Thread by @bctallis

🔥 🧵s on #NeoIdealism 🧵 🔥

2. Why is 'Neo-Idealism' called 'Neo-Idealism'?

- I outlined this new approach to #IR & Grand Strategy in a previous thread (see linked tweet).
- Now I dig deeper into the name & concept

1/25

https://twitter.com/bctallis/status/1612105940441915395?s=20&t=tyvrk6KrtlUcfFRtjrZ77Q

I first introduced the idea of #NeoIdealism in a piece for @RUSI_org in April '22 but Its fullest elaboration so far is in my book - 'To #Ukraine With Love'
- published last month & available now on kindle & paperback😎
amazon.com/Ukraine-Love-E…

So why call it Neo-Idealism?

2/25

Some of the Neo-Idealists from #CEE - sometimes explicitly - seek to refresh the hopeful, people-centred politics that flourished in the post-communist transitions of the 1990s but which had wilted more recently, especially after the 2008 financial crisis
3/25

But the Neo-Idealists are also reviving elements of an older approach to #InternationalRelations (#IR) - yest 'Idealism' in IR was a tradition cut short, its potential never realised
- which makes it ripe for revival & renewal.
4/25

Scholars & statesmen in the interwar period who believed in the possibility of progress through interaction in - & by the institutionalisation of - international affairs were labelled as 'idealists' - by others as @lucian_ashworth has shown.
e-ir.info/2014/02/12/of-…
5/25

This labelling was mainly done by inheritors of renowned 'realist' EH Carr, A Marxist historian who advocated for appeasement of Nazi Germany Carr tried to discredit thinkers & doers like Norman Angell, Alfred Zimmern & Philip Noel-Baker as 'utopians' (thus not 'realists').
6/25

This disdain merged with rejection of former US President Woodrow Wilson's supposedly 'idealistic' approach to 'making the world safe for democracy'-& scorn for the League of Nations (tho its failure had little to do with its 'idealism')
-& there are other big probs here too
7/25

By most definitions or even in the common-sense use of the term none of those mentioned above (save Wilson) could be classified as 'idealists'.

cambridge.org/core/journals/…
8/25

- Even Wilson's commitment to self-determination was fatally undermined by his views on race, agency & the suitability of some but not others for nationhood (an approach that had haunted US & other 'geopolitics' for years as @spectermatt has shown).
9/25
woodrowwilsonhouse.org/wilson-topics/…

Nonetheless, Carr - & later 'Realists' - contrasted themselves with a caricature of muddle headed idealism to boost the appeal of their own work.
Here's contemporary @stephenWalt doing it in Foreign Policy in March 2022.
[note: *Neo*Idealists support Ukraine's mil victory]
10/25

Like Ashworth, @spectermatt has shown that many supposed 20th century idealists actually shared a lot with those who later called themselves 'realists'
- not least on the importance & use of power in International affairs
(This book is excellent).
sup.org/books/title/?i…
11/25

Even Carr, in the 20 Years Crisis, concedes the need to consider ideals & values in international affairs- to a far greater extent than many later realists.
-As Specter argues, however, they also shared views that authorised imperialism & chauvinism
mearsheimer.com/wp-content/upl…
12/25

So what, then, is the 'Idealism' that is being revived & re-imagined?
- it echoes elements of Wilson & others commitment to democracy & self-determination
- but integrates a comprehensive, universal vision of rights & freedoms (rejecting racism & other discrimination)

13/25

#NeoIdealism combines this with aspects of various types of Liberalism that link domestic politics to international relations.
(Many of you noted this & in both a future🧵& the book, I distinguish my approach from standard #LiberalInternationalism)

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/978030027…

14/25

Showing the echoes of the 1990s, while #NeoIdealism affirms the impotence of collective self-determination for all states (not just great powers), it also treats individuals, communities & nations as key subjects of & actors in international affairs.

15/25

- This also explains why reinvigorating democracy & reviving hopeful futures in democratic societies (incl. by rethinking our economic arrangements) are key aspects of #NeoIdealism
-our populations should share in the benefits of freedom. Substance must support style.
16/25

The common element that this new approach takes from Idealisms & Liberalisms of the past is the possibility of & need for progress
- domestically, internationally (& globally), which contrasts with Realism's tragic, non-progressive view of people & (international) politics.
17/25

Drawing on past idealists' recognition of the importance of power, #NeoIdealism confirms the need to fight to defend democracy where it is threatened because it is
- a good in itself
- a condition for & vector of human progress.
18/25

Even though it draws on some ideas from the past (while jettisoning others), #NeoIdealism focuses on the future
- Not 'retro' but 'retro futurist'.
[more on this below!]
19/25

#NeoIdealism doesn't recreate or realise *those* particular futures.
Instead its seeks to recover the potential of *the progressive future* itself
- b/c "the potentials of past avant garden can be recoded & made productive again in the present" as Uwe Schutte put it.
20/25

What #NeoIdealism adds to Idealism in IR & as Grand Strategy is the ideals themselves.

- values conceived as ideals to strive for and thus imagined & pursued in a more thoroughgoing way than any previous variant.

https://twitter.com/bctallis/status/1612105948251709441?s=20&t=c3kybOzrhXUF-tsFC1qyEA

21/25

#NeoIdealism doesn't ignore power - far from it- but while some may simply see small state power maximising, that is too cynical a judgement that is undermined by by the substantive examples of NeoIdealism in the previous & next threads (& the book).
amazon.com/Ukraine-Love-E…
22/25

What #NeoIdealism's lens allows us to see is that the distinction between values & interests has been too sharply drawn in grand strategy & ordering.
- for Liberal Democracies, lib & dem values themselves should be construed as interests to be pursued, defended & upheld.

23/25

Pursuing, defending & upholding liberal & democratic values requires that all democracies, of whatever size, properly calculate the benefits of maintaining & animating liberal and democratic ordering.
- & must properly revive & update liberalism & democracy at home.
24/25

So now you know what #NeoIdealism is & why its called Neo-Idealism!

In the next 🧵(3) I look at how Neo-Idealism
- differs from #Realism and
- goes beyond #LiberalInternationalism.
25/25