Millennium: Journal of International Studies 1–8 © The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0305829816630079 mil.sagepub.com 1. As Prozorov himself notes citing Bruno Bosteels: ‘the original Aristotelian sense of ontol- ogy as “first philosophy”, a science of “being qua being” frequently gives way to a rather more loose understanding of ontology in terms of “the basic presuppositions behind a given politico-philosophical stance, the bedrock of fundamental assumptions and unshakable com- mitments”, which might better be described as “political anthropology” or even “ideology”’ (See Sergei Prozorov, ‘What Is the “world” in World Politics? Heidegger, Badiou and Void Universalism’, Contemporary Political Theory 12, no. 2 (2013): 105). 2. See, entirely indicatively, Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); and Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000); Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Alain Badiou, Being and Event (London: Continuum, 2005); and Alain Badiou, Theory of the Subject (London: Continuum, 2009). The Promise of Ontology: Nihilism for a Pluralist World Sergei Prozorov, Ontology and World Politics: Void Universalism I (London and New York: Routledge, 2014, 192 pp., $44.95 pbk). Sergei Prozorov, Theory of the Political Subject: Void Universalism II (London and New York: Routledge, 2014, 160 pp., $44.95 pbk). Reviewed by: Vassilios Paipais, University of St Andrews, Scotland Sergei Prozorov’s two-volume magnum opus, Void Universalism, is one of those works that appear on the intellectual firmament with the distinctive purpose not simply to cause a stir, but rather to trigger a revolution in the way we approach and theorise world poli- tics. The fact that Prozorov’s project has not yet generated the debate that it deserves is revealing not only of the nature of disciplinary hierarchies, even within critical circles, but also of the philosophical poverty (with some exceptions, of course) that characterises meta-theoretical debates in the field. 1 Void Universalism bears the potential to change all this and set us on an ambitious track to address urgent issues surrounding the interpreta- tion of pluralism in a global era. Indeed, its expressed goal is to challenge us to reconcep- tualise world politics from the perspective of an ontology of the void that its author synthesises from the writings of Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière and, above all, Alain Badiou, 2 who casts his shadow over the entire project. 630079MIL 0 0 10.1177/0305829816630079Millennium: Journal of International StudiesBook Review research-article 2016 Book Review at University of St Andrews on June 6, 2016 mil.sagepub.com Downloaded from