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Comparative
Political Theory
in Time and Place
Theory’s Landscapes
Edited by
daniel j. kapust
and
helen m. kinsella
Comparative Political Theory in Time and Place
Daniel J. Kapust • Helen M. Kinsella
Editors
Comparative Political
Theory in Time and
Place
Theory’s Landscapes
Editors
Daniel J. Kapust Helen M. Kinsella
Department of Political Science Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin, USA Madison, Wisconsin, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-53320-3 ISBN 978-1-137-52815-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52815-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954963
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Cover image © Alexander Rhind / Getty Images
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
We dedicate this volume to the students, staff, and faculty of the University
of Wisconsin system who continue to pursue truth and who embody the value
of a liberal education.
“Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we
believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever
encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which
alone the truth can be found.”
The UW Board of Regents, 1894
“…the rare good fortune of an age in which we may feel what we wish
and may say what we feel.”
Tacitus, The Histories
CONTENTS
1 Introduction: Theory’s Landscapes 1

Daniel Kapust and Helen M. Kinsella
2 The Abbasid ‘Circle of Justice’: Re-reading

Ibn al-Muqaffa‘’s Letter on Companionship 25
Jennifer A. London
3 Buddhism and International Law 51

Matthew J. Moore
4 Proclaiming Sovereignty: Some Reflections from

the Eighteenth-Century Philippines 79
Megan C. Thomas
5 Burke and Paine on the Origins of British

Imperialism in India 105
Daniel I. O’Neill
6 Strategic Deployments: The Universal/Local Nexus

in the Work of José Carlos Mariátegui 131
Katherine A. Gordy
vii
viii CONTENTS
7 The Jewish Gandhi Question, or, Ich and Swa:

Martin Buber and the Five Minute Mahatma 155
Matthew H. Baxter
8 Radical Restorative Justice and the Practice

of Listening: Lessons from South Africa 187
Bronwyn Leebaw
Index 217
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Theory’s Landscapes
Daniel Kapust and Helen M. Kinsella
I: INTRODUCTION
Comparative political theory is an increasingly visible development in the
field of political theory, garnering much attention for its critical engage-
ment with the substance, scope, and purpose of political theory itself.
Fundamentally challenging the hegemony and definition of “Western”
political thought by engaging scholars and texts ignored or dismissed by
the traditional canon, comparative political theory seeks to integrate per-
spectives and politics from all regions of the world. In doing so, it seeks to
displace the normative and analytic priority of “Western” interpretations
and definitions of fundamental political concepts such as freedom, subjec-
tivity, and society.1 Each of these moves has spurred further debate and
1
See Adom Getachew’s critique of the trajectory of universalism and exclusion which chal-
lenges both conventional and comparative political theory’s readings of the Haitian revolu-
tion. In particular, she argues “An alternative vision of the universal emerges when we begin
by reconstructing practices and ideals as responses to specific political conundrums. “Adom
Getachew, “Universalism After the Post-colonial Turn: Interpreting the Haitian Revolution”
in Political Theory, online first. doi:10.1177/0090591716661018I
D. Kapust () • H.M. Kinsella

Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Madison, WI, USA
e-mail: djkapust@wisc.edu
© The Author(s) 2017 1

D.J. Kapust, H.M. Kinsella (eds.), Comparative Political
Theory in Time and Place, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52815-5_1
2 D. KAPUST AND H.M. KINSELLA
discussion of the merits of comparative political theory and its contribu-

tions to thinking about political theory.
Prompted by the increasing visibility of comparative political theory
within political theory, on the one hand, and a desire to understand what, if
anything, might constitute it as a distinct field of inquiry, on the other hand,
we organized a conference at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–
Madison), “Theory’s Landscapes: Movements, Memories, and Moments,”
in spring 2013. We invited a wide range of scholars—historians of political
thought, scholars of comparative law, and political theorists with expertise
in “non-Western” traditions of thought—in order to foster discussion and
to involve a broad array of substantive approaches. We asked participants to
consider the following questions, among others: What, precisely, do we mean
by “comparative?” What does—or should—count as “political”? What par-
ticular sites, be they geographical, historical, or more, yield fruitful insights,
and, in turn, how shall we evaluate the veracity or legitimacy of such insights.
Over the course of our conversations, which also included both politi-
cal theory and comparative politics, faculty and graduate students from
UW–Madison, we were struck by the scholarly and normative importance
of comparative political theory, and the pluralism of approaches to and
understandings of comparative political theory evinced by the participants.
The seven essays in this volume, each of which was authored by a par-
ticipant in the conference, replicate this pluralism, contributing to, rather
than settling or reconciling, debates regarding the breadth and depth of
comparative political theory. At the same time, each of the chapters illus-
trates a particular way of understanding and doing comparative political
theory, which challenges the field of political theory as conventionally
understood. Thus, taken as a whole, the chapters address questions, asked
and unasked, about and within comparative political theory.
However, the volume is not simply an exploration of and contribution
to comparative political theory, but it is also a demonstration of what com-
parative political theory can contribute to the study of political theory. In
particular it offers three distinctive contributions to each: (1) it explores
international law and legal histories as sites for practicing comparative
political theory; (2) it analyzes an innovative set of comparative cases, such
as the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui’s debate in the 1900s with
both Peruvian nationalists and the canon of European thought, the per-
formance of sovereignty by the culturally disparate Spanish, British, and
indigenous agents in British-occupied Manila, and the comparative impe-
rial thought of Paine and Burke’s views on India; and (3) it explores the
ways in which translation (e.g. from Persian to Arabic) and transmission
are themselves political acts and also forms of political theorizing.
INTRODUCTION: THEORY’S LANDSCAPES 3
We deliberately avoid referring to comparative political theory as a

“new” subfield in this introduction as we, along with others, locate its ori-
gins in Roxanne Euben’s and Fred Dallmayr’s 1997 essays, which suggests
that comparative political theory is already almost 20 years old.2 We have
also avoided the term “new” because we hold, as a result of conversations
with the participants in the workshop and since, that work in compara-
tive political theory over the past two decades is, in part, making obvious
the plural origins and streams of political theory scholarship which were
always present. Comparative political theory is both inductive (drawing
insights from engagements with “non-Western” texts and traditions) and
deductive (approaching “non-Western” texts and traditions with prob-
lems and interpretive frameworks in mind). One of its strengths is its
straightforward contemplation of what it means to be situated, within the
discipline of political theory (which remains defined, still, from a primar-
ily Eurocentric tradition and practice), and yet to actively seek to displace
that situatedness.
Comparative political theorists often write of the field in which their
research is conducted. In this volume, the field’s boundaries and methods
are variously defined as archival, historical, and geographic, but all of these
themes share a common element: being external to the dominant schol-
arly and interpretive canons. In this sense, the field challenges the stability
of political theory, while highlighting nuances and disagreements over the
concepts central to the subfield itself. In other words, comparative political
theory helps to illuminate the structure and confines of political theory as, in
the words of Andrew March, an “organizational fiction.”3 Although March
is referring to a more limited sense of organizational fiction, our reading is
more radical. This fiction conceals as much as it illuminates, in part because
that very organization presumes clear distinctions and definitions, presump-
tions that entail exclusions, and oversight. Thus, Jeanne Morefield describes
the canon as “that partial set of thinkers, traditions, and texts associated
with the corpus of our almost entirely European and American collective,
2
See, Fred Dallmayr, “Introduction: Towards a Comparative Political Theory,” The
Review of Politics 59, no. 3 (1997): 421–7; Roxanne L. Euben, “Comparative Political
Theory: An Islamic Fundamentalist Critique of Rationalism,” The Journal of Politics 59, no.
1 (1997): 28–55. Recognition of its two decades of development prompts the question as to
why comparative political theory has now come to the fore, as opposed to earlier. While an
interesting question to consider, we postpone any conclusive answers to another discussion.
3
Andrew F. March, “What Is Comparative Political Theory?” The Review of Politics 71
(2009): 531–565, 533.
disciplinary imagination.”4 The field of comparative political theory ideally

helps to inscribe a different set of possibilities because it purposively draws
from elsewhere. Therefore, because it expressly contemplates its consistent
hybridization, which is not always recognized, one of the effects of com-
parative political theory is the development of multiple critical purchases
on the histories, disciplinary and otherwise, of political theory. As Murad
Idris well puts it: “the expansion of political theory should be accompanied
by a questioning of its terms; to simply accept its categories, divisions, and
visions of the globe is to pretend that they are not inflected by power.”5 In a
sense, comparative political theory discovers and highlights the pluralism and
the disagreements that have always been present in political theory, even if
this pluralism and disagreement have been masked by a seeming disciplinary
consensus about or focus on an amorphous yet foundational notion of
“Western” political thought. Indeed, Euben astutely comments that com-
parative political theory “problematizes the notion of a non-Western per-
spective and suggests the difficulty of marking off distinctively Western ways
of knowing.”6 Yet, comparative political theory also introduces a new set of
definitional boundaries, exclusions and inclusions, which, in turn, are then
contested. This vibrancy of debate is, in our minds, an essential part of the
questioning and contemplation of the field of political theory and its elements.
***
We begin, in the next section, by exploring different approaches to com-
parative political theory. Drawing and building in particular on Diego von
Vacano’s recent review essay on comparative political theory, we outline
the multiple elements found within comparative political theory scholar-
ship. In the final section, we offer a brief description and discussion of the
methods, purposes, and arguments of the seven chapters, along with their
implications for the field of comparative political theory.
4
Jeanne Morefield, “Urgent History: The Sovereignty Debates and Political Theory’s
Lost Voices,” Political Theory (2015): 1–28, 4. See also, Leigh K. Jenco, Changing Referencts:
Learning Across Space and Time in China and the West (New York: Oxford University Press,
2015). See also, Roxanne Euben, Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers
in Search of Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
5
Idris, Murad. “Political Theory and the Politics of Comparison.”Political Theory, online
first. doi:10.1177/0090591716659812.
6
Roxanne L. Euben, “Contingent Borders, Syncretic Perspectives: Globalization, Political
Theory, and Islamizing Knowledge,” International Studies Review 4, no. 1 (2002): 23–48,
47. See also, Euben, Journeys to the Other Shore, 10.
II: DEFINING COMPARATIVE POLITICAL

THEORY AND ITS ELEMENTS
The term “comparative political theory” was first used in print by Roxanne
Euben in her 1997 article “Comparative Political Theory: An Islamic
Fundamentalist Critique of Rationalism.”7 While Euben coined the term,
her article builds on previous comparative studies of different traditions
of political thought, which typically focused on exemplary texts from
other cultures. We too might ask whether and how the following texts
might be understood as comparative political theory: the nearly 70-year-
old journal Philosophy East and West, along with works such as Hall and
Ames’ Anticipating China, Parel’s Comparative Political Philosophy:
Studies Under the Upas Tree, or Strauss’s classic Persecution and the Art
of Writing, a study of Maimonides (the Cordoba-born Jewish-Arabic phi-
losopher-physician), Halevi (the Spanish-Jewish philosopher-poet), and
Spinoza (the Dutch-Jewish philosopher of Spanish extraction). We could
even point to much earlier texts, including medieval Jewish, Islamic, and
Latin-Christian encounters with Greek thought, Tacitus’ political-theoret-
ical ethnographies of the peoples of Germany and Britain, or Herodotus’
exploration of the socio-political order and morals of non-Greek peoples.
The distinctiveness of comparative political theory derives, then, not from
doing something entirely different or new per se, but in an awareness
and constitution of itself as seeking to intervene in the putatively non-
comparative practice of political theory, along with its efforts to define
itself in scope, purpose, and method.
The impetus for comparative political theory’s emergence in the late
1990s is complex. Certainly, phenomena outside the discipline and the
academy influenced its emergence. Williams and Warren8 point to global-
ization and its clear impact on cross-cultural exchange, which created a
renewed contemplation of what Dallmayr called the “global arena.”9 The
networks of scholarly production and rapid circulation of seemingly every-
thing from capital to labor to individuals to ideas made manifest the need
to reconsider the political. Within the academy, the humanities were grap-
pling with the transformative challenges of postcolonial theorizing and
anti-imperial histories. Yet the discipline of political theory was arguably
7
Diego A. Von Vacano, “The Scope of Comparative Political Theory,” Annual Review of
Political Science 18 (2015): 465–80, 466.
8
Melissa S. Williams and Mark E. Warren, “A Democratic Case for Comparative Political
Theory,” Political Theory 42, no. 1 (2014): 26–57.
9
Dallmayr, “Introduction: Towards a Comparative Political Theory,” 421–7, 421.
still embedded in, and seemingly reproducing, traditional narratives that

prioritized “Western” political theory rather than “inaugurating new fields
of inquiry.”10 Given the deepening of globalization and the spread of post-
colonial insights in the academy, a critic of the field of political theory
might suggest that it appeared to be out of step in the mid-1990s and,
indeed, perhaps in “crisis.” After all, as Andrew March suggests, to call for
a new subdiscipline of comparative political theory is to “make a statement
about its importance and about the moral and intellectual implications of
the broader discipline having ignored it for so long.”11
If comparative political theory began to constitute itself within political
theory in the late 1990s, what characterizes it as a distinct component of
the field of political theory and why is it important? Following the work
of Roxanne Euben, Diego von Vacano describes the project of compara-
tive political theory thus: “it is a call to cross borders and travel—some-
times metaphorically, sometimes literally—to gain insight by looking at
problems from perspectives outside the Western one.”12 He also notes—as
we, too, discovered during the course of the conference—that “the body
of work produced by scholars working under the banner of comparative
political theory is diverse and could not be said to coalesce into a sin-
gle school of thought.”13 Given this diversity, von Vacano highlights as
regions of focus Islamic (Arabic and non-Arabic), Eastern European, Latin
American, East Asian, African, and South Asian political thought, each of
which entails a historical and a contemporary dimension.14 However, we
also recognize that the invocation of ‘perspectives outside the Western
one’ and a regional classification may also work to re-inscribe certain
hierarchical schemas. As Idris cautions, “one should not ignore what this
coding may reenact, circumscribe, or foreclose,”15 even if its intent is to
decolonize the field itself. Accordingly, while we appreciatively use von
Vacano’s normative/interpretive typology in what follows, we recognize
it as one particular interpretation—as we make clear below. Moreover, we
10
Leigh K. Jenco, “How Meaning Moves: Tan Sitong on Borrowing across Cultures,”
Philosophy East and West 62, no. 1 (2012): 92–113, 108.
11
March, 533.
12
Von Vacano, 466. For an extended treatment, see Euben, Journeys to the Other Shore.
13
Von Vacano, 468.
14
Nevertheless, to provide an overview, the chapters gathered in this volume explore
Arabic and Persian Islamic (London), Latin American (Gordy), South Asian (Baxter), South
African (Leebaw), and East Asian political thought (Moore), in addition to European
encounters with South Asian politics (O’Neill) and Southeast Asia (Thomas).
15
Idris, Murad. “Political Theory and the Politics of Comparison.” Political Theory, online
first. doi:10.1177/0090591716659812.
wish to continually underscore our understanding of the radical purpose

and potential of comparative political theory as both deconstructive and
reconstructive of the concepts, narratives, and canons of political theory
as well as its practice.
Von Vacano usefully distinguishes between two broad methodologi-
cal approaches to comparative political theory—normative and inter-
pretative—further identifying four normative and four interpretive
subcategories. All of these approaches—normative and interpretive—share
the goal of reorienting political theory.
The first normative paradigm, which von Vacano identifies as “dialogic”
and includes especially the work of Dallmayr, aims at a “cross-cultural
learning experience” that produces a “more genuine universalism…
beyond the spurious ‘universality’ traditionally claimed by the Western
canon.”16 This approach is rooted in the claim that political theorists often
extend—consciously or not—“Western”-rooted concepts and categories
in understanding the political theory of “non-Western” traditions. Aiming
at “reciprocal questioning and critique,” such an approach recognizes that
the distinction “between West and non-West is deeply problematized” in
the contemporary world, and yet the weakness of such a distinction does
not mean “essential sameness or non-distinction.”17
The second normative paradigm, the justificatory account, is exem-
plified by March (who uses the term to characterize his own approach).
March focuses “on moral disagreement and justification across multiple
distinct, semi-autonomous traditions.”18 This approach derives from
March’s defense of an “engaged” form of comparative political theory,
engagement rooted in our interest in “moral conflict” between “‘Western’
and ‘non-Western’ perspectives.”19 Insofar as engaged comparative politi-
cal theory, then, focuses on moral conflict, it ought, in March’s view, to
be especially concerned with “comparing responses to specific questions or
problems of importance.”20 Such conflicts “affect adherents of the doctrines
16
Fred Dallmayr, “Introduction: Towards a Comparative Political Theory,” The Review of
Politics 59, no. 3 (1997): 421–7, 422. Fred Dallmayr, “Beyond Monologue: For a
Comparative Political Theory,” Perspectives on Politics 2, no. 2 (2004): 249–57.
17
Dallmayr, “Introduction: Towards a Comparative Political Theory,” 423. See also
Roxanne Euben, Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of
Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
18
March, 565.
19
Ibid., 534, 550.
20
Ibid., 558. Italics in original.
and traditions that constitute those contestations,” and the attention of

comparative political theorists should be on “what first-order implication
the normative dispute has.”21
Third Williams and Warren, by contrast, formulate a “democratic
normative justification,” aiming to enable “self-constituting publics to
form across boundaries of linguistic and cultural difference.”22 For these
scholars, comparative political theory is a resource and a call to “de-
parochialize political theory” even if, as they explain, theorists and others
are not trained in nor do they directly participate in comparative political
theory.23 Thus, they offer an example of the importance of comparative
political theory for understanding the interaction of globalization and the
potential for the democratization of transnational and global politics, along
with the creation and identification of global constituencies and public
spheres linked by dialogue. Indeed, according to Warren and Williams,
comparative political theory is a form of moral dialogue that may inform
“global emergent publics” and, significantly, motivate a shared sense of
moral responsibility for a common fate.
Fourth, the “anti-Occidental model,” found in scholarship by Farah
Godrej, promotes “a cosmopolitan political theory…one in which we
might bring the ideas of Gandhi or Confucius to bear on our discussion
of freedom or justice.”24 For Godrej, doing this well, however, calls upon
us to grapple with the tough issues involved in “representing these ideas
within our own discourse, attempting to bring them to life without vio-
lating the existential insights they provide, nor assuming an authority or
authenticity to our representations.”25 To be successful, the interpreter
must be immersed—not by “going native,” in the conventionally pejora-
tive sense, but by creating “scholarly cultural accounts that are phenom-
enologically aware and self reflexively immersed.”26
With respect to the four subcategories of interpretive approaches,
Freeden and Vincent, whom von Vacano characterizes as deploying a
“scholarly” approach, hold that “when we study political thought in a
21
Ibid., 560.
22
Williams and Warren, 3.
23
Ibid., 2.
24
Farah Godrej, Cosmopolitan Political Thought: Method, Practice, Discipline (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011), 160.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid., 153.
comparative perspective, we study above all the nature of politics.”27 For

Freeden and Vincent, comparative political theory entails a “combination
of universality and specificity,” as most of the features of “thinking politi-
cally” they identify—“the unequal distribution of significance in ranking
and valuing social phenomena…the different ways in which support is
bestowed on or withheld from collectivities…arranging and regulating
the relative competences and jurisdictions of various social spheres and
establishing a prioritizing agent,” to name but a few—are to be found
in “any society.”28 This interpretive framework, recognizing the arbi-
trary structure of “divided spaces,” cultural or geographic, posits that the
appropriate objects of comparison are “concepts and conceptual configu-
rations; discourses; arguments, ideologies and other belief systems; mac-
rotraditions; or thinkers.”29
Euben, by contrast, exemplifies a “phenomenological” approach,
focusing on “an important phenomenon even if the term for it is not
prevalent in its cultural context”—for example, the term “fundamental-
ism” was created in Arabic as a translation of the English term.30 As Euben
explains, she deploys the term fundamentalism—as opposed to “Islamism,
extremism, radicalism”—in spite of its status as a “specifically Western and
Christian term” because the movements she seeks to understand (the phe-
nomena, i.e. Islamic fundamentalism) “attempt to retrieve ‘fundamentals,’
or ‘original foundations.”31
Jenco is representative of what von Vacano labels an “immanent-
reconstitution paradigm.”32 She argues “it is possible for anyone to think
within Chinese thought” as an antidote to other modes of comparative
political theory which proceed “by means of those very discourses whose
cultural insularity is what prompts critique in the first place.”33 As von
Vacano explains, via “immersion in local cultures, appreciation of the
indigenization of learning, and replication of non-Western hermeneutic
27
Michael Freeden and Andrew Vincent, eds. Comparative Political Thought: Theorizing
Practices (New York: Routledge, 2013), 2.
28
Ibid., 1, 2.
29
Ibid., 9, 13.
30
Von Vacano, 473.
31
Euben, “Comparative Political Theory: An Islamic Fundamentalist Critique of
Rationalism,” 29.
32
Von Vacano, 473. See also, Euben, Journeys to the Other Shore.
33
Leigh K. Jenco, “What does Heaven Ever Say? A Methods-centered Approach to Cross-
Cultural Engagement.” American Political Science Review 101, no. 4 (2007): 741–55, 741.
techniques, political theorists can and ought to reconstitute political

theory.”34 As such, Jenco’s methods facilitate her emphasis on deep under-
standing of the intellectual and cultural traditions of study, as she writes
this “process may trouble the very terms through which we understand
what it is we are doing.”35
Fifth, and finally, von Vacano describes what he terms “conceptual
metanarrative.” Von Vacano points as an example to his recent book, The
Color of Citizenship, in which he develops an alternative to the “domi-
nation” and “dualistic” paradigms characterizing most European and
American political thought work on race.36 This account, which he terms
“synthetic,” understands race through “the idea of mestizaje,” entailing
“a politico-nationalist project with a heavy ideological charge,” construct-
ing race socially while locating “mixture” at the center of race itself.37 Von
Vacano’s approach thus focuses on a particular concept—that is, race—in
the context of Latin America, but analyzes it “within the grand discursive arc
of modernity,” further “disarticulated into central moments or periods.”38
Von Vacano’s account of comparative political theory is of immense
value, but we also recognize it is but one take on a broad and rapidly devel-
oping field of thought. Therefore, we wish to add, three additional subcat-
egories—two normative, and one interpretive. On the normative side, the
concept of representative thinking as proposed by Hannah Arendt helps
to illuminate the situation and aims of the comparative political theorist.
According to Arendt, “political thought is representative. I form an opin-
ion by considering a given issue from different viewpoints, by making
present to my mind the standpoint of those who are absent; that is, I
represent them.”39 The dialogue that occurs in thinking itself—“between
me and myself,” what Arendt identifies as the “two in one”—supposes
that political thought is never singular, and that representative thinking
requires the movement and consideration of another. For Arendt, the fac-
ulty of imagination allows this to occur—a ceaseless and restless effort
that informs our “enlarged mentality.”40 Significantly, it is a faculty that
34
Von Vacano, 473.
35
Jenco, 2015, 23.
36
Diego A. Von Vacano, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American/
Hispanic Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 15.
37
Ibid., 16.
38
Von Vacano, “The Scope of Comparative Political Theory,” 474.
39
Hannah Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” in Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin,
2006), 237.
40
Ibid.
we all possess regardless of training or disposition, although not all would

choose to exercise it.
Interestingly, especially considering the frequent invocation of a call to
travel, and Euben’s masterful exploration of travel, feminist theorists (in
the company of postcolonial theorists) have often turned to the concept of
“traveling” as a way to contemplate the internal and external dislocations of
self and other, especially in regard to challenging essentialisms of race and
gender. For example, “World traveling” was taken up by Maria Lugones
in her canonical 1987 feminist essay, “Playfulness, ‘World’—Travelling,
and Loving Perception.” For Lugones, imagination must be coupled with
empathy (itself a form of love) to facilitate “travel” from one world to
another which, in turn, informs the capacity to understand the perspective
and the experiences of the other. Lugones underlines an affective element
to world travelling that cannot be replaced merely by technical expertise or
rote fluencies—it must be felt, experienced, and lived as well as thought.
Significantly, for Lugones travel is an internal disorientation and displace-
ment as much as it is external, whereas for Arendt it is less so.
This is not the place to engage in a fully comparative reading of these
two highly dissimilar scholars, nor are these references meant to limit the
resonance of this task to these two. Instead, it is to point out that the
difficulties in achieving an empathetic and imaginative understanding of
another and their “worlds” have long occupied political theorists. Arendt
and Lugones, very distinct theorists, each hold that such an orientation
toward the other is possible without necessarily immersing oneself through
language or culture of the other, relying instead on our disposition toward
imagination and understanding—although this effort has its own risks.
Cautioning against what Lugones calls “arrogant perception,”41 and what
Arendt dismisses as a flawed “re-presentation” of another, both highlight
these as evidence that such efforts may fail. Failure, while more common
than not, is profoundly concerning for it highlights our persistent inability
to reach empathetic and engaged understanding which results in a violent
distortion of a world in common. Thus, the question of how self and other
are engaged is inextricably linked with the effects of doing so.
On the interpretive side, an approach which might be termed “soft con-
textualism” speaks both to the problem of understanding the context within
41
María Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception,” Hypatia 2,
no. 2 (1987): 3–19. See also Edward Said, “Traveling Theory,” in The World, the Text, and
the Critic (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1982), 226–47.
which a text or performance was produced, on the one hand, and to the pos-
sible commensurability between concepts from different traditions, on the
other. Such a view has been outlined by Philp, among others, in response
to the so-called Cambridge School approach of Skinner. Skinner famously
argues, “To understand any serious utterance, we need to grasp not merely
the meaning of what is said, but at the same time the intended force with
which the utterance is issued.”42 To understand what a text means, then,
involves understanding “not merely what people are saying but also what
they are doing in saying it.”43 Understanding what they are doing, in turn,
requires deep engagement with context, an engagement that will produce
not histories of a “determinate idea,” but instead “a history of its various
uses, and of the varying intentions with which it was used.”44 The outcome
of such an account is that we cannot look to the history of political thought in
order to gain insight into “the ‘perennial problems’ allegedly addressed in the
classic texts,” as “the classic texts are concerned with their own questions and
not with ours.”45 We can, in Philp’s view, agree with the claim that “there is
room for a good deal of context in understanding what people were trying to
do,” but we do not need to hold that “everything we do with them” should
“be relativized to their context.”46 In other words, getting the context right
matters, but the concepts and categories we locate in the past (or in other tra-
ditions) can be deployed to clarify and contribute to our own debates. If this
is true of the past—and the distant past—within the “Western” tradition, this
should, in principle, be true of the “non-Western” tradition as well.
In clarifying our discussion of the elements of comparative political
theory it may be initially useful to draw an analogy between method(s) of
comparative political theory and comparative politics. Within comparative
politics, there is a seeming division of labor between single-case studies
and multi-case studies. As Simmons and Smith put it,
Political scientists typically understand the value of comparison to be its

ability to help us develop explanations for a given outcome, be it democrati-
zation, economic growth, the onset of civil war violence, or any number of
42
Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” in Visions of
Politics, Volume 1: Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 82.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid., 85.
45
Ibid., 88.
46
Mark Philp, “Political Theory and History,” in Political Theory: Methods and Approaches,
ed. David Leopold and Marc Stears (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 139.
other political phenomena, by controlling for differences in some places and

looking for similarities in others (n.d. 9).
This is not to assimilate comparative political theory to comparative politics,

per se, but it is to note that insofar as a key impetus behind comparative
political theory is, in effect, to expand the scope and formulation of inquiry,
a different and a similar logic of explanation is at play: by looking at texts
and figures produced at distinct moments in time, in particular historical and
political circumstances, and as inscribed by domains of power and exchange
we can also theorize political and social phenomena, in tandem with compar-
ative politics, albeit it with a different purchase, whether from a conceptual,
normative, or historical perspective. However, unlike comparative politics,
one purpose of comparative political theory is to question the insularity of
the discipline as a whole. Comparative political theory actively reflects on the
act of and reasons for the comparison. This reflection includes an explanation
of events, but is also alive to the conceptual predicates of such interpreta-
tions and is less focused on controlling for differences than in tracing their
construction and effect.
Yet, again, a crucial issue is how we interpret (and define) texts and how
we understand dialogue. For Euben and Dallmayr comparison is analogous
to a form of conversation, a model of “how disparate cultural traditions
can speak to one another,” thus ensuring that “political theory is about
human and not merely Western dilemmas.”47 However, Jenco points out
the difficulties of ensuring that such a “speaking” does not conclude with
“merely the addition of culturally diverse voices to established parochial
debates”48 within what Rey Chow describes as the Eurocentric “hierar-
chizing frame of comparison.”49 Further, Jenco, given her attention to the
importance of training within an intellectual tradition and its interpretive-
literary practices, cautions against repeating the logocentrism of political
theory, and thereby excluding “practices like imitation, ritual, dance, or
other forms of non-verbal expression,” and not countering the privileging
of language and writing.50 These practices matter for they allow theorists
47
“Introduction: Towards a Comparative Political Theory,” 32.
48
Jenco, “What does Heaven Ever Say? A Methods-centered Approach to Cross-Cultural
Engagement,” 741. See also Jenco, Changing Referents: Learning Across Space and Time in
China and the West.
49
Rey Chow, The Age of the World Target: Self-Referentiality in War, Theory, and
Comparative Work (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 80.
50
Jenco, “What does Heaven Ever Say? A Methods-centered Approach to Cross-Cultural
Engagement,” 744.
to consider political meanings evidenced in non-verbal and dramaturgical

ways, and broaden recognition of the scope of participants in its making.51
Moreover, grappling with these practices, actions, and events challenges
us to more seriously evaluate any metric of significance within the con-
ventional canon, pushing the interpretive horizon and moving us toward
what Godrej argues marks a genuinely cosmopolitan approach, namely,
one which “disturbs or dislocates our familiar understanding of politics.”52
Having discussed different approaches to comparative political theory—
both normative and methodological—we would like to highlight two
examples of scholarship that, in our view, illustrate the insights that can be
gained from a comparative approach—insights which would be less available
to a non-comparative approach. The first of these—Mills’ 1999 The Racial
Contract—is not a book that Mills self-identifies as comparative political
theory, and is strongly influenced by postcolonialism.53 Yet Mills’ approach,
which involves an examination of the history and thought of both “non-
Western” peoples and minority racial and ethnic groups (all of whom are
identified as non-white) from within the West itself, displays features that
make it a recognizably comparative endeavor. Drawing on the voices and tra-
ditions of non-white peoples, Mills demonstrates that the apparently neutral
concepts upon which the “Western” social contract tradition is built are, in
fact, predicated upon an unseen and unstated racial contract that subordinates
non-white peoples to white peoples. In this instance, a comparative approach
enables Mills to demonstrate that the concepts central to Western thought
are, in his view, rooted in the encounter with and subordination of peoples
who would be designated non-white in and through the racial contract. With
Mills, a comparative turn allows us to see what might not be seen were the
focus to be solely on Western (white) political thought. Mills’ method is
analogous to von Vacano’s description of conceptual metanarrative, insofar
as he is interested in understanding the formation and structure of concepts
across time (the racial contract and race, more broadly), along with the dia-
logic normative commitment of Dallmayr and Euben: the outcome of Mills’
enquiry is a more accurate account than the narrative he is replacing.
51
Farah Godrej, “The Neoliberal Yogi and the Politics of Yoga.” Political Theory
(forthcoming).
52
Farah Godrej, “Towards a Cosmopolitian Political Thought: The Hermeneutics of
Interpreting the Other,” Polity 41, no. 2 (April 2009): 135–165, 138. See also, Euben,
Journeys to the Other Shore.
53
Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).
If Mills’ use of a comparative approach enables him to show what might

not otherwise be seen, Bell’s use of the comparative approach enables
him to develop normative and conceptual critiques of “Western” political
thought in addition to normative proposals for the design and reform of
modern democratic political institutions. For example, in Beyond Liberal
Democracy, Bell turns to the Confucian tradition to critique “Western”
(Greek-derived) theories that prioritize active citizenship; he also turns
to the Confucian meritocratic tradition to call for a meritocratic element
in representative institutions.54 For Bell, the study of “non-Western”—
especially Chinese—political thought does not simply lead to a greater
understanding of political thought writ large, but leads us to rethink
“Western” normative and institutional commitments in light of the theo-
retical insights gained from an encounter with Chinese thought. Bell’s
methodology, insofar as it relies upon immersion in Chinese thought and
culture, echoes Jenco’s—especially because it leads to a transformation
of the scholarly agent; in his normative aims, he approximates the “anti-
Occidental” model of Godrej, in that he is interested in how insights from
Chinese thought can enrich “Western” thought.
These are but two examples of how a comparative approach in politi-
cal theory can yield insights and arguments that could not emerge in the
same way without a comparative approach. Yet these two examples, simi-
lar as they are in prominence, differ greatly in method (Mills’ account is
arguably genealogical, in that it looks to the hidden story behind con-
cepts, while Bell’s is a more conventional history of political thought)
and normative thrust (Mills’ aim is a rethinking of liberalism, while Bell
aims to rethink the foundations of “Western” thought itself.) Notice, also,
how the term “Western” in each of their works is also one which shifts
and changes, multiply signifying white, European, etc., suggesting that by
reading comparatively we also gain further knowledge of the production
of, and instability, in these sorts of oppositions.
Given the differences between Mills and Bell, along with the approaches
surveyed above, one may note that even an expansive account of what
counts as comparative political theory, on the one hand, and an openness
to variation, on the other, does not entirely resolve the questions of analy-
sis and method. For example, what counts for—and how does comparative
political theory account for—variation, and what sorts of variation does it
require? As March points out, “Given the inevitability that most forms
54
Daniel A. Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
of comparative political theory will justify themselves on the basis of the

importance of the question being studied…the next choice to be justified
is the thinker or text being studied.”55 Jenco and Godrej, each for their
own reasons, however, would be more skeptical of how the selection of
the thinker or text would be justified, and why scholarship might display
a singular focus on traditional sites of knowledge, such as written texts, as
opposed to performances or oral traditions. Yet, even with those caveats,
the question of justification remains. Is linguistic variation between cases
sufficient if, say, the authors deploy similar concepts or make similar argu-
ments? Is conceptual or argumentative difference sufficient? What are we
to make of generic differences in addition to temporal and linguistic dif-
ferences—for instance, the dialogue form of Plato versus the quasi-parable
form of many Confucian texts?
It is not simply the thinker, text, or genre, per se, but also the salient
spatial or temporal categories that require attention. Does the compara-
tive project entail comparison simpliciter, or need it involve a disman-
tling of a presumed comparison between “Western” and “non-Western?”
Should the texts under comparison be produced at roughly the same
historical moment? How can periodization be reconciled across different
traditions—say, between early modern Europe and early modern Japan?
For example, we might wonder if the political and moral vocabularies of
twenty-first-century America are more commensurable with the osten-
sibly “Western” Homeric Greece than they are with, say, the ostensibly
“non-Western” twenty-first-century South Korea. And if a key component
of comparative political theory is the study of “non-Western” political
thought (typically compared to Western political thought), what consti-
tutes “Western” and “non-Western”? How useful are the often incoherent
yet widely used labels Western and “non-Western”—very much the prod-
uct of a post-Enlightenment world, along with categories of race rooted in
scientific theories—for understanding the political thought of, say, classical
antiquity, the medieval world, or the multiethnic empires (e.g. Ottoman,
Persian, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian) of the sixteenth through twen-
tieth centuries? Depending on how we answer these questions, a critic
might suggest that the project of comparative political theory—compar-
ing Western and “non-Western”, or, say, early modern Latin America and
early modern Spain—in effect re-performs the logic it wants to undermine
by reifying cultural or temporal divisions, along with the coherence of
traditions.56 Indeed, the chapters in this volume all highlight the ways
55
March, 556.
56
Godrej, Cosmopolitan Political Thought: Method, Practice, Discipline, 138.
in which given traditions—Islamic, South Asian, Buddhist, Christian—

contain within themselves not just tensions and incoherencies, but ana-
logues to the “other” that constitute the building block of comparative
political theory writ large. Similarly, in any given historical moment, authors
and texts are concerned not just with their own temporal horizons but
also with their own histories—and often histories produced by “others.”
This suggests that comparative political theory may well look to within-
tradition variation and comparison across time or space or language.
A third question goes to the second broad set of issues with which these
papers are concerned: the purposes of comparative political theorizing.
For example, how should we understand the relationship between the
ideal and the non-ideal in comparative political theory? Does attention to
the shortcomings of one theory from the perspective of a distinctly other
theory alert us to the non-ideal dimensions of political theorizing, the
sort of political theory that scholars such as Jacob Levy and Christopher
LeBron have advocated?
These questions, in our view, minimize the centrality of method, explore
the appropriateness of different mediums of exchange and influence—and
highlight the interpretive assumptions upon which comparison relies—
and their relationship to the substantive dimensions of comparative politi-
cal theory. We recognize, as Idris writes, that “many theorists who write
under the sign of “the comparative” are alert to the issues cataloged by
these questions,”57 and more. It is the questions we ask, after all, which
are intended to alter the substance and practice of political theory, and
perhaps more radically also rebound upon the practitioner herself. Thus, if
we assume immersion, per Jenco, and dislocation, per Godrej, then we are
contemplating a radical reorientation of the self—“an existential transfor-
mation”—within and through the study of political theory and, thereby,
an equally radical reorientation of the practice of politics.58 By relaxing
the presumption and imposition of a putative dichotomy “Western/non-
Western”, and the self and other, it is not necessarily the sites or texts of
comparison that constitute comparative political theory, but the effects
they have on us and the questions we put to ourselves and our “others.”
Of course, questions can be raised as to whether this suggests politi-
cal theory remains a discipline separate from that of, say, anthropology
or comparative literature, if it borrows from those methods and, in turn,
57
Idris, Murad. “Political Theory and the Politics of Comparison.” Political Theory, online
first. doi:10.1177/0090591716659812.
58
Ibid., 12.
what the discipline uniquely offers. These questions might be further

sharpened by continued contemplation of power and of race (following
the examples of Hooker, Klausen, Thomas, LeBron and von Vacano) in
the writings of comparative political theorists.59
III: THE CHAPTERS

Jennifer London’s chapter, “The Abbasid ‘Circle of Justice’: Re-reading
Ibn al-Muqaffac’s Letter on Companionship,” is a close historical reading
of two letters attributed to the eighth-century Persian secretary Ibn al-
Muqaffac. Ibn al-Muqaffac is considered one of the preeminent founders
of Arabic prose literature. In this chapter, London traces Ibn al-Muqaffac’s
Arabic translation and adaptation of a political trope called the “circle of
justice,” to consider what Ibn al-Muqaffac sought to do politically with
this trope. The “circle of justice” is a Near Eastern model of social and
economic equipoise that appears in mirrors for princes in Arabic, Persian,
and Ottoman Turkish over hundreds of years. In her exposition, London
first introduces the classic Persian formulation of this trope in The Letter
of Tansar—a letter that Ibn al-Muqaffac translates from middle-Persian
into Arabic. Next, London reads Ibn al-Muqaffac’s original Arabic Letter
on Companionship to track how the author invokes and redeploys the
trope to advocate for political reform in his environment. The Letter on
Companionship is a document that Ibn al-Muqaffac writes to his Abbasid
ruler to advise him on political, social, and ethical matters. In her analy-
sis of The Letter on Companionship, London traces concepts that Ibn
al-Muqaffac generates through integrating pre-Islamic and early Islamic
ideas. London suggests that the concepts Ibn al-Muqaffac develops are
symbols through which he represents his own non-Arab Muslim iden-
tity in the emerging Abbasid public sphere. For instance, London reads
Ibn al-Muqaffac’s uses of particular Arabic concepts, such as discretionary
opinion (ra’y) and companionship (ṣaḥāba), to consider how he redefines
such words to integrate aspects of his Persian cultural heritage in the early
Abbasid context. London’s analysis thus discloses how political writing
59
Juliet Hooker, Race and the Politics of Solidarity (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009); Jimmy Casas Klausen, “Jeremy Waldron’s Partial Kant: Indigenous Proximity,
Colonial Injustice, Cultural Particularism,” Polity 46, no. 1 (2014): 31–55; Von Vacano, The
Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American/Hispanic Political Thought. Chris
Lebron, The Color Of Our Shame: Race and Justice In Our Time (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013).
in general, and letter writing in particular, was a resource secretaries like

Ibn al-Muqaffac could use to introduce their perspectives in politics. In
this way, London uses early Arabic sources to extend Cambridge school
methods in new directions. Her method of reading early Arabic concepts
in context suggests that there are multiple traditions even within one
text, and that understanding the history and translation of these concepts
brings that multiplicity to the fore.
Matthew J. Moore’s chapter, “Buddhism and International Law,” turns
to a putatively universal system of governance, international law, to high-
light the potential contribution of Buddhist political and legal theory to
international law and, in turn, to incite more political theorists to con-
template its tradition and theorizing. He argues that Buddhism (even
within a focus on “Asian thought”) has been oddly neglected, and, yet,
to garner commitment to and compliance with what is, fundamentally, a
system of international law derived from and representative of Western
European states, theorists should engage in a comparative political analysis
of Buddhism’s convergences and divergences with the conceptual history
of international law. Moore illuminates the multiple cross-fertilizations of
Buddhism, both within and through the work of different Buddhist schol-
ars, and across the history of its practice. As a dialogic engagement, and a
thought experiment of sorts, Moore relies on a close reading of the com-
plex history of Buddhist legal and political thought to draw out particular
concepts which provide a unique purchase on the sometimes consonant
purposes of religion and the law, for example, the pursuit of peace, and on
the sometimes dissonant purposes, for example, the pursuit of a particu-
larly prescribed action by a moral agent (be they states or individuals). This
contrapuntal exchange illuminates the potential for what Moore terms a
“layered pluralism”: this is not a synchronous fusion of Buddhism and the
contemporary system of international law, but “partial, and incomplete”
agreements that would, as a consequence of exchange, sustain coopera-
tion and compliance with a system of rule. While not a translation, as with
the Letter to Tansar, it is indeed a form of textual exegesis in pursuit of
sufficient understanding. Moore’s work, like London’s, investigates how
political tropes and traditions can be put to work for distinctive ends. In
this way, they both explore how diverse traditions of political thought can
serve as poetic vehicles for expanding canons and political vocabularies.
Megan Thomas, in “Proclaiming Sovereignty: Some Reflections from
the Eighteenth-Century Philippines,” illustrates how a turn to historical
events featuring cross-cultural encounters and conflict can capture dimen-
sions of sovereignty fought over by both religion and state. Her chapter
illuminates the puzzling action of a member of the local provincial elite,

Diego Silang, who exhorted his province (colonized by Spain) to reject
Spanish capitulation to the British in the name of the Spanish Crown and
the Catholic Church. Taking us carefully through the multiple and com-
peting challenges and claims of Spanish and English colonization, Thomas
uses the British occupation of Manila and Silang’s actions to highlight
the internal and performative dimensions of sovereignty—for instance,
explaining the capitulation of the Spanish governor of Manila to British
authority. British claims to sovereignty derived from the authority of the
Spanish Crown. Therefore, “Spanish sovereignty in Manila…was exer-
cised by British agents.” Thomas helps us to contemplate why they acted
as they did. Why did the British claim to exercise sovereignty in the name
of Spain and not England? How did Silang’s formulation of sovereignty,
in resistance and in submission to Spain, both engage and reject that of
both states as legitimate? Thomas is using a comparative moment, and
its pertinent actors, both elite and local, to critique conceptual debates
over sovereignty from within the tradition of political thought that both
gave rise to and confirmed imperial sovereignty. In this, Thomas pulls
from postcolonial thought, highlighting the role of Manila, which was a
node in the China trade (and thus significant to commercial competition
between Spain and England), as a site of multiple forces, not simply those
of the two powers. Her attention to the words and audiences of local and
imperial statements brings the unsettled and performative dimension of
sovereignty to our attention.
Dan O’Neill’s chapter, “Burke and Paine on the Origins of British
Imperialism in India,” is, on the face of it, much less clearly a work of com-
parative political theory—but only if, by comparative political theory, we
mean the comparison of non-Western to Western thought, or a focus on
non-Western thought. Yet, like Mills’s Racial Contract, O’Neill’s chapter
is comparative O’Neill compares Burke and Paine, and their response to
British imperialism in India, he does so across time and through the lens of
both thinkers’ efforts to compare the meaning and impact of imperialism
on “Western” and “non-Western” peoples. O’Neill thus offers a model
of doing comparative political theory from within the canon, focusing on
Western encounters with—and attempts to theorize such encounters—
non-Western peoples. In O’Neill’s view, far from being the anti-imperialist
eighteenth-century thinker par excellence, Burke is a full-throated defender
of the British imperial project, and someone who consciously turns a blind
eye to its barbarous cruelty. Paine, by contrast, sees the cruelty of the East
India Company’s operations in Bengal at the moment they occurred while

Burke forgives them in the name of defending the expansion of Britain’s
empire. Moreover, Paine’s perception of the cruelty and rapacity of British
imperialism in India would go on to influence his own support of the
American and French revolutions, his hostility to slavery, and his defense
of Irish independence. Conversely, Burke’s acceptance and promotion of
British imperialism in India was of a piece with his opposition to the sepa-
ration of the American colonies and Ireland from the empire, his defense
of slavery, and his opposition to the French Revolution. Yet in O’Neill’s
reading, even if Paine is a good deal closer to being the quintessential
anti-imperial Enlightenment thinker, both he and Burke share an impe-
rial commitment to the subjugation of the indigenous peoples of British
North America.
Katherine A. Gordy’s essay, “Strategic Deployments: The Universal/
Local Nexus in the Work of José Carlos Mariátegui,” argues that Latin
American theorists at once “actively espoused” European political
thought while also insisting on the “uniqueness” of Latin America. Rather
than simply accepting or discarding European thought, Latin American
scholars “strategically deployed” it within their own local contexts. This
often had the effect of decentering the universal in the name of contin-
gent and collective generalizations. A theorist who allows us to see this is
José Carlos Mariátegui, a twentieth-century Peruvian Marxist who drew
not only from European (Marxism and feminism) sources, but also from
indigenous sources as well. Indeed, it was the role of the indigenous, spe-
cifically the Inca, that informed his clash with both Peruvian nationalists
and Soviet Marxists who adhered to orthodoxy in light of their interpre-
tation of Peruvian material conditions. Mariátegui argued that historical
materialism must be, in Gordy’s words, “consciously and unapologeti-
cally rooted in local conditions.” Further, his engagement with feminism
underlines his curiosity about the role of political thought in mobiliza-
tion, and his claim (contrary to some nationalists) that feminism was not
“exotic” to Peru, but was an indication of its civilized status and repre-
sentative of the unique role of women laborers. We must understand how
Mariategui engaged with European political thought—not his embrace or
rejection of it—and the political effects of this engagement. For Gordy,
the deployment or use to which political thought is put best clarifies its
dynamic, evolving, and specific cultural iterations. Thus, to be in the ‘field’
is to be attentive to circulation, modification, and implementation. Gordy,
then, indicates that comparative political thought is indeed analysis of
already hybrid thought.
In his essay, “The Jewish Gandhi Question, or, Ich and Swa: Martin
Buber and the Five Minute Mahatma,” Matthew Baxter takes on two fig-
ures pivotal to the field of comparative political theory: Gandhi and Fred
Dallmayr. Baxter challenges what he views as the monological dimensions
of Gandhi’s thought and Dallmayr’s coupling of Gandhi with Gadamer’s
notion of dialogue. Instead, Baxter turns to Martin Buber, a competing
twentieth-century theorist of dialogue, to reveal a Gandhi who is “not
a figure of cooperation, interaction, and encounter, but whose commit-
ments displayed a hegemonic and imperial potential of their own.” Baxter
does so by focusing on the exchange between Gandhi and Buber in the
wake of Kristallnacht, an exchange that he argues illustrates a contrast
between Gandhi’s Swa (self), which emphasizes individual assertion and
suffering, and Buber’s Ich (I), which emphasizes communal relationships
and sensuality. Buber, he demonstrates, while still emphasizing the role
of dialogue, invites a critical reading of Gandhi that better orients us to
the complexity of responses which the massacre demands—one where
Gandhi’s links between non-violence and justice or birth and belonging
cannot be presumed. Moreover, it is Buber, not Gadamer, who, as a “phi-
losopher of dialogue,” most effectively outlines the means to build a world
in common inflected more by intimate connection than linguistic encoun-
ter. This building project, rather than an encountering one, Baxter under-
scores as central to the project of comparative political theory. Baxter’s
chapter is, in addition, ironic: in effect, the encounter between Buber
(a “Westerner”) and Gandhi (a “non-Westerner”) not only highlights a
core tension within Gandhi’s thought, but shows how “Western” thought
might enrich “non-Western” thought, further troubling the Western/
Non-Western distinction altogether.
In the final essay, Bronwyn Leebaw suggests that the scholars of restor-
ative justice, within the field of transnational justice, and of political the-
ory, share a similar concern with and an attention to actively listening
and responding to previously unheard voices excluded from the canonical
debates. Indeed, each set of scholars has begun “to grapple with the way
that dialogue is limited or blocked by approaches to theorizing and judg-
ment that selectively ‘tune out’ dissonant, unfamiliar, or unsettling ideas
and modes of expression, analysis, and theorizing.” Leebaw offers a reflec-
tion on how these two sets of scholars might inform each other’s theo-
retical and practical deliberation on how best to accomplish the task of
listening, valuing, and responding. To do so requires both theoretical and
practical commitments not only to listen, but also to acknowledge what
is at stake in the failure to listen. For Leebaw, the processes of the South
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the just treatment of the Uitlanders in future will render
unnecessary any further intervention on their behalf, but Her
Majesty's Government cannot of course debar themselves from
their rights under the Conventions nor divest themselves of
the ordinary obligations of a civilized Power to protect its
subjects in a foreign country from injustice. Secondly, with
regard to suzerainty Her Majesty's Government would refer the
Government of the South African Republic to the second
paragraph of my despatch of 13th July. Thirdly, Her Majesty's
Government agree to a discussion of the form and scope of a
Tribunal of Arbitration from which foreigners and foreign
influence are excluded. Such a discussion, which will be of
the highest importance to the future relations of the two
countries, should be carried on between the President and
yourself, and for this purpose it appears to be necessary that
a further Conference, which Her Majesty's Government suggest
should be held at Cape Town, should be at once arranged. Her
Majesty's Government also desire to remind the Government of
the South African Republic that there are other matters of
difference between the two Governments which will not be
settled by the grant of political representation to the
Uitlanders, and which are not proper subjects for reference to
arbitration. It is necessary that these should be settled
concurrently with the questions now under discussion, and they
will form, with the question of arbitration, proper subjects
for consideration at the proposed Conference."
On the 2d of September the Boer government replied to this at

length, stating that it considered the proposal made in its
note of August 19 to have lapsed; again objecting to a joint
inquiry relative to the practical working of the Franchise
Law, but adding: "If they [the Government] can be of
assistance to Her Majesty's Government with any information or
explanation they are always ready to furnish this; though it
appears to it that the findings of a unilateral Commission,
especially when arrived at before the working of the law has
been duly tested, would be premature and thus probably of
little value."
Meantime, on the 31st of August, Sir Alfred Milner had

telegraphed to Mr. Chamberlain: "I am receiving
representations from many quarters to urge Her Majesty's
Government to terminate the state of suspense. Hitherto I have
hesitated to address you on the subject, lest Her Majesty's
Government should think me impatient. But I feel bound to let
you know that I am satisfied, from inquiries made in various
reliable quarters that the distress is now really serious. The
most severe suffering is at Johannesburg. Business there is at
a standstill; many traders have become insolvent; and others
are only kept on their legs by the leniency of their
creditors. Even the mines, which have been less affected
hitherto, are now suffering owing to the withdrawal of
workmen, both European and native. The crisis also affects the
trading centres in the Colony. In spite of this, the purport
of all the representations made to me is to urge prompt and
decided action; not to deprecate further interference on the
part of Her Majesty's Government. British South Africa is
prepared for extreme measures, and is ready to suffer much in
order to see the vindication of British authority. It is
prolongation of the negotiations, endless and indecisive of
result, that is dreaded."
{490}
On the 8th of September, the High Commissioner was instructed

by Mr. Chamberlain to communicate the following to the
government of the Transvaal:
"Her Majesty's Government are still prepared to accept the

offer made in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 of the note of the 19th
August taken by themselves, provided that the inquiry which
Her Majesty's Government have proposed, whether joint—as Her
Majesty's Government originally suggested—or unilateral, shows
that the new scheme of representation will not be encumbered
by conditions which will nullify the intention to give
substantial and immediate representation to the Uitlanders. In
this connection Her Majesty's Government assume that, as
stated to the British Agent, the new members of the Raad will
be permitted to use their own language. The acceptance of
these terms by the Government of the South African Republic
would at once remove the tension between the two Governments,
and would in all probability render unnecessary any further
intervention on the part of Her Majesty's Government to secure
the redress of grievances which the Uitlanders would
themselves be able to bring to the notice of the Executive and
the Raad."
In a lengthy response to this by State Secretary Reitz,

September 16, the following are the essential paragraphs:
"However earnestly this Government also desires to find an
immediate and satisfactory course by which existing tension
should be brought to an end, it feels itself quite unable, as
desired, to recommend or propose to South African Republic
Volksraad and people the part of its proposal contained in
paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 of its note 19th August, omitting the
conditions on the acceptance of which alone the offer was
based, but declares itself always still prepared to abide by
its acceptance of the invitation [of] Her Majesty's Government
to get a Joint Commission composed as intimated in its note of
2nd September. It considers that if conditions are contained
in the existing franchise law which has been passed, and in
the scheme of representation, which might tend to frustrate
object contemplated, that it will attract the attention of the
Commission, and thus be brought to the knowledge of this
Government. This Government has noticed with surprise the
assertion that it had intimated to British Agent that the new
members to be chosen for South African Republic Volksraad
should be allowed to use their own language. If it is thereby
intended that this Government would have agreed that any other
than the language of the country would have been used in the
deliberations of the Volksraad, it wishes to deny same in the
strongest manner."
Practically the discussion was ended by a despatch from the

British Colonial Secretary, September 22d, in which he said;
"Her Majesty's Government have on more than one occasion
repeated their assurances that they have no desire to
interfere in any way with independence of South African
Republic, provided that the conditions on which it was granted
are honourably observed in the spirit and in the letter, and
they have offered as part of a general settlement to give a
complete guarantee against any attack upon that independence,
either from within any part of the British dominions or from
the territory of a foreign State. They have not asserted any
rights of interference in the internal affairs of the Republic
other than those which are derived from the Conventions
between the two countries or which belong to every
neighbouring Government (and especially to one which has a
largely predominant interest in the adjacent territories) for
the protection of its subjects and of its adjoining
possessions." Referring to his despatch of September 8, the
Secretary concluded: "The refusal of the Government of the
South African Republic to entertain the offer thus made,
coming as it does at the end of nearly four months of
protracted negotiations, themselves the climax of an agitation
extending over a period of more than five years, makes it
useless to further pursue a discussion on the lines hitherto
followed, and Her Majesty's Government are now compelled to
consider the situation afresh, and to formulate their own
proposals for a final settlement of the issues which have been
created in South Africa by the policy constantly followed for
many years by the Government of the South African Republic.
They will communicate to you the result of their deliberations
in a later despatch."
Great Britain, Papers by Command:
1899, C. 9518, 9521, 9530.
SOUTH AFRICA: Orange Free State: A. D. 1899 (September-October).

The Free State makes common cause with
the South African Republic.
On the 27th of September, President Steyn communicated to the

British High Commissioner a resolution adopted that day by the
Orange Free State Volksraad, instructing the government to
continue efforts for peaceful settlement of differences
between the South African Republic and Great Britain, but
concluding with the declaration that "if a war is now begun or
occasioned by Her Majesty's Government against South African
Republic, this would morally be a war against the whole of
white population of South Africa and would in its results be
calamitous and criminal, and further, that Orange Free State
will honestly and faithfully observe its obligations towards
South African Republic arising out of the political alliance
between the two Republics whatever may happen."
On the 11th of October, the High Commissioner communicated to

President Steyn the ultimatum that he received from the South
African Republic, and asked: "In view of Resolution of
Volksraad of Orange Free State communicated to me in Your
Honour's telegram of 27th September I have the honour to
request that I may be informed at Your Honour's earliest
possible convenience whether this action on the part of the
South African Republic has Your Honour's concurrence and
support." The reply of the Orange Free State President was as
follows:
"The high handed and unjustifiable policy and conduct of Her

Majesty's Government in interfering in and dictating in the
purely internal affairs of South African Republic,
constituting a flagrant breach of the Convention of London,
1884, accompanied at first by preparations, and latterly
followed by active commencement of hostilities against that
Republic, which no friendly and well-intentioned efforts on
our part could induce Her Majesty's Government to abandon,
constitute such an undoubted and unjust attack on the
independence of the South African Republic that no other
course is left to this State than honourably to abide by its
Conventional Agreements entered into with that Republic. On
behalf of this Government, therefore, I beg to notify that,
compelled thereto by the action of Her Majesty's Government,
they intend to carry out the instructions of the Volksraad as
set forth in the last part of the Resolution referred to by
Your Excellency."

1899, C.—9530, pages 38 and 67.
{491}
SOUTH AFRICA: The Transvaal and Orange Free State:

A. D. 1899 (September-October).
Preparations for war.
Troops massed on both sides of the frontiers.
Remonstrances of Orange Free State.
The Boer Ultimatum.
Before the controversy between Boer and Briton had reached the
stage represented above, both sides were facing the prospect
of war, both were bringing forces to the frontier, and each
was declaring that the other had been first to take that
threatening step. Which of them did first begin movements that
bore a look of menace seems difficult to learn from official
reports. On the 19th of September, the British High
Commissioner gave notice to the President of the Orange Free
State that "it has been deemed advisable by the Imperial
military authorities to send detachments of the troops
ordinarily stationed at Cape Town to assist in securing the
line of communication between the Colony and the British
territories lying to the north of it"; and "as this force, or
a portion of it, may be stationed near the borders of the
Orange Free State," he wished the burghers of that State to
understand that the movement was in no way directed against
them. Eight days later, President Steyn, of the Orange Free
State, addressed a long despatch to the High Commissioner,
remonstrating against the whole procedure of the British
government in its dealing with the South African Republic, and
alluding to the "enormous and ever increasing military
preparations of the British government." On the 2d of October
he announced to the Commissioner that he had "deemed it
advisable, in order to allay the intense excitement and unrest
amongst our burghers, arising from the totally undefended state
of our border, in the presence of a continued increase and
movement of troops on two sides of this State, to call up our
burghers, to satisfy them that due precaution had been taken."
The High Commissioner replied on the 3d: "Your Honour must be
perfectly well aware that all the movements of British troops
which have taken place in this country since the beginning of
present troubles, which have been necessitated by the natural
alarm of the inhabitants in exposed districts, are not
comparable in magnitude with the massing of armed forces by
government of South African Republic on the borders of Natal."
Some days previous to this, on the 29th of September,
Secretary Chamberlain had cabled from London to Sir Alfred
Milner: "Inform President of Orange Free State that what he
describes as the enormous and ever-increasing military
preparations of Great Britain have been forced upon Her
Majesty's Government by the policy of the South African
Republic, which has transformed the Transvaal into a permanent
armed camp, threatening the peace of the whole of South Africa
and the position of Great Britain as the paramount State."
On the 9th of October the High Commissioner received another

telegram from the President of the Orange Free State, of which
he cabled the substance to London as follows: "He demurs to
statement that military preparations of Her Majesty's
Government have been necessitated by conversion of South
African Republic into an armed camp. Her Majesty's Government
must be entirely misinformed and it would be regrettable if,
through such misunderstanding, present state of extreme
tension were allowed to continue. Though Her Majesty's
Government may regard precautions taken by South African
Republic after Jameson Raid as excessive, Government of South
African Republic cannot be blamed for adopting them, in view
of large Uitlander population constantly being stirred up,
through hostile press, to treason and rebellion by persons and
organizations financially or politically interested in
overthrowing the Government. Arming of Burghers not intended
for any purpose of aggression against Her Majesty's dominions.
People of South African Republic have, since shortly after
Jameson Raid, been practically as fully armed as now, yet have
never committed any act of aggression. It was not till Her
Majesty's Government, with evident intention of enforcing
their views on South African Republic in purely internal
matters, had greatly augmented their forces and moved them
nearer to borders that a single Burgher was called up for the
purpose, as be firmly believed, of defending country and
independence. If this natural assumption erroneous, not too
late to rectify misunderstanding by mutual agreement to
withdraw forces on both sides and undertaking by Her Majesty's
Government to stop further increase of troops."
But, in reality, it was already too late; for, on the same day
on which the above message was telegraphed from Bloemfontein,
the government of the South African Republic had presented to
the British Agent at Pretoria a note which ended the
possibility of peace. After reviewing the issue between the
two governments, the note concluded with a peremptory
ultimatum, as follows: "Her Majesty's unlawful intervention in
the internal affairs of this Republic in conflict with the
Convention of London, 1884, caused by the extraordinary
strengthening of troops in the neighbourhood of the borders of
this Republic, has thus caused an intolerable condition of
things to arise whereto this Government feels itself obliged,
in the interest not only of this Republic but also [?] of all
South Africa, to make an end as soon as possible, and feels
itself called upon and obliged to press earnestly and with
emphasis for an immediate termination of this state of things
and to request Her Majesty's Government to give it the
assurance
(a) That all points of mutual difference shall be regulated by
the friendly course of arbitration or by whatever amicable way
may be agreed upon by this Government with Her Majesty's
Government.
(b) That the troops on the borders of this Republic shall be
instantly withdrawn.
(c) That all reinforcements of troops which have arrived in
South Africa since the 1st June, 1899, shall be removed from
South Africa within a reasonable time, to be agreed upon with
this Government, and with a mutual assurance and guarantee on
the part of this Government that no attack upon or hostilities
against any portion of the possessions of the British Government
shall be made by the Republic during further negotiations
within a period of time to be subsequently agreed upon between
the Governments, and this Government will, on compliance
therewith, be prepared to withdraw the armed Burghers of this
Republic from the borders.
{492}
(d) That Her Majesty's troops which are now on the high seas
shall not be landed in any port of South Africa. This
Government must press for an immediate and affirmative answer
to these four questions, and earnestly requests Her Majesty's
Government to return such an answer before or upon Wednesday
the 11th October, 1899, not later than 5 o'clock p. m., and it
desires further to add that in the event of unexpectedly no
satisfactory answer being received by it within that interval
[it] will with great regret be compelled to regard the action
of Her Majesty's Government as a formal declaration of war,
and will not hold itself responsible for the consequences
thereof, and that in the event of any further movements of
troops taking place within the above-mentioned time in the
nearer directions of our borders this Government will be
compelled to regard that also as a formal declaration of war."
To this ultimatum the British government gave its reply, in a

despatch from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Alfred Milner, October
10, as follows: "Her Majesty's Government have received with
great regret the peremptory demands of the Government of the
South African Republic conveyed in your telegram of 9th
October, Number 3. You will inform the Government of the South
African Republic, in reply, that the conditions demanded by
the Government of the South African Republic are such as Her
Majesty's Government deem it impossible to discuss."
Great Britain,
Papers by Command: 1899, C.—9530.
Efforts which were being made at the time in Holland to assist

the Boer Republic in pacific negotiations with Great Britain
were suddenly frustrated by this action. A year later (in
November, 1900) it was stated in the States General at The
Hague that "in the autumn of 1899 the Netherlands Government
offered in London its good offices for the resumption of
negotiations with the Transvaal, but these efforts had no
result in consequence of the sudden ultimatum of the Transvaal
and the commencement of hostilities by the armies of the
Republics, actions which surprised the Netherlands Government.
When once the war had broken out any effort in the direction of
intervention would have been useless, as was shown by the
peremptory refusal given by Great Britain to the offer of the
United States."
An Englishman who was in the country at the time gives the

following account of the Boer preparation for war: "In the
towns the feeling was strongly against war; in the country
districts war was popular, as the farmers had not the
slightest doubt they would be able to carry out their threat
of 'driving the English into the sea.' … Skilled artillerymen
were finding their way into the country towards the end of
August last [1899]. The Boers themselves did not put much
faith in their artillery, but they were reassured by the
officers who told them that they would yet learn to respect
its usefulness and efficiency—a prophecy which to our cost has
been more than fulfilled. … General Joubert was always ready
and willing, at any time, to inspect and test new guns or
military necessaries, and no expense was spared to make the
Transvaal burgher army a first-class fighting-machine. …
Surprise has been expressed at the inaccurate statements made
by colonials as to the fighting strength of the Boers. They
had not allowed for the enormous increase of population. From
an absolutely reliable source the writer ascertained in
September last that they could put in the field between 50 and
60 thousand men, made up as follows: Transvaal burghers,
22,000; resident foreigners, etc., 10,000; Free Staters,
16,000; colonists who would cross the border and join, 6,000;
total, 54,000. … As soon as war seemed likely, no time was
lost in perfecting the military arrangements. Before Great
Britain had thought of mobilizing a soldier, the Boer
emissaries were again scouring the colonies of Natal and the
Cape, sounding the farmers as to what part they were prepared
to take in the coming conflict. … While people at home were
wondering what the next move would be, the Boers were ready to
answer the question. Towards the middle of September all
preparations were completed, the Government had laid in large
quantities of supplies (mainly of flour, Boer meal, and tinned
foods), which they anticipated would tide them over twelve to
eighteen months, and by that time, if they had not beaten the
British, they relied on foreign intervention. They had also
received large sums of money from Europe, and some additional
supplies of arms and ammunition. Ammunition was distributed in
large quantities throughout the country, each burgher
receiving a sealed packet in addition to his ordinary supply.
The last batch of the Mauser rides was distributed, and the
mobilization scheme finally arranged, by which, on a given
word being telegraphed to the different centres, the first
Republican army corps would be mobilized within twenty-four
hours. This actually took place. … The British Government
could hardly fail to be aware of the fact that the Transvaal
was in earnest this time. A visit to the country districts
towards the end of August, about the time when the Boer
Executive themselves sounded the country through their private
agencies, would have revealed the fact that the people were
not only perfectly willing to go to war, but that they
absolutely wished for it. As one Boer put it to the writer:
'We look on fighting the English as a picnic. In some of the
Kaffir wars we had a little trouble, but in the Vryheids
Oorlog (the Boer War of 1881) we simply potted the Rooineks as
they streamed across the veld in their red jackets, without
the slightest danger to ourselves.' They had the utmost
contempt for Tommy Atkins and his leaders, many of them
bragging that the only thing that deterred them from
advocating war instanter was the thought that they would have
to kill so many of the soldiers, with whom individually they
said there was no quarrel. With such a state of things, which
should have been perfectly clear to the Intelligence
Department (and through it to the War Office) in
London—because no resident with eyes to see could be deceived
in the matter—we allowed the present war to find us
unprepared!"
J. Scoble and H. H. Abercrombie,

The Rise and Fall of Krugerism,
chapter 16 (New York: F. A. Stokes Co.).
The Boer Republics and the Surroundings.
{493}
SOUTH AFRICA: The Field of War: A. D. 1899 (October-November).

The Boer advance.
Invasion of Cape Colony and Natal.
The invaders joined by Dutch farmers of the colony.
The British unprepared.
Investment of Kimberley and Mafeking.
In a despatch dated January 16, 1900, Sir Alfred Milner gave

particulars of the first advance of the Boer forces from the
Orange Free State into Cape Colony, and of the extent to which
they were joined by Dutch farmers in districts south of Orange
River. He wrote: "The portion of the Colony with which I
propose to deal is that which lies south of the Orange River.
The districts north of that river have been so completely cut
off, and our accounts of what has been, and is, going on there
are so scanty and imperfect, that the history of their
defection cannot yet be written. I shall content myself with
quoting an extract from a report upon the state of affairs in
that region by a gentleman lately resident in Vryburg, which
undoubtedly fairly expresses the truth so far as he has been
in a position to observe it:—'All the farmers in the Vryburg,
Kuruman, and Taungs districts,' he says, 'have joined the
Boers, and I do not believe that you will find ten loyal
British subjects among the Dutch community in the whole of
Bechuanaland.' … The districts invaded by the enemy south of
the Orange River are:—Colesberg, Albert, Aliwal North,
Wodehouse, and Barkly East. It was on the 12th October that
the enemy committed the first act of war and of invasion near
Vryburg, on the western border, but it was not till more than
a month later, namely, the 14th November, that they occupied
Colesberg. Apparently they were waiting for reinforcements,
for when they actually did cross the frontier they were 1,100
strong. Whatever the cause of their delay, it was not due to
any discouragement from the people of Colesberg. The small
British garrison then in the country being engaged elsewhere,
and the district being entirely unguarded save by a few
policemen, people from there continually visited the river to
communicate with the enemy. The Chief Constable reports that
when he left the town 300 Colesberg farmers had already joined
the enemy, and that 400 more were expected from the adjoining
district of Philipstown. … On the 16th November General
Grobler, the Boer Commandant, addressed the following telegram
to Bloemfontein:—'Colesberg was occupied by me without
opposition. … I was very well pleased with the conduct of the
Afrikanders. We were everywhere welcomed.' … Eastwards along
the border the tide of insurrection ran strong. In the closing
days of October a Boer force assembled at Bethulie Bridge, which
was guarded only by a handful of police. As the days passed
and the alarm grew, the Cape police force was withdrawn from
Burghersdorp, which lies south of Bethulie, down the line to
Stormberg, while, in their turn, the Imperial forces abandoned
the important position of Stormberg, and retired on
Queenstown, thus leaving the district clear for the invaders.
That they did not immediately advance was certainly not owing
to any fear of resistance at Burghersdorp, the inhabitants of
which fraternised with the commando stationed on the river,
continually passing to and fro. Finally, on the 14th November,
the date of the occupation of Colesberg, the advance was made,
and on the following morning a body of 500 Boers occupied the
town. … According to the despatch of the Boer Commandant,
dated 16th November, Burghersdorp was occupied 'amidst cheers
from the Afrikanders,' and 'the Colonial burghers are very
glad to meet us.' Commandeering at once began throughout the
district of Albert, and a Burghersdorp resident estimated that
about 1,000 farmers were prepared to join at the date of his
leaving the place. …
"Within a space of less than three weeks from the occupation

of Colesberg, no less than five great districts—those of
Colesberg, Albert, Aliwal North, Barkly East, and
Wodehouse—had gone over without hesitation, and, so to speak,
bodily, to the enemy. Throughout that region the Landdrosts of
the Orange Free State had established their authority, and
everywhere, in the expressive words of a Magistrate, British
loyalists were 'being hunted out of town after town like
sheep.' In the invaded districts, as will be seen from the
above, the method of occupation has always been more or less
the same. The procedure is as follows:-A commando enters, the
Orange Free State flag is hoisted, a meeting is held in the
Court-house or market-place, and a Proclamation is read,
annexing the district. The Commandant then makes a speech, in
which he explains that the people must now obey the Free State
laws generally, though they are at present under martial law.
A local Landdrost is appointed, and loyal subjects are given a
few days or hours in which to quit, or be compelled to serve
against their country. … The number of rebels who have
actually taken up arms and joined the enemy during their
progress throughout the five annexed districts can for the
present only be matter of conjecture. I shall, however, be on
the safe side in reckoning that during November it was a
number not less than the total of the invading commandos, that
is, 2,000, while it is probable that of the invading commandos
themselves a certain proportion were colonists who had crossed
the border before the invasion took place. And the number,
whatever it was, which joined the enemy before and during
November has been increased since. A well-informed refugee
from the Albert district has estimated the total number of
Colonial Boers who have joined the enemy in the invaded
districts south of the Orange River at 3,000 to 4,000. In the
districts north of that river, to which I referred at the
beginning of this despatch, the number can hardly be less.
Adding to these the men who became burghers of the Transvaal
immediately before, or just after, the outbreak of war, with
the view of taking up arms in the struggle, I am forced to the
conclusion that, in round figures, not less than 10,000 of
those now fighting against us in South Africa, and probably
somewhat more, either are, or till quite recently were,
subjects of the Queen."-

Cd. 264, 1900, pages 1-5.
The above relates to movements from the Orange Free State into
Cape Colony, where the most of reinforcement from Afrikander
inhabitants of British soil was to be got. From the Transvaal,
the movement of Boer forces across the frontiers, both
eastward and westward, was equally prompt. Early on the
morning of the 12th they were in Natal, advancing in three
strong columns, under General Joubert, upon Newcastle,
threatening the advance posts of the British at Dundee and
Glencoe (some 40 miles northeast of Ladysmith), where valuable
coal mines claimed defence. At the same time, another Boer
army, under General Cronje, had passed the western border and
was moving upon Mafeking, where Colonel (afterwards General)
Baden-Powell, with an irregular force of about 1,200 men, was
preparing for a siege.
{494}
The inhabitants of the town, including refugees, numbered
about 2,000 whites and 7,000 blacks. A few days later Boer
forces were skirmishing with the defenders of the diamond
mines at Kimberley, where Colonel Kekewich commanded about
1,000 men, and where Cecil Rhodes was among the beleaguered
citizens. The population of Kimberley was 33,000, more than
half blacks. It is plain that the British were wholly
unprepared for so vigorous an opening of hostilities on the
part of the Boers. A military writer in the "London Times,"
discussing the "Lessons of the War," at the end of a year
after its beginning, made the following statements and
comment:—"There was no difficulty in obtaining the fullest
information as to the resources of the Transvaal and the Free
State, and we have been officially informed that 'the armed
strength of the Boers, the number of their guns, with their
character and calibre,' as laid down in the report of the
Director of Intelligence, 'corresponds exactly with our
recently-ascertained knowledge of what the enemy has put into
the field.' Whether or not these reports ever travel from
Queen Anne's gate to Pall-mall seems uncertain, since the
Commander-in-Chief publicly stated that 'We have found that
the enemy … are much more powerful and numerous than we
expected.' The report of the Intelligence Department seems,
therefore, to have been as valueless for practical purposes as
were those transmitted to Paris by Colonel Stoffel prior to
the outbreak of the Franco-German war, and Lord Wolseley was
apparently as little aware of the fighting resources of the
Boers as was Marshal Lebœuf of those of the Germans. When,
early in September, 1899, it became a pressing necessity to
reinforce the troops in South Africa, it was painfully
realized that not a single unit at home was ready to take the
field. One weak battalion and three field batteries, hastily
compounded by wholesale drafting from others, represented the
available contribution from a standing army at home whose
nominal effectives considerably exceeded 100,000. The
reinforcements, totally inadequate to meet the crisis, were
made up by drawing upon India and the colonial garrisons."
London Times, November 22, 1900.
Another writer in "The Times," reviewing, at nearly the same

time, the previous year of the war, gave this account of its
opening circumstances:—"If the organization of the British
Army had permitted the despatch at short notice of 30,000
troops from Great Britain, the whole course of the war would
have been different. It was a prevailing illusion that Mr.
Kruger would yield to diplomatic pressure not backed by
available force, and political expediency, over-riding
military considerations, led to a compromise. It was tardily
decided to bring the forces in South Africa up to a total of
about 22,000 by drawing on India and the colonial garrisons;
mobilization was deferred till October 7. Thus the first
reinforcements arrived barely in time to prevent Natal from
being over-run by the Boers, and the expeditionary force did
not begin to reach Durban [the port of Natal] till after
Ladysmith had been closely invested. … There were advisers of
the Cabinet who held that the military strength of the Boers
was a bubble easily pricked. Thus it was widely believed that
a severe repulse in Northern Natal would suffice to break up
the Boer forces, and, knowing only that a body of 4,000
British troops was assembled at Dundee and another somewhat
larger at Ladysmith, we hastily assumed that these places were
naturally well suited and had been specially prepared for
defence. When, on the 26th, the concentration at Ladysmith was
accomplished, after a painful and a hazardous march, it was
imagined that our forces occupied an intrenched camp, which,
if necessary, could be held with ease. Later it became clear
that Ladysmith was exceedingly ill-adapted for defence, that
it was practically unfortified when invested, and finally
that, if the attacking force had been composed of trained
troops, it must have fallen, in spite of every effort on the
part of the garrison. The occupation of Dundee, it was
discovered, was maintained against the military judgment of
Sir G. White. …
"When at length the army corps and the cavalry division began,
early in November, to arrive in South Africa, we believed that
the bulk of this large force, which was apparently ready to
take the field, would invade the Orange Free State and strike
for Bloemfontein, clearing Cape Colony and inevitably drawing
Boer forces away from the investments of Kimberley and of
Ladysmith. This was another illusion. At least one-half of the
expeditionary force was despatched to Durban and the rest was
frittered away between three separate lines of advance. There
were thus four separate groupings of British troops, spread
over an immense front, and incapable of affording each other
mutual support. Moreover, the Commander-in-Chief being
involved in a difficult campaign in Natal, there was no
responsible head in Cape Colony, where partial chaos soon
supervened. … Faulty as was the strategy which substituted
scattered efforts with insufficient force for a primary
object, that of the Boers was happily even more ill-conceived.
In place of attempting to occupy our troops in Natal and throwing
their main strength into Cape Colony, where a Dutch rising on
a large scale would inevitably have occurred, they also
preferred to fritter away their strength, devoting their main
efforts against Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking, and
contenting themselves with the occupation of Colesberg and
Stormberg in small force, which, however, was quickly swelled
by local rebels."
London Times,
November 5, 1900.
SOUTH AFRICA: The Field of War: A. D. 1899 (October-December).

The early battles.
British reverses.
Siege of Ladysmith.
The serious fighting of the war began in Natal, as early as

the 20th of October, when three columns of the Boer forces
closed in on the British advance post at Glencoe. The first of
the Boer columns to arrive opened a precipitate attack, and in
the hard battle which ensued (at Talana Hill) the British
could claim the final advantage, though at very heavy cost.
Their commander, General Sir W. Penn Symons, received a mortal
wound and died three days afterwards, kindly cared for and
buried by the enemy, his successor in the command, General
Yule, having found it necessary to retreat from Glencoe and
Dundee to Ladysmith. The Boers were already striking at the
railroad between Glencoe and Ladysmith, and sharp fighting had
taken place on the 21st at Elandslaagte, a station on the line
only seventeen miles from the latter town.
{495}
The Boers, in that encounter, had been driven from the
neighboring hills, but the British had again suffered greatly,
and began to realize the quality of the foe with which they had

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Comparative Political Theory in Time

and Place: Theory’s Landscapes 1st

Performing Political Theory : Pedagogy in Modern

Non Representational Theory and Health The Health in

Fundamentals of acoustic field theory and space-time

Subjectivation in Political Theory and Contemporary

Marxism versus Liberalism: Comparative Real-Time

Constitutional and political theory : selected writings

Landscapes of the Song of Songs : poetry and place 1st

Models in Microeconomic Theory 1st Edition Martin J.

in Time and Place

ISBN 978-1-137-53320-3 ISBN 978-1-137-52815-5 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954963

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover image © Alexander Rhind / Getty Images

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Introduction: Theory’s Landscapes 1

2 The Abbasid ‘Circle of Justice’: Re-reading

3 Buddhism and International Law 51

4 Proclaiming Sovereignty: Some Reflections from

5 Burke and Paine on the Origins of British

6 Strategic Deployments: The Universal/Local Nexus

7 The Jewish Gandhi Question, or, Ich and Swa:

8 Radical Restorative Justice and the Practice

Introduction: Theory’s Landscapes

Daniel Kapust and Helen M. Kinsella

D. Kapust () • H.M. Kinsella

© The Author(s) 2017 1

discussion of the merits of comparative political theory and its contribu-

We deliberately avoid referring to comparative political theory as a

disciplinary imagination.”4 The field of comparative political theory ideally

II: DEFINING COMPARATIVE POLITICAL

still embedded in, and seemingly reproducing, traditional narratives that

wish to continually underscore our understanding of the radical purpose

and traditions that constitute those contestations,” and the attention of

comparative perspective, we study above all the nature of politics.”27 For

techniques, political theorists can and ought to reconstitute political

we all possess regardless of training or disposition, although not all would

Political scientists typically understand the value of comparison to be its

other political phenomena, by controlling for differences in some places and

This is not to assimilate comparative political theory to comparative politics,

to consider political meanings evidenced in non-verbal and dramaturgical

If Mills’ use of a comparative approach enables him to show what might

of comparative political theory will justify themselves on the basis of the

in which given traditions—Islamic, South Asian, Buddhist, Christian—

what the discipline uniquely offers. These questions might be further

III: THE CHAPTERS

in general, and letter writing in particular, was a resource secretaries like

illuminates the puzzling action of a member of the local provincial elite,

India Company’s operations in Bengal at the moment they occurred while

On the 2d of September the Boer government replied to this at

Meantime, on the 31st of August, Sir Alfred Milner had

On the 8th of September, the High Commissioner was instructed

"Her Majesty's Government are still prepared to accept the

In a lengthy response to this by State Secretary Reitz,

Practically the discussion was ended by a despatch from the

SOUTH AFRICA: Orange Free State: A. D. 1899 (September-October).

On the 27th of September, President Steyn communicated to the

On the 11th of October, the High Commissioner communicated to

"The high handed and unjustifiable policy and conduct of Her

Great Britain, Papers by Command:

SOUTH AFRICA: The Transvaal and Orange Free State:

On the 9th of October the High Commissioner received another