International Relations

Hegel provided a powerful conception of human beings in the world and a rich conception of freedom. Key to that conception is the idea of self-creation through labor. Hegel had an "aesthetic" conception of labor: human beings confront the raw given of nature and transform it through intelligent effort into things they imagine that will satisfy their needs and desires. Alexandre Koj�ve's reading of Hegel is especially clear on Hegel's conception of labor and freedom. This is provided in Koj�ve's analysis of the Master-Slave section of Hegel's Phenomenology in his  Introduction to the Reading of Hegel . The key idea is expressed in these terms: The product of work is the worker's production. It is the realization of his project, of his idea; hence, it is he that is realized in and by this product, and consequently he contemplates himself when he contemplates it.... Therefore, it is by work, and only by work, that man realizes himself objectively as man. (Koj...

Marx had something of a theory of politics and somewhat less of a theory of government. The slogan �the capitalist state serves as the managing committee of the bourgeoisie� represents the simplest version of his view of the state. He generally regarded government and law as an expression of class interests. That said, Marx was not much of an organizational thinker. He had literally nothing to say about the workings of real governments � the British state or the French state, for example, and nothing to say about the ministries and bureaus through which the affairs of government worked. When he mentioned politicians in any European country it was as particular individuals rather than as functionaries. And yet it is crucial to understand government � including nineteenth century European governments � as bureaucracies organizing the flows of revenue, regulations, information, and coercion. Marx added essentially nothing to this task. What Marx most likely would have asserted is that the...

Sexual harassment of women in academic settings is regrettably common and pervasive, and its consequences are grave. At the same time, it is a remarkably difficult problem to solve. The "me-too" movement has shed welcome light on specific individual offenders and has generated more awareness of some aspects of the problem of sexual harassment and misconduct. But we have not yet come to a public awareness of the changes needed to create a genuinely inclusive and non-harassing environment for women across the spectrum of mistreatment that has been documented. The most common institutional response following an incident is to create a program of training and reporting, with a public commitment to investigating complaints and enforcing university or institutional policies rigorously and transparently. These efforts are often well intentioned, but by themselves they are insufficient. They do not address the underlying institutional and cultural features that make sexual harassment...

Stephen Greenblatt is a literary critic and historian whose insights into philosophy and the contemporary world are genuinely and consistently profound. His most recent book returns to his primary expertise, the corpus of Shakespeare's plays. But it is -- by intention or otherwise -- an  important reflection on the presidency of Donald Trump as well. The book is  Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics , and it traces in fascinating detail the evolution and fates of tyrants through Shakespeare's plays. Richard III gets a great deal of attention, as do Lear and Macbeth. Greenblatt makes it clear that Shakespeare was interested both in the institutions of governance within which tyrants seized power, and the psychology of the tyrant. The parallels with the behavior and psychology of the current US President are striking. Here is how Greenblatt frames his book. �A king rules over willing subjects,� wrote the influential sixteenth-century Scottish scholar George Buchanan, �a tyrant over u...