Introduction: constructing an idealized European conception of world politics

If the last chapter conformed to the postcolonial critique of both classical liberalism and Marxism by revealing their imperialist face, this chapter takes us into anti-imperialist territory that is unchartered by postcolonialism. Here I focus on the two key pioneers of classical liberal internationalism: Adam Smith (1723–90) and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). As noted in the last chapter, the conventional IR reading views these original liberal internationalists as standing for an anti-imperialist politics that is wrapped up in liberal cosmopolitanism and a cultural pluralist tolerance of non-European societies. However, while in the last few decades a number of postcolonial-inspired writers have argued that classical liberalism is Eurocentric and inherently imperialist, the traditional conventional reading has been rescued most recently by two political theorists – Sankar Muthu (2003) and Jennifer Pitts (2005). They argue that many Enlightenment thinkers – including Burke, Diderot, but especially Smith and Kant – were anti-imperialist cultural pluralists after all, exhibiting sympathy and tolerance for non-European societies.