Bringing together an international team of contributors, this volume draws on international political theory and intellectual history to rethink the problem of a pluralistic world order.
Inspired by the work of international political theorist Nicholas Rengger, the book focuses on three main areas of Rengger's contribution to the political theory of international relations: his Augustine-inspired idea of an 'Anti-Pelagian Imagination'; his Oakeshottian argument for a pluralist 'conversation of mankind'; and his ruminations on war as the uncivil condition in world politics. Through a critical engagement with his work, the book illuminates the promises and limitations of civility as a sceptical, non-utopian, anti-perfectionist approach to theorizing world order that transcends both realist pessimism and liberal utopianism.

Vassilios Paipais is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews.

1. Rengger's anti-Pelagianism: international political theory as civil conversation - Vassilios Paipais
Part 1: Anti-Pelagianism and the Civil Condition in World Politics
2. Revisiting Rengger's Anti-Pelagianism - Noel O'Sullivan and Sophia Dingli
3. Poetics and Politics: Rengger, Weber, and the Virtuosi of Religion - John-Harmen Valk
4. 'Keep your mind in hell, and despair not': Gillian Rose's anti-Pelagianism - Kate Schick
Part 2: Challenging the Anti-Pelagian Imagination
5. 'A Dangerous Place to Be'? Nicholas J. Rengger, the English School, and International Disorder - Ian Hall
6. Rengger's War on Teleocracy - Chris Brown
7. Conservatism, Civility, and the Challenges of International Political Theory - Michael Williams
Part 3: The Uncivil Condition in Word Politics
8. Rengger the Reluctant Rule Follower - Anthony Lang Jr.
9. Rengger and the 'Business of War' - Caroline Kennedy-Pipe
10. Just War as Tradition in a Civil International Order - Valerie Morkevicius
Afterword
11. Rengger, History, and the Future of International Relations - Richard Whatmore