On the ‘Greats’ and Peace: Part One: Towards an International Peace Architecture

ABSTRACT

International relations theory, with a few honourable exceptions, has generally avoided drawing attention to the biases of the ‘Greats’ and their contributions on the politics of social order, change, and progress within the state or the international system. Yet, they have been deeply – and somewhat problematically – influential in providing the basis for a contemporary ‘international peace architecture’ (IPA). The limitations of the ‘Greats’ help explain its conceptual and practical instability, as the following essay outlines. Work on the state, international system, justice and rights, and intervention, did not anticipate the limited scope of such concepts and have themselves become sources of instability ‘after liberalism’.

Acknowledgements

For his stimulating comments on this area, thanks especially to Professor Nick Rengger.

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. In Latin, they are known as ‘Literae humaniores’, which was the basis for a degree focused on classics at the University of Oxford and others. This was also the basis for the ‘Philosophy, Politics and Economics’ type degree so significant for political figures today. See, for example, Andy Beckett, ‘PPE: the Oxford degree that runs Britain’, The Guardian, 23 February 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford-university-degree-that-rules–britain.

2. See, for example, the important study by Harmut Behr, Politics of Difference: Epistemologies of peace, London: Routledge, 2014.

3. Fred Halliday, Fred, “The sixth great power’: on the study of revolution and international relations.” Review of international studies, Vol.16, No. 3., 1990, p. 207-221.

4. Given the large body of material and lengthy time period covered in this article, I focus on two compendiums of political and international thought: firstly the various interpretations of key thinkers provided by David Boucher and Paul Kelly in their major edited study on Political Thinkers from Socrates to the Present (OUP, 2003), which provides a summary of three millennia of European political theory, and, secondly, the text edited by Chris Brown, Terry Nardin, and Nicholas Rengger, International Relations in Political Thought (Cambridge, 2002).

5. See for example, “Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill:, 14 August 1941, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/at10.asp: ‘Inter–Allied Council Statement on the Principles of the Atlantic Charter’, London, 24 September 1941, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/interall.asp.

6. Richard Devetak, ‘The Project of Modernity and IR Theory’, Millennium, Vol.24, No.1., pp.27-51.

7. Harmut Behr, Op. Cit.

8. Harmut Behr, Op. Cit

9. For more on piecing the different elements of the growing architecture together see Oliver P Richmond, Peace in the 21^st Century, OUP, forthcoming 2020: Nathalie Tocci, ‘Framing the EU Strategy’, London: Palgrave, 2017: S Zondi, ‘African Union Approaches to Peacebuilding’, African Journal on Conflict Resolution, Vol. 17, No 1, 2017; UN General Assembly Resolution, A/RES/70/262, 2016; UN Security Council Resolution S/RES/2282, 2016; UN ‘High-level Meeting on efforts undertaken and opportunities to strengthen the United Nations’ work on peacebuilding and sustaining peace’, 24 ~ 25 April 2018; UN, ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, UN General Assembly A/RES/70/1, 25th September, (2015); UNDP. Human Development Report, New York: UNDP, 2014.

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Oliver P. Richmond

Oliver P. Richmond is Research Professor in IR, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. He is also International Professor at Dublin City University, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Tubingen in Germany, and Visiting Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He received a Distinguished Scholar award from the ISA Peace Studies Section in 2019. His publications include  The Grand Design: The Evolution of the International Peace Architecture(Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021), Peace Formation and Political Order in Conflict Affected Societies (Oxford University Press, 2016), and Failed Statebuilding (Yale University Press, 2014). He is editor of the Palgrave book series, Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, and co-editor of the Journal, Peacebuilding.