Mathias Thaler
Mathias Thaler is Professor of Political Theory in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interest is in contemporary political theory. Thaler regularly teaches courses on democratic theory, populism, human rights and the morality of war and violence. From 2020 to 2023, he served as Co-Director of Research in the School of Social and Political Science.
Thaler is the author of No Other Planet (Cambridge University Press 2022), Naming Violence (Columbia University Press 2018), Moralische Politik oder politische Moral? (Campus 2008), and co-editor (with Mihaela Mihai) of Political Violence and the Imagination (Routledge 2020) and of On the Uses and Abuses of Political Apologies (Palgrave 2014). His papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Environmental Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, Perspectives on Politics, Political Studies, Political Theory, and Review of Politics, amongst others.
His recent research has been funded through a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant from the European Commission (2013–2017), through a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2020–2021) and through an AHRC Networking Grant (2023–2024). Thaler has moreover been the recipient of competitive awards from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Theodor Körner Fonds and the Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as smaller funders. Over the past ten years, Thaler has held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, the Université de Montréal, KU Leuven and the University of Sydney.
Supervisors: Franz M. Wimmer and Rainer Bauböck
Address: Politics and International Relations
University of Edinburgh
Thaler is the author of No Other Planet (Cambridge University Press 2022), Naming Violence (Columbia University Press 2018), Moralische Politik oder politische Moral? (Campus 2008), and co-editor (with Mihaela Mihai) of Political Violence and the Imagination (Routledge 2020) and of On the Uses and Abuses of Political Apologies (Palgrave 2014). His papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Environmental Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, Perspectives on Politics, Political Studies, Political Theory, and Review of Politics, amongst others.
His recent research has been funded through a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant from the European Commission (2013–2017), through a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2020–2021) and through an AHRC Networking Grant (2023–2024). Thaler has moreover been the recipient of competitive awards from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Theodor Körner Fonds and the Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as smaller funders. Over the past ten years, Thaler has held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, the Université de Montréal, KU Leuven and the University of Sydney.
Supervisors: Franz M. Wimmer and Rainer Bauböck
Address: Politics and International Relations
University of Edinburgh
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Books by Mathias Thaler
Understanding political violence is a complex task, which involves a variety of operations, from examining the social macro-structures within which actors engage in violence, to investigating the motives and drives of individual perpetrators. This book focuses on the faculty of imagination and its role in facilitating our normative and critical engagement with political violence. It interrogates how the imagination can help us deal with past as well as ongoing instances of political violence. Several questions, which have thus far received too little attention from political theorists, motivate this project: Can certain forms of imagination – artistic, historical, philosophical – help us tackle the challenge of comprehending and responding to unprecedented forms of violence? What is the ethical and political value of artworks depicting human rights violations in the aftermath of conflicts? What about the use of thought experiments in justifying policy measures with regard to violence? What forms of political imagination can foster solidarity and catalyse political action?
This book opens up a forum for an inclusive and reflexive debate on the role that the imagination can play in unpacking complex issues of political violence.
This book demonstrates why the imagination matters for political theory. It explores how narrative art, thought experiments and history can challenge and enlarge our existing ways of thinking about different types of violence: genocide, torture and terrorism. The book advances three broad claims about political theory, violence and the imagination. Firstly, it charts a middle course between the two most prominent approaches in contemporary political theory, namely moralism and realism. Secondly, the book adopts the framework of dynamic nominalism to make sense of the ways in which practices of conceptualizing violence interact with the reality of violence. Thirdly, I argue that political theory ought to contribute to societal and academic debates about violence by offering imaginative judgments as to which conceptualizations best serve the purpose of understanding and responding to violence.
Through its focus on the power of the imagination, the book adds a novel perspective to the current discussion around genocide, torture and terrorism. It concentrates on three ways in which the imagination can become engaged: storytelling, hypotheticals and genealogy. Storytelling can trigger what Ludwig Wittgenstein called “aspect-seeing”, which is crucial for comprehending when definitions of violence need to be expanded. I substantiate this claim through an analysis of two films that can help us see wartime rape as well as climate change as genocidal. Hypotheticals perform a different function: they are estrangement devices that shed new light on prevalent norms. By scrutinizing various strategies for constructing imaginary cases about torture, the book develops a framework for determining the merits of thought experiments. Finally, genealogy uncovers the history of ostensibly self-evident beliefs in order to reveal their contingency. Specifically, the book proposes that a feminist history of the concept of “innocence” has important implications for “object-focused” definitions of terrorism that emphasize the targets of violent attacks.
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF EACH CHAPTER
Chapter 1 prepares the ground for the ensuing discussion by introducing the book’s main themes and by outlining its methodology. It explains the basic features of the “politics of naming”, and proposes that a dynamic-nominalist framework can best account for the interactive relationship between defining types of violence and the reality of violence. The chapter then argues for an ameliorative approach to definitions of violence, suggesting that political theory ought to critically assess existing conceptualizations, legal or otherwise, and explore ways to improve them in light of changing real-world circumstances. Finally, the chapter sketches the conception of political theory behind the subsequent argument: democratic and dialogical, rather than hierarchical and self-referential.
Chapter 2 engages with the phenomenon of genocide, and how we may come to terms with it. I argue that it is enlightening to speak of “genocide blindness” when the members of the public sphere are simply incapable of seeing an instance of violence as genocidal. To establish this claim, the chapter introduces Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on “aspect-seeing” to elucidate the importance of changing how political violence is perceived and interpreted. In a second step, the chapter turns to María Pía Lara’s theory of storytelling as a concrete mechanism for triggering this kind of change. Storytelling, and its effect on the viewers’ and readers’ imagination, can help us to grapple with the fluid nature of political violence. Two case studies are discussed to illustrate this claim: Jasmila Žbanić’s film Grbavica (2006) and the documentary Climate Refugees (2010) by Michael Nash.
Chapter 3 deals with the recent torture debates and examines how hypotheticals involving torture can be subjected to critical scrutiny. It develops a framework for normatively assessing these thought experiments. For imaginary cases within the realm of practical – as opposed to theoretical – philosophy to gain any “imaginative grip” at all, they must be action-guiding. This means hypotheticals ought to assist their addressees in making judgments about real-world dilemmas, even if they depict a possible scenario that is remote from reality. The chapter argues that we should distinguish between productive this-worldly hypotheticals and deleterious otherworldly hypotheticals. This distinction is made according to a criterion of modality: although far-fetched, the former construct imaginary cases that are possible for us, here and now, while the latter depict imaginary cases that are barely conceivable at all.
Chapter 4 asks whether attempts to define terrorism according to the targets of violent attacks – innocent non-combatants, in the parlance of Just War theory – are viable. Following in the footsteps of two recent interventions in this debate, by Christopher Findlay and Verena Erlenbusch, the chapter suggests that a genealogical approach is needed for making sense of so-called “object-focused” definitions of terrorism. Genealogy is critical in that it aims to disclose the ways in which our repertoire of norms and principles is constructed through and through. “Innocence”, as feminist scholars have taught us, offers a prime example for this constructedness. Reading “innocence” through this genealogical lens requires that we acknowledge the contingent and potentially problematic character of the values underpinning our theoretical projects.
Chapter 5 draws together the key insights developed in this book. The conclusion reflects on how a more systematic account of the imagination might look like. It points to both the limitations and the potential of the three registers of the imagination discussed in the preceding chapters, and explores the relationship between realist political theory and the imagination.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction; Mihaela Mihai & Mathias Thaler
PART I: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
2. Beyond the Ideal Political Apology; Alice MacLachlan
3. Political Apologies and Categorical Apologies; Nick Smith
PART II: RITES AND RITUALS OF REGRET
4. From Mea Culpa to Nostra Culpa: A Reparative Apology from the Catholic Church?; Danielle Celermajer
5. The Power of Ritual Ceremonies in State Apologies: An Empirical Analysis of the Bilateral Polish-Russian Commemoration Ceremony in Katyn in 2010; Michel-André Horelt
6. Confessing the Holocaust: The Evolution of German Guilt; Stefan Engert
PART III: CHALLENGING CASES
7. Revisiting the 'Membership Theory of Apologies': Apology Politics in Australia and Canada; Melissa Nobles
8. The Canadian Apology To Indigenous Residential School Survivors: A Case Study of Re-Negotiation of Social Relations; Neil Funk-Unrau
9. What Makes a State Apology Authoritative? Lessons from Post-Authoritarian Brazil; Nina Schneider
PART IV: OBSTACLES AND LIMITATIONS
10. The Apology in Democracies: Reflections on the Challenges of Competing Goods, Citizenship, Nationalism and Pluralist Politics; Michael Cunningham
11. An Apology for Public Apologies; Juan Espindola
12. Reasoning Like a State: Integration and the Limits of Official Regret; Cindy Holder
Papers by Mathias Thaler
Understanding political violence is a complex task, which involves a variety of operations, from examining the social macro-structures within which actors engage in violence, to investigating the motives and drives of individual perpetrators. This book focuses on the faculty of imagination and its role in facilitating our normative and critical engagement with political violence. It interrogates how the imagination can help us deal with past as well as ongoing instances of political violence. Several questions, which have thus far received too little attention from political theorists, motivate this project: Can certain forms of imagination – artistic, historical, philosophical – help us tackle the challenge of comprehending and responding to unprecedented forms of violence? What is the ethical and political value of artworks depicting human rights violations in the aftermath of conflicts? What about the use of thought experiments in justifying policy measures with regard to violence? What forms of political imagination can foster solidarity and catalyse political action?
This book opens up a forum for an inclusive and reflexive debate on the role that the imagination can play in unpacking complex issues of political violence.
This book demonstrates why the imagination matters for political theory. It explores how narrative art, thought experiments and history can challenge and enlarge our existing ways of thinking about different types of violence: genocide, torture and terrorism. The book advances three broad claims about political theory, violence and the imagination. Firstly, it charts a middle course between the two most prominent approaches in contemporary political theory, namely moralism and realism. Secondly, the book adopts the framework of dynamic nominalism to make sense of the ways in which practices of conceptualizing violence interact with the reality of violence. Thirdly, I argue that political theory ought to contribute to societal and academic debates about violence by offering imaginative judgments as to which conceptualizations best serve the purpose of understanding and responding to violence.
Through its focus on the power of the imagination, the book adds a novel perspective to the current discussion around genocide, torture and terrorism. It concentrates on three ways in which the imagination can become engaged: storytelling, hypotheticals and genealogy. Storytelling can trigger what Ludwig Wittgenstein called “aspect-seeing”, which is crucial for comprehending when definitions of violence need to be expanded. I substantiate this claim through an analysis of two films that can help us see wartime rape as well as climate change as genocidal. Hypotheticals perform a different function: they are estrangement devices that shed new light on prevalent norms. By scrutinizing various strategies for constructing imaginary cases about torture, the book develops a framework for determining the merits of thought experiments. Finally, genealogy uncovers the history of ostensibly self-evident beliefs in order to reveal their contingency. Specifically, the book proposes that a feminist history of the concept of “innocence” has important implications for “object-focused” definitions of terrorism that emphasize the targets of violent attacks.
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF EACH CHAPTER
Chapter 1 prepares the ground for the ensuing discussion by introducing the book’s main themes and by outlining its methodology. It explains the basic features of the “politics of naming”, and proposes that a dynamic-nominalist framework can best account for the interactive relationship between defining types of violence and the reality of violence. The chapter then argues for an ameliorative approach to definitions of violence, suggesting that political theory ought to critically assess existing conceptualizations, legal or otherwise, and explore ways to improve them in light of changing real-world circumstances. Finally, the chapter sketches the conception of political theory behind the subsequent argument: democratic and dialogical, rather than hierarchical and self-referential.
Chapter 2 engages with the phenomenon of genocide, and how we may come to terms with it. I argue that it is enlightening to speak of “genocide blindness” when the members of the public sphere are simply incapable of seeing an instance of violence as genocidal. To establish this claim, the chapter introduces Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on “aspect-seeing” to elucidate the importance of changing how political violence is perceived and interpreted. In a second step, the chapter turns to María Pía Lara’s theory of storytelling as a concrete mechanism for triggering this kind of change. Storytelling, and its effect on the viewers’ and readers’ imagination, can help us to grapple with the fluid nature of political violence. Two case studies are discussed to illustrate this claim: Jasmila Žbanić’s film Grbavica (2006) and the documentary Climate Refugees (2010) by Michael Nash.
Chapter 3 deals with the recent torture debates and examines how hypotheticals involving torture can be subjected to critical scrutiny. It develops a framework for normatively assessing these thought experiments. For imaginary cases within the realm of practical – as opposed to theoretical – philosophy to gain any “imaginative grip” at all, they must be action-guiding. This means hypotheticals ought to assist their addressees in making judgments about real-world dilemmas, even if they depict a possible scenario that is remote from reality. The chapter argues that we should distinguish between productive this-worldly hypotheticals and deleterious otherworldly hypotheticals. This distinction is made according to a criterion of modality: although far-fetched, the former construct imaginary cases that are possible for us, here and now, while the latter depict imaginary cases that are barely conceivable at all.
Chapter 4 asks whether attempts to define terrorism according to the targets of violent attacks – innocent non-combatants, in the parlance of Just War theory – are viable. Following in the footsteps of two recent interventions in this debate, by Christopher Findlay and Verena Erlenbusch, the chapter suggests that a genealogical approach is needed for making sense of so-called “object-focused” definitions of terrorism. Genealogy is critical in that it aims to disclose the ways in which our repertoire of norms and principles is constructed through and through. “Innocence”, as feminist scholars have taught us, offers a prime example for this constructedness. Reading “innocence” through this genealogical lens requires that we acknowledge the contingent and potentially problematic character of the values underpinning our theoretical projects.
Chapter 5 draws together the key insights developed in this book. The conclusion reflects on how a more systematic account of the imagination might look like. It points to both the limitations and the potential of the three registers of the imagination discussed in the preceding chapters, and explores the relationship between realist political theory and the imagination.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction; Mihaela Mihai & Mathias Thaler
PART I: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
2. Beyond the Ideal Political Apology; Alice MacLachlan
3. Political Apologies and Categorical Apologies; Nick Smith
PART II: RITES AND RITUALS OF REGRET
4. From Mea Culpa to Nostra Culpa: A Reparative Apology from the Catholic Church?; Danielle Celermajer
5. The Power of Ritual Ceremonies in State Apologies: An Empirical Analysis of the Bilateral Polish-Russian Commemoration Ceremony in Katyn in 2010; Michel-André Horelt
6. Confessing the Holocaust: The Evolution of German Guilt; Stefan Engert
PART III: CHALLENGING CASES
7. Revisiting the 'Membership Theory of Apologies': Apology Politics in Australia and Canada; Melissa Nobles
8. The Canadian Apology To Indigenous Residential School Survivors: A Case Study of Re-Negotiation of Social Relations; Neil Funk-Unrau
9. What Makes a State Apology Authoritative? Lessons from Post-Authoritarian Brazil; Nina Schneider
PART IV: OBSTACLES AND LIMITATIONS
10. The Apology in Democracies: Reflections on the Challenges of Competing Goods, Citizenship, Nationalism and Pluralist Politics; Michael Cunningham
11. An Apology for Public Apologies; Juan Espindola
12. Reasoning Like a State: Integration and the Limits of Official Regret; Cindy Holder
https://forms.office.com/e/m4At9U5Niw
The deadline for applications is December 5, 2023.
This workshop will interrogate the role that the faculty of imagination can play in understanding past, as well as on-going, instances of political violence. Several questions motivate this workshop: Can certain uses of the imagination help us tackle the challenge of responding to unprecedented forms of violence? More concretely, in the aftermath of conflicts, what is the political value of literature and cinema recounting human rights violations? What about the use of counterfactuals in philosophical justifications of policy measures with regards to violence? Can media representations of distant suffering facilitate processes of understanding, build solidarity and catalyse action? Or are they inexorably entangled in ideological manoeuvres?
Political theorists, IR scholars as well as comparativists have recently begun to raise these questions by looking into the politics of representation and narrative in the context of violence. What unites these approaches is an interest in how images and stories relate to the real world of politics. Scholars have been investigating whether, as products of the imagination, representations can have a cathartic effect on democratic societies emerging from a past of violence, give voice to victims and witnesses, trigger processes of reconciliation and forgiveness or become part of the wider societal conversation about ongoing conflicts. This workshop situates itself at the productive confluence of these fields of inquiry.
No ECPR Joint Session workshop in recent times has grappled with the politics of representation and narrative. We will fill this gap by creating a forum for discussion among four constituencies within the profession: (1) political theorists working on the faculty of imagination and how it relates to other human capacities essential to political action; (2) students of transitional justice who examine the role of art in promoting reconciliation and democratic values in the wake of conflict; (3) IR scholars working at the intersection between politics and aesthetics; and (4) comparativists who investigate the institutional and informal mechanisms of tackling violence contextually. The interdisciplinary nature of the workshop will facilitate an inclusive and reflexive debate on the role that imagination as a faculty – and its artistic, philosophical and methodological expressions – can play in unpacking complex issues of political violence.
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Applications must be made through the ECPR website, where you may also find more information about the workshop format and eligibility criteria: http://ecpr.eu/Events/EventDetails.aspx?EventID=101
The deadline for paper proposals is 1 December 2015.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact us at [email protected] and [email protected].