Abstract:
The so-called “Monster of Malmesbury,” Thomas Hobbes, has been derided as a “patriarchal theorist” and as a pernicious force in international law, so he may seem an unlikely ally for those committed to both feminism and internationalism. Yet key strands of Hobbes’s thought should sound familiar to feminist internationalists, especially when considered against the backdrop of prevailing liberal theories.
This starts with Hobbes’s atypical views on sex and gender, but it goes much deeper. Taking Vasuki Nesiah’s forthcoming chapter, “‘Re-enchanting the world’: Feminist Critiques of Liberal Theories of International Law,” in The Oxford Handbook of Women and International Law as its starting point, this essay explores interesting and perhaps startling connections between Hobbes’s political theory and contemporary feminist critique. First, against the conception of the legal subject as disembodied and universalized, Hobbes presents an embodied and particular conception. Second, against the notion that the social contract is concluded among equals and consistently drives toward peace, Hobbes presents a far darker but more sober account. He offers no false hope that these institutions will be formed without violence or necessarily maintained with virtue.
To the extent that Hobbes counts as a “founder of liberalism” or one of its essential predecessors, liberal theory in international law has come unmoored from his foundations—and in ways that resonate in contemporary feminist critiques.
Invited contribution to the Temple Law Symposium on Feminism and the Theory of International Law (January 2025).