Is Rousseau Really a Realist ? On the Political Theory of Peace and

Is Rousseau Really a Realist ? On the Political Theory
of Peace and War
Paper to be presented at the Annual Congress of the Swiss Political Science
Association, 7th and 8th of January, 2010, Geneva.
Michael Bloch, PhD candidate, Geneva University, Switzerland
[email protected]
December 2009
Is Rousseau Really a Realist ? On the Political Theory of Peace and War
Rousseau, together with Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes is regularly invoked
as an iconical outrider of political realism by leading international relations scholars
and political theorists.1 According to this widely-held view, scholars use to oppose
Rousseau to Kantian idealism: “The juxtaposition which portrays Kant and Rousseau
as representing the dualistically opposed categories of ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in
International Relations Theory has become almost gospel, […] “.2
Of course, from a more contextualist perspective one might right away object to an
anachronistic reading of Rousseau in the context of a field of theory that emerged
only in the mid-twentieth under the auspices of E. H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, and
Reinhold Niebuhr.3 Nevertheless, I will take the claim seriously to the extent that
contemporary realists and neo-realists such as Kenneth Waltz themselves refer to
Rousseau as a realist. In this sense, my reading of Rousseau is not that much a
proposition of what should be the correct interpretation of his writings on
international politics but foremost a demonstration of the impact that a differential
reading of Rousseau might have on the doctrine of political realism and the theory of
Kenneth WALTZ, Man, the State, and War, Columbia University Press, New York, 1959, pp.
159–186; Stanley HOFFMANN, “Rousseau on War and Peace”, American Political Science Review
5 (2): 317–333; Iring FETSCHER, Rousseaus politische Philosophie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main,
1975 [1960], pp. 172–257; Christine Jane CARTER, Rousseau and the Problem of War, Garland,
New York, London, 1987; Pierre HASSNER, “Rousseau and the Theory and Practice of
International Relations”, In: Nathan TARCOV and Clifford ORWIN (eds.), The Legacy of
Rousseau, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997, pp. 200–219.
2 Michael C. WILLIAMS, “Rousseau, Realism, and Realpolitik“, Millenium : Journal of
International Studies 18 (2), 1989 : 185-203, p. 185. See also: Stanley HOFFMANN, The State of
War, Praeger, New York, 1965, p. 86 and Ian CLARK, The Hierarchy of States: Reform and
Resistance in the International Order, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978. For Clark,
Rousseau stands for the tradition of despair, opposing him to Kant's tradition of optimism:
“Whoever studies international relations cannot but hear, behind the clash of interests and
ideologies, a kind of permanent dialogue between Rousseau and Kant”. Martin Wight
however places Rousseau rather within the revolutionary and not the realist tradition,
recognising with him a transformative will with regard to international order. In: Martin
WIGHT, International Theory. The Three Traditions, Leicester University Press, Leicester,
London, 1991, p. 7.
3 On the intellectual history of realism see for instance: Jonathan HASLAM, No Virtue Like
Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli, Yale University Press,
London, 2002; Campbell CRAIG, Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of
Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz, Columbia University Press, New York, 2003; Michael C.
WILLIAMS, Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2005.
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international relations at large.
In a similar vein, it might be considered venturous to suppose a clear scholarly
unanimity with regard to what defines political realism at its core. Nevertheless most
scholars accept that there is at least a prevailing mood that realist thought holds
together. Accordingly, realists are « suspicious of utopianism, and of optimistic
visions of self and society ».4 As a consequence of this, « realists of different stripes
concentrate on power, violence, and irreducible conflicts over meaning, interests, and
value ».5 This theoretical and epistemological standing is often described as amoral
or even immoral. No wonder then that such a vision conceding « priority of politics
to morality »6 has fostered a powerful rejectionist front out of the bulk of normative
political theory inspired by Rawlsian neo-kantian considerations.7 At the same time,
one can think that this neo-kantian critique actually helps to bolster the realist selfimage with regard to its basic tenet that strives to emphatically aver the reality of
power and violence over shared meanings and morality.
In contrast to this widespread and popular definition of what realism is all about my
aim is to scrutinize the realist claim with regard to Rousseau under a somewhat
different angle. Sidestepping in the first place the realists’ self-definition cultivated
by their rivals has precisely the methodological advantage, I believe, to uncover the
circumstance that the question whether Rousseau is to be considered a realist or not
is closely intertwined with the framing of international political theory in terms of its
ontological foundations.8
Consequently, I shall base my analysis on a simple analytical framing position in
contemporary international theory that is thought to be specifically realist, which
defines peace as the absence of war.9 At a first glance, as we shall see, Rousseau
Duncan BELL, “Under an Empty Sky − Realism and Political Theory”, In: Duncan BELL
(ed.), Political Thought and International Relations. Variations on a Realist Theme, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2009, pp. 1-25, p. 3; Richard Ned LEBOW, The Tragic Vision of
Politics: Ethics, Interests, and Orders, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
2003.
5 Idem.
6 Bernard WILLIAMS, In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2005, pp. 1-18.
7 Robert GILPIN, “Nobody Loves a Political Realist”, Security Studies 5, 1996: 3-28.
8 Robert B. J. WALKER, “Realism, Change, and International Political Theory”, International
Studies Quarterly, 31, 1987: 65-86.
9 See for instance: Kenneth WALTZ, Man, the State, and War, Columbia University Press, New
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2
seems indeed to conform to this point of view. However, a closer look will have to
nuance such a finding. Furthermore, Rousseau’s definitions of war and the state of
war seem to allow for an exceptional constellation where the danger of physical
destruction of one state is associated with the moral destruction of humanity as a
whole. This reading of Rousseau’s international politics reveals us an international
thinker that could be defined as a methodological realist. Precisely by being realist,
Rousseau is looking out for international situations that produce through and
notwithstanding their realist modality the nucleus of a moral international society
and will. Though, interestingly enough, one of the main features of such a potential
general international will is that it cannot be effectively institutionalised. Thus,
according to Rousseau, its occurrence seems to be limited to exceptional and
spontaneous embodiments and action.
I. War, and the State of War
It is indeed mementous that Rousseau's writings on international politics seem to be
only of fragmentary nature and are, to Rousseau's own admission, incomplete.10
Apparently, Rousseau intended to consider the matter of international politics
comprehensively in his projected work of the Institutions politiques of which the
Contrat social was to be the first part only.11 He stipulates the following in its
conclusion:
“Après avoir posé les vrais principes du droit politique et tâché d'avoir de fonder
l'Etat sur sa base, il resterait à l'appuyer par ses relations externes; ce qui
comprendrait le droit des gens, le commerce, le droit de la guerre et les conquêtes, le
droit public, les ligues, les négociations, les traités etc. Mais tout cela forme un nouvel
York, 1954, p. 2. This negative view of peace stretches however well over the classical realist
tradition. See: Hedley BULL, The Anarchical Society, Columbia University Press, New York,
1977. Critiques of a negative definition of peace go back as far as Spinoza, while being
reactualized by Wilson during World War I. Today, the conceptualisation of human security
is the most prominent purveyor of a positive view of peace. See also: Pierre HASSNER,
“Beyond the Three Traditions: The Philosophy of War and Peace in Historical Perspective »,
International Affairs 70 (4), 1994), 737-756 and Oliver P. RICHMOND, “Reclaiming Peace in
International Relations“, Millennium : Journal of International Studies 36 (3) 2008 : 439-470.
10 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, O.C. I, Confessions, p. 404.
11
Ibid., p. 405.
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objet trop vaste pour ma courte vue; j'aurais dû la fixer toujours plus près de moi“.12
However, until recently it was not clear whether Rousseau actually wrote at least a
part of the projected work and whether he or a depository eventually decided to
destroy it.13 The two sources that added to the confusion is to be found with a letter
written by Rousseau to his editor Rey in 1758 mentioning a work entitled Principes de
la guerre14 and the dubious claim by the Count of Antraigues mentioning a lost
manuscript of 32 pages on the subject of confederations entrusted to him.15 It is
therefore unsurprising that until the beginning of the 20th century only two extensive
studies on Rousseau's international politics were written.16 It is not until Kenneth
Waltz’ seminal work whose conceptual foundations ever since has defined neorealist school that Rousseau found renewed interest with international theory.17
Stanley Hoffmann’s diverse reading of Rousseau’s international thought with regard
to Waltzian theory maintained debate and interest until today.18
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, O.C. III, Du Contract Social; ou, principes du droit politique, p. 470.
C. E. VAUGHAN, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Basil Blackwell, Oxford,
1962, vol. II, p. 283, note 3; Jean-Jacques Rousseau et ses amis. See also: “Ce petit traité est
extrait d’un ouvrage plus étendu, entrepris autrefois sans avoir consulté mes forces, et
abandonné depuis longtemps. Des divers morceaux qu’on pouvait tirer de ce qui était fait,
celui-ci est le plus considérable, et m’a paru le moins indigne d’être offert au public. Le reste
n’est déjà plus”. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, O. C. III, Du Contract social; ou, principes du droit
politique, p. 349.
14 Ibid., p. 283, note 1; March 9th 1758.
15 In 1790 the Count writes: “Jean-Jacques Rousseau avait eu la volonté d'établir, dans un
ouvrage qu'il destinait à éclaircir quelques chapitres du Contrat Social, par quels moyens de
petits Etats libres pouvaient exister à côté des grandes Puissances, en formant des
confédérations”. Cited in: Notes et variantes, O.C. III, p. 1431. Alfred Cobban thinks for
instance that Rousseau never wrote such a work. Alfred COBBAN, Rousseau and the Modern
State, Hamden, Connecticut, 1964. Cited in: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Notes et variantes, O.C.
III, pp. 1431 and 1432. Notwithstanding the plausibility of the Count's claim, no concrete
trace whatsoever of this writing has ever be found.
16 J. L. WINDENBERGER, Essai sur le système de politique étrangère de J.-J- Rousseau, thèse de
doctorat, Lyon, 1899. [La République confédérative des petits Etats: Essai sur le système de politique
étrangère de J.-J- Rousseau, Paris, Picard, 1900]; G. LASSUDRIE-DUCHÈNE, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
et le Droit des Gens, H. Jouve, Paris, 1906.
17 According to Waltz, it is precisely Rousseau – through his stag-hunt analogy – who
understands correctly the logic of anarchy within the international realm. Following Waltz,
Rousseau is the definite precursor of what he calls third image theory, i.e. it is the system
rather than the logic of man or society that accounts for the actual source of international
conflict. In: Kenneth WALTZ, Man, the State, and War, Columbia University Press, New York,
1959, pp. 159–186. The Staghunt Analogy is to be found on pp. 167–168.
18 Stanley HOFFMANN, "Rousseau on War and Peace", op. cit.; Stanley HOFFMANN and David
P. FIDLER (eds.), Rousseau on International Relations, op. cit.; David P. FIDLER, "Desperately
12
13
4
The recent successful attempt to reconstruct Rousseau’s scattered fragments on war
and the international realm has the potential to give a second impetus on considering
Rousseau’s international thought. This recent reconstruction shows that Rousseau’s
thinking on international politics is not as fragmentary as previously thought. It
shows on the contrary a coherent and actually quite developed attempt to
conceptualize the international, i.e. European international scene. The cited work will
be assumed here as the first part of the Rousseau’s international project.19 The
reconstruction of what can quite obviously be considered the first chapter of
Rousseau’s second international part of his Institutions politiques must lead to a
reconsideration of the importance and relevant ordering of Rousseau’s writings on
the international realm. My contention is to give priority of the above-mentioned first
chapter over Rousseau’s considerations with regard to the Abbé de St. Pierre's Projet
de paix perpétuelle.20 In light of the newly available coherent first chapter pertaining to
Rousseau’s thinking on international affairs, I suggest that the commentaries on St.
Pierre’s project should instead be read against the aforesaid first chapter on
Rousseau’s considerations on the state of war between nations and as merely
preparatory or tributary, if not as outward critical. Secondly, I contend with
Christine Jane Carter that any satisfactorily account for Rousseau's contribution on
international affairs must not neglect Rousseau's broader socio-economic principles
and theoretical positions.21 Hence I will include in my analysis other writings which
might shed light on Rousseau’s understanding of the international realm, in the first
place a fundamental text that is not only neglected by international relations’
Clinging to Grotian and Kantian Sheep: Rousseau's Attempted Escape from the State of
War", In: Ian CLARK and Iver B. NEUMANN, Classical Theories of International Relations, op. cit.,
pp. 130–134; Grace D. ROOSEVELT, Reading Rousseau in the Nuclear Age, Temple University,
Philadelphia, 1990; Torbjørn L. KNUTSEN, “Re-Reading Rousseau in the Post-Cold War
World“, Journal of Peace Research 31 (3), 1994: pp. 247–262.
19 Bruno BERNARDI and Gabriella SILVESTRINI, ”Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Principes du droit de
la guerre”, Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vol. 46, 2005, 201-280. The text is also
reproduced in: Blaise BACHOFEN et Céline SPECTOR (eds.), Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Principes du
droit de la guerre. Écrits sur la paix perpétuelle, J. Vrin, Paris, 2008. The first version of
Rousseau’s text on the principles of war was probably written between 1756 and 1758, in the
wake of his Second Discourse.
20 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Extrait du projet de paix perpétuelle de Monsieur l'Abbé de Saint Pierre,
O.C. III, pp. 563–616.
21 Christine Jane CARTER, Rousseau and the Problem of War, Garland, New York, London, 1987,
p. 3.
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scholars that is the Lévite d’Ephraïm.22 In my opinion this text precisely creates the
nexus between the domestic and the international realm through a fundamental
analytical notion that we can find throughout Rousseau’s oeuvre that is Rousseau’s
struggle for individual and collective unity.23
Thus, as a first step towards a more comprehensive understanding of Rousseau’s
writings on the international realm, I shall establish a link between his
conceptualization of the state of war and the unity of the body politic that is to be
guaranteed in Rousseau’s conception by the general will. In the context of the
necessary unity of the body politic or state, the primal problem identified by
Rousseau is tributary to its hierarchical dimension.24 In the first place, unity is
conceived of unity as opposed to plurality establishes the potential contradiction of the
inner unity of society as a unit towards the unity of another social unit:
“De la première société formée s'ensuit nécessairement la formation de toutes les
autres. Il faut en faire partie ou s'unir pour lui résister. Il faut l'imiter ou se laisser
engloutir par elle”.25
22
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Dialogues. Rousseau, juge de Jean-Jacques. Le Lévite d'Ephraïm,
Flammarion, Paris, 1999. Rousseau himself seems to have been very fond of this work: “Le
Lévite d'Ephraïm, s'il n'est pas le meilleur de mes ouvrages, en sera toujours le plus chéri“.
In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Confessions, O. C. II, pp. 355–356.
23 Ronald GRIMSLEY, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Study in Self-Awareness, University of Wales,
Cardiff, 1961; Marshall BERMAN, The Politics of Authenticity. Radical Individualism and the
Emergence of Modern Society, Atheneum, New York, 1970, pp. xv-xxv; 75-159; Jean
STAROBINSKI, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. La transparence et l’obstacle, Gallimard, Paris, 1971; John
CHARVET, The Social Problem in the Philosophy of Rousseau, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1974; see also, Basil MUNTEANO, Solitude et contradictions de J.-J. Rousseau, Paris,
A. G. Nizet, 1975 and Stuart A. MACNIVEN, The Calculus of the General Will: Identity and
Difference in the Political Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Diss., Rutgers University, 2003,
pp. 28-29. I certainly concur with MacNiven's basic statement on Rousseau's thinking where
“we find an analytical implicit structure, or architectonic, if you will, organized around a
basic ontological and theological rupture between the ideal of unity-in-being and separation,
between the Creator and his Creation, and between Nature and Man. There is a similar
epistemological division in Rousseau's thought between the totality of things, if we were
equipped to see it, and its many isolated particulars. In other words, there is any abyss that
separates the One and the Many, that separates Identity and Difference”. In: Stuart A.
MACNIVEN, The Calculus of the General Will, op. cit., p. 3.
24 This dimension can bear comparison with one out the three modalities of order that Viroli
identifies within Rousseau's thinking and that is the 'ordre de gradation'. In: Maurizio
VIROLI, La théorie de la société bien ordonnée chez Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walter de Gruyter,
Berlin, Ney York, 1988, p. 76.
25 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 271. The same idea is
expressed in: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, second part, O.C. III,
6
In other terms: as soon as society is constituted into a political unit it cannot tolerate
any other unit that aspires to the same hierarchical importance. This means that any
concurrent unit has either to accommodate or to be excluded. Hence one could
suspect that Rousseau’s project for the international realm would proceed
analogically to the domestic realm where an anarchical state would have to be
replaced by a hierarchical condition and a single constituted political body in order
to effectively safeguard the survival of its parts:
“La vie de l'un et de l'autre est le moi commun au tout, la sensibilité réciproque, et la
correspondance interne de toutes les parties. Cette communication vient-elle à cesser,
l'unité formelle à s'évanouir, et les parties contiguës à n'appartenir plus l'une à l'autre
que par juxtaposition ? L'homme est mort, ou l'État est dissout“.26
Yet, the essence of Rousseau's political project does not mean to create an embodied
Hobbesian Leviathan in order to protect the individual against the others in the first
place, hence implying that political unity is necessary to bring about civil peace,
given an otherwise belligerent natural condition. On the contrary, the primary
function of the general will, enshrined in the unanimous will of the people, is to
restore equality between humans as an act of being faithful to humanity's peaceful
nature and natural goodness.27
However, according to Rousseau political unity is constantly threatened by the vices
produced in and by the social as opposed to the natural state and sustained by the
alienating dynamic between amour de soi et amour propre.28 It should precisely be the
164–194, p. 165: “On voit aisément comment l’établissement d’une seule société rendit
indispensable celui de toutes les autres, et comment, pour faire tête à des forces unies, il
fallut s’unir à son tour. Les sociétés se multipliant ou s’étendant rapidement couvrirent
bientôt toute la surface de la terre, et il ne fut plus possible de trouver un seul coin dans
l’univers où l’on pût s’affranchir du joug et soustraire sa tête au glaive souvent mal conduit
que chaque homme vit perpétuellement suspendu sur la sienne”.
26 In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Discours sur l’économie politique, J. Vrin, 2002, p. 46.
27 Patrick RILEY, Will and Political Legitimacy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1982; Arthur MELZER, The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of
Rousseau’s Thought, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1990, pp. 232–252.
28 “Sitôt qu’un homme se compare aux autres, il devient nécessairement leur ennemi, car
chacun voulant en son cœur être le plus puissant, le plus heureux, le plus riche, […]“. In :
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, O. C. III, Fragments politiques, de l’état de nature, p. 478. This
observation stands of course in stark contradiction with Hobbes’ point of view who
7
essence of the body politic according to Rousseau to mitigate the dynamics of the
social state by striking a covenant between men in order to institute and guarantee
them as morally capable citizens.29 Thus, at this stage, one could think that according
to Rousseau, as soon as civil order in accordance with the general will was to be
installed in every polity, there will be no war and violence anymore. Consequently,
the absence of war would be the natural corollary of inner peace.30
But, interestingly enough, what is feasible under certain conditions according to
Rousseau’s Social Contract on the domestic level seems completely out of reach in the
international realm. Indeed, following Rousseau, the mechanism of the general will
does not apply to the international sphere.31 Here the realist premise according to
which the domestic and the international spheres function separately following a
wholly different logic brings to bear. Rousseau believes that the direful consequences
of amour propre inherent to the social state are even greater when applied to
international politics. The scandal between the promised benefits of civil order in
terms of peace and security and the bloody reality on the ground could not be
greater:
“[…] j’entends un bruit affreux, quel tumulte et quels cris, j’approche et je vois un
theâtre de meurtres, dix mille hommes égorgés; les morts entassés par monceaux, les
mourants foulés aux pieds des cheveaux, portant l’image de la mort et l’agonie. C’est
attributes mutual enmity to the state of nature. Hobbes, on the other hand, shares the idea of
natural equality with regard to « faculties of body and mind ». In: Leviathan, chapter XIII, Of
the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning their Felicity and Misery. But it is precisely
natural equality that gives rise to enmity between humans in the state of nature, as they are
also equal in their hopes and desires. On Rousseau’s subtle conception of self-love see:
Nicholas J. H. DENT and Timothy O'HAGAN, “Rousseau on Amour-Propre“, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 72, 1998: 57-73 and Frederick NEUHOUSER, Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love.
Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.
29 “Je fais voir surtout une chose très consolante très utile en montrant que tous ces vices
n’appartiennent pas tant à l’homme, qu’à l’homme mal gouverné“. In: Jean-Jacques
ROUSSEAU, O. C. II, Narcisse, préface, p. 969.
30
“[…] chacun de ces corps ayant une assiette aussi solide comment est-il possible qu’ils
viennent jamais à s’entreheurter? Leur propre constitution ne devrait-elle pas les maintenir
entre eux dans une paix éternelle?” In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre,
op. cit., p. 273.
31 Merle L. PERKINS, “Rousseau on History, Liberty, and National Survival“, Studies on
Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 53, 1967: 79–169, p. 161; David R. HILEY, “The Individual
and the General Will: Rousseau Reconsidered“, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 7 (1990) 159–
178.
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donc là le fruit des ces intitutions pacifiques”.32
But what are the reasons behind this state of affairs according to Rousseau? Three
logically intertwined arguments can be identified. Firstly, there is no such thing as a
general society of the human species because it is not embodied.33 It is therefore
unreal and purely chimerical:
“Il est certain que le mot de genre humain n’offre à l’esprit qu’une idée purement
collective qui ne suppose aucune union réelle entre les individus qui les constituent
[…] ”34
Natural goodness – not to be confounded with natural sociability – is enshrined in
the hearts of people but needs positive laws in order to be efficiently deployed.35 It
follows that the general will embodied in the laws of the polity are only binding for
its members even if they follow ‘natural laws’. Accordingly, for other states and their
citizens these laws reflect then but a private and individual will. The second
corollary argument is an argument of critical mass (that I shall again mention further
along). For the general will to be efficiently embodied its scope needs to be limited.36
This has precisely to do with the fact that magistrates must govern according to laws
dictated by the general will and not according to affect and benevolence, which
would inevitably lead to corruption and the fostering of preference. This in turn is
again justified by the sentiment of humanity becoming weaker by being extended
over certain boundaries:
“Il semble que le sentiment de l’humanité s’évapore et s’affaiblisse en s’étendant sur
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 264.
This is a direct refutation of Locke, Grotius and Diderot’s article on natural law in the
Encyclopédie. See: Leo STRAUSS, Natural Right and History, The University Of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1954, pp. 252-294.
34 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du contract social, ou essai sur la forme de la République, Geneva
manuscript, O. C. III, pp. 282-289, p. 283.
35 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du contract social, ou essai sur la forme de la République, Geneva
manuscript, O. C. III, chapter VII, Nécessité des lois positives, pp. 309-311.
36 Here Rousseau is attacking the idea that the government of the polity has essentially the
same nature as the government of the family as Robert Filmer suggested in his Patriarchia
[1680]: “[…] leur devoir et leurs droits sont tellement distingués, qu’on ne peut les confondre
sans se former des fausses idées des lois fondamentales de la société, […]”. In: Jean-Jacques
ROUSSEAU, Discours sur l’économie politique, op. cit., p. 43.
32
33
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toute la terre, et que nous ne saurions être touchés des calamités de la Tartarie ou du
Japon, comme celles d’un peuple européen. Il faut en quelque manière borner et
comprimer l’intérêt et la commiseréation pour lui donner une activité”.37
Third, it follows precisely from these preceptive conditions, that it is paradoxically
the constitution of society into a political unity that leads to war with other political
units:
“Ce n'est qu'après avoir fait société avec quelque homme qu'il se détermine à en
attaquer un autre; et il ne devient soldat qu'après avoir été citoyen”.38
Rousseau states furthermore that war and the state of war can only arise out of a
stable and permanent relationship between unified and consolidated entities that are
the States.39 In the state of nature, the human being is peaceful and has no interest to
wage war according to Rousseau. Accidental violence between human beings might
exist but is not of durable nature.40 In the civil state, these private conflicts and wars
are even to be repressed.41
But in contrast to relationships between individuals being definite and bounded
entities, which cannot go beyond a formally defined capacity, states as artificial
corpora aspire to an infinite substance:
Ibid., p. 55. The aforesaid tendency can be compensated partially by civic education, civil
religion, and love for country (amour de la patrie).
38 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, L'état de guerre, O.C. III, pp. 601–602: “La guerre n'est point une
relation entre les hommes mais entre les puissances dans laquelle les particuliers ne sont
ennemis qu'accidentellement et moins comme citoyens que comme soldats”. Fragment cited
In: WINDENBERGER, p. 267. Rousseau therefore contends that there is not right to kill the
vanquished; the right to kill pertains to the armed defenders of the State only. Vide also: “La
fin de la guerre étant la destruction de l'Etat ennemi, on a droit d'en tuer les défenseurs tant
qu'ils ont les armes à la main; mais sitôt qu'ils les posent et se rendent, cessant d'être ennemis
ou l'instrument de l'ennemi, ils redeviennent simplement hommes et l'on a plus de droit sur
leur vie”, In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du Contract social, first book, chapter IV, De l'esclavage,
O.C. III, p. 357. They same argument is valid with regard to enslaving the vanquished.
39 Rousseau is here completely at odds with Hobbes' idea of the state of war as an essential
equivalent of the state of nature: “Mettons un moment ces idées en opposition avec l'horrible
système de Hobbes; et nous trouvons, tout au rebours de son absurde doctrine, que bien loin
que l'état de guerre soit naturel à l'homme, la guerre est née de la paix, ou du moins des
précautions que les hommes on prises pour s'assurer une paix durable”, In: Jean-Jacques
ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 266.
40 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 271.
41 Ibid., p. 272.
37
10
“L'Etat au contraire étant un corps artificiel n'a nulle mesure déterminée, la grandeur
qui lui est propre est indéfinie, il peut toujours l'augmenter, il se sent foible tant qu'il
est en de plus fort que lui”.42
On the international scene, this trait of infinity forces the state to constantly compare
to the other state entities; it is a matter of comparative logic inherent to amour propre
but on a higher scale.43 Hence, potential unboundedness aided by the constancy of
the relationship set the conditions for an unfettered expression of passion between
state entities unparalleled in regard to inters-subjective quarrels. A direct
consequence of this kind of relationship between artificial entities is that the
relational stakes are seldom limited to a given individual issue: “As against hit-andrun raids to steal some land or goods, interstate war offers clashes about territory,
resources and manpower on a grand scale”.44 Another consequence of conflict
between state entities is its augmented intensity with regard to private quarrels:
“Since states are more powerful than individual men, their antagonisms produce
greater upheavals than the clashes of individuals. There are more murders in one
day of battle than there had been for centuries in the state of nature”.45
Thus we can now clearly circumscribe Rousseau’s view on war that is defined by
general, constant and intensive hostility between states and is as such a product of
the organised social state.
This definition has an enormous impact on the state of mind of the belligerent
parties. When involved in war they ineluctably develop the will to destroy the other
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 274.
Rousseau believed that the force of the state is actually weaker than the sum total of
particular forces. The state is therefore led to compensate this deficiency by a surge of
passion: “Que l’on considère combine dans l’agrégation du cops politique, la force publique
est inférieure à la somme des forces particulières, combine il y a, pour ainsi dire, de
frottement dans le jeu de toute la machine et l’on trouvera que toute proportion gardée
l’homme le plus débile a plus de force pour sa propre conservation que l’Etat le plus robuste
n’en a pour la sienne. Il faut donc que cet état subsiste que la vivacité de ses passions suplée
à celle de ces mouvements, […] “. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre,
op. cit., p. 275.
44 Stanley HOFFMANN, “Rousseau on War and Peace”, op. cit., p. 32. For Rousseau, the
institutionalisation of property contributes crucially and perniciously to the cultivation of
violence between individuals in society: “Le premier qui ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa de
dire, ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la
société civile”. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, O.C. III, p. 167.
45
Stanley HOFFMANN, “Rousseau on War and Peace”, op. cit, p. 47.
42
43
11
states because only the complete elimination of the other would ensure the integrity
and unity of the state on a permanent basis. Ultimately, only the survival as a sole
entity would really signify the end of inter-state enmity and hence war. The
destructive will lies at the heart of the inter-state relationship called war:
“[…] cette volonté manifestée de s’entredétruire et tous les actes qui en dépendent
produisent entre deux ennemis une relation qu’on appelle guerre”.46
However, following Rousseau, it is at the same time close to impossible to annul the
social pact or even destroy the enemy’s general will from the outside:
“Le principe de vie du corps politique, et si l'on peut parler ainsi le cœur de l'Etat est
le pacte social par où sitôt qu'on le blesse, à l'instant il meurt, tombe et se dissout,
mais ce pacte n'est point une chartre en parchemin qu'il suffise de déchirer pour le
détruire, il est écrit dans la volonté générale et c'est là qu'il n'est pas facile de
l'annuler”.47
Consequently, as it is extremely challenging to effectively destroy the general will,
this difficulty is again to be compensated by an enhanced intensity of armed
hostilities. The unbounded passions instilled by the state against the natural
propensities of the individual further contribute to strengthening the antagonism.48
At the same time, the danger of destruction from the outside threatening the
constituted society has a salutary and unifying effect on the state that cannot be
neglected. It vanishes as soon interstate hostility ebbs away:
“Mais quand le péril qui les a réunis s'éloignera, les factions qu'il écarte renaîtront
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 267. The cited passage was
first published in Bernard GAGNEBIN (ed.), De Ronsard à Breton, Hommage à Marcel
Raymond, José Corti, Paris, 1967, pp. 103-109. In the Œuvres complètes, this fragment was
published separately.
47 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 276.
48 See: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, O.C. III, pp. 178–179: “Les
corps politiques restant ainsi entre'eux dans l'Eéat de nature se ressentirent bientôt des
inconveniens qui avoient forcé les particuliers d'en sortir, et cet état devint encore plus
funeste entre ces grands corps qu'il ne l'avoit été auparavant entre les individus dont ils
étoient composés. De là sortirent les guerres nationales, les batailles, les meurtres, les
représailles, qui font frémir la nature et choque la raison, et tous ces préjugés horribles qui
placent au rang de vertus l'honneur de répandre le sang humain”.
46
12
parmi eux et, au lieu de réunir leurs forces pour le maintien de l'indépendance, ils les
useront les uns contre les autres et n'en auront plus pour se défendre, si l'on vient
encore à les attaquer”.49
The tactics of war must therefore reside in the actions that weaken the integrity and
unity of the enemy state by attacking its different constitutive parts: be it the
government itself, particular customs and laws, its possessions, or even certain
individuals. Rousseau therefore continues as follows:
“Ne pouvant donc d’abord diviser le tout on l’atteint par ses parties. Si le corps est
invulnérable, on blesse les membres pour l’affaiblir. Si l’on ne lui peut ôter l’existence
on altére au moins son bien être, si l’on ne peut arriver au siége de la vie, on détruit ce
qui la maintient, on attaque le gouvernement, les lois, les mœurs, les biens, les
possessions, les hommes ; il faut bien que l’Etat périsse quand tout ce qui le conserve
est anéanti”.50
It is noteworthy that Rousseau mentions the role of individuals in wars only in the
last place. The aim of war is not to kill as much individuals as possible but to destroy
the enemy state and its institutions. When the forces of the state cannot destroy the
state as a state, the main aim of attack is therefore to change the nature of what
constitutes it as state:
“Que le but et l’effet de la guerre ne soit quelquefois que d’altérer la constitution de
l’Etat ennemi cela n’est pas non plus difficile à justifier”.51
This leads Rousseau to a surprising, but nevertheless coherent possibility with
regard to the ultimate goal of the demise that the belligerent party pursues:
“On peut tuer l'Etat sans tuer un seul de ses members”.52
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Constitution pour la Corse, O.C. III, p. 903.
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 276.
51 Ibid., p. 277.
52 J. L. WINDENBERGER, La République confédérative des petits Etats: Essai sur le système de
politique étrangère de J.-J- Rousseau, op. cit., p. 267. At the same time, Rousseau acknowledges
that the individual is the most vulnerable part of the state. The state might be tempted to
attack civilians of an enemy state – also outside the State itself – if other constitutive parts are
too difficult to be reached or over-protected. Some authors inferred from this obvious danger
for civilians that Rousseau was dunning to further strengthen the ius in bello over the ius ad
49
50
13
Accordingly, an official state of peace, i.e. the absence of concrete acts of hostilities,
must not necessarily constitute the end of the divisive actions. As a consequence, a
so-called state of peace can very well be the mere continuity of the state of open
hostility that is war:
“ […] quand deux ennemis déclarés demeurent tranquilles et ne font l’un contre
l’autre aucun acte offensif, leur relation ne change pas pour cela, mais tant qu'elle n'a
point d’effet actuel elle s'appelle seulement état de guerre”.53
Thus only the absence of mutually destructive intentions and not the simple lack of
hostile acts would define a genuine state of peace according to Rousseau. War
preparations, stockpiling of weapons, and unspecified military operations show
instead the constant hostile intention of the enemy. Long wars that cannot be
decisively terminated, typically end in such a state of war.54 As long as this dynamic
continues peace is not the absence of war, but the continuation of war by other
means: the absence of war is therefore the state of war. Again, it seems that it is the
permanence of the relations between states as artificial bodies, defined as either open
hostility that is war or a state of war, is to be considered the most serious obstacle to
the possibility of genuine international peace.
II. The Hiatus of International Confederation and the Policy of Discreet Withdrawal
Is there a way out of this dilemma according to Rousseau? The answer to this
question is very much disputed and most of Rousseau's interpreters have looked for
guidance in his comments on Abbé de St. Pierre's Projet de paix perpétuelle.55 Waltz for
instance portrays Rousseau as a partisan of a worldwide federation, basically
attributing positions of Saint-Pierre to Rousseau.56 When reading his Extrait du projet
bellum.
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 268.
54 Ibid., pp. 268-269.
55 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Extrait du projet de paix perpétuelle de Monsieur l'Abbé de Saint Pierre,
O.C. III, pp. 563–616.
56 Kenneth WALTZ, Man, the State, and War, op. cit., p. 165 ff. Voltaire and James Madison fell
into the same trap. Cf. George R. HAVENS, Voltaire's Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau. A
Comparative Study of Ideas, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1933; Marie-Hélène
COTONI, “Les notes marginales de Voltaire sur l'Extrait du Projet de paix perpétuelle de
53
14
de paix perpétuelle, one could indeed easily mistake and be tempted to confuse the
words of the Abbé with Rousseau's. However, on the background of the presented
insights with regard to the substantial and qualitative differences between
interpersonal and interstate relations observed by Rousseau, the following argument,
for instance, does clearly not concur with Rousseau's belief:
“S'il y a quelques moyen de lever ces dangereuses contradictions, ce ne peut être que
par une forme de gouvernement confédérative, qui unissent les peuples par des liens
semblables à ceux qui unissent les individus, soumette également les uns et les autres
à l'autorité des lois”.57
On the other side of the spectrum, there is the conclusion of sheer impossibility of
international peace and harmony that other authors attribute to Rousseau: “Since the
international struggle was the automatic consequence of the international system
nothing less than a federation of all states would eliminate war; but nothing less than
the international system prevented the conclusion of a federation”.58
Whereas the exact positioning of Rousseau with regard to the means eventually
leading to permanent pacification and genuine peace on the international scene
remains a matter of interpretation, most readers would probably agree that
Rousseau's projected margin for international peace and security seems indeed a
very small one.
I will follow up on this debate by reconstructing on what I would call critical
comments pertaining to the confederative project of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre in light of
Rousseau’s considerations on war.59 In this context, Rousseau puts the five articles
Castel de Saint-Pierre”, par Jean-Jacques Rousseau", Revue Voltaire 3, 2003: 59–67.
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Extrait du projet de paix perpétuelle, O. C. III, p. 564; Windenberger
seems to have accepted a similar litteral and analogical understanding: “Au Contrat Social
s'ajoute le Contrat international; à l'organisation des hommes des sociétés civiles se
superpose la République confédérative des petits Etats“, In: J. L. WINDENBERGER, La
République confédérative des petits Etats: Essai sur le système de politique étrangère de J.-JRousseau, op. cit., p. 237.
58 Francis H. HINSLEY, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1963, pp. 25–51; Patrick RILEY, “Rousseau as a Theorist of National and
International Federalism“, Publius 3 (1), 1973: 5–17, p. 16.
59 Although I have no concrete proof of this, I think that Rousseau’s studies on the projects of
the Abbé were precisely conducted in view of the chapters that were to follow the
introductory part on international politics that was recently reconstructed. Accordingly, they
would have to be read as a sort of critical counter-factual to the chapters on international
57
15
formulated by the Abbé in view of establishing in Europe a general confederation of
states under close scrutiny.
The first article subsumed by Rousseau stipulates the following: the contracting
sovereign powers will form a permanent and irrevocable alliance. The contracting
sovereign powers shall be represented on a permanent basis at a defined venue by
plenipotentiaries in congress. All disputes between contracting parties shall be dealt
with by this congress of plenipotentiaries by way of arbitration or adjudication.60 In
other terms, the sovereign and contracting parties of the European Confederation are
to be considered independent units that come together for the unique and permanent
purpose of peaceful settlement of disputes without giving up their own substantial
unity as states. Interestingly, Rousseau in his introductory comments to the proposal,
seems to go much further than the first article as formulated by the Abbé asking for
quite different means of association than suggested by Sant-Pierre in his project:
“[...] la société libre et volontaire, qui unit tous les Etats européens, prenant force et la
solidité d'un vrai corps politique, peut de changer en une confédération réelle. Il est
indubitable qu'un pareil établissement donnant à cette association la perfection qui la
manquait, en détruira l'abus, en étendra les avantages et forcera toutes les parties à
concourir au bien commun; mais il faut pour cela que cette confédération soit
tellement générale, que nulle puissance considérable ne s'y refuse; qu'elle ait un
tribunal judiciare, qui puisse établir les lois et les règlements qui doivent obliger tous
les membres; qu'elle ait une force coactive et coërcitive pour contraindre chaque Etat
de se soumettre aux déliberations communes, soit pour agir, soit pour s'abstenir;
enfin, qu'elle soit ferme et durable, pour empêcher que les membres ne s'en détachent
à leur volonté, sitôt qu'ils croiront que leur intérêt particulier contraire à l'intérêt
général”.61
In other words, the resolutions of the congress, that has to include the most powerful
states at any time on a permanent basis, should be absolutely binding on all members
of the confederation. This implies that no party can unilaterally secede or be
politics of his Institutions politiques he projected to write. (Whether he has actually written
them and whether they were later destroyed by him or someone else must remain an open
question).
60 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Extrait du projet de paix perpétuelle, O.C. III, p. 575.
61 Ibid., p. 574.
16
excluded from the overall binding confederal terms, as the essential purpose of the
federation is to preserve its own substantial unity. Hence a change to the
constitutional terms of the union requires unanimity and agreement by all parties. It
is therefore necessary and crucial to Rousseau's ideal that the joint confederal forces
must be stronger than any single state as a unit. As such, the force must be ready to
act at any time in order to enforce its binding decisions. Indeed, following Rousseau,
an aggregate whole is always stronger and of different quality than the sole
individual parts. Thus, any overall unity of states must necessarily dispose of an
overwhelming force in order to come to terms with its constituting members:
“Il ne faut que jeter les yeux sur cette liste, pour voir avec la dernière évidence, qu'il
n'est pas possible, ni qu'aucune des puissances qui la composent soit en état de
résister à toutes les autres unies en corps, ni qu'il s'y forme aucune ligue partielle,
capable de faire tête à la grande confederation”.62
Obviously, Rousseau is thinking about the conditions under which one can pretend
that there can be something like the generation and embodiment of a general
international will. At the same time, we have to bear in mind that Rousseau in his
writings on war denies the existential possibility of an international general will. As
indicated, this impossibility finds its source in the artificial nature of the state. Thus
Rousseau’s investigation into the next articles of confederation seems to lead into
exactly the same direction on how the general is to override particular ambitions,
and eventually force the members on equal ground.
The second article of Saint-Pierre's proposal is to define the exact number of the
contracting parties and their specific weight in terms of voting power every party has
at the congress of plenipotentiaries. Their relative pecuniary contribution is to be
defined by this article as well. According to Rousseau, nineteen European sovereigns
would have an equal share at the congress of plenipotentiaries. However, some
minor powers would have less than one vote.63
The third article specifies that the whole is to guarantee and defend the possessions
of each part as well as theirs respective system of sovereign succession, be it
62
63
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Extrait du projet de paix perpétuelle, O.C. III, p. 578.
Ibid., p. 577.
17
hereditary or elective.
The fourth article conveys the conviction that the inner unity of a part as a unit is not
necessarily conducive to the unity of the greater unit, being possibly in contradiction
with the confederation at a given time. It stipulates therefore clearly that a part or
member cannot exclude itself from the whole. Thus any renegade part will be
included by force by the confederation as a whole:
“[…] on armera et agira offensivement, conjointement et à frais communs, contre tout
Etat au ban de l'Europe, jusqu'à ce qu'il ait mis bas les armes […]”64
The fifth article stipulates a unanimity condition for any fundamental change to rules
governing the confederation.
It results from the analysis presented so far that Rousseau thinks that even partial
delegation of state power to a confederal body without the necessary means of
enforcement of its positive rules is clearly insufficient in order to build a sustainable
union of states. But, on the background of the unlikeliness that states will ever
sincerely do so due to their natural propensity for hostile actions and intentions, does
this mean that Rousseau implies here that the very possibility and prospect for peace
based on a general commonwealth is but a dangerous chimera? In order to answer
this question tentatively, I will have to look out for further indications in Rousseau’s
commentaries on Saint-Pierre proposal and other relevant political writings.
Interestingly, and what might seems a detail at first sight, Rousseau operates a slight
change from the original project with respect to the list of states to be included by the
confederation: whereas the Abbé de Saint-Pierre nominally mentioned the names of
the countries, Rousseau prefers to call them by their embodied sovereign names, thus
‘France’ becomes the ‘King of France’. This change seems not accidental to me.
Indeed, Rousseau states that the main source of conflict lies with the individual vices
and ambitions of the respective sovereign, i.e. their concrete amour propre:
“Celui qui n'a rien désire peu de chose; celui qui ne commande a peu d'ambition.
Mais le superflu éveille la convoitise; plus on obtient plus on désire. Celui qui a
beaucoup veut tout avoir; et la folie de la monarchie universelle n'a jamais tourmenté
64
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Extrait du projet de paix perpétuelle, O.C. III, p. 577.
18
que le cœur d'un grand roi”.65
Here we find again a leitmotiv of Rousseau’s writings on war and the state of war. It
is
the
conviction
of
growing
might
that
nourishes
sovereign
ambition
disproportionally. It is exacerbated in the form of individual ambition of an
embodied sovereign that has both the nature of the artificial and the individual body.
It is exactly this kind of over-ambition that Rousseau identifies as the probable cause
of England's coming fall.66 For Rousseau it is foreseeable that any state, sooner or
later, and the bigger it gets the sooner, will fall from the pedestal. Expansionism is in
this context the primal symptom of the coming fall. Again he explains this as follows:
the structure of power is such that substantial inner unity as material means should
actually be proportionate to a sovereign's ambitions in terms of self-preservation.
But, in fact, material state force is hyperbolically limited, but the ambitions of the
sovereign tend to systematically over-estimate its real force. If this is the case, the
same flaw applies even to a higher degree to an artificial body of artificial bodies that
is a confederation: the probability of the establishment of a confederation is therefore
highly diminished. Accordingly, in analogy to the artificial state condition, according
to Rousseau, there is probably no sufficient constituent power or coup de force to be
deployed by a given state in order to create the confederation in the first place.
“On ne voit point de ligues fédératives s'établir autrement que par des révolutions, et
sur ce principe qui de nous oiserait dire que cette Ligue Européenne est à désirer ou
craindre? Elle feroit peut-être plus de mal tout d'un coup qu'elle n'en préviendroit
pour des siécles”.67
All the more: a lightheaded temptation to establish a confederation by force - whose
actual potency is actually over-estimated – might actually be very dangerous for the
involved sovereign power:
“Qui veut soutenir le monde et n’a pas les épaules d’Hercule, doit s’attendre d’être
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 269.
Voltaire's comment on this wrong prediction is particularly ironic: ”Ah pauvre homme!
Encore profete?”, In: George R. HAVENS, Voltaire's Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau. A
Comparative Study of Ideas, op. cit., p. 34.
67 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Jugement sur le projet de paix perpétuelle, O. C. III, p. 600.
65
66
19
écrasé”.68
Given this constituent aporia of state force and the impossibility of the state to
durably alienate its sovereignty without risking to burning out its inner cohesion,69
Rousseau seems hitherto to suggest that the confederal ideal as sketched by SaintPierre is not only unrealistic but also undesirable. And, even if these two obstacles
were to be overcome somehow, a confederal system would perhaps be able to create
a momentum of peace in terms of absence of war but never in terms of the absence of
the state of war between states. International peace would therefore be only apparent
but not genuine because hostile intention cannot be effectively controlled.70
In light of these observations, it appears to me that Rousseau’s ultimate propositions
with regard to the possibility of international peace tend in a quite different
direction, other than the construction of a confederative world system. Still, in view
of his observation on the tendency to over-estimate the might of the state, the
concrete limitation of material capacity may very well be a desirable objective for
him, for instance in the form of disarmament. But what really counts in the first place
is the limitation of sovereign ambitions and greed that arise out of the accumulation
and over-estimation of material state force. Mutual hostile intentions that might
remain invisible until the next belligerent outburst define the palladium of the
problem of international peace.
There are of course different means to check and moderate the sovereign's unlimited
desire and ambitions. The first option is to minimize the inner realm of a given state
in terms of territory and resources. Thus, like in the case of Corsica, there is an ideal
size to a given state according to Rousseau. On one side, it has to be sufficiently big
in order to be self-sufficient, on the other side, sufficiently small in order not to
nourish the over-ambition of the state sovereign:
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Polysynodie de l'Abbé de Saint-Pierre, O. C. III, p. 618.
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du Contract social, O.C. III, book II, chapter 1, pp. 368-369: “[…] la
souveraineté n'étant que l'exercice de la volonté générale ne peut jamais s'aliéner, et que le
souverain, qui n'est qu'un être collectif, ne peut être représenté que par lui-même. Le pouvoir
peut bien se transmettre, mais non pas la volonté”.
70 In this respect, Rousseau can be said to be quite close to Robert Jervis’ theoretical position:
Robert JERVIS, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma”, World Politics 30 (2), 1978: 167214.
68
69
20
“Un pays est dans sa plus grande force indépendante quand la terre y produit autant
qu’il est possible, c’est à dire quand elle a autant de cultivateurs qu’elle en veut
avoir”.71
In this context, the rule of independence and relative insulation is precisely meant to
minimize the dangerous intercourse between sovereigns on the international scene
that inevitably breeds permanent conflict between nations either as open hostility or
as an ongoing state of war.
The second moderating principle is expressed by the modality of non-permanent
delegation of power. This principle can be identified in Rousseau's proposition with
regard to the government of Poland. In order to keep the ambitions of the different
constituting parts and its corruptible delegates (nonces) low, Rousseau proposes
frequent change of delegates endowed with an imperative mandate, and alternating
and intermittent assembly venues.72
The third means of curbing intemperate sovereign ambitions would be to clearly
distinguish between representative and essential sovereign functions. The analysis of
the Polysynodie projected again by the Abbé de Staint-Pierre gives us some more
insight with regard to Rousseau's quest on moderating sovereign power while
striving to preserve the unity of the body politic. Delegating essential powers to a
government, the embodied permanent sovereign is to be stripped of his daily burden
of government.73 The argument of the Abbé is to think that the concrete burden of
government is eventually to be abandoned by the sovereign for it is too heavy and
ultimately risks imperiling his very sovereign position.74 However, Rousseau is very
sceptical whether the sovereigns will eventually accept any form of government
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Constitution pour la Corse, O.C. III, p. 944; Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU,
Sur le gouvernement de Pologne, O. C. III, p. 970.
72 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Considération sur le gouvernement de Pologne, O.C. III, chapter VIII,
pp. 975–989; see, also : Robert DERATHE, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la science politique de son
temps, J. Vrin, Paris, 1970, pp. 277–278.
73 This distinction between the sovereign and the government as the administrating body of
the general will through the law lies at the heart of Rousseau's provocative definition of the
Republican government: “Pour être légitime il ne faut pas que le Gouvernement se confonde
avec le Souverain, mais qu'il en soit le ministre: alors la monarchie elle-même est
république“. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du Contract social, book I, chapter VI, O.C. III, p.
380.
74 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Polysynodie de l'Abbé de Saint-Pierre, pp. 618–619.
71
21
without effective influence.75 Will they not be tempted to compensate for the loss of
power domestically by increasing their appetite on the international scene?
In fact, the curbing of sovereign particular ambitions on the international scene is a
very delicate act of balancing according to Rousseau. The necessity of inner unity
clashes directly with this objective. As the general will is naturally weak with regard
to the will of groups (volonté de corps) and even more so with regard to the particular
will, the necessities of effective government dictate the concentration of power in one
instance as counter-balance:
“ […] que tout le gouvernement soit posé entre les mains d'un seul homme. Voilà la
volonté particulière et la volonté du corps parfaitement réunies, et par conséquent
celle-ci est au plus haut degré d'intensité qu'elle puisse avoir”.76
In this case, the peril of over-ambition is not eliminated but only transferred to
another centre of power that is the government.77 In his commentaries on Abbé de
Saint-Pierre's Polysynodie, Rousseau agrees with this natural trend towards
concentration of power i.e. towards monarchy or the visirate. Beginning
hypothetically with a multitude of counsellors to the sovereign in the polysynodial
constellation, in the semi-visirate, the governing board is eventually reduced to
several ministers, and in the end to one principal counsellor in the visirate:
“car il est plus aisé à une femme intrigante de placer un visir que cinquante
conseillers et de séduire un homme que tout un collège”.78
But, in substance, there is no actual difference between a prince acting as an effective
sovereign or an effective sovereign government to be observed. The natural trend
remains identical towards the “seul homme qui peut tout”79 be it a monarch or a
president for that matter. The aforesaid trend is of course again particularly true for
states of a certain size developing expansionist ambitions. The form of government is
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Jugement sur le projet de paix perpétuelle, O. C. III., pp. 592–595.
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du Contract social, book II, chapter III, O.C. III, p. 401.
77 “Le monarque et le visir sont deux machines exactement semblables dont l'une devient
inutile sitôt que l'autre est en mouvement: car en effet, selon le mot de Grotius, qui regit, rex
est“. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Jugement sur la Polysynodie, O. C. III, p. 644.
78 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Polysynodie de l'Abbé de Saint-Pierre, O. C. III, p. 630.
79 Ibid., p. 631.
75
76
22
therefore not a sufficient obstacle to the expression of over-ambition and hostile
intentions on the international level nor does it provide a definite answer to the
conundrum of public good. The fact that different interpretations of what the public
good is and seemingly contradictory standpoints are to be defended by a multitude
of actors within a polity does not necessarily mean that the public interest is being
undermined by private interests. But it engenders a tendency to the imperfect and
incomplete identification of the Good that is again particularly exacerbated in states
of a certain size. Over-sizing gives rise to multiple embodiments of ambitions at
every level of society: “à force d’être bon sénateur on devient enfin mauvais
citoyen”.80 Following Rousseau then, the best modality in order to check the
ambitions of the sovereign is to enshrine it with the people as an unembodied
sovereign and not with a prince or king. In this way, the people would be almost
exclusively oriented on its own well-being:
“L'exercice de la puissance ne convient pas au peuple; les grands maximes d'Etat ne
sont pas à sa portée; […]"81
By implication, one can say that according to Rousseau, foreign policy and
international affairs should not be the primary and constant concern the citizenry. To
be a good citizen precisely means for the international context not to mingle with
external affairs. But, as we have seen with Rousseau’s effort to curb sovereign
ambitions, nobody actually should, nor the citizen nor the embodied sovereign. For
the latter only intermittent international representation distinguishing clearly
between mere representative and executive functions is to be preferred. Thus, on the
international scene the embodiment of the people through a merely representative
head of state is to be preferred to a prince or president with extensive foreign policy
competencies and therefore ambitions. In contemporary terms, this would mean to
prefer ad hoc reunions of regularly changing low-rank ambassadors are to be
preferred to permanent international bodies where executive heads of government of
mighty states compete for influence.
In conclusion, one can stipulate that for Rousseau the least bad international
80
81
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Fragments sur la Polysynodie, O. C. III, pp. 644–645.
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Lettres écrites de la montagne, septième lettre, O.C. III, p. 827.
23
configuration is an aggregation of relatively small and comparable states that
manage to restrain their outer ambitions and follies to a strict minimum. In this
context, the citizens' discreet withdrawal and relative indifference with regard to
current international affairs would not to be considered an obstacle to its inner and
outer security, but on the contrary a contribution to world peace and security. Only
in such a constellation peace would be the opposite of the state of war and not
merely the absence of war.
III. The Quest for Moral Unity and Order or the State of Peace
Nevertheless, in contrast to this vision of cutting back any international effort to
unite between states to a strict minimum, I propose to identify with Rousseau an
alternative narrative of the international realm. This corollary vision does not accept
the primacy of might over moral behaviour. Concurrently, this second vision does
refute the essential normative realist tenet that suggests, implicitly or explicitly, that
not taking the dynamics of power into account would be an immoral thing to do as
this would endanger the chances of survival of the polity on the international scene.
Indeed, Rousseau, at the bottom of his heart, does never fully accept Talion’s Law
although he accepts its reality:
“La plus inviolable loi de la nature est la loi du plus fort. Il n'y a point de législation
qui puisse exempter de cette loi”.82
Yet, there is a difference between accepting such a state of affairs as a reality and
accepting it as a morally justified reality:
“Céder à la force est un acte de nécessité, non de volonté; c'est tout au plus un acte de
prudence. En quel sens pourra-ce être un devoir?”83
Why, fundamentally, should this dilemma be that different from the domestic
level?84 Surely, there are the dynamics and logics pertaining to the artificial state
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Considération sur le gouvernement de Pologne, chapter XII, O. C. III,
p. 1013.
83 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Du Contract social; ou, principes du droit politique, first book, chapter
III, O.C. III, p. 354.
84 See: “La perfection de l’ordre social conisiste il est vrai dans le concours de la force et de
82
24
bodies states that exacerbate considerably and obfuscate the situation. Nonetheless,
there must be a loophole, somewhere.
I suggest that we can identify an alternative view to the realist narrative within
Rousseau’s Lévite d’Ephräim.85 Most notably, in the relevant literature, the Levite is
almost never considered a political writing in the sense of the Discourses and the
Social Contract and even less a text on international politics.86 Suspecting more than
an accidental neglect of a “minor” work, the Levite might very well constitute a sort
of missing link in regard to my initial query, defining a middle ground between the
natural and the social state on the international level akin to the savage state within
the domestic realm.87 Behind the scene of the Levite there is a dynamic at work that
can be considered middle way between the state of nature and the social state.
Contrary to Rousseau’s state of war it brings out the positive sides of both states and
could therefore be considered his version of the state of peace.
For the sake of understanding, follows a very short version of the Levite’s story: the
pulchritudinous beloved of a Levite is raped collectively and finally murdered by
townsmen of Gibeah in the land of the Benjamite tribe, violating grossly the laws of
hospitality, while he was with her on his journey through Bethlehem. The Levite
brings the corpse back to his home on Mount Ephraim where he dissects the body
sending pieces to all of the twelve tribes of Israel. All the tribes then convene at a
l’ordre: mais il faut pour cela que la loi dirige la force, au lieu que dans les idées de
l’indépendance absolue des princes la seule force, parlant aux citoyens sous le nom de loi et
aux étrangers sous le nom de raison d’Etat, ôte à ceux-ci le pouvoir et aux autres le pouvoir
de résister, en sorte que le vain nom de justice ne sert partour que de sauvegarde à la
violence”. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Principes du droit de la guerre, op. cit., p. 265.
85
On the particular circumstances and significance of the Levite as an exceptional writing
when Rousseau had to flee France in 1762 as the consequence of Emile’s condemnation see:
François VAN LAERE, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: du phantasme à l’écriture. Les révélations du
“Lévite d’Ephräim”, Archives des lettres modernes 81 (8), 1967: 247-251. It is to note that in
general studies dedicated to the Levite of Ephraim are conspicuously sparse. Exceptions are:
Aubrey ROSENBERG, “Rousseau’s Lévite d’Ephraïm and the Golden Age”, Australian Journal of
French Studies 15, 1978: 163–172; Thomas M. KAVANAGH, “Rousseau’s Le Lévite d’Ephraïm :
Dream, Text and Synthesis“, Eighteenth-century Studies 16 (2), 1982: 141–161; Judith R. STILL,
“Rousseau’s Levite d’Ephraïm: the Imposition of Meaning (on Women)”, French Studies 43,
1989: 12–30; Thomas M. KAVANAGH, “Rosseaus’s the Levite of Ephraim”, In: Patrick RILEY
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.
86 See for instance: C. E. VAUGHAN, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, op. cit. and
the Pléiade edition, Œuvres complètes, vol. III.
87 Jonathan MARKS, “The Savage Pattern: The Unity of Rousseau’s Thought Revisited”, Polity
31 (1), 1998: 75-105.
25
location called Mitzpeh. During their assembly they decide as a community, the
nation of Israel, to punish the Benjamite tribe by massacring them.88 Behind the
narrative of the assembly of the Israelites at Mitzpeh, we can identify a specific and
archaic figure of unity that Rousseau’s has depicted in other writings like in his
Emile, the Rêveries du promeneur solitaire, and his Confessions. This kind of unity is
largely tributary to Platonian and to his specific vision of divine unity that does not
allow for any exception to the general law of providence:89
“Peut-être dans l’ordre des choses humaines n’a-t-elle ni tort ni raison, parce que tout
tient à la loi commune et qu’il n’y a d’exception pour personne. Il est à croire que les
événements particuliers ne sont rien aux yeux du maître de l’univers ; que sa
providence est seulement universelle“.90
According to this kind of unity, only uncorporeal moral unity, sharing all possible
passions and retaining all attributes of legitimate power, would provide a guarantee
of the perfect Good.91 Indeed, with Rousseau, complete and perfect unity is
necessarily a spiritual or a moral one.92
In this context, and in view of the historical circumstances of the Reformation, the
example of the pope given by Rousseau as possible unique spiritual reference shows
perhaps even a certain irony revealing the obvious limits to a lived spiritual unity in
terms of likelihood:
“Le pape est le vrai roi des rois, la division des peuples en Etats et gouvernements
In deviation from the biblical account, the Levite dies after his speech to the assembly and
is buried together with the remains of his promised wife on spot. The original is to be found
with Judges, 17-21.
89 David Lay WILLIAMS, Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment, Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, 2007 ; Joseph MOREAU, ”Rousseau platonicien”, Revue de théologie et de
philosophie 21, 1971: 323-341; Michael J. SILVERTHORNE, ”Rousseau’s Plato”, Studies on Voltaire
and the Eighteenth Century CXVI, 1973: 235-249; Zev TRACHTENBERG, ”Rousseau’s Platonic
Rejection of Politics”, Pensée libre 8, 2001: 57-67.
90 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Lettre à Voltaire sur la Providence, O. C. IV, p. 1069.
91 ” […] au lieu de tout est bien, il vaudrait peut-être mieux dire, le tout est bien, ou, tout est
bien pour le tout”, ibid., p. 1068.
92 “Il n'y a que Dieu qui puisse gouverner le monde, et il faudroit des facultés plus
qu'humaines pour gouverner de grandes nations”. In: Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Sur le
gouvernement de Pologne, O. C. III, p. 970.
88
26
n'est qu'apparente et illusoire”.93
Nevertheless, such a uniting mechanism could eventually be activated when the
whole of the people, the Whole, or what is thought to be the Whole by all concerned
actors, (on a global level this might be the equivalent of humanity or mankind)
considers an attack on one of its constitutive member parts as a vital threat to its
collective existence. Only in this exceptional case, precisely as in the Levite of Ephraim,
the different parts unite in symphony in order to re-establish the order that has been
insulted and disrupted. Hence, for Rousseau, the activation of this mode of unity,
akin to the mizzled off natural unity that blurs the Whole and the individual into one
and the same sphere remains exceptional on the social level. This can only be
achieved by unanimous mobilisation and when all the parts take part in the
endeavour without exception requiring the mobilisation of overwhelming force as
one:
“Cependant vous eussiez vu tout le peuple de dieu s'émouvoir, s'assembler, sortir des
ses demeures accourir de toutes les tribus à Maspha devant le seigneur, comme un
nombreux d'essaim d'abeilles se rassemble en bourdonnant autour de leur roi. Ils
vinrent tous, ils vinrent de toutes parts, de tous les cantons, tous d'accord comme un
seul homme […]”94
It is this exceptional constellation, equating the danger of physical destruction of one
of its parts with the moral destruction of the Whole that allows for an albeit forceful
but transient form of unity. In this particular temporary instance, physical survival
becomes a synonym of moral survival, and force serves the purpose of an order that
is considered just by all actors, except for the rapist and murderer of the Levite’s
concubine.
But, characteristically, even the surviving Benjamites have a part in the whole, once
justice is restored. The whole of the community “finds itself in a double bind:
Because all have taken a collective oath, none may give his daughter to a Benjamite”
Fragment found on the last page of the Geneva manuscript. Cited in: J. L. WINDENBERGER,
La République confédérative des petits Etats: Essai sur le système de politique étrangère de J.-JRousseau, op. cit., p. 267.
94 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Dialogues. Rousseau, juge de Jean-Jacques. Le Lévite d'Ephraïm,
Flammarion, Paris, 1999, p. 444.
93
27
and, secondly, “because all are the chosen people of the Lord, none may tolerate the
extinction of the whole tribe”.95 Thus, for the community as a whole to survive, some
element has to step aside compassing the established law. This role is played in
Rousseau’s the narrative by the Old Man of Lebona who, by giving away his
daughters to the surviving Benjamites, is closing the restorative cycle in a final
equation between justice and the preservation of the Whole.96
From the contemporary point of view, the depicted phenomenon is perhaps best
illustrated by what has been called policide or politicide,97 i.e. the threat or the
attempted destruction of a formally independent group constituted as a political
unit.98 One can imagine that such an eventuality has the sufficient moral mobilising
power to create a momentous moral unity on the international level, provided of
course that there is a sufficient consensus on the threat involved and posed to
humanity or mankind as a Whole.
In conclusion, according to this exceptional view, peace would not be defined as
absence of war or the state of war, but, inversely, war would be defined as the he
absence of moral and civil order. Contrariwise, under ordinary circumstances, the
social state and the ordered and moral existence of states as states are themselves the
actual source of war according to Rousseau. Thus, as a matter of rule, the realist
premise can be thought to apply to Rousseau’s general view on international politics
because “[…] the fragmentation of power in the international system is the
immediate cause of war”.99
95
Thomas M. KAVANAGH, “Rosseaus’s the Levite of Ephraim”, op. cit., p. 412.
The function of the Old Man is obviously very close to the Lawgiver in the second book of
the Social Contract. In addition, there is the story of an impossible love between a daughter of
the Old Man and a man other than a Benjamite. An act of civic virtue in favour of the
superior principle of survival of the Whole let the lovers renounce to their nascent bond. This
episode if obviously reminiscent of Julie in La Nouvelle Héloïse.
97 Michael Walzer states that the term of policide was coined in 1967 by Abba Eban, Israel's
former foreign minister, bearing the meaning of destruction of a state's independence. In:
Michael WALZER, Just and Unjust Wars. A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Basic
Books, New York, 1977, p. 52.
98 In terms of international recognition, this would define an exceptional circumstance
wherein political and constitutional recognition are effectively co-extensive. See: Hans
KELSEN, “Recognition in International Law. Theoretical Observations”, American Journal of
International Law 35 (4), 1941: 605-617.
99 Stanley HOFFMANN and David P. FIDLER (eds.), Rousseau on International Relations, op. cit.,
p. 34.
96
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III. Framing International Political Theory as a Struggle Between a Strong and Weak
Ontological Premise of Order
In summary, I suggest that Rousseau's considerations on international politics have
indeed two dimensions. The first one is indeed very close to what can be called a
realist tenet. However, Rousseau’s definition of peace as the absence of the state of
war and not only open hostility bears somewhat diverse consequences compared to
ordinary contemporary political realism. He seems to suggest a particularly weak
inter-state framework based on a radical limitation on any international interactions
and almost complete disengagement from the outer state sphere: self-help and
autarchy, yes, but no power-balancing. The reason behind the need for international
withdrawal is that there is a sort of compensatory trade-off between the domestic
and the international realm according to Rousseau: The inner process of necessary
state unification, matching and equating effectively a strong premise of order with a
strong commitment to order, finds its mirror image on the international scene where
a minimalist and weak premise of order cannot but match a weak and restrained
commitment.100 Hence international fragmentation is the direct consequence of
I take up here a distinction that I found with Stephen K. White according to whom the
political can be said to struggle between weak and strong ontology. Stephen K. WHITE,
“Affirmation and Weak Ontology in Political Theory: Some Rules and Doubts”, Theory &
Event 4 (2), 2000 ; see, also : Oliver MARCHART, „Vorwort: Undarstellbarkeit und
ontologische Differenz“, In: Oliver MARCHART (ed.), Das Undarstellbare der Politik. Zur
Hegemonietheorie Ernesto Laclaus, Turia+Kant, Vienna, 1998, pp. 7-20 and David MAYHEW,
“Political Science and Political Philosophy: Ontological not Normative”, Political Science &
Politics 33 (2), 2000 : 192-193. Moreover, I suggest that Rousseau has in this regard a critical
and paradigmatic potential, linking the domestic and international realms together in their
struggle for a contemporary notion of the political. This notion seems to be largely
undetermined or unfounded. Nevertheless, I propose to conceive of the current debate
slightly differently. In my opinion, the process is best captured as a struggle between weak
and strong ontological foundations in relation to strong and weak ontological commitment.
In this sense, the adequate epistemological position seems to me what might be called critical
post-foundationalism that analyzes a struggle between strong and weak foundationalism
and not between advocates of foundationalism opposed to anti-foundationalists. In addition,
it appears to me that, today, the international realm defines the primary ground where this
battle is waged. See: Robert J. WALKER, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political
Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993. Accordingly, the
international sphere would be a most adequate empirical observation ground with regard to
the aforesaid ontological struggle. See: Nicholas RENGGER, “Political and International
Relations: Promised Land or Exit from Eden”, International Affairs 76 (4), 2000: 755-770; Barry
BUZAN and Richard LITTLE, “Why International Relations has Failed as an Intellectual Project
and What to do About it”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 30 (1), 2001: 19-39;
David BOUCHER, “Political Theory, International Theory, and the Political Theory of
100
29
domestic social order and has no actual independent systemic or structural standing
as Waltzian neo-realism would suggest; it is one and the same political order.101
Nonetheless, as with regard to the initial query, in general, Rousseau can vey well be
said to be a realist albeit a reluctant102 or, as I proposed, a methodological realist. I
suggest with narrative of the Levite that, by accepting the realist point of view and
having deconstructed the utopian character of the confederal ideal, Rousseau is
implicitly looking out for a whatever remote possibility of a moral core that has the
potential to bring about a form of international unity in analogy to domestic unity.
However, international unity and will, in contrast to the state as a permanently
enshrining entity of the sovereign general will, is necessarily unembodied. As such
this specific form of behaviour is perhaps much closer to what has recently been
called shared intentionality in early human developmental psychology103 rather than
full-fledged
rational
interest-based
institutionalized
cooperation
as
liberal
international relations scholars would suggest.104
As a final conclusion, one could say that, as a matter of fact, when one is thinking of
Rousseau as a realist, and especially when realists do that, they intentionally or
unconsciously deprive − or pretend to deprive − political realism and, by implication,
international theory of its normative content and critical potential.105 Paradoxically,
Rousseau is a realist precisely to avoid this pitfall. Therefore the most adequate
answer to the initial question – and probably to Rousseau’s intention − would be to
answer yes but no.
International Relations“, In: Andrew VINCENT (ed.), Political Theory. Tradition and Diversity,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997, pp. 193-213.
101 See: “Changes in the structure of the system are distinct from changes at the unit level”.
In: Kenneth N. WALTZ, “Structural Realism after the Cold War”, International Security 25 (1),
2000: 5-41, p. 5.
102 This formula was coined by Christine CARTER, Rousseau and the Problem of War, Garland,
New York, London, 1978, pp. 190-213.
103 Michael TOMASELLO, “Joint Attention as Social Cognition“, In: Chris MOORE and Philip J.
DUNHAM (eds.), Joint Attention: Its Origins and Role in Development, Lawrence Erlbaum,
Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1995, pp. 103–130 ; Michael TOMASELLO and Malinda CARPENTER,
« “Shared Intentionality“, Developmental Science 10(1), 2007 : 121–125.
104 For instance: Stephen D. KRASNER, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences:
Regimes as Intervening Variables“, International Organization 36 (2), 1982 : 185-205.
105 See: William E. SCHEUERMAN, “A Theroretical Missed Opportunity? Hans J. Morgenthau
as Critical Realist” and Ze’ev EMMERICH, “Political Theory and the Realistic Spirit”, In:
Duncan BELL (ed.), Political Thought and International Relations, op. cit., pp. 41-62, pp. 195-218.
30