On the Immanence/Imminence of Empire

Abstract

Barkawi and Laffey engage with Hardt and Negri's Empire as a reminder of what an institutionalised Anglo-American tradition of international relations theory misses or misconstrues when it focuses on the logic of the modern states system. Like Barkawi and Laffey, I am unpersuaded by the claim that `a global order, a new logic and structure of rule—in short, a new form of sovereignty' has emerged. However, Barkawi and Laffey avoid engaging with the primary theoretical moves enabling this claim. These moves connect a claim about immanence in the philosophical struggles of early-European modernity with a claim about the imminence of a new form of political order arising from a process of internalisation of the interstate system. It is because this relationship is not placed under suspicion that Hardt and Negri over-interpret many important observations within an updated but conventional, and unsatisfactory, account of a universalising history.