Peace in the Twenty-First Century: States, Capital and Institutions
Oliver Richmond asks in Chapter Two whether we can move beyond the older ideas of peace and order – and their associated rationalities and dispotifs – which simply implied that IR and politics had to occur within the confines of power, structure and nature. Can we instead develop a more maximalist normative and ethical vision for IR? Can difference, inequality and unequal power be permanently managed by the state and international institutions or will they too become victims of unequal power, as appears often to have been the case since the Second World War? These questions are asked in the context of debates on liberal-democratic peace, human rights, and cosmopolitanism that are each linked with various forms of intervention; from development to peacebuilding and humanitarianism. This ‘interventionary system/order’ model has come under pressure from a range of different fronts, and as such this chapter examines how peace and development may be rethought in a global framework if the previous version of a progressive framework (i.e. the liberal peace) is now being revised and intervention has shifted towards neo-liberal forms.