Emotions and political limitations: Working through the broken middle with Chris Brown

Abstract

The chapter advances four arguments: First, that one of Brown’s legacies for International Political Theory (IPT) is the precise art of engaging both sides in a discussion in nuanced and careful ways. Second, that Brown’s middle-ground position with its faith in (violent) liberal power is occasionally mismatched by our contemporary ‘moment’ (stretching back through the previous decade). Third, that we might navigate this middle ground via a more nuanced, and likely more skeptical, sensibility. Fourth, that centralizing the struggles of the Broken Middle has its own limitations (including, namely, exhaustion), and thus should be considered as complementary to Brown’s approach to IPT going forward.