THE POLITICAL THEORY WORKSHOP PRESENTS

Transnational Identity and Historical Development

Dabney Waring, Political Science, UConn
with commentary by Justin Theodra, Political Science, UConn
November 5, 2021 from 3:00-4:30p.m. EST, VIRTUAL

The structure-agency debate has long been central to social theory and remains a site of controversy. This paper makes two main interventions in this debate. First, expanding the critical realist approach to social ontology, it argues that group identities can be fruitfully theorized as structures – “collectivities” – that generate causal effects. Collectivities, as socio-symbolic structures, cut across and interact with states and societies, socio-material structures with their own causal effects. This formulation offers a richer account of global social space, displacing the domestic/international distinction that defines traditional statist frameworks of International Relations as well as many sociological and constructivist approaches. Second, it argues that, even with this expansion, there remains a theoretical void within social ontology, an intermediary gap between the natural/physiological and social structures that overdetermine individuals from “below” and “above.” Although it has long been rejected, ignored, or theoretically bracketed in a liberal conception of the subject, it argues that social theorists need a better account of the nexus that links natural and social structures, i.e., the psyche, and its general causal significance.

Dabney Waring is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. His research interests include IR theory, social and political theory, critical realism, and transcendental materialism.

With generous support from the UConn Humanities Institute.

Questions? Email jane.gordon@uconn.edu

Download the Poster

Republicanism and the Rule of Law

Richard Dagger, University of Richmond
with Dabney Waring, Ph.D. Student, Political Science, UConn, as discussant
March 5th, 2021, 12:15–1:30pm on Zoom

Richard Dagger is the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in the Liberal Arts at the University of Richmond, where he holds a joint appointment in Political Science and in the Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law Program. Professor Dagger’s publications include numerous essays in political and legal philosophy, with special attention to political obligation, the justification of punishment, and republicanism. The first two interests are reflected in his Playing Fair: Political Obligation and the Problems of Punishment (Oxford University Press, 2018). The interest in republicanism is central to his Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 1997), which won the Elaine and David Spitz Prize of the Conference for the Study of Political Thought in 1999. He is also co-author of a textbook, Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal (Routledge, 11th edition), and co-editor of a companion book of readings, Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader (Routledge, 11th edition).

With generous support from the UConn Humanities Institute.