Political Theory of Empire and Imperialism

Abstract

The past decade has seen a spate of new work on empire in political theory and the history of political thought. Much of this work has focused on the place of empire in the thought of many canonical thinkers and in the formation of modern liberalism and related arenas, such as postcolonial settler societies and the discipline of international law. Political theory's turn to empire has been belated in comparison to other fields, such as history, literature, and anthropology, which had been grappling with the histories and legacies of modern European empires since the 1970s. Despite intense attention to the question of American imperialism during the Bush administration, political theory arguably continues to fail to deal adequately with the imperial features of the current global order, including the substantial responsibility on the part of the great powers for conditions such as extreme poverty, ecological crisis, civil conflict, and tyranny around the world.