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Présentation
This course aims to introduce students to think critically the concept of peace in international political theory. This course will explain how different and antagonistic conceptions of peace were elaborated from 17th to 19th century. This history is organized in three moments around several questions: What’s the moral and political value of peace? Why peace should not be a value but a right? How peace could be imperialist? Each class session will be devoted to engaging the students with conceptual analysis, historical context and normative questions in modern international thought.
1 Introduction
Liberalism and the Decline of Political Philosophy, chap. 9, S. S. Wolin, in, Politics and Vision, Expanded Edition, Princeton University Press, 2004.
Theory in History: problems of context and narrative, chap. 8, J.G.A. Pocock, in, Oxford Handbook to Political Theory, eds. J. S Dryzek, B. Honig and A. Phillips, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.
How to write an excellent essay in history of political theory? by I. Hont (Archives from Intellectual History Centre, St Andrews University)
2 Peace, Erasmus: Christian peace as not pacifism?
Erasmus, Querela Pacis, 1521 (extracts)
Peter van den Dungen, Erasmus: the 16th century’s Pioneer of Peace Education and a Culture of Peace, Journal of East Asia and International Law 2, no. 2 (Autumn 2009): 409-432.
3 Peace, After Hobbes ?
Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. 13.
M. Jaede, Thomas Hobbes’s Conception of Peace, Civil Society and International Order, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
4 Castel de St Pierre: perpetual peace against balance of power
P. Schröder, Trust in Early Modern International Thought, 1598-1713, chap. 4, Ideas in Context, Cambridge, CUP, 2017, p.176-198.
5 Montesquieu: Commerce and Peace
Timothy Brennan (2021), Montesquieu’s Dur-Commerce Thesis, History of European ideas, 47:5, 698-712.
6 Hume, Smith, Bentham: Peace, commerce and economic liberalism
Hume’s Dynamic Coordination and International Law, Carmen R. Pavel, Political Theory, Vol. 49 (2), 2021, 215-242.
Do Not Take Peace for Granted: Adam Smith’s Warning on the Relation Between Commerce and War, Maria Pia Paganelli & Reinhard Schumacher, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 43, Issue 3, May 2019, p.785-797.
Bentham on Peace and War, Stephen Conway, Utilitas, Vol.I, N°1, may 1989, p.82-102, Cambridge University Press.
Additional reading: R. Whatmore, Against War & Empire, Geneva, Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century, Chap.6, p.177-228, Yale University Press, 2012.
7 Rousseau, Fichte: Republican peace
S. Hoffman, Rousseau on War and Peace, American Political Science Review, vol. 57, Issue 2, June 1963, p.317-333.
Additional reading: I. Nakhimovsky, The Closed Commercial State, Perpetual Peace and Commercial Society from Rousseau to Fichte, chap.1, p.15-61
8 Kant: Cosmopolitanism and Peace
P. Kleingeld, Kant’s Theory of Peace, in, The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, p.477-504, Cambridge, CUP, 2006.
D. Archibugi, Models of international organization in perpetual peace projects, Review of International Studies (1992), 18, 295-317.
9 Global commerce, Peace and ideologies of Empire (XIXth)
D. Bell, Reordering the World, Essays on Liberalism and Empire, chap.4, “Ideologies of Empire”, p.91-116, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2016.
Addition reading: D. Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, Ideas in Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010; J. Pitts, Turn to Empire, Princeton University Press, 2006.
10 Imperial liberalism and peace?
A.Pagden, Empire, liberalism & the quest for perpetual peace, Daedalus, Spring 2005, p.46-58.
Additional reading: Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought, chap.3, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1999.
11 colonial capitalism and peace?
B. Arneil, Jeremy Bentham: Pauperism, Colonialism and Imperialism, American Political science Review (2021), 115, 4, 1147-1158.
Additional reading: O. Ulas Ince
Modalités
Assignments:
In order to pass the course, each students has to fulfil two requirements. The final grade of the course is composed of the following assignments:
1) Participation (20%): this is a reading-heavy class. Each student is expected to read all assigned texts and participate actively in class discussions. Reading the texts are mandatory.
2) Essay (80%): each student writes an essay on the topic defined by the professor. The essay should make an original analysis of the topic and engaged with the period, texts and authors studied during the course.