Remarks from the Outgoing Editor

Abstract

The present issue formally marks the conclusion of my tenure as Editor of the Journal of International Political Theory. When the seeds of JIPT were planted 16 years ago in the guise of a generalist journal of normative political theory called Politics and Ethics Review, I had only an inkling of the existence of the field of international political theory. Although trained as a political philosopher – or, as I prefer for reasons powerfully articulated by Hannah Arendt, as a ‘political theorist’ – my intellectual orientation always gravitated towards matters of an ‘international’ nature (human rights especially have been a constant interest since my undergraduate days). Unfortunately, this orientation did not always fit well with the prevailing research concerns of Anglo-American philosophy and political theory, which were preoccupied with matters of ‘domestic’ politics. Surprisingly (to me at least), at the time there were few scholarly outlets for political theory investigating topics pertaining to international, transnational and world politics. It gradually dawned on me that the generalist journal I had established might be of greater benefit to the discipline as a specialist journal furnishing a dedicated outlet to political theory of this sort. Taking up a new post at the University of St Andrews in 2006 proved to be something of a Damascene moment, then, as I was welcomed into a thriving community of scholars and students who eagerly self-identified as ‘international political theorists’. This moment proved to be the vital catalyst for the metamorphosis of Politics and Ethics Review into Journal of International Political Theory. JIPT made its formal appearance with Edinburgh University Press in April 2008 and subsequently moved to SAGE in January 2014. For me, political theory at its best should be interpreted existentially as a horizonexpanding activity, one which continually seeks to move outward in space and time, pushing boundaries and establishing connections and common ground rather than remaining inwardly fixated on supposedly immutable, isolated monads. It is, to echo Gilles Deleuze, a theoretical sensibility attuned to exteriority rather than interiority and