This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. We decompose the critics’ argument into two steps, one which offers a diagnosis of what goes wrong when things go wrong in peacebuilding operations, and a second, which argues on the basis of the first step that there is some deep principled flaw in the very idea of liberal peacebuilding. We show that the criticism launched in the argument’s first step is valid and important, but that (...) the second step by no means follows. Drawing a connection between liberal peacebuilding and humanitarian intervention, we argue that the problems that the critics point to are in fact best addressed within the framework of liberal internationalism itself. Further, we argue that the development of the notion of human security marks a dawning awareness within liberal internationalism of the kinds of problems that the critics point to, however difficult it may still be to embody these ideas in practice. (shrink)

Many contemporary liberals adhere to the "liberal peace project" -- that is, the idea that world peace can be realized through the spread of political liberalism, or capitalist democracy. The LPP is based on projecting toward the future the well-documented fact that secure modern democracies have never fought wars with one another. A spirit of optimism prevails among LPP proponents, bolstered by the recent uprise in democracies, and they argue that their cause can be advanced by a (...) liberal foreign policy that promotes free trade and human rights. I argue that the LPP is flawed by not recognizing that the stability of new democracies and the emergence of additional democratic states require a fundamental regulation of the growing global economic market. It should include global labor rights, a "Tobin tax" or a "global resources dividend" that generates capital for investment in developing countries, and global environmental measures. I conclude that lasting world peace necessitates global justice and a democratization of international institutions. (shrink)

A Skeptical View of the Liberal Peace reflects on the place of democracy in the global community. The article pays particular attention to the widespread assumption that there is an inherent relationship between democracy and peace, and that peace most assuredly is derived from democracy itself. I find these assertions to be highly questionable and overstated. Reflection on the philosophy which underpins these claims can only be helpful for international relations. In particular, given the United States’ (...) apparent imperialistic urge to force democracies on other nations as Iraq, the article seems especially timely. (shrink)

The Triumph of Liberal Democratic Peace and the Dangers of Its Success” provides an overview of the “liberal democratic peace theory” that is associated with Kant and has been developed by Doyle and other contemporary scholars. The chapter examines the problem of wars that are fought in the name of democracy and the way that the liberal democratic peace theory can end up encouraging military interventions. It argues that a careful understanding of the Kantian (...) democratic peace theory can resist the urge to intervene. It employs Galtung’s notion of cultural violence to provide a critique of interventionist peace action. It concludes by advising that we work to find a way to build bridges between democracies and non-democracies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Just Peace:A Buddhist-Christian Path to LiberationKyeongil JungThe primary goal of religion is liberation from suffering, and the state of liberation is peace. In that sense religion is a salvific and peace-seeking path. But just as many rivers flow into one great ocean, there are many paths to liberation, that is, to peace. Since the destination is the same, peace-seekers may walk on one path, (...) two paths, or more. I don't know whether it is due to good karma or divine grace, but I have been walking on two paths, Buddhist and Christian, since I began to pursue a spiritual-social transformation of the self and the world. This is possible, as my late friend Praveen Chaudhari said, not because the two paths are the same but precisely because they are different.The contrasting difference I have experienced is that while Buddhism is a path of peace to peace, Christianity is a path of justice to peace. This difference has become more apparent to me as I have studied and practiced both socially engaged Buddhism and liberation theology. Engaged Buddhists seek to achieve peace through "being peace," which is an impartial and nonadversarial way of proceeding, whereas liberative Christians seek to achieve peace through working for justice, which entails a preferential and confrontational attitude. But in these differences I believe that the two approaches can complement, not contradict, each other. They can do so because Buddhism and Christianity are differently but equally salvific paths on the common ground of human suffering.I walk on the two paths to peace at the same time. While this may not be possible intellectually and logically, in my experience it becomes possible through praxis. Liberation theologians are right that theological reflection is a "second act" that follows the first act: the praxis of liberation. In this essay I reflect on four major oppositions that have arisen in the course of my dual praxis: compassion language and justice language, peace and justice, nonviolence and violence, and meditation and action. In each case the opposition is resolved through mutual correction in view of the salvific purpose of both emphases.Compassion Language and Justice LanguageThere are two languages that inspire people to respond to human suffering, namely, the language of compassion and that of justice. Though the two languages are spoken [End Page 3] by Buddhists as well as Christians, compassion language is often attributed to Buddhism and justice language to Christianity. Buddhists draw mainly on compassion language to respond to human suffering. Such language is impartial: it does not discriminate between victims and victimizers, but encourages Buddhists to be compassionate toward both. Thich Nhat Hanh gives a striking illustration of the impartiality of Buddhist compassion: "I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving."1The two italicized "be" verbs challenge me. Though it is not always easy, I have no problem with the first "am" in the poem. I am compassionate toward the poor twelve-year-old girl. I feel her pain, shame, and despair. The compassion language does not allow me to distance myself here from her there. The girl's suffering is my suffering; I am the twelve-year-old girl. But, the second "am" takes my breath away. It is unthinkable and even immoral to identify myself with the sea pirate and to be compassionate toward him. I am not the pirate. Instead of compassion, I feel anger. The pirate should be punished for his heinous crime. I must take sides with the girl against the sea pirate. Why on earth is Nhat Hanh compassionate toward the evil sea pirate?Nhat Hanh was also angry when he heard of the girl's cruel fate. However, after meditating on the tragedy, he realized that he could not simply take sides: "If I had been born in his village and brought up under the same conditions, I would be exactly like him."2 He cannot take sides because he is aware of conditions in which a poor... (shrink)

As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay focuses on the role of institutions as agents of peaceful change from a perspective that emphasizes the importance of a wide spectrum of human emotions to better understand the less quantifiable but nevertheless important conditions for being able to sustain initiatives for peaceful change. It aims to throw light on the often overlooked psychological and emotional hurdles standing in the way of agents’ ability to undertake and sustain action (...) designed to lead to peaceful change. To do so, the essay returns to the pioneering work of Ernst Haas and his important concept of “spillover.” The essay shows that the neofunctional understanding of spillover was a theoretically important innovation, but that it was missing three essential elements: an understanding of the need for positive emotions and ontological security; an understanding of the link between values and identity; and a realization of the importance of a shared vision for the “good life.” To illustrate the problems with Haas's version of spillover, but also to highlight the significant potential of the theory, the essay turns to the crisis of the liberal international order as an example of a forum where the agency to undertake peaceful change seems to be faltering. The essay concludes that the ability of the liberal order to effect peaceful change is currently hampered because the order is characterized by negative emotions, contested values, and a vision of the good life that is seen as mainly a benefit for the cosmopolitan elite. (shrink)

The idea that peace prevails in the relations among liberal democratic states, given its first expression in Kant’s essay “Toward Perpetual Peace,” has gathered a great deal of attention in the post-Cold War period as both a testable hypothesis and a proposal for expanding peace through democratization. This article examines the explanations for how a democratic peace is achieved and sustained. It argues that, despite tendencies within democratic state relations toward peaceful conflict resolution, such a (...) peace is destabilized by continued adherence to a set of assumptions and practices which we might call, following Jane Addams and John Dewey, ‘the war system.’ In the context of the ideological and institutional supports of militarism, democratic states remain subject to the dynamics of conflict escalation that produce occasions for war. This war system is the undoing of the democratic peace. (shrink)

This book explores the morality of compromising. The author argues that peace and public justification are values that provide moral reasons to make compromises in politics, including compromises that establish unjust laws or institutions. He explains how it is possible to have moral reasons to agree to moral compromises and he debates our moral duties and obligations in making such compromises. The book also contains discussions of the sources of the value of public justification, the relation between peace (...) and justice, the nature of modus vivendi arrangements and the connections between compromise, liberal institutions and legitimacy. In exploring the morality of compromising, the book thus provides some outlines for a map of political morality beyond justice. (shrink)

This paper argues for a postcritical praxis in global citizenship education (GCE) and peace education (PE). The paper begins by critiquing the interlocking fields of GCE and PE as problematically framed around the three key pillars of liberal peace. Then, drawing on postabyssal thinking the paper illustrates that the Western-centricity of liberal peacebuilding is not only colonialist/imperialist but that it is an erasure of the other. The paper argues that in light of this realization epistemological pluralism (...) as a transformative response is wanting. Instead new responses must focus on other ontological possibilities grounded in a postcritical response to postabyssal thought. Before concluding, the paper offers some pedagogic possibilities integrating the ontological for a new postcritical GCE and PE. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Girardian Critique of the Liberal Democratic Peace TheoryKyle Scott (bio)IntroductionRené Girard is unfamiliar to most political scientists, but the liberal democratic peace theory (LDPT) is known by almost all in the discipline. René Girard has developed a theory of the origin and perpetuation of violence that is well known to scholars in literature, anthropology, and theology. Girard’s theory can be adapted to the LDPT (...) in order to provide a causal explanation for the empirical evidence that finds democracies do not go to war with one another. Without understanding why democracies do not fight one another, the LDPT is only an empirical artifact. Uncovering a causal explanation, if one exists, can help lead researchers to unravel the paradox of why democracies do not go to war with one another but are just as war prone as nondemocracies. In addition to unraveling this paradox, understanding the causal link between peace and democracy will help us find out whether more democracies will lead to more peace.Girard poses a challenge to the democratization for peace thesis, a thesis that serves as the basis for much of the foreign policy of the United States.1 For Girard, violence originates in desire. A subject desires what others desire and [End Page 45] therefore others are seen as roadblocks to that desire. This can turn violent. But the violence does not have to occur between the two subjects who have the same desire; it can be redirected to a surrogate victim who ends up being a scapegoat. If Girard’s theory is applied to the LDPT, the conclusion would be that nondemocracies are merely scapegoats for democracies so that order can be maintained in communities of democracies. Therefore, if the world becomes composed entirely of democracies, there will be no scapegoats left and democracies will fight one another.Such a theory of violence, and such a critique of the LDPT, is unfamiliar to mainstream political scientists.2 I do not suggest that Girard’s theory holds the answer to the problem of achieving perpetual peace, but the base assumption of Girard’s theory should be addressed by those who favor the LDPT. Girard begins from the idea that to achieve peace one must first understand the origin of violence. The LDPT, on the other hand, looks only at the conditions in which peace occurs, ignoring the origins of violence, thus potentially arriving at misleading conclusions.3 Applying Girard’s theory to the LDPT, and deriving alternative hypotheses from that application, will benefit all those who study war, as Girard provides a fresh perspective in the search for the causal mechanism underlying the empirical findings.Fortunately this article is not the first to apply Girard’s theory outside its traditional arenas. John Steele explains that expressive punishment can be explained in Girardian terms; R. G. Hamerton-Kelly argues that nuclear deterrence can be understood in Girardian terms; and Scott Thomas examines the current state of international affairs in a Girardian context.4 These studies can be used as a template by scholars trying to apply Girard’s theory to a field of study that has not previously used it. I will follow this template by first providing a critical examination of the current state of LDPT scholarship and then moving on to a discussion of Girard’s theory of violence. Section III contrasts Girard’s theory with other alternative explanations of war and peace in order to distinguish Girard’s theory from these explanations and to help clarify Girard’s theory.I. The Liberal Democratic Peace TheoryThe most widely accepted theory in international relations is the LDPT, even though empirical evidence supports both sides in the debate. However, most scholars agree that stable democracies do not go to war with other stable democracies.5 There are critics who suggest that the logic underlying the democratic [End Page 46] peace theory is flawed, and that exceptions to the theory can be found.6 The point of this article is not to contest the findings of those who support or refute the LDPT, but to illuminate one of its gravest shortcomings—the lack of a convincing causal explanation—and to provide direction to... (shrink)

This article sets out some of the key features of a realist critique of liberal moralism, identifying descriptive inadequacy and normative irrelevance as the two fundamental lines of criticism. It then sketches an outline of a political theory of modus vivendi as an alternative, realist approach to political theory. On this account a modus vivendi should be understood as any political settlement that involves the preservation of peace and security and is generally acceptable to those who are party (...) to it. In conclusion, some problems with this conception of modus vivendi and with a realist political theory more generally are discussed. In particular, the question is raised of whether a realist political theory should be understood as an alternative to liberal moralism or only a better way of doing basically the same kind of thing. (shrink)

The decline in organized violence in the period after World War II provides the promise of a more peaceful future. How can we move further in this direction? Democratic peace—the absence of armed violence between democracies and the domestic peace of mature democracies—may provide part of the answer. This phenomenon is a well-established empirical regularity, but its mechanisms and its limits remain a subject of continuing research. The key role of democracy in reducing violence has been challenged by (...) alternative explanations, such as the liberal peace, the capitalist peace, the developed peace, the organized peace, the quality of government peace, the feminist peace, and the civil society peace—but also by realism. In this essay, part of the roundtable “World Peace,” I argue that it is a social-democratic peace that provides the best basis for a lasting world peace. This formula includes democracy but incorporates additional elements, such as a market economy, an active and competent state, close international cooperation, and the reduction of discrimination and group-based inequality. Combining these elements would provide a solid basis for eliminating violence between, as well as within, states. The main limitation of such a program is its demanding nature. Few states and interstate relations as yet fulfill all these conditions, but the long-term trends are moving in the right direction. (shrink)

How can a just peace be built in sites of genocide, massive civil war, dictatorship, terrorism, and poverty? In Strategies of Peace, the first volume in the Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding series, fifteen leading scholars propose an imaginative and provocative approach to peacebuilding. Today the dominant thinking is the "liberal peace," which stresses cease fires, elections, and short run peace operations carried out by international institutions, western states, and local political elites. But the liberal (...) peace is not enough, the authors argue. A just and sustainable peace requires a far more holistic vision that links together activities, actors, and institutions at all levels. By exploring innovative models for building lasting peace-a United Nations counter-terrorism policy that also promotes good governance; coordination of the international prosecution of war criminals with local efforts to settle civil wars; increasing the involvement of religious leaders, who have a unique ability to elicit peace settlements; and many others--the authors advance a bold new vision for peacebuilding. (shrink)

In recent years a debate has raged in American political science and philosophy about the validity of the hypothesis that the growth in the number of states with liberal-democratic polities will lead to a more stable and harmonious international order. This article travels down the path of democratic peace not with the present preoccupations in mind but rather with the intention of deciding what the argument looks like from Kant's and a Kantian perspective. In the literature on democratic (...) peace Kant has been much referred to: it is true to say that he has become an emblem of the thesis. This is so to such an extent that authors need only cite Kant to show that they are engaging with the debate. The treatment of Kant in such articles tends to be quite cursory. Here I want to alter this emphasis by attempting to measure the democratic peace thesis by Kant's standards. There are intriguing differences of emphasis between current international liberal peace theorists and Kant's original argument which tell us a lot about the priorities of liberal internationalism now, and Kant's contrasting objectives for practical philosophy and humanity ingeneral. (shrink)

Thucydides is an important author for any discussion of the possibilities for an ancient Greek democratic peace. Though democratic peace did not, in fact, seem to function in classical Greece, a number of passages in Thucydides show that an affinity did exist among democratic factions and city-states in the context of hostile competition between democratic and oligarchic regimes. Thucydides remarked on this competition and was aware of the inter-democratic affinities, but did not seem to think them salient in (...) city-state decisions of war and peace. The failure of democratic peace to develop may relate to the environment of the Greek city-state, which privileged local interests over broader constitutional ideals. (shrink)

To a world assaulted by private interests, this book argues that peace must be a public thing. Distinguished philosophers of peace have always worked publicly for public results. Opposing nuclear proliferation, organizing communities of the disinherited, challenging violence within status quo establishments, such are the legacies of truly engaged philosophers of peace. This volume remembers those legacies, reviews the promise of critical thinking for crises today, and expands the free range of thinking needed to create more mindful (...) and peaceful relations. With essays by committed peace philosophers, this volume shows how public engagement has been a significant feature of peace philosophers such as Camus, Sartre, Dewey, and Dorothy Day. Today we also confront historical opportunities to transform practices for immigration, police interrogation, and mental health, as we seek to sustain democracies of increasing multicultural diversity. In such cases our authors consider points of view developed by renowned thinkers such as Weil, Mouffe, Conway, and Martín-Baró. This volume also presents critical analysis of concepts for thinking about violence, reconsiders Plato’s philosophy of justice, and examines the role of ethical theory for liberation struggles such as Occupy! (shrink)

Because the goal of reducing violence is nearly universally accepted, the uniquely prescriptive character of peace and conflict studies is rarely scrutinized. However, prescriptive pacifism in social psychological peace research (SPPR) masks a diversity of opinion on whether nonintervention is more effective in promoting peace than intervention to punish aggression, restore stability, and/or prevent atrocity. SPPR’s skepticism is sharper in the post–9/11 era when states use public fear of terrorist threat to promote sometimes-unrelated domestic and geostrategic interests. (...) The most frequently proposed remedy for this kind of abuse is some form of international legal positivism that permits the use of force only in self-defense, per strict interpretation of the United Nations Charter, or not at all—a position the author calls ‘prescriptive pacifism." This project critically examines the metaethical premises of prescriptive pacifism, positivism, and realism, how these animate the moral and political skepticism of peace studies, psychology, and international relations, respectively, and meet in SPPR. After comparing the intellectual development of these fields and just war theory, I present influential psychologist Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT) of moral judgment and aggression as a case study. I present evidence of the problematic nature of Bandura and others’ formulation of moral engagement and disengagement, tracing their contradictions to the named premises. In brief, I argue that SCT’s underlying skepticism of individual moral judgment implies elite or consensus-driven models of social and political change whose institutional gradualism contradicts these authors’ and SPPR’s stated progressive aims, and whose utilitarian ethos undermines the egalitarian individualism that underpins both the liberal conception of the rule of law and the international human rights regime. Finally, I present an alternative model of moral reasoning and engagement based on a Kantian constructivist understanding of international ethics, and the theory of the just war. I outline two instruments inspired by these related normative frameworks that in addition to being more internally coherent, operationalize moral engagement and disengagement in a manner more consonant with political liberalism, existing international humanitarian law, and the emergent norm known as Responsibility to Protect. Intended for use in the collection and coding of qualitative responses to survey research of public opinion on morally ambiguous issues in international politics such as intervention and territorial integrity, these instruments avoid the tendency of existing SPPR frameworks toward false positives of militarism and pacifism. Their presentation also makes mutually comprehensible the often-confusing professional idioms of international relations, political theory, moral philosophy, and social psychology, standing to make a contribution to each. (shrink)

It is evident that the international order has been changed at the beginning of the twenty-first century after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Peace is the essential end of every constitutional democracy, internally -in the relationships that its members maintain among themselves-, as well as externally -those relations that a society sustains with others. The problem arises especially in the relation of constitutional democracies with other political regimes. Whereas Kant defended that the best means to achieve peace (...) was the expansion of the republican regime, Rawls’ defense of liberal democracy did not envisage its expansion. The relations of a constitutional democracy with other societies, whether democratic or not, necessarily require a limitation of sovereignty in their exercise abroad. However, the relations among different sovereigns remain underdeveloped, practically at the mercy of the good or bad will of each of them, without a praetor with the capacity to establish the universal will that should prevail in the relations among states. (shrink)

Notoriously, state-building is a key enterprise in regard of addressing the international conflicts throughout the globe. The consolidation of peace associated to it is intimately connected with the institutionalization of liberal ideas in structuring realms such as the political, the economical and the social spheres. Departing from Foucauldian concepts such as dispositif, government, discipline and biopolitics, this paper aims to critically analyze the post-conflict state-building practice. In a first moment, the paper delineates how peace was operationalized during (...) the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. In a second moment, it will present the Foucauldian conceptual tools that enables the (re)problematization of the state-building practice as a post-conflict normalizing dispositif, rather than merely a conflict-resolution tool. (shrink)

Practical political relations according to Luce Irigaray ground the possibilities for emerging to a new political epoch. She articulates that in order to move toward a more peaceful and emancipated politics, philosophers must focus more on subject-subject relations as opposed to subject-object relations. This in turn promotes the possibility of relating to a naturally and culturally different other. She also elaborates how an emancipated politics demands initially and primarily grounding subjectivity in the two, rather than in individuality or collectivity. This (...) is in contrast to classical liberalism which conceives of a social contract between individual agents who relate through mediations of property. Her philosophy conceives of refounding politics not only in the sphere of public government, but also in the traditionally private domestic sphere, which must become politically awakened. She articulates ways of refounding the family and the couple mediated first by relations between two, and liberating the family from its primary role as the material ground of society. Irigaray suggests that political relations at all levels must be rooted in difference rather than sameness, starting with recognizing sexual difference. Establishing such conditions involves creating civil protections and rights, especially for women, and establishing contexts nurturing to desire, including cultivating sensitivity and attending to sensible differences. Liberating contemporary politics from competitiveness and violence, and providing favorable conditions for peace, demands first attending to cultivating difference and fostering relations between two. (shrink)

Recent studies of peacebuilding highlight the importance of attending to people’s local experiences of conflict and cooperation. This trend, however, raises the fundamental questions of how the local is and should be constituted and what the relationship is between institutions and individual actors of peace at the local level of politics. I turn to Hannah Arendt’s thoughts to address these issues. Arendt’s thinking provides a distinctive form of realism that calls for stable institutions but never depletes the spirit of (...) resistance. Peacebuilding guided by this insight seeks to enable parties in conflict to voice their competing opinions by acting agonistically in public and to help them align their disruptive yet creative voices with a desire to establish and sustain common institutions. Thus, Arendt’s thinking not only offers a way to increase sensitivity to local differences but also to provide direction to the politics of resistance. In the end, it offers a balanced insight into peacebuilding and local agency beyond the contemporary liberal and critical approaches to peace. (shrink)

Liberation Unleashedintroduces you to the process of unraveling the false sense of a separate self at the center of your existence. With insightful metaphors, personal stories, and guided dialogues, this book points directly to our lack of separation and helps you move toward a new, more open reality of selfless bliss. Using the seven clear and focused steps presented, you'll find liberation in realizing there is no individuated "I" and marvel at the true nature of things. Author Ilona Ciunaite's search (...) for the truth began when she first "experienced silence of the thinking mind, a sweet sense of being, contentment, peace," and "feeling at home." Driven by a desire to reach that state of oneness once more, her path led her through spiritual writings to the process of deconstruction and non-dual self-inquiry and finally to a peaceful emptiness of not knowing, but of simply being. It's from that place that Ciunaite cocreated the popular Liberation Unleashed forum--a global Internet-based community helping people see through the illusion of a separate self--and it's just that sense of unknowing peace she wishes to impart with this book. Liberation Unleashedis a lively, fresh, and moving account of the author's own searching, liberation, and transformation, woven together with the stories of fellow seekers and a clear exposition of the simple, focused tools you can use to go through the "gateless gate." With its conversational tone, provocative questions, and the presentation of the seven steps--"Clearing the path--meeting the fear," "Strip away ALL expectations," "Get in touch with the real," "'I' is a thought," "There is no separate self," "How does it feel to see this?" and "Falling"--this book serves as an introductory how-to guide, demonstrating how to use the process of self-inquiry to get free from the falseness of the separate self and realize a blissful oneness. So many of us go through life feeling isolated, searching for ourselves, or seeking a more authentic reality through religion, spirituality, or other, more unconventional means of expanding consciousness. Now, with this book and its guiding principles, you'll learn how to look deeply into the nature of self and existence; combat the anxieties, fears, mental blocks, and reservations that can arise in self-inquiry; and see the simple beauty of the everyday moment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND THE INTERPRE.TATION OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE FREDERICK SONTAG Pomona OoUego Olaremont, Oalifornia " It is impossible to remain loyal to Marxism, to the Revolution, without treating insurrection as an art." Lenin, paraphrasing Karl Marx WHENEVER Liberation Theology ·and its contributions to theologicail discussion al'e ·concerned, no aspect has been more controversirul than its association with violence. There is no question that Marxism/Leninism depends on the use of (...) violence. But all liberation theories must take violence into consideration. On the one hand, the ties that hold humans in bondage may be so strong that only violent means ca.n be effective to release us. On the other hand, it is well known that violenre often breeds its own do·wnfall and results in ten·or more often than peace. Since the beginning of time, probably every prrogram seeking to release human beings to their furhl. potential has had to consider the use of violence to achieve its ends, even while awal'e of its potential dangers. Yet this issue takes on a new urgency in our time because of two s[gnificant changes in our situation: (I) Most communist proposals which have resulted in world~wide change have militantly asserted the necessity to use force if we are to be set free; (2) In recent times Liberati.on Theofogy has been espoused by some Christian theologians even while the adoption of pacifism or the abhorrence of violence by most Christian groups is well known. The question of religion's intrusion into the politicaiJ. reailm is problem 271 FREDERICK SONTAG enough, but add to this the question of the use of violence and the discussion becomes very heated indeed. Although many traditions have well-developed positions regarding violence and non-violence, Christianity will be our frame of reference in discussing these issues, since Liberation Theology has, in fact, developed in a Christian context. First of all we havie to ask whether the use of violence to ruchieve politicaJ ends is a;lways ruled out or whether some circumstances might justify it as an ruooeptable tool for Christian use. Where Christianity is concerned, it is always instructive to begin by looking at the life and work of Jesus. Trruditionally, Jesus is seen as rejecting the use of violence and as having suffered vioilence himself. Can anything so change this image as to make violence acceptable on Christian grounds? In ·considering this, we first have to note that Jesus himself lived under po1itiool oppression. We must oons~der the Jewish expectations for the ' Messiah ' and how this role came to be projecbed onto Jesus; their hope for release from Roman oppressors was what plruced mroh high political expectations on Jesus. Christians recognized Jesus as a' Messiah', even though he obvious1ly did not fulfill the role of a political liberato·r. Afiter his death and for centuries fater, Jewish political fortunes went from bad to worse. The people's expectations of gaining release by the hand of Jesus did not result in a change in their political fortunes. Christians diid enter into politics and governments in!Later years, and some welcome changes can be attributed to Christian influence. But still, none of these improvements can be directly attributed to Jesus' efforts in his own fileis a prime :requfoement for success. We 'are aware of the Marxist/Leninist insistency on toeing the line on dogma, for conformity to doctrine. But can the Christian,aiccept the uniformity of interpretation which effective acbion seems to require? If the Christian liberation theofogian argues that aU Christians cannot be required to aiocept some one program of wction, he or she is limited by the division that plurality brings. On the other LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND POLITICAL VIOL]j]NCE '277 hand, the Christian revotutionary activist should not be told that his program is " unchristian " as judged by some singular, authoritative standard. Of course, the chief complication in saying this lies with a hieI"archical church which includes authorities to formulate doctrine. The Christian who wants to act differently from what the srbructure of such a chureh allows will either: (1) have to find a way to act independently and still stay within that community; or (2) convince... (shrink)

Aristotle famously argues that friendship can serve as a normative model for the practice of citizenship, and this view has been widely accepted by neo-Aristotelians. Liberals, however, are quick to reject both Aristotle's view of friendship and his view of citizenship. Does this mean that the concept of friendship is politically irrelevant for liberalism? This essay suggests, on the contrary, that the concept of friendship is far from obsolete, even for liberals. Specifically, communicative constraints derived from the norms of friendship, (...) as interpreted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, could serve to promote the modest instrumental purposes of liberal citizenship-personal freedom, social justice, and civil peace-while simultaneously allowing the practice of liberal citizenship to develop in noninstrumental directions, enriched rather than strained by the multicultural realities of most modern societies. (shrink)

Liberalism is a wonderful theory, but its adherents have a difficult time explaining why. In his Tanner Lecture entitledFoundations of Liberal Equality, Ronald Dworkin proposes to defend liberalism in a new way. Dworkin is not content to view liberalism as a political compromise in which people set aside their personal convictions in the interest of social peace. Instead, he undertakes to make liberal political theory “continuous” with personal ethics, by describing an ethical position that endorses liberalism as (...) a matter of conviction. (shrink)

Charles Taylor and John Gray offer competing liberal responses to the contemporary challenge of pluralism. Gray's morally minimal 'modus vivendi liberalism' aims at peaceful coexistence between plural ways of life. It is, in Judith Shklar's phrase, a 'liberalism of fear' that is skeptical of attempts to harmonize clashing values. In contrast, Taylor's 'hermeneutic liberalism' is based on dialogical engagement with difference and holds out the possibility that incompatible values and traditions can be reconciled without oppression or distortion. Although Taylor's (...) theory is superior to Gray's because it recognizes that dialogue is crucial for respecting pluralism, both theories fail to fully articulate the ethical ideal of citizenship that they imply. Citizens who are able to dialogically engage with pluralism must be cultivated through liberal education to possess certain ethical traits, and this requirement inevitably limits the range of pluralism liberal societies can accommodate. The theoretical overemphasis on pluralism in recent liberal theory serves to obscure this point. (shrink)

Toleration is typically defined as follows: an agent (A), for some reason, objects to certain actions or practices of someone else (B), but has outweighing other reasons to accept these actions or practices nonetheless and, thus, refrains from interfering with or preventing B from acting accordingly, although A has the power to interfere. So understood, (mutual) toleration is taken to allow for peaceful coexistence and ideally even cooperation amongst people who disagree with each other on crucial questions on how to (...) live and what to value, which is why it has traditionally been regarded as an important part of political liberalism. An explicitly value-neutral liberal state then avoids taking sides when it comes to different and competing ways of life. However, following this idea of liberal neutrality, it has been questioned whether a value-neutral liberal state still needs toleration or is even compatible with it, for apparently neutrality leaves no more room for the objection component of toleration to take hold. In this paper, I take up this question and argue that there is, indeed, conceptual and practical room left for a value-neutral liberal state to be tolerant. Drawing on the interplay between four kinds of reasons (pragmatic, ethical, moral, and political), pragmatic and political reasons may still provide the needed evaluative and normative ground upon which the combination of objection and outweighing acceptance can be made sense of. However, the possible scope of toleration for a value-neutral liberal state is considerably limited. (shrink)

This paper aims to relax the tension between the political requirements of making peace and the moral demands of doing justice, in light of the peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It begins by arguing that criminal justice should be reconceived as consisting primarily in the vindication of victims, both direct and indirect. This is not to deny the retributive punishment of perpetrators any role at all, only to insist that it be largely subservient to the (...) goal of vindication. Why should we take such an account of justice to be true? The paper offers two reasons. First, Christians – and even secularist liberals – have a prima facie reason in the consonance of this account with the Bible's eudaimonistic conception of justice as ordered to the restoration of healthy community. Second, since all concepts of criminal justice share the basic notion of putting right what is wrong, it would be odd if the repair of damage done to victims (i.e., their vindication) were not prominent among its concerns; and there are reasons to suppose that this vindication should actually predominate in relation to the other principles of justice (the retributive balancing of crime and punishment, and the reform of the criminal for his own sake). In its final sections, the paper applies the proposed conception of criminal justice to the peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and concludes that in both cases, notwithstanding concessions to the politics of peace-making, considerable justice has been done. (shrink)

Despite their professed multiculturalism, educated Americans find it hard to imagine that others do not share their liberal values. Does not everyone love their children and want peace? The author of the article, a Tolstoy scholar and student of Russian culture, discusses topics—war, revolution, and what one scholar has called “secular kenosis”—that mark radical differences between Russians and Americans. He then describes a debate between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky over whether morality demands military intervention when a barbarous regime practices (...) widespread torture and massacre. The two novelists pose the issues in ways that shed light on a question still relevant today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation by Daniel PhilpottGlen StassenJust and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation Daniel Philpott New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 365pp. $29.95Just and Unjust Peace deals with an important question: What does a holistic framework of justice consist of in the wake of its massive despoliation? The wounds of political injustice include the following: violation of (...) the victim’s human rights, harms to the victim’s person, the victim’s ignorance of the source and circumstances of political injustices, the lack of acknowledgment of the suffering, the standing victory of the wrongdoer’s political injustice, and harm to the person of the wrongdoer. In such situations, Philpott argues, “what the government and community withhold is... an acknowledgment not only that a victim has rights but also that his rights were violated and that he suffered because of this violation” (37).The definition of justice in this context of wounds is reconciliation. It “encompasses peace settlements, human rights, democracy, and other key goals of negative and positive peace [as well as]... a broad restoration of right relationship involving a multiplicity of practices that each redress wounds of injustice in a particular way” (48–49).Daniel Philpott affirms peace as human rights, equality, and the rule of law, plus actors and institutions like the United Nations that spread this justice. He presents a fair summary of contending positions on human rights and works to develop overlapping agreement. “What is most essential to right relationship in the political order is human rights, their popular legitimacy, and their corresponding virtues” (55). But also, “It is in redressing wrong conduct—the other dimension of justice—that political reconciliation becomes far more distinctive” (55). This requires a deeper understanding of just peacemaking with restorative justice based in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and in insightful assessment of the burgeoning practices of truth commissions and restorative justice in the transitions from dictatorship to democracy.Philpott’s “rooted reason” invites different religions to speak from their depths but also encourages them to speak with reasons that can convince in public discourse (18, 20). Envisioning the incorporation of reconciliation into the modern state “is the life’s work of Rabbi Marc Gopin. In today’s Middle East, [End Page 211] Gopin argues, Jews as well as Christians and Muslims cannot afford to ignore the peacebuilding potential of traditional religious concepts” (132). Philpott also exhibits sensitive understanding of Islam, asking, “Do Islamic texts and traditions contain the materials for the construction of the ethic of political reconciliation that I am proposing? Can Muslims, on the basis of their religious convictions, join in an overlapping consensus on such an ethic?” His answer is a clear yes (153).He identifies and assesses six practices of a politics of reconciliation. The first involves building socially just institutions and relations between states: “Since 1974, some ninety societies... have sought to replace dictatorships with democracies.... A similarly intense global wave of peace operations sponsored by the United Nations... has sought to foster human rights and democratic institutions in states that have seen civil war” (175–76). The second has to do with the practices of political acknowledgment of wrongs: “Human rights are the standard that gives truth commissions and other public forms of acknowledgment form and direction” (188). The third pertains to reparations, with attention to the ongoing effects of historical injustices for descendants (195 and 201). The fourth addresses judicial punishment: “In practicing judicial punishment, a state redresses the violation of the victim’s rights insofar as it expresses, reaffirms, and thereby strengthens human rights as the legally valid values of its realm or of relations between it and another state” (237). The fifth is apology: “Like all of the other practices, apologies performed in political contexts have grown in frequency” (198). Finally, there is forgiveness. “Political injustices harm victims by robbing them of their agency and of their ability to pursue their own and others’ flourishing.... Forgiveness... re-empowers the victim as agent... [and liberates] from anger and resentment” and can also lead to recognition of the victim’s suffering, and to mutual respect for human rights (266–68... (shrink)

In 1989, the age of power political realism ended. The conditions were set to replace the prevailing Hobbesian model of peace by deterrence with the considerably more challenging Kantian model of peace by right. If, however, Huntington's paradigm of fighting civilizations were right, we would have to forget Kant and remember Hobbes. Sober rationality, healthy distrust, striving for power accumulation and all the other instruments from the realist's toolbox of political prudence are very well suited to facilitate political (...) self-assertion in an age of violently clashing cultures. However, this helplessness is not well grounded. Considering that from the very beginning liberalism is a theory of religious and ethical pluralism and well-experienced in dealing with problems of multiculturalism, it is at least possible to argue for a weak liberal universalism which provides normative foundations for a global order of peacefully living together. Of course, conceptual and moral modesty is crucial. If the human rights doctrine wants to defend its universal claim in the face of cultural diversity , it has to restrict itself to the conditions of esse: the pre-cultural and sheer natural conditions of human being and human coexistence. However, the formulation of the conditions of bene esse has to be left to culture and its authorities and belief systems which buttress a cultural constitution of meaning, both theologically and metaphysically. Traditional natural rights theory knew that both have to go together, and that the esse-enabling duties necessarily enjoy priority. No cultural conception of thriving life and existential significance can be accepted which contradicts the fundamental imperatives and conditions of pure human existence and coexistence. (shrink)

Kant’s landmark essay “On Perpetual Peace” is as timely, relevant, and inspiring today as when it was first written over 200 years ago. In it we find a forward-looking vision of a world respectful of human rights, dominated by liberal democracies, and united in a cosmopolitan federation of diverse peoples. The essay is an expression of global idealism that remains an enduring antidote to the violence and cynicism that are all too often on display in international relations and (...) foreign affairs. This book features a fresh and vigorous translation of Kant’s essay by Ian Johnston, and it includes an extended introduction by philosopher Brian Orend. The introduction situates Kant’s essay in its historical context and offers a substantial analysis, section by section, of the essay itself. In doing so, Orend not only discusses Kant’s personal life and the history of the perpetual peace tradition, he also shows how Kant’s provocative ideas have inspired and infused our own time, especially the concept of a global alliance of free societies committed to respecting human rights. (shrink)

_A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail_ In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great (...) powers abroad. It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build institutions. This policy of remaking the world in America’s image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has ended up as a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. Mearsheimer tells us why this has happened. (shrink)

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls defends the claim that ‘decent’ societies (non-liberal, non-democratic constitutional republics) deserve full and good standing in the international community. His defense of decent societies consists of two main arguments. First, he argues that the basic human right to political participation does not imply a right to democratic political institutions. This argument has been thoroughly discussed by commentators. Second, he argues that decent societies, if admitted to the international community, would pose no special (...) threat to the stability of that community. This argument has largely been ignored. My aim in this article is to analyze this second argument, which I call the ‘peace argument'. argumen. (shrink)

The liberal international order is being challenged today by populism and unilateralism. Though it has been resilient in the past, the current challenges from within the order are unprecedented. Without being too pessimistic, I expect the LIO will survive but retract to its original core states in North America, Europe, and Northeast Asia, shedding some of its universal pretensions. States that remain within the liberal order, in turn, will compete with an alternative Chinese-led international hierarchy built around all (...) or part of the current Belt and Road Initiative countries. While international institutions can facilitate cooperation, they do not bridge this emerging divide sufficiently to forestall conflict and, in any event, will not be sufficiently robust to prevent a new cold war. As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this brief essay sketches this argument and concludes with some possible ways of moderating future conflicts. (shrink)

This book is an ambitious and challenging restatement of traditional political philosophy. The first of a three-volume series, Limits and Renewals, the book is concerned with the nature of political society, particularly with the errors and faulty arguments that have been used to support a "liberal modernist" view of the state and our political system. Clark argues that political modernism, which is determinedly secular and untraditional, has been a destructive influence on religion and our understanding of community living. In (...) order to secure a decent social order, he contends, we must rediscover our allegiance to a sacred order that is represented by, for example, family loyalties, a respect for tradition, and attention to the wider interests of the global and historical community. (shrink)

This essay offers a philosophical critique of modern accounts of liberal internationalism in light of two early modern European formulations of international order developed by Hugo Grotius and Emmerich de Vattel. The major problem in theories of international relations has been the straightforward extension of principles of domestic order to relations between states to achieve a peaceful co-existence. Conventional theories see ?international order? in terms either of a hierarchical order in which states pursue a common interest and interact strategically, (...) or an anarchical order in which common purposes are lacking and warfare is paramount. Elements of both views are found in Grotius and Vattel and this allows us to understand the failure of modern accounts of liberal internationalism in order to grasp the global transformation of power between states that is underway at present. (shrink)

As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay examines the role of institutional soft balancing in bringing forth peaceful change in international relations. Soft balancing is understood as attempts at restraining a threatening power through institutional delegitimization, as opposed to hard balancing, which relies on arms buildup and formal alignments. We argue that soft balancing through international institutions can be an effective means to peaceful change, spanning minimalist goals, which aim at incremental change without the use (...) of military force and war, and maximalist goals, which seek more profound change and transformation in the form of continuous interstate cooperation aimed at a more peaceful and just world order. However, the success of soft-balancing strategies in fostering peaceful change varies widely, even in today's globalized and institutionalized international environment. We explore these variations and identify three conditions for success that can inform both academic analysis and political practice: inclusion, commitment, and status recognition. We draw lessons from two historical examples: the Concert of Europe in the early nineteenth century and the League of Nations in the early twentieth century, and discuss how current threats to the liberal international order challenge soft balancing for peaceful change. (shrink)

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for (...) the conceptualization of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war. (shrink)

From the editors of Voprosy filosofii: In implementing the historical program for peace adopted by the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU, the Soviet Union is pursuing a principled line in its foreign policy that is aimed at achieving a concrete solution to the problem of disarmament, the consolidation of universal peace, and the security of nations. All these questions have an important sociophilosophical meaning. The world is currently going through a very complicated period. The savage attacks on socialism (...) and national liberation movements being mounted by the reactionary circles of the contemporary bourgeoisie have complicated the international situation. Under these conditions the problems attendant on the struggle for peace, and against the threat of nuclear war, have acquired an extremely timely importance. Our journal regularly publishes materials on this topic. In the present issue the readers have been given a selection of articles on the various sociophilosophical aspects of the struggle for peace and social progress. (shrink)

This book explores Hobbes's ideas about the internal pacification of states, the prospect of a peaceful international order, and the connections between civil and international peace. It questions the notion of a negative Hobbesian peace, which is based on the mere suppression of violence, and emphasises his positive vision of everlasting peace in a well-governed commonwealth. The book also highlights Hobbes's ideas about international coexistence and cooperation, which he considers integral to good government. In examining Hobbes's conception (...) of peace, it provides a fresh perspective on his international political thought. The findings also have wider implications for the ways in which we think about Hobbes's relationship to the realist and liberal traditions of international thought, and will appeal to students and scholars of political theory and international relations. (shrink)