The Oxford International Relations Society will be joined by Professor Christian Reus-Smit, who is visiting us from the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. Reus-Smit is an internationally-renowned scholar of International Relations, known for his work on international relations theory, international law, multilateralism, human rights, American power, and most recently, cultural diversity and international order. He is long-time editor (with Nicholas Wheeler and Evelyn Goh) of the Cambridge Studies in International Relations book series, and a co-editor (Duncan Snidal and Alexander Wendt) of the journal International Theory. His publications have been awarded the Susan Strange Best Book Prize (2014), the BISA Best Article Prize (2002), and the Northedge Prize (1992).

Ordering Diversity: The Haitian Revolution and the German Confederation: The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw widespread contestation over the entwined ordering of political authority and cultural diversity in the European centred imperial world order. In an unusual pairing, this lecture examines two key sites of such contestation: the Haitian Revolution and the German Confederation. The first reveals the centrality of race in the constitutional contortions of the French revolutionary empire-state and in the recognitional criteria of the society of empire-states. The second reveals the contested nature of Europeanness at the time. And the failure of powerful advocates of German nationalism and Jewish rights highlights the salience, in the postwar reordering of the Europe, of racially informed religious principles and aristocratic cultural hierarchies. Together, these struggles and their outcomes reveal the contours of the early 19th century global diversity regime.

Sign up for FREE admission!