This chapter discusses the paradox embodied by the main theme of this volume: religion and world politics. The text in this book, explicitly or implicitly, refers to the emergence or resurgence of religion in international affairs. Yet, the paradox is that the scholars in this volume and in other sources who speak of a return or a resurgence of religion have a valid point. In reality religion has never been absent from international affairs. But the study of world politics—particularly the formal discipline of international relations—and the practice of world politics—particularly formal interstate diplomacy—have both treated religion as inconsequential, a reality which could be ignored by scholars or diplomats without any diminishment of their understanding of the world. Sorting out the paradox of this volume requires a determination of why religion has been marginalized in the past, what factors have brought about its “resurgence” in fact and in theory, and how the relationship of religion and international affairs should be pursued in theory and practice.
This leadoff piece examines the ethics of intervention in light of recent policy and academic debates on the subject. It proceeds from an examination of the reasons for intervention today to an assessment of the moral and legal traditions governing intervention and also provides a review of selected cases of intervention recently confronting U.S. foreign policy.
This article uses two episcopal texts published by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops during the 1980s as a case study of the role of ethics in the foreign policy process. No longer a topic for theologians, philosophers, and lawyers alone, as in past decades, the morality of foreign affairs is now a matter of public discourse and political strategy. The size and social diversity of the Catholic church, the convergence of its stands on anti-communism and anti-nuclear weaponry, and the cosmic nature of the nuclear threat allowed the bishops to make transnational references reaching into all corners of the globe. The church-state exchange introduced the ethics of consequences and promoted moral debate about strategic foreign policy and deterrence.
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