Monday, April 27, 2015

Perpetual peace

Emmanuel Kant was a profound influence in the field of political science and his work has subsequently been of great value to the study of IR. Kant aims to propose a way towards achieving global peace for all nations, and therefore proposes a structure that is bound by democratic ideals.

Kant put forward the idea of political talks being the best form of conflict resolution, instead of a decision being reached with physical face-offs. Decision making, he argues, should be split within the state according the democratic structures so as to hinder power flowing towards a select few people and decisions being formed in collaboration. Such a state, it is argued, will provide a world that is free of bloodshed and gory consequences because decision making will be in the hands of a larger population sample, and so the common man would look to deflect any occurrence of war that would lead to tangible losses.

While Kant's supposition is rather idealistic in nature and perhaps practically unusable in the current world frame work, we must realize that his theories are based on assumptions, like most theories in the political realm. Not all countries can be democratic, and not all democracies can have a symmetrical power shaping mechanism. Kant's work is however interesting, because it provides a new flavor to realism, and gives us another route to reaching peace with pragmatism.  

1 comment:

  1. Okay post, though Kant is not identified with the realist school of thought. Instead, he is identified with the liberal school of thought. While he does think negotiations help mitigate conflict, the more important aspect of his theory is his argument about the "Republican Peace", which you did not even touch.

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