What is…Friendship in International Politics?

How can the study of friendship inspire and enhance our understanding of international politics? Evgeny Roshchin (Princeton University) draws on conceptual history inspired by Quentin Skinner to trace the development of the concept of friendship in international diplomatic practice and in Western political philosophy. In conversation with Felix Berenskötter (SOAS University of London), Roshchin discusses his research into contractual forms of friendship, embedded in treaties, and their function in ordering colonial spaces. He explains why this understanding disappeared from social contract thinking following Hobbes and was replaced by an ethical and normative reading that remains dominant today, and why he cannot offer a definition of friendship.