The IR Paradigm and the Discourse on Peace Studies

IR peace studies has a distinct liberal genealogy. This chapter analyzes the discourse on peace studies with a view to gauging its potential for promoting a lasting peace among states. The aim here is two-fold: first, to draw on the work of Immanuel Kant as one of the key representatives of the discourse on liberal peace by examining his concept of perpetual peace; second, to demonstrate how Kant’s work has informed certain discourse-as-policies designed for the purpose of achieving a peaceful world, e.g., democratic peace theory and humanitarian intervention. By unpacking Kant’s ontological and epistemological positions regarding a perpetual peace, I show that his conception of peace takes on a colonial and racist dimension, sanctioning marginalization and, subsequently, annihilation of entire peoples and states, in this case those that are the non-liberal. Inspired by Kant’s conception of peace, I also show that both the discourses on democratic peace and humanitarian intervention enable the division of the world into a liberal, Western zone of peace and a non-liberal, non-Western zone of conflict. So far as the question of peace relates to the latter, both recycle the same Kantian knowledge relation that divides the world along racial and colonial lines, in the process indorsing a paradoxical scenario wherein it becomes acceptable to engage in military conquest, and by implication kill some, to preserve the peace of others, rendering this limited conception of global peace a project replete with oxymorons.