Thomas Hobbes has become a canonical figure for theories of international security even though his writings say relatively little about what we would now call an international system. This paper suggests that Hobbes remains important for the analysis of international security, as well as for political theory more generally, not because he advances any coherent theory of international relations but because his account of the sovereignty of particular states requires an account of the external conditions of possibility of such states. Politics after Hobbes needs to get to grips with the constitutive effects of his particular philosophy of history. Thus, this paper proposes a political reading of Hobbes that emphasizes his importance for thought about modern politics and its conditions of possibility; about its origins and limits that are also our origins and limits as modern subjects.
Hobbes; Modern Politics; International Security; Philosophy of History