Following its pivotal contribution to the Allied cause in World War I, Japan became a central architect of an expansive new global infrastructure for peace after 1918. Given America’s failure to join the League of Nations, Japanese fidelity to every pillar of the new infrastructure for peace—the League, the Washington Conference, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the London Conference—became an essential prerequisite for a viable new postwar world. Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria and defiance of the new postwar infrastructure for peace was momentous precisely because it was perpetrated by a power so central to its original construction.

Liberalism is a foundational school of thought in International Relations with a well-established and rich intellectual heritage dating back to the seventeenth century. It seeks to address core problems in world politics, including the appropriate scope of state authority, the conditions underpinning international cooperation, and the maintenance of international stability. With liberal scholars most notably contributing to debates on the causes and limits of cooperation. Liberal scholars have made their most influential contributions by examining questions such as what enables or constrains cooperation between states, with many claiming that political, economic, and social integration between states leads to more peace and less war. However, liberalism emerged from Western historical and philosophical contexts, and while liberal scholars claim that it is universally applicable, its assumptions can be criticised for not reflecting non-Western experiences. This chapter evaluates liberalism’s applicability to the Middle East by applying liberal theory to the analysis of cosmopolitan law, examining in particular the impact of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) on interstate relations. Thus, it applies liberalism to answer the following questions: do SEZs lead to greater economic integration between states in the Middle East? And is there any observable pacifying effect on political relations between trade partners?

This chapter argues that intergroup lethal conflict and peaceful cooperation both have deep evolutionary roots in the hominin lineage and co-evolved over millions of years through a mosaic-like pattern. The inclination for intense male–male aggression was first inherited from Miocene apes, where it mainly functioned to threaten and deter rivals rather than to kill. The capacity for intergroup coalitionary killings was then likely present from the time hominins engaged in group hunting, an aptitude possibly already found in the last common ancestor of chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans. This capacity was enhanced in the genus Homo through cultural innovations such as weapon technology and cultural benefits such as status and prestige. In parallel, the inclination for peaceful intergroup cooperation also emerged gradually, as first suggested by a relative reduction in aggression levels in hominins compared to other apes, indicated by changes in canine morphology. This shift became intertwined with cumulative cultural evolution, enabling practices such as negotiation, peacemaking, intergroup marriage, and exchange networks. In Homo sapiens, cumulative culture became supplemented by a selection against reactive aggression (also called ‘self-domestication’), enhancing prosocial intergroup relationships. The combination of cumulative cultural evolution and selection against reactive aggression further increased the scale of peaceful cooperation, as reflected in the emergence of long-distance exchange networks in the Palaeolithic archaeological record.

This chapter shows how Tacitus uses paradiastole throughout his oeuvre to put two different kinds of political language into dialogue: the language of liberty and the language of empire. By using speakers with different standpoints, such as Calgacus, Cerialis, and Otho, Tacitus shows how history-writing can foster dialogue and serve as political theory. The chapter also analyses the collapse of speech-acts at the start of Tiberius’ principate, Maternus’ speech in Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus, and Tacitus’ narrative of civil war in Histories One.

This chapter describes two theological utopian alternatives to capitalism: the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank and the political theology of Jürgen Moltmann, giving special attention to how each highlights a specific instance of capitalism’s double movement of social cohesion and liberation to propose an alternative. The chapter shows that while both are insightful for clarifying the theological elements at stake, they fail to provide a real alternative even as they point together to an apocalyptic theopolitics.

Catholic armies defeated Protestant armies in three civil wars between 1562 and 1570, but they had no way of enforcing peace edicts that continued to limit Protestant rights to worship freely. Thus, neither side was able to claim a total victory, as neither was happy with the status quo. As a result, violence continued to break out, including in the capital, Paris, between members of both confessions.

This book, the culmination of research initiated in 2013, offers a comprehensive examination of the persistent failure to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine. It contends that peace must be understood as a strategic necessity rather than a tactical manoeuvre, requiring sustained commitment, institutional trust and mutual restraint. Drawing on historical analysis, interviews and comparative case studies, the book identifies the structural, political and moral factors underlying the collapse of major peace initiatives – from Oslo to Camp David to Annapolis – and proposes an evidence-based framework for future negotiations. It argues that genuine reconciliation demands the renunciation of violence, control of extremist elements, and the cultivation of a shared political language grounded in recognition, empathy and coexistence. By situating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within broader international experiences – such as the Northern Ireland peace process, post-apartheid South Africa and Nordic reconciliation – the study demonstrates that protracted conflicts can be resolved through visionary leadership, ethical governance and equitable compromise. Ultimately, it asserts that peace constitutes both a moral imperative and a strategic prerequisite for the long-term stability, legitimacy and survival of Israel, Palestine and the wider region.

This chapter suggests practical information on the requirements for successful negotiations. Building on extensive research in archives and more than one hundred in-depth interviews with senior decision-makers and negotiators who were involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the chapter outlines the basic qualities that negotiators, mediators and facilitators should have and things they should do, and then the discussion focuses on what negotiators, mediators and facilitators should not do. The arguments are supported by examples from previous peace negotiations between Arabs and Israelis. These experiences shed important light on past events and offer yardsticks for future negotiations. Thus, this is a practical chapter that can be useful for future negotiations.

Chapter 4 shows that while one cannot deny Swift’s use of a Tory “conspiracy thesis” in foreign policy tracts like The Conduct of the Allies, Swift relied more heavily on legitimate arguments and sources of international politics and law that have been underrated: Aristotle, Hugo Grotius, and Samuel Pufendorf. Aristotle taught a concept of foreign policy centered on constitutionalism, geography, naval power, self-defense, and public reason. Grotius and Pufendorf provided a foundation of natural and international law, as well as just war theory, that was secular yet grounded on classical learning and Christian ethics. Grotius’s underappreciated influence undermines the idea that Swift’s politics were purely Hobbesian, realist, or authoritarian. Swift had a realist and an idealist strain but “Grotian rationalism” predominated in the controversy over the Utrecht Peace. Grotius also fed Swift’s growing skepticism about the Whig concept of the balance of power.

Chapter 5 examines Swift’s major foreign policy writings, particularly the Conduct of the Allies and the History of the Four Last Years of the Queen. It differentiates his neoclassical balance-of-power theory – which pointed toward the need to negotiate peace – from modern, nonnormative, militaristic, and pseudoscientific versions of the theory, which his contemporaries used to justify continuing the war. Swift condemned militarism even when exhibited by his own country. He opposed the attempted subjugation and domination of an enemy country as unwise policy that would lead to international power imbalances and unintended consequences, and thus threaten both domestic constitutionalism and international security. He adopted a mixed qualitative-quantitative method of argument and revealed the conceptual flaws of the quantitative or military-statistical approach adopted by the pro-war Whigs. While his arguments facilitated the Peace of Utrecht (1713), French delays in implementing the peace terms left Swift with little more than satire in his last Tory pamphlets.

Chapter 6 shifts the scene to Ireland, where Swift returned after his four years writing propaganda for the Tory government in London. It reasserts the allegorical reading of Part I of Gulliver’s Travels (1726), a defense of the Peace of Utrecht, and more importantly the underlying principles. In light of Swift’s international politics and thought, the war between the fictional lands of Lilliput and Blefuscu can be seen as a tripolar model of international relations – not bipolar, as widely believed, since Gulliver acts as arbiter. This model centers on Swift’s neoclassical balance-of-power theory, which also underscores a defensive blue-water foreign policy that contrasts starkly with offensive policy, “reason of state,” imperialism, and colonialism.

Swift learned about foreign affairs from one of England’s greatest diplomats, Sir William Temple, friend of William III and champion of balance-of-power foreign policy. But he became chief apologist for the notorious foreign policy maneuver by which Britain abandoned William's Grand Alliance to negotiate a ceasefire with archenemy France. The Whig opposition accused Swift and the Tories of ushering in foreign hegemony and domestic absolutism – and most critics today insist Swift was an authoritarian political thinker and devotee of Thomas Hobbes. Yet Britain and France negotiated the Peace of Utrecht (1713), a milestone of international cooperation, the first major treaty to include “balance of power” in its provisions, and the inspiration of Enlightenment philosophical projects of “perpetual peace,” ultimately including the European Union. This paradox reveals the need to study Swift’s views on international politics in both theory and practice. The key lies in his universalist conception of balance of power.

Chapter 3 reviews Swift’s rapid emergence as England’s chief foreign policy propagandist and analyzes his ethical, religious, political, geopolitical, and economic reasons for opposing the War of Spanish Succession. He became a Tory partisan after two recessions and adopted the ideology of the old propertied elite against the new capitalist elite. He revealed a nativist strain and opposed foreign influences, including national debt and continental military involvement. But he did not abandon basic Whiggish political principles like rule by consent or the right to resist tyranny. He defended emergency executive action not as a pretext for absolute power but as a limited constitutional device for resolving an immediate and objective crisis, notably abroad. Unilateral powers can easily be abused but Swift shows himself concerned about that risk in a way that is not characteristic of authoritarians. His opposition to Dutch national debt went along with opposition to French power politics, revealing middle ground.

This chapter discusses the development of international law in the post-war era that aimed to liberate global information flow to guarantee world peace. It starts by discussing the achievements and failures of the 1948 Geneva conference on the freedom of information and considers two avenues in which the post-war project of freedom of information continued after the 1948 conference. First, in the drafting of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, freedom of information as a peace project became framed into a fundamental human right, displacing the question about the material and interstate aspects of freedom of information. Second, freedom of information was addressed in forums of international telecommunication and trade dominated by the United States, where freedom of information became equated with the elimination of discriminatory telecommunication rates to enable American global trade. This chapter shows a division of labour and crucial conceptual compatibility between the human rights framing and free trade framing of freedom of information and multiple fault lines surrounding the early intimation of the dual-sided framework.

Chapter 4 examines Liberalism as a comprehensive ideology of foreign policy that goes beyond the doctrine of Free Trade to incorporate the associated values of peace and democracy. After examining the Dutch, Scottish, English, and American phases in the evolution of this ideology, the chapter considers how it shaped interstate relations in successive Anglo-American hegemonies. Whether or not trade truly reforms domestic politics and cements international cooperation, statesmen in the post-Cold War West certainly acted as if they believed that it does. Much of the later American shift away from multilateralism to Mercantilism can be attributed to the buyer’s remorse that policymakers felt over positive engagement with China.

A principle and practice of sufficiency informs Immanuel Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), which concludes by condemning the rapaciousness of Europeans. Responding to that too-muchness, the philosopher experiments with the thought of what he calls “mere hospitality.” Hospitality is not opposed to inhospitality but a species of inhospitality that welcomes the possibility of being alone, together rather than either alone and apart or together as one. Because human beings cannot forever part ways on the curved surface of the planet, and because they must also live among each other on one and the same planet, if they are to live at all, they are obliged, against their inclinations to fight or flee, to dwell alongside others whom they do not necessarily wish to be nearby. The earth’s surface speaks a bare truth to an enclosed, Europeanized world, a world in which so many are denied a place: It is enough.

While economic interdependence did not render war between the European great powers unthinkable, it placed significant constraints on the use of military force amongst the great powers. In addition, deepening international trade and capital markets produced new instruments for the European great powers to pursue foreign policy, provide security, and advance interests. This chapter examines the vibrant intellectual and political debates about economic interdependence, the rising costs of war, and the maintenance of peace. It then shows how the risk of war created market turmoil, drawing on two case studies: the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 and the Bosnian Crisis in 1908. Markets recovered, but after political signals demonstrated great power restraint. Using the work of Kurt Riezler, the chapter shows how contemporaries came to understand economic interdependence not merely as a constraint on military force, but as a particular field of power politics. The chapter concludes by examining, briefly, how different European states considered their foreign policy options in an economically interdependent order and how they negotiated the interdependence dilemma.

Through a new account of three early disputes, Chapter 16 revisits the novel role of the League Council in interstate dispute settlement. This role was delimited by a legal threshold: the question of whether disputes arose out of a matter purely within a state party’s national jurisdiction or domaine réservé. Application of this test, nominally left to the Council, prompted considerable experimentation with institutional forms, and particularly recourse to ‘committees of jurists’, an understudied, flexible, and protean mechanism which would go on to be deployed in many spheres of League activity. Drawing on contemporaneous legal scholarship and a range of archival materials, the chapter sketches the Council’s procedural management of three key disputes, redirecting focus to the larger landscape of institutionalized dispute settlement beyond the Permanent Court of International Justice. In this larger landscape, the chapter teases out the diverse characteristics associated with recourse to avowedly ‘legal’ expertise and reasoning. This close reading of varied ‘legal’ deliberations recovers the multifaceted relationship between institutionalization and legalization of dispute settlement – and suggests the complexity of relations between legal reasoning and peaceful ordering, both for contemporaries and for us.

I turn now to questions concerning killing in war. I first rehearse Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of the conditions that must be met for a just war. Aquinas clearly differs from me in his belief that those with public authority are morally entitled to intend death as part of what is required for them to carry out their responsibilities. I argue, however, that even St Thomas is more restrictive with regard to intentional killing than are some contemporary Thomists.