Since the 1980s, the discipline of International Relations has seen a series of disputes over its foundations. However, there has been one core concept that, although addressed in various guises, had never been explicitly and systematically engaged with in these debates: the human. This volume is the first to address comprehensively the topic of the human in world politics. It comprises cutting-edge accounts by leading scholars of how the human is (or is not) theorized across the entire range of IR theories, old and new. The authors provide a solid foundation for future debates about how, why, and to which ends the human has been or must (not) be built into our theories, and systematically lay out the implications of such moves for how we come to see world politics and humanity's role within it.
