David Hume’s Balancing Act: The Political Discourses and the Sinews of War

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
DANIELLE CHARETTE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
David Hume ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Balance Of Trade

Both champions and critics of “neorealism” in contemporary international relations misinterpret David Hume as an early spokesman for a universal and scientific balance-of-power theory. This article instead treats Hume’s “Of the Balance of Power,” alongside the other essays in his Political Discourses (1752), as conceptual resources for a historically inflected analysis of state balancing. Hume’s defense of the balance of power cannot be divorced from his critique of commercial warfare in “Of the Balance of Trade” and “Of the Jealousy of Trade.” To better appreciate Hume’s historical and economic approach to foreign policy, this article places Hume in conversation with Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Andrew Fletcher, and Montesquieu. International relations scholars suspicious of static paradigms should reconsider Hume’s genealogy of the balance of power, which differs from the standard liberal and neorealist accounts. Well before International Political Economy developed as a formal subdiscipline, Hume was conceptually treating economics and power politics in tandem.

Reflections on International Legitimacy

2021 ◽  
pp. 210-218
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Other

In this essay, presented at a Sussex history seminar in 1971, Wight set out reflections on international legitimacy—supported by historical examples—in addition to those included in his two essays entitled ‘International Legitimacy’, one published as an article in 1972 in the journal International Relations, and the other as a chapter in his 1977 posthumous book Systems of States. Wight pointed out in this essay that governments on some occasions have set aside established principles of legitimacy in order to serve other purposes—maintaining a preferred balance of power, gaining territory, promoting commercial relations, or pursuing state-consolidation, sometimes with a ‘lack of scruple’. Wight observed that rules regarding legitimacy have furnished grounds ‘for argument, controversy, conflict, even war’. He nonetheless concluded that ‘the influence of principles of legitimacy upon international politics has generally been overestimated’ and ‘has declined rather than grown, with the transition from the dynastic to the popular age’. Prevailing concepts of legality and legitimacy have correspondingly enjoyed less ‘moral ascendancy’.

Shikar in the Princely Reserves

2018 ◽  
pp. 220-261
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

Chapter 4 examines the complex relations between the British and Indian princes in relation to shikar and the political subtext of power politics at play. The reconstitution of Indian ruling values and identities between the British and Indian princes under the umbrella of big-game hunting is an important arena of colonial fabric. The Britons successfully mobilized these in establishing elitism and hierarchy in the realm of hunting, and enlisting the support of the Indian princes for the continuation of the colonial enterprise. The other important aspect of hunting in India was shikar in the princely reserves, maintained exclusively by Indian rulers for the highest ranks of the colonial elite. Hunting on such occasions was an extravagant affair involving state elephants and other elaborate entourage, in a powerful display of ancient and more recent ruling privileges, and underlining critical political alliances between the princes and the Raj. For the British, the royal shikars lent ritual credence to their political authority in a staged show of solidarity with the traditional rulers of the land. While confirming the solidarity of the ruling classes, the shikar expeditions also tested the strength of bonds between the British and Indian rulers. The colonial government’s endeavour to devise a series of British royal tours in the princely states involving big-game shoots and associated courtly trappings implies a shared aristocratic lineage and desire to promote the idea of Indian empire.

Thomas Hobbes and the external relations of states

1979 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Forsyth
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
External Relations

Hobbes' conception of relations between states has attracted attention from two directions. Students of political theory who have focused on Hobbes have from time to time looked beyond their central preoccupations and noted briefly the relevance of his doctrine for the international arena. The external relations of Leviathan are for them on the fringe of Hobbes' theory. Students of international relations on the other hand invoke Hobbes' name frequently as a kind of shorthand for a particular approach to the international world, one that is also associated with Machiavelli, and usually called the ‘realist’ approach. By contrast with the political theorists, they tend to look from the outside into Hobbes’ theory and to ask whether and how far the ‘domestic’ situation of individuals in a Hobbesian state of nature bears an analogy with the ‘external’ situation of states in relationship to one another.

scholarly journals Incorporating Indigenous Nations into International Political Economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel L. Wellhausen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Context ◽  
Indigenous Nations ◽  
Indian Nations

This comment elaborates on and extends the roundtable’s discussion by turning to the context of Indigenous peoples. Even setting aside normative motivations, expanded study of Indigenous peoples provides clear opportunities for theory development in international political economy and international relations more broadly. For example, the legal status of American Indian Nations’ 326 unique political jurisdictions can inform the political economy of marginalized identity groups in a non-Westphalian but nonetheless international context.

scholarly journals International relations between balance of power and balance of threat (theoretical framework)

2019 ◽  
pp. 285-298
Author(s):  
م.د.حيدر زاير العامري
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
International Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Hard Power ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The U.S

The international order have been changed during the modern and contemporary history, and however those changing in international order doesn't go to beyond several concepts such as " balance of power";" conflict"; "power" and " threaten", which all those are depending on the fundamentals or basic terms which was called " power" or" hard power". In this time, we can say that the political relations among the effective units could be analyzed according to the concept of " balance of threaten" instead of the classic concept which had called " balance of power" that the scholars used to describe the international relations . In conclusion , the concept of " balance of threaten" has a significant importance in the studies of the international relations especially after the attack of 11 september at the U.S.

The Political Economy of African International Relations

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Timothy M. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
New States ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Our understanding of the international political economy of Africa is underdeveloped; we have inadequate data and theories about the development of underdevelopment on the continent. Even the orthodox study of international politics and foreign policy in Africa is largely a recent phenomenon, stimulated by the rise of new states in the last twenty years. This essay, then, can be no more than a review of the field and a lament over its deficiencies. In particular, we are concerned about: i) the relative inattention afforded the impact of international politics on the rate and direction of social change in African states; ii) the need for a new conceptual framework to advance our understanding of the linkage politics between African elites and external interests; and iii) the related growth and international inequalities on the continent. This essay proceeds therefore from a critical review of analyses of the international political economy of Africa to a tentative presentation of a new typology of states and regimes, regions and behavior, in Africa which reflects the importance of those variables on which students of political economy focus.

„Ein Arzneibuch für alle Rezepte“ (Paolo Mattia Doria)

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-494
Author(s):  
Gisela Schlüter
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

Summary „A pharmacopoeia for any prescription“ (Paolo Mattia Doria).Machiavelliana after 1700 Recent research has gained many new insights into Machiavelli’s influence on Early Modern European political history. This article focuses on a so far little researched, but decisive stage in the history of Machiavelli’s influence, namely Paolo Mattia Doria’s treatise „La Vita Civile“ (1709/10; further editions in the 18th century), which was written in Naples, a centre of the Early European Enlightenment. In a peculiar mixture of anti-machiavellism that is inspired by Platonic thought and allegiance to Machiavellian ideas, Doria follows the structure and texture of Machiavelli’s „Il Principe“. The political treatise is still coloured by humanist ideas and includes a speculum principis („L’Educazione del Principe“). Despite the similarities, Doria criticizes Machiavelli’s amoral analysis of power politics and postulates, with reference to Machiavelli’s „Discorsi“, an ideal republic or a principality of virtue with a virtuous ruler (principe virtuoso) at the top. In the course of his analysis, Doria re-moralizes Machiavelli’s morally neutral, praxeological concept of virtù. The treatise reflects the fork in the history of Machiavelli’s influence both on a general level and in its details: the ambivalence of „Il Principe“ as political advice for the successful and unscrupulous prince on the one hand but, on the other hand, as an exposure of unscrupulous power politics, written modo obliquo by the passionate Republican whom Rousseau, for example, wanted to see in Machiavelli.

Historiography and International Relations

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD LITTLE
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Alfred North Whitehead ◽  
The Political ◽  
State University ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Disciplinary History ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
History Of

Stafano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy: The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold, London and New York, Routledge, 1998Brian C. Schmidt, The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1998The philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead, cautioned many years ago that ‘A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost’. If this injunction is true, then there would appear to be very little hope for the study of international relations. Although there is considerable debate about who constitute the founding fathers – names as different as Thucydides, Grotius and Kant come to mind – without doubt, interest in the seminal thoughts about international relations of such figures has never been higher.

Violence in international relations: The first and the last word

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Wight
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Complete Eradication ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Inter State

This article examines change and continuity in the function, role and moral judgement of violence in international relations. In terms of change, the conclusions are mostly pessimistic if the aim is the complete eradication of political violence. The control of violence, on the other hand, and the ability to hold those who employ it to increasing moral and legal standards is perhaps one of the most significant changes in international relations from 1919 to 2019. However, this does not mean that violence has been replaced or even transformed. Violence is constitutive of the political. It is the first and the last word in politics. This is the continuity of violence. Violence, of which war is only the most visceral expression, has not been transformed or replaced, but rather it has been displaced into legal systems, institutional orders and new forms of conflict. Inter-state war may be in decline, but intra-state conflict is rising. To develop this argument, the article argues that change can only be understood as change against a horizon of continuity.

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