Arta Moeini

Arta Moeini was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Dr. Moeini is an international political theorist and a revisionist scholar of Nietzsche and Modernity whose interests lie at the nexus of contrasting traditions of political realism, culture and politics, and international relations theory. His dissertation, The Case for Anthro-Culturalism: A Nietzschean Rejoinder to MacIntyre’s Critique of Modernity, is an in-depth exegesis of the works of Alasdair MacIntyre and Friedrich Nietzsche, which argues that the fundamental pathology afflicting Modernity is not valuelessness (i.e., axiological crisis) but meaninglessness and will-lessness (i.e., an onto-practical crisis), the latter having profound cultural, political, and international implications in Nietzsche’s view and prognosticating passivity and total nihilism for the West if not remedied. 

Dr. Moeini’s latest project engages deeply and critically with the question of the ‘future of the international order’. It will introduce a recalibrated theory of international politics centered around a post-hegemonic and cultural form of realism which could theoretically underpin and springboard the practice of ‘restraint’ in foreign policy as a sine quo non. It argues that the emerging new world order would be one which is decisively ‘multi-polar’ and anchored on several autonomous great cultural poles – thus affirming “global cultural pluralism” and recognizing the necessity for humane diplomacy premised on mutual respect and open dialogue to foster global peace and manage conflict.

Dr. Moeini holds B.A. in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies from University of California Berkeley, an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a Ph.D. (with distinction) and M.A. in Government from Georgetown University.