Ntina Tzouvala: Capitalism as Civilisation

CAIT Book Talk:

"Capitalism as Civilisation. A History of International Law" (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Speaker: Ntina Tzouvala
Chair: Melanie Richter-Montpetit

This book won an Honourable Mention for the 2021 Sussex International Theory Prize.

Author's blurb:

'The "standard of civilisation" is often considered a historically important but currently irrelevant concept in international law. In this talk, I suggest that this optimistic narrative is misguided. I argue that "civilisation" has never been a unitary concept subject to a specific definition. Rather, I approach it as the encapsulation of a much more fundamental and enduring argumentative pattern, one that constantly oscillates between two logics. On the one hand, a certain 'logic of improvement' promises equal rights and duties under international law provided that non-Western political communities transform themselves according to the changing imperatives of capitalism modernity. On the other, an opposing 'logic of biology' perpetually defers this promise of equal inclusion based on ideas of unbridgeable difference. Revisiting the indeterminacy thesis in international law, I argue that international law's constant oscillation between these two logics is reflective of the fact that the discipline reflects capitalism's tendency for uneven and combined development without being able to authoritatively resolve it.'

This event was co-sponsored by the Sussex Centre for Global Political Economy and the Department of Law.