My first task is to thank the editors for creating a forum in which four authors from very different branches of social and political theory discuss my recent book on the transformation of political community. I am no less indebted to the authors involved for their participation in this debate. I hope this short reply does justice to their insightful comments and searching criticisms.

Randall L. Schweller is most sharply at odds with my position and I begin by responding to his criticisms. I then turn to the comments made by R. B. J. Walker and Jean Bethke Elshtain who subscribe to the critical project, broadly conceived, though not to my version of it. This essay ends with some responses to Norman Geras who shares my commitment to building on the Kantian and Marxian tradition but who has a rather different method of taking it further.