Javk Levy in “War and Peace” provides certain
general trends between war and peace. He further goes onto explain the
recurrence of war, its causes, and variations between war and peace. The different
perspectives to the concept of war lead to the formation of variation in
theoretical framework and methodologies to explain war. IR is obsessed with the
idea of war and peace and has developed theories in order to explain these
phenomena. He provides three perspectives on war and peace: realist school,
liberalist school and multi-method approach.
The realist school advocates
that the international system is vulnerable to war. The idea that human nature
is innately evil, core reason for war and the presence of anarchy-no
centralized authority paves path for the origin of war. Within the realist school, offensive and
defensive realists have a different understanding of the causes of war.
The liberalist school
advocates the idea of peace being achieved under certain domestic and
international conditions along with employing suitable strategies which can
eventually mitigate violence. The notion of economic interdependence promoting
peace is an interesting facet within the liberal theory of war and peace. The theory
stresses upon the economic cooperation between states- common goals may lead to
the prevalence of peace. Trade is considered a significant factor in altering
the balance of power within the domestic realm where groups would prefer a friendly
environment for cooperation and trade instead of war. Similarly, under the
liberalist school, a very prominent theory to understand peace is the
democratic peace theory which argues that democracies are less prone to war.
Jack Levy, like a lot of
other theorists point out the strengths and flaws of both the school of
thoughts and like many others have proposed the ‘multimethod’ approach to
analyze war and peace incorporating ideas from both realism and liberalism. The approach may be useful considering that
war and peace can’t be understood only from one lens and requires the
incorporation of different perspectives.
I find it funny how at the end it always seems like the best way to go is the mid way or multiple route. Given the complexity of our world, it's certainly true as well.
ReplyDeleteI think IR theorists have run out of ideas so they keep on merging ideas and name it differently to sound creative.
ReplyDeleteSolid summary and yes taking the multi-theoretical and multi-methodological approach is a worthwhile way to study issues related to War & Peace.
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