Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0013
M. Wight
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.
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Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0019
M. Wight
The American and French Revolutions derived from—and promoted—a concept of legitimacy based on popular consent and the public will. This concept displaced the practice of relying on dynasticism, the prescriptive rights of hereditary monarchs. As a result, plebiscites have taken the place of dynastic marriages as mechanisms for the legitimization of transfers of sovereignty. Noteworthy examples include decisions in the unification of Italy and in the European settlement of 1919–1920. Plebiscites have not, however, been conducted when Great Powers have ruled them out—for instance, France’s rejection of a plebiscite concerning Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War. Popular legitimacy raises questions about the defining characteristics of a self-governing nation—its size and capacity for self-defence, its language and history, and the allegiance choices of its citizens. Disputes over minority rights may raise questions about national identity and cohesion, including the possible founding of new states seceding from established countries. In some cases, such as Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, religion is a fundamental source of identity and state legitimacy.
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Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0014
M. Wight
John Connell responded to Martin Wight’s BBC broadcast, ‘War and International Politics’, published in The Listener, 13 October 1955, by asserting that Wight had presented a ‘misleading and incomplete definition’ of ‘the aim of foreign policy’—that is, in Wight’s words, ‘to preserve the balance of power’. In Connell’s view, ‘the basic purpose of foreign policy’ is ‘to preserve and enhance the security, prosperity, and welfare of this country’. Connell accused Wight of supplying ‘the very grammar of appeasement’ at a time ‘in which a whole new vast wave of appeasement is imminent’. Wight replied that Connell’s definition of the goal of foreign policy was ‘included’ in his own, because the balance of power is ‘the condition of the independence and liberties of states’. Wight observed that appeasement is ‘a language’ that he ‘never learned’, and that ‘western diplomacy at the moment does not lead’ him ‘to believe that “a whole new vast wave of appeasement is imminent”’.
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Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0018
M. Wight
In this essay Wight clarified the importance of dynastic legitimacy—that is, hereditary monarchy—in European history. In the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries, rulers were mainly princes who inherited their crowns. The principal exceptions were the leaders of republics, including Venice, Ragusa, Genoa, and Lucca in Italy; the Swiss confederation; and the United Provinces of the Low Countries. Dynastic principles included the theory that the ruler was chosen by God through hereditary succession, and that the monarch represented his or her subjects, notably with regard to the official religious denomination of the country. Such principles made dynastic marriages valuable means to provide heirs to the crown, to clarify succession to the throne, to consolidate alliances, to gain influence and wealth, and to legitimize territorial gains. Despite imprudent and egocentric behaviour by some royal leaders, monarchs were increasingly expected to pursue national rather than personal dynastic interests. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna reaffirmed dynastic principles of legitimacy, including in Venice and the Netherlands; the Swiss confederation was a conspicuous exception. Dynastic rulers have, however, tended to become symbols and instruments of national unity and self-determination. Popular support for dynastic houses has in many cases led to popular legitimacy for constitutional monarchies.
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Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0023
M. Wight
Wight notes that Williamson’s account of the English Civil War follows ‘the romantic view of history’ as ‘the relationship or interaction of characters’ in sometimes tragic circumstances. Williamson ‘shows a good dramatic sense’, Wight observes, in his narrative of events involving Cromwell and King Charles I of England; but the book fails to show insight on ‘the deeper dialectic of conservative and revolutionary psychology. It illuminates neither the particular clash between the Anglicanism of the King and the Independency of the Lieutenant-General, nor the general problem of political morals in a revolutionary situation.’ Cromwell and Charles were both ‘compelled to political methods which in private circumstances they would have condemned’. Owing in part to Williamson’s ‘life-long Cromwellian fervour’, the book does not attain ‘a high level of political literacy’, nor does it demonstrate deep discernment about the history of these conflicts.
{"title":"Review of Hugh Ross Williamson, Charles and Cromwell (London: Duckworth, 1946)","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0023","url":null,"abstract":"Wight notes that Williamson’s account of the English Civil War follows ‘the romantic view of history’ as ‘the relationship or interaction of characters’ in sometimes tragic circumstances. Williamson ‘shows a good dramatic sense’, Wight observes, in his narrative of events involving Cromwell and King Charles I of England; but the book fails to show insight on ‘the deeper dialectic of conservative and revolutionary psychology. It illuminates neither the particular clash between the Anglicanism of the King and the Independency of the Lieutenant-General, nor the general problem of political morals in a revolutionary situation.’ Cromwell and Charles were both ‘compelled to political methods which in private circumstances they would have condemned’. Owing in part to Williamson’s ‘life-long Cromwellian fervour’, the book does not attain ‘a high level of political literacy’, nor does it demonstrate deep discernment about the history of these conflicts.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125559375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0008
M. Wight
In this note Wight critically analyses Morton Kaplan’s System and Process in International Politics. While ‘positivist theorists’ aspiring to scientific rigour have belittled philosophical works on topics such as the just war or natural law as ‘tautologous or platitudinous’, these theorists have themselves constructed ‘new edifices of tautology and platitude’. Kaplan, for example, restates ‘simple and obvious truths, in the impressive special language of his theory’. Wight lists other shortcomings. Kaplan’s ‘historical limitedness’ reflects his ‘small range of historical reference’. Kaplan’s reliance on the abstractions of game theory leads to ‘the unintentional effect’ of ‘trivialization’ of ‘the awful issues of peace and war’. Furthermore, Kaplan’s ‘analytical jargon atomises and disintegrates reality’, and this results in ‘dehumanization’ and ‘hypostatization’ of the abstractions. Finally, ‘Objectivity becomes moral neutrality’, with ‘moral content … drained off, and then added again to the stew in pinches of recognition as “parameters” or “values”’.
{"title":"Kaplan’s System and Process","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"In this note Wight critically analyses Morton Kaplan’s System and Process in International Politics. While ‘positivist theorists’ aspiring to scientific rigour have belittled philosophical works on topics such as the just war or natural law as ‘tautologous or platitudinous’, these theorists have themselves constructed ‘new edifices of tautology and platitude’. Kaplan, for example, restates ‘simple and obvious truths, in the impressive special language of his theory’. Wight lists other shortcomings. Kaplan’s ‘historical limitedness’ reflects his ‘small range of historical reference’. Kaplan’s reliance on the abstractions of game theory leads to ‘the unintentional effect’ of ‘trivialization’ of ‘the awful issues of peace and war’. Furthermore, Kaplan’s ‘analytical jargon atomises and disintegrates reality’, and this results in ‘dehumanization’ and ‘hypostatization’ of the abstractions. Finally, ‘Objectivity becomes moral neutrality’, with ‘moral content … drained off, and then added again to the stew in pinches of recognition as “parameters” or “values”’.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126654182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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