exists alongside the international state of nature. Hedley Bull’s distinction between an international political culture and a diplomatic culture makes a similar point, The Anarchical Society (London, 1977), p. 317.
G.A. Kelly, Hegel’s Retreat from Eleusis: Studies in Political Thought (Princeton, 1978), pp. 19–20 emphasises this point about the state’s location in the wider sphere of civilisation. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict shows how this wider sphere of civilisation can give rise to international obligations.
A. Roberts and R. Guelff (eds), Documents on the Law of War (Oxford, 1989).
Rousseau, The State of War, in M. Forsyth, et al. (eds), The Theory of International Relations: Selected Texts from Gentili to Treitschke (London, 1970), p. 174.
E. Gellner, Thought and Change (London, 1964), ch. 7
Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1986), esp. ch. 7.
R.W. Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’, Millennium, 10, 1982, pp. 126–55
M. Hoffman, ‘Critical Theory and the Inter-Paradigm Debate’, Millennium, 15, 1987, pp. 231–49 focuses on Horkheimer and Habermas.
A. Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (London, 1990), chs 8–10, draws significantly on Hegel’s philosophical history.
M. Herrera, ‘Equal Respect Among Unequal Partners: Gender Difference and the Constitution of Moral Subjects’, Philosophy East and West, 42, 1992, pp. 263–75. On the other hand, Hegel’s argument about the conflictual nature of international politics can be read as a gendered account of the states-system.
R. Grant and K. Newland (eds), Gender and International Relations (Buckingham, 1991), esp. chs 1–3. For a discussion of Hegel’s impact on communitarian thought
S.A. Schwarzenbach, ‘Rawls, Hegel and Communitarianism’, Political Theory, vol. 19, 4, 1991, p. 540.
M. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, 1982);
M. Walzer, Spheres of Justice (Oxford, 1983);
A. McIntyre, After Virtue (London, 1981).
H. Bull, ‘The State’s Positive Role in World Affairs’, Daedalus, 108, 1979, pp. 111–23.
T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (Oxford, 1906)
P.P. Nicholson, ‘Philosophical Idealism and International Politics: A Reply to Savigear’, British Journal of International Studies, vol. 2, 1976, pp. 76–83.
T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (London, 1906).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1996 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Linklater, A. (1996). Hegel, the State and International Relations. In: Clark, I., Neumann, I.B. (eds) Classical Theories of International Relations. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24779-0_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24779-0_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-24781-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-24779-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)