Introduction: Why read Reinhold Niebuhr now?
| Author | Liane Hartnett,Lucian Ashworth |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1755088220981093 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088220981093
Journal of International Political Theory
2021, Vol. 17(2) 118 –122
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088220981093
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Introduction: Why read
Reinhold Niebuhr now?
Liane Hartnett
La Trobe University, Australia
Lucian Ashworth
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Abstract
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) is perhaps the best known North American theologian
of the twentieth century. Over the course of his life he was a Christian socialist, pacifist,
a staunch anti-communist, and an architect of vital-centre liberalism. Niebuhr wrote
on themes as diverse as war, democracy, world order, political economy and race. So
significant was Niebuhr’s intellectual influence that George Kennan once described him
as ‘the father of us all’. Indeed, from the thought of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter,
Martin Luther King Jr. to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Hans Morgenthau to Kenneth Waltz,
E.H. Carr to Jean Bethke Elshtain, Niebuhr has helped shape International Relations.
Bringing together intellectual historians and international political theorists, this special
issue asks whether Niebuhr’s thought remains relevant to our times? Can he help us
think about democracy, power, race, the use of force, and cruelty in a moment when
ethnonationalism appears ascendant and democracy in decline?
Keywords
Democracy, love, Niebuhr, power, race, war
Paul Elie (2007) once described Reinhold Niebuhr as a ‘man for all reasons’, referring to the
perplexing phenomenon of North America’s most famous twentieth century theologian’s
‘promiscuous invocation’ by all sides of politics. Celebrated by U.S. Presidents such as
Obama and Carter, Niebuhr, in recent times, has been summoned by ‘bellicose neoconserva-
tives, chastened “liberal hawks,” and stalwarts of the anti-war left’ to both defend and resist
Corresponding author:
Liane Hartnett, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe
University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia 3086.
Email: liane.hartnett@latrobe.edu.au
981093IPT0010.1177/1755088220981093Journal of International Political TheoryHartnett and Ashworth
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