Cosmopolitan Imaginaries and International Disorder

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Cosmopolitan Imaginaries and International Disorder

by Aaron C McKeil

University of Michigan Press, 2025

ISBNs

Cloth: 978-0-472-07606-2

Paper: 978-0-472-05606-4

eISBN: 978-0-472-90340-5 (OA)

About the Book

While the idea of a cosmopolitan order embracing all humankind is ancient, after the Cold War it was widely believed to be an emerging future. As global interdependence and interaction through new technologies increased, literature of cosmopolitan globalization argued that these changes were setting the stage for a structural transformation of world politics. Yet, a revolt against globalism and increasingly divisive and unstable international order has dramatically contradicted this idea. This presents a puzzle for International Relations theory: Why have attempts to construct cosmopolitan order struggled to emerge in the modern global world?

Cosmopolitan Imaginaries and International Disorder argues that advocacy for cosmopolitan order reform in the modern world has struggled to recognize the political identities of states and populations and to legitimize its proposed political hierarchies. As a result, these efforts have been overwhelmed by states shoring up their power and remobilizing exclusionary nationalist identities, especially when struggles are intensified in contexts of international instability and economic turmoil. In developing a theory to explain these patterns of cosmopolitan politics, this book offers insight into the limits and role of cosmopolitanism in a dividing international order after liberal globalism.

About the Author

Aaron C. McKeil is Academic Director at LSE IDEAS, in the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Reviews

“This is a penetrating exploration of the fault lines that have shattered cosmopolitan worldmaking and the apprehension that pervades an increasingly disordered world. To fashion a world that is fit to live in, the cause of righteous transformation must keep one eye fixed on the abyss of fanaticism. McKeil provides a vital, indeed, indispensable starting point for this monumental task.”— William Bain, National University of Singapore

“This framework contributes meaningfully to current theorizing about the nature of the international system and the directions it could meaningfully be pushed in light of current challenges. An understanding of the resulting dialectic, continually (re)constituting the conditions for international politics, is an important contribution to theories of international relations. Summing Up: Recommended."

— S. P. Duffy, Choice

“Amid escalating geopolitical competition, accelerating ecological collapse and deepening ideological fractures, McKeil supplies a timely framework for understanding the recurrent intensifications and failures of modern cosmopolitan ambitions.”

— Kieran O'Meara, International Affairs

“Cosmopolitan Imaginaries and International Disorder is a significant and original entry in the growing conversation about international order and disorder, exploring especially the tension between cosmopolitan order projects and recognition struggles. This is a must-read for all IR theory scholars and students.”— Ayse Zarakol, University of Cambridge