Table Of ContentDiplomatic Interventions
Conflict and Change in a
Globalizing World
K.M. Fierke
Diplomatic Interventions
Also by K.M. Fierke
CHANGING GAMES, CHANGING STRATEGIES: Critical Investigations in
Security (1998)
CONSTRUCTING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: The Next Generation (co-editor
withKnud Erik Jorgensen, 2001)
Diplomatic Interventions
Conflict and Change in a
Globalizing World
K.M. Fierke
Reader, School of Politics and International Studies,
Queen’s University, Belfast
© K.M.Fierke 2005
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fierke,K.M.(Karin M.)
Diplomatic interventions :conflict and change in a globalizing world /
K.M.Fierke.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Intervention (International law) 2.Conflict management.
3.Diplomacy.I.Title.
JZ6368.F54 2005
341.5(cid:1)84—dc22 2005040544
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
To Michael Nicholson
In memorium
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Contents
Preface viii
1 Cause or Constitution? 1
2 War and Diplomacy 19
3 Moral Interventions 41
4 Legal Interventions 61
5 Military Interventions 79
6 Economic Interventions 101
7 Cultural Interventions 117
8 Therapeutic Interventions 137
9 Critical Interventions 158
Notes 180
Index 217
vii
Preface
In international relations intervention is most often understood to be
an act undertaken by states, usually involving some kind of coercion,
that impacts on the territorial integrity or political independence of
another state. These acts may be undertaken for a variety of ends,
whether humanitarian or power political. L. Oppenheim referred to
intervention as “dictatorial interference” in the internal or external
affairs of a state.1 R.J. Vincent defined intervention as activity under-
taken by a state, a group within a state, a group of states, or an interna-
tional organization which interferes coercively in the domestic affairs of
another state.2Hedley Bull noted that international lawyers have tradi-
tionally viewed intervention as a dictatorial or coercive interference by
an outside party or parties in the jurisdiction of a sovereign state or,
more broadly, an independent political community.3 Stanley Hoffman
argued that in the widest sense, every act of a state constitutes an
intervention.4
These definitions, and most contemporary uses of the word interven-
tion, share a focus on the act of interference by one state in the affairs
of another. They represent attempts to place boundaries on a potentially
large and unwieldy concept.5 The purpose of this book, by contrast, is
to unsettle the definition of intervention by arguing that any particular
border crossing or interference is constituted by a range of prior inter-
ventions. In this respect, intervention is a more general term that refers
to that which through its presence modifies an existing state of affairs.
I refer to these as “diplomatic” interventions in so far as they may
involve some form of communication to avoid or limit recourse to force,
as well as to realize it. The agents of intervention are not purely the
traditional diplomat, however. Over the last century in particular the
range of actors involved in some form of cross-border communication
related to war has multiplied. Not only states, but international organi-
zations, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and others have
shaped the experience of war.
There are two consequences of this act of unsettling. First, we shift
emphasis from what one state does to another to the larger context of
international rules and practices within which more specific acts are given
meaning. An analysis of this kind focuses on the various background
conditions that made a forceful intervention possible in, for instance,
viii
Preface ix
Kosovo or Afghanistan, rather than an analysis of the use of force itself.
Any particular act of interference is constituted or made possible by a
larger set of assumptions, rules, and practices. These are interventions in
and of themselves. For instance, human rights law or the Genocide
Convention represent forms of legal intervention that provide a neces-
sary background for justifying intervention for humanitarian ends. Or
the Just War tradition represents a form of moral intervention to define
the parameters of acceptable warfare.
Second, we shift attention from intervention as a specific type of act,
with force, to intervention as part of a human attempt to mold and/or
limit the experience of war. Intervention, in this respect, involves a form
of agency that is larger than the decision to interfere in the affairs of
another state. Agency resides in the attempt to alter the larger context
within which war is defined and fought.
Realist International Relations theory has assumed that war is a
natural and recurring feature of the international system, whether due
to human nature or the inescapable condition of anarchy. Constructivists
have argued that “anarchy is what states make of it” and that the shape
of the system emerges out of interactions between states. On a theoret-
ical level, this book is an attempt to explore the tension between these
two statements, that is, that war is a recurring feature of international
relations, and that it is a social construct, given form and meaning
through human and state interactions. It is in the midst of this tension
that the potential for conflict avoidance or transformation is to be identi-
fied. Each of the chapters explores this tension in relation to a specific
type of intervention.
Chapter 1 examines the central tension underlying the book between
realism and constructivism as it relates to questions of war. Several
contrasts are explored: first, that between realist assumptions that war
is an inescapable condition vs. war as a human and social construction;
second, that between human nature or anarchy as a cause of interna-
tional conflict and war vs. the idea that anarchy “is what states make
it,” that is, that conflict or peace are constituted through interactions in
historically specific conditions. The analysis looks to the literature
oncauses of war, much of which grows out of the realist tradition, con-
trasting the assumptions of this genre with more recent arguments
about the social constitution of conflict. The chapter analyzes what is at
stake in this distinction, particularly as it relates to the potential for
intervention to transform conflict.
In the realist tradition, war is considered to be endemic to the
international system because there is no overarching global authority to
