Cosmopolitan Global Politics
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088220969717 |
| Author | Richard Beardsworth |
| Date | 01 February 2021 |
| Published date | 01 February 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Roundtable on Patrick Hayden |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088220969717
Journal of International Political Theory
2021, Vol. 17(1) 14 –15
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088220969717
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Cosmopolitan Global Politics
Richard Beardsworth
University of Leeds, UK
I met Patrick in the summer of 2008 in St Andrews at the opening conference of the
Journal of International Political Theory, which he and Tony Lang organized: “Thinking
(With)Out Borders: International Political Theory in the 21st Century.” The conference,
as with succeeding ones, brought together many theorists engaged in making International
Relations theory more sophisticated by bringing to it the traditions of Political Theory
and Political Philosophy. I will always recall Patrick’s disposition at the conference:
welcoming, sincere, critical, cosmopolitan-minded.
It was after that conference that I read Hayden’s (2005) book Cosmopolitan Global
Politics. I was, at the time, framing my own book on cosmopolitanism and international
politics, and his book was important for me. Its argument concerning the relevance of the
philosophy and morality of cosmopolitanism to international relations was exemplary,
with its trained focus on the emergence of global governance mechanisms, the pressures
of global civil society on national governments, and his rehearsal of the meaning of
world citizenship within these processes. Patrick’s book moved very purposefully
between moral cosmopolitanism and political ways of implementing this moral engage-
ment. The book confirmed, for me, the disposition that I had met in St Andrews in 2008.
I did not agree with Patrick’s interpretation of realism in the book, nor his understanding
of state sovereignty as an obstacle to cosmopolitan governance, but his refusal to com-
promise with duties of global justice made the book’s cosmopolitan political project both
morally clear and politically consistent. That clarity and consistency has, I believe,
underpinned the way he edited the Journal of International Political Theory over the last
10 years. I am particularly grateful to him for not only his editorial steering of two spe-
cial issues with which I was concerned, but also for sustaining and promoting the space
of academic engagement with Political Theory and International Relations. I was sur-
prised to learn of his early retirement, although I was aware that he was finding the
rhythms of UK academic life increasingly incompatible with intellectual life. I should
not have been surprised, I suppose: his clarity and consistency had won through again!
Given recent events and the present historical conjuncture, the cosmopolitan political
project is to be rethought. Greater focus on the state is necessary, not only as a site of
motivation for collective endeavor, but also as the place from which collective political
projects are made possible, including global challenges. Patrick’s book ended with an
Corresponding author:
Richard Beardsworth, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
Email: r.beardsworth@leeds.ac.uk
969717IPT0010.1177/1755088220969717Journal of International Political TheoryBeardsworth
research-article2021
Roundtable on Patrick Hayden
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