Post-liberal peacebuilding and the pacifist state

Abstract

In this article, I make a case for bringing pacifist political theory back into IR. I attempt this through a critical engagement with post-liberal peacebuilding models, contending that current efforts to go beyond the liberal peace do not extend far enough, particularly to the extent that they implicitly adopt a version of state-building which includes the military as a key actor, the doctrine of the legitimate monopoly on violence and the permanent prospective resort to violence as the final arbiter of radical disagreement and political conflict. This, I suggest, reproduces the epistemic, discursive and institutional structures in which violent political conflict first emerges; in particular, the acceptance of the instrumental rationality and legitimacy of violence is an essential cause of war and political violence. What I propose instead is a radical post-liberal politics in which both the legitimation of, and the means of, violence have been effectively removed from the political sphere. As such, I argue that pacifism offers important theoretical and empirical resources for the future development of peacebuilding theory and practice.