Introduction

Rousseau’s international thought prioritizes the pursuit of freedom. States create and exercise freedom by developing political self-knowledge and contentment, not through an ideology or by controlling an international system. Rousseau’s philosophy of international politics has significant implications for discussions of human agency, the construction of national power, and the purposes of liberty in the international realm. Using reader-response, I trace the development of Rousseau’s international thought across key texts in his corpus: Emile, the Second Discourse, the Social Contract, Considerations on the Government of Poland, and his work on the Abbé Saint-Pierre. I argue that these texts engage and transcend contemporary IR theory, articulating a politic of limits for the sake of self-sufficiency and self-rule.