Jung on International Politics and the Causes of War

2018 ◽  
pp. 72-96
Author(s):  
Nicholas Adam Lewin
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
Causes Of War

Gain, Fear and Glory

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Preventive War ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
Causes Of War

This paper analyses the three causes of war identified by Thucydides and his most eminent translator, Thomas Hobbes. Looking beyond the circumstantial occasions through which wars begin, the chief motives of belligerents have been to pursue material gains, to respond to fears, and to obtain glory and prestige for a doctrine. Wight calls ‘simple Thucydidean fear … the prime motive in international politics’ because it involves ‘a rational apprehension of contingent evil’, not simply ‘some unreasoning emotion’. Wight discusses how fear may be a cause of preventive war, and he labels the great difficulty of building trust between former adversaries ‘the Hobbesian predicament’. Wight defines this predicament as follows: ‘communities of honest and decent men, when they have suffered a long series of mutual injuries, and have a rational apprehension each that its own existence is at stake, and when moreover they live in inescapable juxtaposition, cannot transpose themselves into an attitude of mutual trust’. He also explores the tension between freedom and necessity: the circumstances at hand may seem to be tractable, with choices available between possible decisions and their likely consequences; yet the factors leading to war may prove inescapable.

Maneuvers; the International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. By Cynthia Enloe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 418p. $45.00 cloth, $17.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-253
Author(s):  
Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Causes Of War ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S

When I was an undergraduate in the 1960s, as the Vietnam conflict was escalating, I took Stanley Hoffmann's mesmeriz- ing course, "Causes of War." I thought back to this class as I read Cynthia Enloe's book, which deserves all the superla- tives it has accrued. The experience of reading now and remembering back left me wondering: Without Enloe to consult (her first book on militarism and gender came out in the early 1980s), what were we missing in Hoffmann's class? The answer, I think, is this: We could understand well enough the contending theories about why nations go to war; but in the absence of Enloe, we were less able to ask how militaries could manage such massive mobilizations that required the often calamitous sacrifice of precious lives even for wars whose purposes seemed remote or unconvincing.

International Relations and Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Material Interest ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Causes Of War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Raymond Aron ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

This book collects Martin Wight’s works on the theory and philosophy of international politics. It includes classic works, such as “Why Is There No International Theory?” and “Western Values in International Relations,” as well as previously unpublished works such as “The Communist Theory of International Relations” and “Gain, Fear and Glory: Reflections on the Nature of International Politics.” These works encompass four categories: (a) traditions of thinking about international politics since the sixteenth century, (b) the causes and functions of war, (c) international and regime legitimacy, and (d) fortune and irony in international politics. Wight identifies and analyzes three major traditions of thinking about international politics in the West since the sixteenth century: Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism, also known as the Machiavellian, Grotian, and Kantian approaches. Wight examines the causes of war highlighted by Thucydides and Hobbes (material interest, fear, and reputation), and considers the functions of war in international politics (such as winning and retaining national independence and upholding the balance of power). Wight reviews the history of dynastic and popular legitimacy as well as post-1945 concepts of international and domestic legitimacy. Finally, Wight considers fortune and irony, including the decision-maker’s frequent rediscovery of the recalcitrance of events. Unintended, unexpected, and ironical consequences abound in international politics. This volume also features eight book reviews by Wight, including his assessments of works by Raymond Aron, E. H. Carr, Friedrich Meinecke, and Hans Morgenthau.

The position of the State in the international system from the perspective of major schools of thought in international relations

2019 ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Salah Hassan Mohammed ◽  
Mahaa Ahmed Al-Mawla
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
International Order ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Status ◽  
Future Vision

The Study is based on the state as one of the main pillars in international politics. In additions, it tackles its position in the international order from the major schools perspectives in international relations, Especially, these schools differ in the status and priorities of the state according to its priorities, also, each scholar has a different point of view. The research is dedicated to providing a future vision of the state's position in the international order in which based on the vision of the major schools in international relations.

Life in a ‘No-go Area’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nida Kirmani
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Robin Hood ◽  
Geographic Mapping ◽  
Academic Study

This chapter by Nida Kirmani offers a rare academic study on Lyari. It historicizes Lyari’s development as a contradictory ‘no-go’ site of resistance, protest and gang warfare. This perspective is organized around two of Lyari’s most notorious protagonists, Rehman Dakait and Uzair Baloch. Drawing on narratives of fear that comprise and interweave into everyday life in Lyari, she analyzes the persistent question of the extent to which gang war constitutes politics, rather than being separate to or an obstacle to politics. Through a portrait of Rehman as a community ‘Robin Hood’ figure, Kirmani’s analysis describes a geographic mapping of the paradox of ‘military-humanitarianism’ at the level of local gang warfare. This both mirrors, and also provokes, some original insights into ways these projects are inextricably linked in national and international politics.

Against Permanent Sovereignty

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Status ◽  
Made In

The status quo within international politics is that individual nation-states enjoy extensive and for the most part exclusive rights over the resources falling within their borders. Egalitarians have often assumed that such a situation cannot be defended, but perhaps some sophisticated defences of state or national rights over natural resources which have been made in recent years prove otherwise. This chapter critically assesses these various arguments, and shows that they are not sufficient to justify the institution of ‘permanent sovereignty’ over resources. Even insofar as those arguments have some weight, they are compatible with a significant dispersal of resource rights away from individual nation-states, both downwards towards local communities, and upwards towards transnational and global agencies.

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