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Martin Wight on fortune and irony in politics
\"Martin Wight was one of the most influential twentieth-century British thinkers who investigated on international politics and continues to inspire the English school of international relations. Containing a previously unpublished essay by Wight, this book brings this essay, \"Fortune's Banter\", to light. The importance of imponderable elements on human affairs is well understood, at least since the dawn of Western culture. The reversals and incongruities of life are common events. Fortune and irony are categories of practical understanding, but they also describe the most ancient and fundamental experience in politics. It is this experience in which Michele Chiaruzzi examines Martin Wight's seminal philosophy. Martin Wight on Fortune and Irony in Politics provides awareness of imponderable factors in politics that tends to mitigate their role and is an antidote to political dogmatism\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Martin Wight, Western Values, and the Whig Tradition of International Thought
Martin Wight is often regarded as a disengaged historian of international thought who avoided commentary on contemporary events and shunned opportunities to contribute to discussion over policy. This article argues that this interpretation is mistaken. It argues instead that Wight was deeply concerned with the practice of international relations, as well as the theory, and sought repeatedly to find and use different means to influence British foreign policy and world politics more generally. To that end, it concentrates on one particular effort: Wight's attempt to construct a set of Whig or Western values that he believed should guide the conduct of practitioners.
Journal Article
Rival Traditions of Natural Law: Martin Wight and the Theory of International Society
Natural law is integral to Martin Wight's conception of international society. It is natural law that grounds the common values, the conditions of co-operation and mutual assistance, and most important of all, the sense of common obligation, which sets international society apart from the precarious, competitive anarchy that is the world of (political) realism. Natural law also holds out an alternative to the revolutionary claims of human solidarity that Wight feared would rend the fabric of the states-system. This article interrogates rival traditions of natural law, implicit in Wight's rationalist tradition, which disrupt the coherence of the 'three traditions' framework. In doing so, it calls into question Wight's hope that natural law could provide the basis of a post-Christian theory of international society. It concludes by arguing that Wight identified the right question: how might international society be grounded in a plural world? The cogency of his question stands, and yet it still begs an answer.
Journal Article
Trust and distrust in Russia
Zones of violence are spaces in which violence against other human beings becomes normal; they are characterized as places where primal trust in institutions and rules has been lost. While Jörg Baberowski initially used this concept to refer to Nazi Germany, I assert that its lessons are just as applicable to the Soviet Union, especially during the 1930s. In order to demonstrate this, I highlight how, already in tsarist Russia, institutions and communities had been shaken up by the processes of industrialization and urbanization. Moreover, when the Bolsheviks came to power they aimed to further weaken the symbolic systems and destroy the institutions—thus the existing bulwarks of habitual trust were enfeebled or eliminated. Universal distrust was now the modus operandi of the entire system, which simultaneously demanded total trust in the Party. This demonstrates why Soviet society developed the way that it did. The use of violence as a political tool became simply routine: shoot first, ask questions afterwards. In this milieu everyone became fearful and distrustful—a hyper-vigilant, paranoid outlook burnt itself into the whole structure of society, lasting right to the end of the Soviet Union and even after.
Journal Article
The international thought of Martin Wight
Martin Wight (1913-1972) was one of the most original and enigmatic international thinkers of the twentieth century. This new study, drawing upon Wright's published writings and unpublished papers, examines his work on international relations in the light of his wider thought, his religious beliefs, and his understanding of history.
eBook
Rediscovering a sense of purpose
A series of centenary anniversaries for some of the original think-tanks, as well as increasing turbulence in domestic and international affairs, makes this a propitious time to review the role of think-tanks in helping to build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world. Today, western think-tanks, in particular, face a number of challenges to their relevance and credibility. It remains to be seen whether they can rediscover a sense of purpose that is fit for the twenty-first century, at a time when the pillars of the western-led international order that mobilized their counterparts early in the twentieth century are eroding. To do so, I propose five practical steps that all think-tanks can take to adapt to these demands and challenges. I also suggest a set of principles that both western think-tanks and their counterparts in other parts of the world should commit to if they want to work together to promote the sort of peaceful and cooperative world that lies at the core of their stated missions. At heart, leading think-tanks must consider whether it suffices to try to remain sources of objective debate and analysis, or if it is time, once again, for them to adopt a more proactive stance, being explicit about the principles that they believe should underpin peace and prosperity. If independent think-tanks work together around converging principles, then they can contribute to the emergence for the first time of an inclusive international society and thus confirm their normative as well as practical value.
Journal Article
Powers of a kind: the anomalous position of France and the United Kingdom in world politics
Since the loss of their empires, Britain and France have been seen as states in historical but still only relative decline: no longer great powers but not typical of the large category of middle-range powers. Despite financial constraints and limited size they retain their status as permanent members of the UN Security Council and continue to display the ambition to exert global influence. At times, London and Paris deal with this anomaly by acting in harness but at others their foreign policies diverge dramatically, not least because of the contrasting domestic traditions from which they emerge, and because of their differing roles within the European Union. This article assesses the capacity of these two notable states to maintain a leading role in international politics given their own uneasy relationship and the significant constraints which they now face, both external and internal. The article is a revised version of the Martin Wight Memorial Lecture, held at Chatham House, London, on 3 November 2015.
Journal Article
Faith, history and Martin Wight: the role of religion in the historical sociology of the English school of International Relations
Martin Wight is responsible for one of the English school's most distinctive features: the historical sociology of different international systems demonstrating the importance of world history for the study of International Relations. Because of Wight's influence, the English school was, from the beginning, concerned with the role of religion, culture and civilization in international society. This emphasis, particularly with regard to the role of religion, has been marginalized in the English school's current research programme. This is unfortunate because, despite a renewed interest in the English school, the kind of questions Wight asked about religion, culture and identity have become some of the most important in the study of IR. This article examines the role of religion in Wight's international theory, which cannot be separated from the fact that he was a devout Anglican throughout his life. There was a relationship between his personal faith and his understanding of religion's role in international relations that previous scholars have not examined. When these two aspects of Wight's faith and life are brought together, there is both a better sense of continuity between his early life as a Christian pacifist and his later years as a teacher and scholar of IR, and a better recognition of what his distinctive approach to religion brought to the study of International Relations.
Journal Article
Christian Realism in the New American Century
This essay provides a novel history of Christian Realism, its key themes, and the persistence of this analytical framework for nearly a century. Christian Realism is a community of discourse associated with scholars and foreign policy observers like Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey, but lives on today in the writings of Christian just war thinkers, international relations scholars, ethicists, and policy experts. Three generations of Christian Realism focus on anti-utopianism, anti-totalitarianism, and similar perspectives. Christian Realists share a continuity of approach to policy analyses from a distinctly Augustinian perspective. Both the theological themes--sin, human potential, limits and restraint, neighbor love--and the major foreign policy questions of war, security, and peace, have a certain perennial quality, whether the theorist is of the first (1932-65), second (1965-90), or the contemporary third generation (1991-present). This essay looks at the theological themes, the perennial questions Christian Realists address, and the increasingly orthodox theological commitments of today’s Christian Realists as compared to the theological liberals of Niebuhr’s era.
Journal Article
Investigating diplomatic transformations
This article investigates the role that diplomacy—especially at the highest levels—can play in transforming adversarial relationships. Building on Martin Wight's exploration of these issues, in particular the question of how two adversaries can convince each other that they are serious negotiating partners, the article contends that achieving a significant de-escalation of a conflict depends upon the growth of trust. In contrast to Wight's limited conception of what diplomacy could achieve in terms of ending conflicts, the argument made here is that particular types of communicative encounters between diplomats, and especially leaders, can build a level of trust at the interpersonal level which can lead policy-makers to make conciliatory frame-breaking moves. To make good on this claim, the article employs a case-study of the summitry between US President Ronald Reagan and his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev. The key contention here is that the face-to-face encounters between Reagan and Gorbachev promoted a level of trust between them that made possible the fundamental de-escalation of the Cold War that took place in the second half of the 1980s. Rival explanations focusing on nuclear weapons and Soviet economic decline are analysed, but while these were enabling conditions in the transformation of relations, the article argues that it is necessary to recognize the critical role that interpersonal trust between US and Soviet leaders played in achieving this diplomatic transformation.
Journal Article