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Reclaiming Utopia in International Relations
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15 December 2026

Bringing together a diverse list of contributors from Europe, Australia and North America, this book challenges conventional wisdom about utopian thinking in International Relations. The volume demonstrates how utopian thinking has shaped a range of IR theories through its resolutely realistic focus on pressing political crises.
This essential collection shows utopia's empirical significance in world politics by offering fresh perspectives on revolutionary movements, racial imaginaries, technocratic expertise and global climate change, among other issues. It is a vital intervention that reshapes disciplinary understanding and establishes new research directions for scholars examining the pasts and futures of world politics.
Daniel R. McCarthy is Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Matthew Fluck is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and co-leader of the Politics and IR undergraduate programme at the University of Westminster, UK.
Introduction
1. Utopia and Utopianism in International Relations – Matthew Fluck and Daniel R. McCarthy
Part I: Utopia and International Relations Theory
2. Realism and Utopianism: Enemies or Frenemies? – William E. Scheuerman
3. Fearing Utopia: Judith Shklar and the Ambivalence Towards Utopia in Liberal IR Theory – Kamilla Stullerova
4. Feminist Utopias and Pragmatic Hope: Social Imagining As Utopian Production – Marija Antanavičiūtė
5. Utopia and Critical Theory: Towards an Open-Ended Dialectical Utopianism – Shannon Brincat, Emma Christie and Jonato Luciano dos Santos
6. Rigorous Fictions, Unrealistic Counter-Factuals, and the Problem of Utopian Methods in IR – Daniel R. McCarthy
Part II: The Pasts and Futures of Utopian Practices in IR
7. On Racial Utopianism – Duncan Bell
8. The Rise and Fall of Technocratic Utopias of Global Governance – Jens Steffek
9. Revolutionary Utopias – Catherine Hirst and George Lawson
10. Literary Utopias, Utopian Enclaves, and Utopian International Thought – Matthew Fluck
11. Utopia As Critique and Practice in the Anthropocene – Aysem Mert and Laura Horn
12. Orbita As Utopia: Astrospheric Infrastructure and World Orders – Daniel Deudney
Conclusion
13. Reclaiming Utopia for the Future of International Relations – Daniel R. McCarthy and Matthew Fluck