Description
This paper interrogates whether international revolution might be conceived as an institution of global international society. Rather than treating revolutions as exceptional ruptures or deviations from order, it asks whether recurring moments of radical upheaval perform a recuring role in the reproduction and transformation of international society. From anti-colonial struggles to contemporary ecological and technological movements, revolutions often serve as arenas in which claims to legitimacy, justice, and universal order are contested and redefined. Building on this inquiry, the paper revisits Martin Wight’s revolutionist tradition, suggesting that his reflections on moral universalism, teleology, and the tension between salvation and order offer conceptual resources for understanding revolution as a processual and potentially institutional feature of international life. By situating Wight’s revolutionism within debates on temporality and change, the paper advances a relational view of how upheaval, rather than merely disrupting order, might constitute one of its enduring mechanisms of adaptation in world politics.
