Abstract

What is the importance of the perspective “from which” war is seen and studied? what consequences derive from its changing (e.g. thanks to legal rules and social institutions)?. The perspective question can be instantiated by the modern dichotomy state of nature-civil society, and beyond war it is extensible to related concepts like “security”. When war is conceived as the authentic ontology of States’ relations, peace is an “empty” space incapable to offer any standpoint. The last decades developments show the “new” capability of a “peace standpoint”, a greatly institutionalised normative dimension offering different meaning to the common space. Once achieved this point of view, not only war ceases to structure an ontological dimension, but it can hardly be appealed to for its alternative “constructive” (or re-shaping) function in the era of terrorism and nuclear menace