peace and justice

• Middle Ages: Feudalism - When people work and fight for noble in exchange for protection and land
• 15th-18th Century: Reformation - Rise of kings, Development of the admin system
• 17th century treaty of Westphalia: Sovereign state = main political unit, A new way of organizing international politics, each state has a right to govern itself without interference from other states or external powers, end of 30 years of war
• Sovereign


  No overarching power = anarchy
• End of the holy roman empire: a federation of states in central Europe, start of the concept of self-determination and international law, Appearance of balance of power, Development of diplomacy, An international system
• After WWI → appearance of self-determination
• Mid-20th century → Global adoption of the Westphalian system, Decolonization
• English School: "International Society"


  A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and values, forms a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions
• Two different versions of international society identified by the English School

  • Pluralist "thin" Conception - focuses on order and coexistence, planning high values on sovereignty and non-intervention
  • Solidarity "Thick" Conception - promotes a more expansive consumption of justice, a point to human rights as the qualifying principle of sovereignty and non-intervention
• Typical narrow Westphalian conception of international peace and justice


  Peace = absence of war, Justice = toleration and non-intervention
• Broader and more ambitious conceptions of international peace and justice have emerged

  Peace = positive peace, realization of human needs/welfare, Justice = more expansive ideals of justice in international law and ethics e.g. human rights, global distributive justice
• The rise of modern state systems was much slower and the Westphalian treaties were far less significant than traditionally asserted
• Until the 19th century, the international order was characterized by the resilience of the diversity of polities
• Three Implicationsof international order


  • The sources of international stability, which in the post-1648 period may have owed more to the diversity of polities than a system of states
  • The influence of non-state actors in the present (since even the most powerful contemporary corporations are drastically more limited in their powers than famous mercantile companies (e.g. Dutch East India Company) up until the mid-19th century
  • How decentering the state might matter, eg. in terms of indigenous peoples and minorities
• Realism – Core Tenets: Statism, Survival, Self-Help
• Statism


  The state is the pre-eminent actor in world politics, Beyond a state's borders, anarchy means that international politics takes place in an arena with no overarching central authority ⇒ states compete for power and security in a zero-sum game
• realism

  according to realism, The core national interest of all states is survival. Under the anarchy that is the global arena, the survival of the state cannot be guaranteed though states with more power or security (typically defined militarily) have a better chance of surviving than states with less power or security
• Self-Helpin realism


  Each state actor is responsible for ensuring its survival; if a state feels threatened, it should seek to maximize its power or security, However, one state's quest for security is often another state's source of insecurity, leading to a security dilemma
• Peace is a period of recuperation from the last war and preparation for the next ⇒ Hobbesian view
• Realism: Prudencein self-help

  States must be guided by an ethic of responsibility – careful weighing of consequences and realization that individual immoral acts may be necessary for the greater good
• Types of Realism


  • Classical Realism (Morgenthau)
  • Structural Defensive Realism (Waltz)
  • Structural Offensive Realism (Mearsheimer)
  • Neoclassical Realism (Zakaria)
• Realism – Critique: statism, Survival, Self-Help
• Morgenthau's six principles of realism

  • Governed by objective laws with roots in human nature
  • Interest ⇒ is defined as power
  • Realism assumes that interest defined as power is an objective category that is universally valid but does not give the concept a fixed meaning for all.
  • political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action.
  • Realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of particular nations with the moral political laws that govern the universe.
  • The difference, then, between political realism and other schools of thought is real, and it is profound.
• The Feminist Critique of Realism
• Liberalism - Core Characteristics: States not unitary or only actors; multiple interests can foster cooperation; focus on democracy, institutions, and free trade as means to overcome war and conflict
• Contested Concept of "Peace"

  • Negative or Positive
  • Among States or Individuals
  • Top Down, Bottom Up or a Product of Equilibrium
  • Perpetual or Temporary
• Democratic Peace Theory - Positive observation: democracies refrain from fighting each other, Normative Prescription: to achieve a peaceful would we need democratic institutions at national & international levels
• Possible Explanations for Democratic Peace Theory

  • Norms
  • Institutions
• Critiques of Democratic Peace Theory: Dubious Theory, Irrelevance, Causality not established
• War can be eliminated once and for all, or the best peace we can hope for is likely to be temporary and fragile, constantly at risk of cracking
• Democratic Peace Theory


  Positive observation: democracies refrain from fighting each other

  Normative Prescription: to achieve a peaceful world we need democratic institutions at national & international levels
• Possible Explanations for Democratic Peace Theory

  • Norms: Democracies operate internally on the principle that conflicts are to be resolved peacefully by negotiation and compromise, increase mutual trust and makes the threat of violence unnecessary

  Institutions: Democratic leaders who fight war are held responsible, through democratic institutions, for the costs and benefits of war, costs of war often outweigh benefits and borne by general public
• Democratic Peace Theory was very influential in US policy circles in the 1990s and 2000s, leading to development aid around the world and military force (e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan)
• Critiques of Democratic Peace Theory

  • Dubious Theory: Causality not established (correlation does not equal causation, dataset too small, definitions contested)

  Irrelevance: Interstate war is declining/obsolete despite no global democracy, DPT is irrelevant for civil wars, transnational wars, terrorism etc., promotion of liberal political and economic orders around the world involves much violence not accounted for by DPT
• Capitalist Peace Theory


  If states remove barriers to trade, international productivity will be raised, resulting in a more prosperous global economy with satisfied customers & states. If states develop close economic linkages, they will have material incentives to avoid conflict with one another.
• Critiques of Capitalist Peace Theory by Gonzalez-Vicente

  • Temporal Critique: Liberalism failure to see longer-term processes of social conflict fomented by interdependence and marketization

  Imperial Critique: Liberalism failure to grasp market-based imperialism

  Scalar Critique: Liberalism ignorance of Neoliberal violence
• International ethics is not concerned with explaining the world but rather with offering guidance about what ought to be done in moral terms
• Analytical Philosophy Approaches to International Ethics

  • Deontological: Outline rules that are always good for everyone to follow, right in themselves

  Consequentialism: Judging actions by the desirability of their outcomes

  Kantianism: Rules that are right because they can be, in principle, agreed upon by everyone (universalizability)

  Utilitarianism: Judging acts by their outcomes in terms of human welfare, the greatest good of the greatest number
• Critiques of Analytical Philosophy Approaches to International Ethics

  • Deontological: Criticized for being too general and too abstracted from the specific circumstances in which people have to make moral choices

  Consequentialism: Criticized for difficulties reliably anticipating what consequences our actions will actually have & for potentially justifying acts many would consider immoral if they could be shown to contribute to some greater good
• Continental Philosophy Approaches to International Ethics

  • A deeply contextualized method that sees ethics as extending from the nature of the relationships among people, skeptical of abstract universalism

  Post-structuralism: Challenge dominant and taken-for-granted meanings, especially those purporting to be universal e.g. humanity