Hannah Arendt's approach to politics focuses on action and conduct, rather than institutions, constitutions, and states. Thus, Arendt's work offers a novel and interesting alternative to the ways in which agency and structure are understood in international relations. In light of Arendtian conceptions of politics, essays in this book challenge conventional IR theories. The contributions on agency explore concepts and categories of political action that enable individuals to act politically and to re-make the world in new, unpredictable ways. The contributions on structure explore how Arendt provides new critical purchase upon often reified structures and categories.

Anthony Lang Jr. is Professor of International Political Theory and directs the Centre for Global Constitutionalism at the University of St Andrews, UK. His previous books include Agency and Ethics: The Politics of Military Intervention (State University of New York Press, 2002) and Punishment, Justice and International Relations: Ethics and Order after the Cold War (Routledge, 2008). He has published articles, books and edited volumes on a range of topics in International Political Theory, Ethics and International Affairs, and International Legal Theory.