Judith Shklar's dictum, 'the worst evil of cruelty', is well known. What this means for her political theory and how such theory is construed are rarely explored. This article maintains that Shklar's turn towards cruelty/suffering has a specific role in the development of her political argument. It allows her both to curb her long-standing skepticism, and to use it creatively. This is because suffering must be examined from the perspectives of history and philosophy, which produce two sets of knowledge, each limiting the overbearing tendencies of the other. The way Shklar uses the tension between history and philosophy for progressive purposes, and her idea that politics can mediate between history and philosophy, makes her a very contemporary theorist, similar to those who critically engage foundationalism without wanting to dispose of it completely. Approaching Shklar's 'Putting Cruelty First' through her engagement with history and philosophy, and making use of the concepts of 'realism' (Bernard Williams) and 'weak ontology' (Stephen White) to do so are a more productive route to understanding her dictum than the usual one of examining it through the prism of her 'liberalism of fear'.

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The article argues that Karl Deutsch?s work on nationalism is not only a precursor to his ?security communities? but that it is central to his international relations (IR). Nationalism impacts what people expect from the state and influences the state?s international behaviour. While these processes are mostly automatic and cannot be controlled, their trajectories are not fully determined. Deutsch is interested in theorising moments when automatic processes do not suffice or become harmful and intervention is needed. The article first introduces Deutsch as a theorist of nationalism, examining his contribution in the context of the field of nationalism studies and the reasons for his equivocal reception in this field. In its second part, the article makes sense of the legacy of Deutsch?s work on nationalism for contemporary IR by focusing on his use of the notion of self-determination with which Deutsch transcends the normative imperatives of the narrower concept of national self-determination.Peer reviewe

While a number of scholars argue that classical realism is conspicuously similar to critical international relations, this article takes an issue with such an interpretation. It does not challenge the observation that both approaches are comparable when it comes to ethical concerns and a related critique of modernity, but it puts forth an argument that they differ fundamentally when it comes to their basic intellectual motivation and purpose. This also makes classical realism more ready to formulate normative judgment. To articulate what provides for the ethical impetus in classical realism, the study turns to the work of Stephen Turner and his collaborators who illuminate Weberian sources of classical realist social science. Adopting the category of analyticism from Patrick Jackson, it further puts forth that normative judgment is linked to classical realism's inherent ontological doubt, a feature it compensates for by focusing on epistemology necessitating constant engagement with empirical reality as a source of its (weak) ontological orientation. As a result, classical realism is reinforced here as an approach to international relations worth reviving and further developing.

The article reconstructs Shklar's thoughts on war. It argues that these thoughts constitute a crucial pillar of her political theory. Of particular significance is the interpretation of her book Legalism, where Shklar criticised efforts to streamline the complex issue of the causes of war into a simple theory of power and aggression, and her work on Montesquieu, which ultimately allowed her to link thoughts on war and extraordinary cruelty to her interest in cruelty as an ordinary vice. In this way, the article answers the question about the relationship between Shklar's explicit cosmopolitanism and her negative political theory. It demonstrates that her thoughts on war were politically cosmopolitan, while allowing her to eschew the type of global ethics that underwrites just war theorising, she was critical of. The article makes a case for considering Shklar's work as a contribution to Global Political Theory, calling for the latter to look beyond the just war tradition to pursue its interests in both theoretical prescription and political reality. This because Shklar's thoughts on war successfully combined empirical analysis of world affairs with normative dismissal of human actions that place others in situations of existential fear.