Instructions: Answer all questions in a short paragraph or two.

1. What is Pericles’ main argument in the funeral oration? Why is Athens respected?
2. What were the Athenian and Melian positions in the Melian Dialogue as presented by Thucydides?
3. Why, according to Aristotle, do individuals seek to form a polis? Why does the idea of a confederation of polis seem problematic for Aristotle and the Greeks, more generally?
4. What is the difference for Augustine between the City of God and the Temporal City?
5. What is Vitoria’s argument for when violence is permissible by the Spanish in the new world?
6. What, according to Machiavelli, were virtú and fortuna? What is their relationship?
7. What is Machiavelli’s understanding of political morality?

Introduction: Antiquity

Development of INR – Lecture Week 1

Antiquity
Why do we need to return to antiquity?
Do events and philosophies speak to our own ideas and political practices?
What is the historical legacy of ideas from antiquity that have come to us?
Do we find theories of politics or of “IR” in antiquity?
Is it possible to really understand ancient texts as their authors intended?
Brown, “Marx and Engels”
Brown, “Marx and Engels”

Thucydides
Lived before Plato & Aristotle.
General during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). Result is Sparta victory.
History of the Peloponnesian War (written 7 years before the end of the war)
The polis is Thucydides’ main political unit; no intimation of larger Pan-Hellenic union.
“In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession of all time.”

Thucydides Cont.
More than just a narrative history: there are theoretical positions that can be teased out. Was Thucydides offering a “scientific” account of the causes of war between Sparta and Athens? (i.e. an objective analysis of events).
Or was there a normative claim? Practical moral objectives; a tragic sensibility?

Thucydides Cont.
What was the cause of the war between Sparta and Athens? Sea power vs. Land Power; cultural center vs. provincial estate; trade vs. self-sufficiency.
Increasing division of Greece into two alliance systems: Delian League and Peloponnesian League.
Thucydides: “The Growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.”

Thucydides Cont.
Prelude to War: naval rivalry between Corcyra and Corinth. Corcyra allies itself with Athens and Corinth with Sparta.
Deep-root of war: Fear => Security Dilemma.
Uncertainty of future intentions.
Perception of a lack of alternative to war. Better to fight now than wait until losing becomes inevitable.
Similar calculation in Germany 1914 and fear of Franco-British encirclement.

Thucydides Cont.
Two types of Fear:
1) Mutual fear between two great powers => entails mutual respect. Potential for destabilization when there’s an imbalance of fear (i.e. when one power becomes increasingly powerful).
2) Fear of tyranny of one power over another (i.e. Mytilene revolt against Athens).

Thucydides Cont.
Fear is central for Thucydides.
The emergence of Empire is a consequence of fear; think of the significance of fear today to compel American national security and foreign policy. Why are we so fearful?

Thucydides Cont.
Key moments: (importance in his text of speeches, generally rewritten by him).
Pericles Funeral Oration: Eulogy of Athens.
Mytilene Debate: Athenian Response to the revolt of Mytilene.
Corcyrean Revolution: Slaughter of anyone opposed to democratic faction.
Melian Dialogues: You’re either with us or against us.

Thucydides the Tragedian
What is a Tragedy?
Dionysus (God of win/win-making) gives Icarius wine and tells him to introduce it to shepherds throughout Attica. The Shepherds get drunk and suspect that Icarius is up to no good and murder him. While dying he remembered that when he previously planted the grapes he caught a goat poaching them and in a fit a rage he had it killed. He then skinned it and improvised a dance to honor the goat.
Hence tragedy = “goat song”. Tragos = he-goat; aeidein = “to sing”.

Cont.
Tragedy becomes a significant genre of theatrical/choral performance in Ancient Greece. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes.
Example: Antigone
Tension between natural and state law; Antigone caught between the two and only reconciliation is suicide.
Creon is punished by the Gods.

Cont.
Tragic Trajectory: Hubris (Excessive self-pride) – > Hamartia (error, tragic flaw) – > nemesis (wrath of the Gods).
What does tragedy impart to the spectator?
Aristotle: catharsis, pity and fear leads to cleansing or purification (medical sense); understand one’s limits => an ethical notion.

Aristotle on Politics
Artistole: man is a political animal, zoon politikon, we have a natural impulse to live with others; friendship is a natural instinct in the human race; seems to extend beyond Greece.
Nonetheless, natural difference between Greeks and non-Greeks. Greeks act in conformity with reason; barbarians lesser functions and therefore prone to being ruled – destitute of reason (Assumed).

Aristotle Cont.
The main problem Aristotle identifies is the manner in which barbarians don’t distinguish between women and slaves: “But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female.”
Which for him this means they don’t live according to reason, which implies that there is a natural hierarchy between men, women and slaves. The fact that barbarians don’t live according to reason implies then that are only fit to be ruled by Greeks.
Can barbarians change? Can they learn Greek and behave like Greeks? No, intrinsic features of being other, non-Greek. Their telos is inferior.

Aristotle Cont.
Is the political equivalent to management of the household?
“The conclusion is evident: that governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with the strict principles of justice, and are therefor the true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen” (70).
What is the state for? The good life? (72-73). Happiness (eudemonia) (81).

Augustine and Francisco de Vitoria

Development of INR Week 2

Christianity
Christianity’s strength (its universality):
lack of interest with non-Christian notions of identity.
Paul: “There is neither Jew or Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
Augustine: World is made up of unnatural institutions (i.e. slavery).
Slavery may be imposed on those that sin.
Christians must obey earthly law.

Augustine
Split between “right to go to war” (jus ad bellum) and “right conduct in war” (jus in bello)
Augustine became one of the first to be concerned with the question of war and peace and of what was permissible or not during war from a Christian perspective.
How does one justify killing with the divine command: “Thou shall not kill”?
“They who have waged war in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His laws, have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men…”
The central importance of law in defining the legitimacy of violence:

Just War Theory: Jus ad Bellum
Right to go to War:
Just Authority: is the decision to go to war based on a legitimate political and legal process? = State Sovereignty
Just Cause: Has a wrong been committed to which war is the appropriate response?
Right Intention: Is the response proportional to the cause? Is war an adequate response to righting a wrong? What about issues concerning mission creep, for example?
Last Resort: Has every other means to right the wrong been exhausted? No other option but war?

Vitoria
Vitoria (1486-1546): chair of law in Salamanca (Salamanca School) – De Indis et De Jure Belli (On the American Indian)
What are the rights and obligations of the Spanish vis-à-vis the Native American under universal law?
1) “By what right (ius) were the barbarians subjected to Spanish rule?”
2) “What powers has the Spanish monarchy over the Indians in spiritual and religious matters?”
3) “What powers has either the monarchy or the Church with regards to the Indians in spiritual and religious matters?”

Colonialism in the New World
Genocidal: 50 million to 1.8 million (estimate); mainly as a result of epidemics.
“The scale of the human obliteration was so massive that it ushered in a shift in the makeup of the atmosphere….” Beginning of the Anthropocene – increase in vegetation results in carbon capture and cooling of the planet.
Extraordinarily violence: Encomienda System; Violent cruelty.

Vitoria Cont.
1) Native Americans are not slaves (against Sepulveda’s argument following Aristotle). Implies the Spanish have no right to their property.
Argues against four grounds: NA were sinners, unbelievers, madmen or insensate (lacking reason/sensation).
They possess reason (even if they didn’t it wouldn’t change the argument).
“Nor could it be their fault if they were for so many thousands of years outside the state of salvation, since they were born in sin but did not have the use of reason to prompt them to seek baptism or the things necessary for salvation” (233) “their evil and barbarous education.”

Vitoria Cont.
Under what circumstances may they be governed?
Law of Nation => must be humane to strangers. The right of hospitality. “This would not be the case if travellers were doing something evil by visiting foreign nations” (235).
Spanish travel is lawful.
Spanish may trade with NA as long as they do no harm.
NA cannot prevent the Spanish from visiting and trading.

Vitoria Cont.
If the NA reisist Spanish, Spanish have a right to defend themselves (i.e. just cause).
“But if the barbarians deny the Spaniards what is theirs by the law of nations, they commit an offence against them. Hence, if war is necessary to obtain their rights (ius suum), they may lawfully go to war” (236).

Vitoria Cont.
Page 237.
Other reason why Spanish may have title to the land: spreading Christianity. “Christians have a right to preach and announce the Gospel in the lands of the barbarians” (238).
To protect the innocent from unjust death: cannibalism.
Incapacity to govern themselves: common justification for imperialism.

Machiavelli

Development of INR – Week 3

Machiavelli
Who was Machiavelli? Why is he important for Political Realism?
Florentine writer/diplomat between 1469-1527. Born in a context of continuous crisis and warfare.
It was not uncommon, for example, for Popes themselves to lead armies in Italy against other city-states – but especially against Holy Roman Emperor.
Machiavelli experiences the unrelenting attempts by various European powers to assert their hegemony in Northern Italy – Chapter 26 of The Prince, is basically a call to the Medici to use the opportunity of chaos in Italy to lead it towards unification and glory.

Cont.
Wrote two main works, The Prince and The Discourses on Livy. The latter is an extended commentary on Livy’s history of the foundation and history of Rome until about 300 BC – corresponds to the Third Samnite War.
The interest in The Discourse on Livy is also to contextualize Machiavelli the writer of the Prince – concern with not just the acquisition of power; but with the emergence and maintenance of a republic during periods of crisis or political turbulence.
Machiavelli – A retrieval of a type of pagan knowledge of politics.
A reemphasis on a non-eschatological temporality to understand politics.

Virtù
Because of constant conflict the Prince needs to possess certain qualities to ‘maintain his state’ and “increase his power’.
Virtù: possessing the knowledge and will to do what needs to be done even if it may be considered evil.
The Prince must possess a “flexible disposition” (Chapter 18).
Implies an ability of adaptation to changing political circumstances.

Fortuna
What undermines political order. Circumstances that can emerge to undermine the Prince’s power or security.
Machiavelli: Fortuna is “one of our destructive rivers which, when it is angry, turns the plains into lakes, throws down the trees and buildings, takes earth from one spot, puts it in another; everyone flees before the flood; everyone yields to its fury and nowhere can repel it.”

Cont.
Machiavelli: “I conclude therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her.”
Sexualized Imagery: What does it imply?
Politics is not just about mastery; it’s also about foundation, beginning, natality.
Catherine Zuckert: “The task of the price is not only to dominate but also to create, to give life to a new being.”

Implications
Separation of God and Fortuna.
Medieval Theology: Fortuna is divine will; accounts for random events; appears capricious because “men” don’t understand why certain events happen.
Machiavelli: God is not important; we must master Fortuna with virtù. “Man” and Fortuna make history.