Globalization, Political Realism, and the Agent-Exclusion Problem

It is argued that political realists have framed internationalized relations by way of an implicit appeal to what is called the ‘agent-exclusion principle.’ The agent-exclusion principle holds that in cases where agency is nested, agency at one level precludes or displaces agency at another level. This paper interrogates the truth of the agent-exclusion principle by reformulating it as an agent-exclusion problem: when agency is nested, is it the case that agency at one level necessarily excludes agency at another? Or is multi-level agential co-presence possible? By problematizing the agent-exclusion principle in this way, I can leverage the considerable effort that has been put into understanding and resolving the agent-exclusion problem in other domains to better understand its expression in the context of globalized relations. In particular, a critical evaluation of the agent-exclusion principle motivates, against the political realist, the rejection of state-centric realism but also points to the impossibility of a cosmopolitan world state. I conclude with a reflection on the significance of these findings for scholarship globally in higher education.