Beyond Banality? Ethical responses to evil in post-September 11 International Relations

Abstract

In recent years, International Relations has witnessed a resurgent interest in the concept of 'evil' both in domestic and international political rhetoric, and in contemporary scholarship. This article examines three of the most recent contributions to what is a growing body of scholarship, all of which try to make sense of evil in the contemporary world and offer an ethical response to the problem of its prevalence. In particular, it highlights the extent to which Hannah Arendt's notion of the 'banality of evil' permeates contemporary conceptualizations of the term and questions whether this remains a useful and indeed appropriate conceptualization of evil in the post-September 11 world.