The International Politics of Jealousy:
Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and James Mackintosh
CHIHIRO KARIYA, PhD 
Abstract
This paper aims to think about global governance through the classics, focusing on the language, in particular on jealousy, of international relations in Britain during the French Revolutionary Wars. This paper explores perceptions on relations between states of the statesman Edmund Burke (1730-1797) and his contemporaries (the political economist (philosopher) Adam Smith (1723-1790) and the political pamphleteer James Mackintosh (1765-1832) . Through the above discussion, it questions what is “classics” in the study of global governance. It is not common to focus on jealousy in the discussion of global governance and inter-state relations. This is partly because jealousy is not a phenomenon or an analytical concept unique to inter-state relations, such as diplomacy, sovereignty (external sovereignty), balance of power theory, or hegemony, and therefore has been avoided from being discussed head-on. But in today’s relations between states too, jealousy, far from disappearing, continues to be a source of great trouble.This paper finds that Burke, Smith and Mackintosh commonly perceived that inter-state relations were hampered by jealousy, and they all seem to be pessimistic about overcoming jealousy. What is interesting for this paper, however, is Burke has repeatedly expressed concern that other states or nations were jealous of his state. Adam Smith, in arguing for the ‘impartial observer’ in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, emphasis of the importance of lowering passions to the point where others can follow. It is true that we may not be able to overcome jealousy, but by asking ourselves whether our state is not the object of jealousy from other states, we seem to open the way to cooperative governance with other countries.At any given time, classical texts and later generations does not share preconditions. In this respect, the limitations of this paper do not stem solely from global governance. What is important is that we continue to have a sense of learning from the classics, and that we form a common understanding among contemporaries by sharing the classics, or at least sharing the need to do so. Just as the study of international relations has developed primarily through the classicization of international law, global governance seems to need a corresponding classic. Since the study of global governance has a broader scope than the study of international relations, the scope of the classics should be even broader.