Description
Imagination and security go hand in hand. From the Hobbesian state of nature through to the contemporary security dilemma, the imagination is said to animate fears and fuel suspicions.
Yet for all its palpable centrality in security discourses, the imagination is a largely unexamined concept. The word is common, but its content – the character, function and operation of a particular faculty – is often assumed and rarely detailed. So how are we to engage with this concept and way of thinking critically in IR? This article highlights an account of the imagination implicit at the disciplinary core of IR, built up on the Hobbesian preoccupation with the prospect of a sudden and violent death. Reading this tradition critically, it then foregrounds broader aspects of the imaginative faculty, including its active and intersubjective qualities. Contrasting with Hobbes so called ‘state of nature’ scenario, we explore this fuller conception of the imagination via Hegel’s master/slave dialectic and through Activity Theory, developed from methods in Cultural Psychology. We argue that the imagination, properly understood, entails a transformative potential that can overcome the allegedly endemic dynamics of insecurity often associated with IR, which have often set the limits of possibility for international politics.
