Cfp: "Should Political Theory Get Real? Contemporary Liberalism and the Challenge of Political Realism," University of Birmingham, May 7, 2009.

An increasingly evident standpoint in recent political thought suggests that much modern political philosophy – and particularly liberalism of the sort developed by thinkers such as Rawls and Dworkin - misunderstands, or perhaps misrepresents, the nature of politics. This view is common to a set of otherwise disparate thinkers who, drawing on the writings of, inter alia, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Weber and Arendt, advocate a view of politics that can broadly be described as ‘realist’ (under this broad rubric may be included: Bernard Williams, Stuart Hampshire, John Gray,Richard Bellamy, Glen Newey, Judith Shklar, Jeremy Waldron, Raymond Geuss, Mark Philp, Michael Freeden, Chantal Mouffe, Bonnie Honnig, Sheldon Wolin and William Connolly). The ‘realist’ conception of the political challenges neo-Kantian liberal political philosophy as abstract and utopian. More particularly, it charges that liberalism: a) displaces politics and constrains democracy with antecedent moral principles and constitutional law; b) fails to appreciate the depth of conflict and disagreement in modern societies; and c) does not recognize the autonomy and uniqueness of the political. Instead, and in differing ways, political ‘realists’ call for a re-engagement with the political as a distinct sphere of human activity, where distinctive human qualities are called for and in which vice, conflict, and competition for power are ineradicable elements.The purpose of this conference is to bring together political theorists who share an interest the nature of the political and, in particular, the (alleged) failure of Kantian liberals to understand or properly represent politics as it is and not simply as (they think) it should be. For further information and booking, please contact: Dr Steve Buckler or Dr. Richard North, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT. Email: n.e.buckler@bham.ac.uk and r.north.2@bham.ac.uk.