War and Modernity
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The main message of this book is that war has been neglected by the social sciences for a long time and that the classical approaches to war can actually be understood as tolerating if not promoting war. Hans Joas finds this attitude to war problematic and even inadmissible. Therefore, in the 12 essays that make up the present book he rejects most sociological thinking about the subject of war. At the same time, the author stresses that even though his book represents a deviation from the widespread myth of constant progress and tries to maintain a methodological distance from this myth, it nevertheless does not embrace a pessimistic view of decline. This review focuses on four of the 12 essays which are central to Joas’s rejection of the tradition of tolerating war in sociology — two dealing with social theories and two dealing with the way social scientists have reacted to actual wars. The first essay is a critical assessment of two opposing explanations of war and peace. The first is the power-political realism of Thomas Hobbes whereby war is understood simply as an indisputable fact and a strong state with its own interests is at the centre. But Joas points to the fact that the explanation of a state unified by its interests is unclear since we normally do not know what these interests are, who defines them and on what assumptions. The other strand of thinking is liberalism whereby war is understood as a relic of a dying age. In Joas’ opinion the main reason why collective violence was not relevant for the social sciences for a long time lies in the close ties between Western social sciences and the world-view of liberalism. Two of the oldest sociological theories that claim states have the capacity for peace both stem from liberalism. The first is the republican version of liberal thought on peace, associated with Immanuel Kant, which claims that republics are peaceable by nature. The second is the utilitarian version of liberal thought, associated with Adam Smith and his assumption of the pacifying effects of free trade. But in Joas’ opinion both liberal ideas of peace have a dark side. On one hand, he points to the great ease with which the utilitarian version and its thinkers accommodated themselves to imperialist policies and, on the other hand, he claims that the Journal of International Relations and Development, 2005, 8, (222–225) r 2005 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1408-6980/05 $30.00
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republican version degenerated into proselytizing universalism in the form of an ideology of intervention with the aim of republicanizing as many states as possible, even by force. In his second essay, Joas extends his critical assessment to the modernization theory and its assumption that modernity is peaceful. He is above all critical of the way this tradition dealt with the First World War, explaining it as a feudal relic or a sign of European backwardness as compared to American modernity. Conversely, Joas claims that modernization does not include a decreasing likelihood of
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