Introduction: Martin Wight and the Political Philosophy of International Relations

Abstract

This volume of Wight’s collected works brings together various writings concerning the political philosophy of international relations. Wight identified three traditions of thinking about international politics since the sixteenth century—Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism, which have become well known thanks to his 1991 posthumous volume, International Theory: The Three Traditions. The current volume includes several works on the same ‘international theory’ theme, some previously published and some never-before-published, with ‘Is There a Philosophy of Statesmanship?’ in the latter category. This volume also includes three essays by Wight on the causes and functions of war in international politics. Wight prepared several papers on legitimacy in domestic and international politics, and this volume features five never-before-published papers on this theme. Wight qualified his orderly analyses of traditions of political philosophy, the causes and functions of war, and principles of domestic and international legitimacy by drawing attention to unpredictable ‘wild card’ factors such as fortune and irony in his paper in this collection entitled ‘Fortune’s Banter’. Unintended, unexpected, and ironical consequences abound in international politics, despite efforts to master the dynamics of history. In view of the many factors behind events, including economic and demographic developments, Wight expressed qualifications about the role of ideas. He nonetheless concluded that ‘in historical retrospect, the philosophies of statesmen do seem observably to colour their policies’.