Today, the Holy See has formal diplomatic relations with almost all states around the globe as well as with the United Nations (UN), where it holds the curious position of a Permanent Observer. Representing a universal sacred mission, the Holy See views the UN as one of the most important avenues in international relations for pursuing its aims. Vatican diplomats have thus been at the forefront of lobbying for human dignity at the UN in various conferences and popes have even directly addressed the UN's General Assembly. In examining relations between the Holy See and the UN, at least two issues are obvious and of primary importance. First, both institutions share a universal approach -the latter to represent all states of the world and the Holy See to represent all Catholics. Furthermore, both preach to their constituencies that they represent a universal idealist mission -to pursue peace and work towards the universalization of human rights. Second, the Holy See enjoys a Permanent Observer status within the UN and also a seemingly privileged status among all other religious communities. By adopting short studies of the Holy See's interventions in three dimensions of human rights advocacy at the UN, along with its supplement of the UN's mission in correcting capitalist development, the article concludes that the Catholic religion has returned in a role that reaffirms the possibilities of enhancing society on a globalist scale rather than merely reinforcing an international society of sovereign states.
This article introduces the special issue’s question of whether and how the current transformation of targeted killing is transforming the global international order and provides the conceptual ground for the individual contributions to the special issue. It develops a two-dimensional concept of political order and introduces a theoretical framework that conceives the maintenance and transformation of international order as a dynamic interplay between its behavioral dimension in the form of violence and discursive processes and its institutional dimension in the form of ideas, norms, and rules. The article also conceptualizes targeted killing and introduces a typology of targeted-killing acts on the basis of their legal and moral legitimacy. Building on this conceptual groundwork, the article takes stock of the current transformation of targeted killing and summarizes the individual contributions to this special issue.
The unconventional nature of Holy See diplomats rests in the composite character of their ecclesiastical role as the Pope’s representatives and their legal diplomatic status and commencement to ordinary diplomatic practice. Holy See diplomacy is a form of conduct created by a set of mixed secular and religious standards in which agents are guided by practices. I locate this argument within a classical English School and a conventional understanding of practice, diplomacy, and agency while incorporating understandings of the diplomat as a stranger. The article situates a Holy See diplomat’s mode of agency as a hybrid one by nature, located at the intersections of political and religious modes of agency and substantial and relational conceptions of international politics. I probe this conceptual framework of hybrid agency by analysing episodes involving papal diplomats in turmoil-ridden historical episodes, and correspondence with informed agents.
For René Girard, mimetic rivalry is the main cause of violence. Mimetic theory addresses a fundamental problem of international relations theory: the problem of anarchy as it is outlined in basic texts of Realism, also acknowledging the conflicting potential of desire. The article argues for deepening the discussion between the mimetic theory of the French philosopher, anthropologist, and literary theorist Girard and the tradition of twentieth-century Realism as exemplified by Hans Morgenthau, who frequently stressed in his concept of “the political” the importance of the human desire for power. For Girard, the problem of conflicting desire is solved by the scapegoat mechanism, the canalization of mimetic violence. Nevertheless, international relations theory reveals that identity is formed prior to the construction of the Other. I argue that Girard’s insights can enrich thinking about the terms Self, Other, and identity, particularly in the twentieth-century Realist tradition. Ultimately, this leads to the proposition that appreciating Girard’s thoughts helps make implicit claims and assumptions of Realism, particularly regarding violence and sub-state issues, more explicit.
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