Session 23: Kant's Perpetual Peace

Kant’s idea of Perpetual Peace has had a tremendous impact on liberal thought. Looking back at the course Theory of International Relations, there has been a tendency to focus on war. The causes and consequences of war have been sucked dry. The concept of peace on the other hand has a lot to offer. Kant unlike the realists we have met with isn’t “pessimistic enough to believe that a perpetual peace is an unrealizable dream...nor is he optimist enough to fancy that it is an ideal which could be easily realized if men would turn their hearts to one another.” The tendency to put Kant in the confines of idealism can be easily dismantled by the very fact that although he proposes a normative rather than utopian idea and realizes the difficulty in achieving his proposed idea.

The fundamental ideas behind the democratic peace theory can be found in the Perpetual Peace. For Kant peace cannot be maintained between two independent states. This might be problematic for us to see. However, he believes that any peace treaties between independent states are subject to state interests. If interests change, the treaties don’t hold. “ Only One way in which between independent nations can be prevented; and that is by the nations ceasing to the independence.”(Professor Ritchie) This does not mean Kant favored autocratic rule, for him perpetual peace could be a reality if there was a “republican federation of free states.” He advocated the need for laws of nations something that can be seen in institutional liberalism today. Although Kant’s theory may be slightly impractical but it does provide optimism.