Theoria

The Editorial in Theoria 101, written as the United States of America led a ‘coalition of the willing’ in the invasion of Iraq, posed questions about the global significance, viability and desirability of this project. In this first issue of 2004 some of the contributions explore further the implications of this invasion, and the role of the U.S. in world affairs.

The world did not need the war against Iraq to understand that the United States of America stands alone among states in the magnitude of its military might. The blatant manner in which the U.S. flaunted that power in the face of fierce opposition from global civil society and nearly all states, however, demonstrates that the U.S. will use its power in ways that it judges right, without the approval or consent of other agents.

Now that the war in Iraq is over, or at least mainly finished, we can ask ourselves if it already has, or is likely later to meet its announced aims. It will be useful to introduce a distinction between reasons, which can be cited for the war, and its goals, which naturally tend to follow from announced (and unannounced) justifications for this conflict.

Over and above the reasons or the wrongs of the apologists and the critics of globalisation, it seems impossible to deny the development, during these last few decades, of a global network of social connections and functional interdependences that link individuals and nations – no one is excluded. As Tony Spybey and Roland Robertson remind us, even the deepest meanings of existence, the most intimate of personal experiences and daily behaviour are involved in this radical change of cognitive and symbolic reference points: the world as a whole.1 The globalised world is the result of a series of compressions and integrations that have reduced the so-called ‘empty gaps’ in the material of human relations. As Joseph Stiglitz emphasized, the thing that has favoured the process of global compression-integration is the impressive reduction of the time and cost of transport and communication, and the demolition of artificial barriers to the international circulation of goods, services, capital, knowledge, and – even if still strongly obstructed – of people and labour.

In this schematic article I adumbrate an approach to normative political theory that is based on the idea that individual autonomy is a fundamental political value (Section I) and draw out some important consequences of the approach for the global political order (Section II).

Since its birth, but especially since its academic institutionalization, sociology has been plagued by a series of dualisms and dichotomies that seriously diminish the relevance of much of sociological work. To start with, there is the opposition of theoretical and empirical soci- ology; an opposition that should have been stillborn, as it is com- monplace that theoretical work without empirical evidence is arid, while empirical research without theory is spiritless and boring, but continues to survive and even thrive. There is also the division between substantive and methodological issues, creating the impres- sion of two separate realms and the illusion of a ‘free choice’ of method. One can continue with the contrast between methodological individualism and collectivism that in our days culminates in the var- ious debates around rational choice theory, but which is just the old debate between (neo-classical) economics and classical (Durk- heimian) social theory, in new clothes. Still further, there is the dilemma of dynamic versus static approaches, which could be for- mulated in the language of historical versus structural, or of genetic versus genetic. There is furthermore the dichotomy dominating so much of contemporary sociology, between agency and structure, which is just another way of posing the contrast between action and system, dominating the structural-functionalism of the 1950s and 1960s, or the even older opposition between object and subject and their dialectic, central for German idealist philosophy. At an even more general level, there is the question of the link between reality and thought, the extent to which thought and discourses can properly reproduce reality, or, on the contrary, the claims about the autonomy of discourse, or the independence of the text, a theme particular cher- ished by various postmodern approaches.

The work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty has enjoyed a marginal presence within Anglo-American sociology and social theory for many years, particularly within the phenomenological and interactionist camps. In more recent years, however, his profile has grown. This is due largely to the growth of sociological interest in embodiment, a theme which Merleau-Ponty’s work addresses at length, and perhaps also to the rise to prominence within sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, whose work is influenced by that of Merleau-Ponty, particularly in relation to themes of embodiment and habit. Loic Wacquant1 has described Bourdieu as the ‘sociological heir’ of Merleau-Ponty and many other writers2 have identified the connection between the two thinkers as pivotal in their attempts to elucidate the nature and contribution of Bourdieu’s thought. It is perhaps only natural, therefore, that Bourdieu’s recently elevated standing in Anglo-American sociology should entail some reflected glory for Merleau-Ponty too.

Nationalism and Modernism, by Anthony D. Smith. London & New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN: 0415063418.

Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, by Umut Özkrimili. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. ISBN: 0333777123.

Understanding Nationalism, edited by Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN: 0745624022.

Imagining the Possible: Radical Politics for Conservative Times Stephen Eric Bronner

Stranger Shores: Essays 1986-1999 J.M. Coetzee

History and Illusion in Politics Raymond Geuss

Happiness: Personhood, Community, Purpose Pedro Alexis Tabensky

The Philosophy of Social Practices: A Collective Acceptance View Raimo Tuomela

About the Contributors