Singer, J. David

English

bepress Legal Repository

Blessed and Awarded are the Peacemakers? An Essay in Remembrance of Harold Jacobson

University of Michigan School of Law

Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 24 Issue 4 2003 Blessed and Awarded are the Peacemakers? An Essay in Remembrance of Harold Jacobson J. David Singer University of Michigan Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil  Part of the Legal Biography Commons Recommended Citation J. D. Singer, Blessed and Awarded are the Peacemakers? An Essay in Remembrance of Harold Jacobson, 24 MICH. J. INT'L L. 1023 (2003). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol24/iss4/4  This Tribute is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact mlaw.repository@umich.edu. BLESSED AND AWARDED ARE THEPEACEMAKERS? AN ESSAY INREMEMBRANCE OFHAROLD JACOBSONJ. David Singer*As colleagues in the World Politics program for better than fortyyears, it should come as no surprise that Harold Jacobson and I knewone another's priorities fairly well. While we were not very close per-sonally, we were nevertheless quite close professionally. We bothworried about and lamented the turns that world politics took in thewake of World War II, and while he was never quite as critical as was Iin evaluating U.S. policies, we shared the same concern over the extentto which the "superpowers" ignored or even weakened the United Na-tions system. We also both felt the desirability for greater scholarly andpolitical attention to the needs of the larger global community, embrac-ing not only problems of war and peace and international law andorganization, but also those of human rights, sustainable development,and the material environment. In sum, we both believed that scholarsneed be as concerned with public policy and the state of the global vil-lage as with our teaching and our research.From that concern, it was a short step to consider what we, otherscholars, and public intellectuals in general ought to be doing to makethe world a more peaceful and humane place. This certainly extended toour joint willingness to speak with and chair student and citizen groups,organize lay conferences, and subject ourselves to interviews with themedia. Jake was no "ivory tower" academic nor was I, and one conse-quence was that we cared how the larger society observed, understood,and evaluated those of us engaged in the study and practice of globalaffairs. Among the manifestations of that interest was the matter of rec-ognition-friendly or otherwise-of those so engaged. Not surprisingly,then, that with each year's announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize bythe Norwegian Storting, we would either bask in the warmth of ourshared pleasure, or more frequently, commiserate over the inadequacy orworse of those worthies. I should like, thus, to offer some informed* Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Michigan. Professor Singerhas been a member of the Michigan faculty since 1958. Among his awards are the LifetimeAchievement Award from the American Political Science Association and the Founder's Awardfrom the Peace Science Society. He has published many scholarly articles and twenty-oddbooks, among which are NATIONS AT WAR (1998), RESORT TO ARMS (1982), THE WAGES OFWAR (1972), and MEASURING THE CORRELATES OF WAR (1991).1023Michigan Journal of International Lawthoughts about that issue, and while I do not recall showing my littleessay to Jake, I'm sure that he'd be in general agreement.Given the ambiguities of Alfred Nobel's will, and the varying inter-pretations assigned to it by the Norwegian Nobel Committee over theyears, it is not surprising that the Peace Prize has gone to so diverse arange of individuals and groups, and in recognition of so staggering anarray of acts that allegedly "have conferred the greatest benefit on man-kind."' And as Abrams suggests in his excellent paper on thetransformation of the prize, it probably is "all to the good that the Com-mittee has held no one theory of peace ... ."' At the same time, it isdifficult to disagree with Albert Einstein's comment in 1935 that the listof recipients would make "good old Nobel... turn in his grave."3The basic theme in this paper is that while no single "theory" on thecauses of, or the remedies for, war or other acts of collective violence isnecessary, we ought to have some general notions as to: a) which socialills the Prize is intended to ameliorate; and b) what sorts of actions aremost likely to further that objective. I proceed from the premise that: a)the most persuasively destructive social ill of the past two centuries hasbeen and remains collective violence, with war the most salient; and b)that until the legitimacy of, preparation for, and conduct of war havebeen effectively challenged, all too many of humanity's afflictions willremain irremediable. Space limitations preclude an adequate defense ofthese premises, but it should be admitted that even with a systematicmarshalling of empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and ethical exhor-tation, they would remain mere assumptions, and controversial ones atthat.Returning to my agreement with Einstein, it seems that the criteriainvoked and the decisions taken by the Storting Committee since 1901have led to two undesirable outcomes. First, the prize has all too oftengone to those who have either been instrumental in the perpetuation ofinternational war or at least acquiescent in the recurring process. Thiswould include virtually all of the so-called statesmen, from TheodoreRoosevelt and Bourgeois through Kissinger and Tho to Begin and Sadatin the first group, and the Red Cross as indicative of the second group.At a minimum, these selections have helped perpetuate the dubious dis-tinction between just and unjust war making, with the corollary that mostwars are wars of aggression, a most dubious set of propositions. Equallyserious, the awards, with few exceptions, cannot but have helped to per-1. The Nobel Foundation, Statutes of the Nobel Foundation § 1, available athttp://www.nobel.se/nobel/nobel-foundation/statutes.html (last modified Feb. 28, 2003).2. Irwin Abrams, The Transformation of the Nobel Peace Prize, 10 PEACE ANDCHANGE 1, 21 (1984).3. EINSTEIN ON PEACE 266 (Otto Nathan & Heinz Norden eds., 1960).1024 [Vol. 24:1023Blessed and Awardedpetuate public confusion as to where We might begin to look for the ori-gins and antecedents of war. A concerned citizen of the world,contemplating the identity of almost every year's recipient, could be for-given if he or she concluded that the roots of international war lie inhunger and poverty, militaristic governments, religious differences, ra-cial bigotry, and suppression of human rights, to name a few. To theextent that these two interpretations are more or less reasonable, theprize has probably done little to enhance fraternity among nations, noless commence the long struggle to banish war from the global village.Where does peace research fit in this line of argument? Is there any-thing in the rationale--or ultimate payoff-of the peace researchmovement that might help to convert the prize into a more effective in-strument for the abolition of war? While recognizing that this movementis far from unified in its normative premises, theoretical predilections,and methodological preferences, there are nonetheless certain fundamen-tals upon which most of its practitioners would tend to agree. The first ofthese is that war arises out of a complex combination of conditions andevents, some of which occurred long before the first shot is fired andothers of which obtain in the hours and weeks just prior to the bloodlet-ting. The second is that some classes of war arise out of dynamics thatare different from those preceding other classes of war. Third, they con-cur that we still have very little knowledge regarding the etiology of war.Beyond these essentials, there is the expected range of disagreement,on both substance and procedure. As to the former, one's theoretical andideological position largely determines the types of variables worth at-tending to. Those who suspect (fear) that governments tend to be drivenby considerations of realpolitik, will focus on military and industrial ca-pabilities, alliance configurations, and the geopolitical implications ofweapons technology and transport. Here is the classical notion of "na-tional interest" defined in terms of physical security, territorial integrity,and spheres of influence.Those who are closer to the Marxian perspective see governments asmore preoccupied with markets, raw materials, cheap labor, investmentopportunities, trade routes, and are inclined to focus on these elements intheir search for the explanation of war. Adherents of this school often,but not always, go the next step and examine differences in domesticeconomic and political systems as well as levels of industrialization intheir search for explanation, on the plausible premise that for socialisteconomies such incentives would be very weak and that for underdevel-oped ones, there would be insufficient capabilities.Yet a third theoretical school would tend to downplay either the geo-political or the economic-industrial variables and attend instead to theSummer 20031 1025Michigan Journal of International Lawcentral role of professional bureaucracies driven, as they seem to be, bytheir own career and agency interests and the extra-rational interplay ofthese parochial interests. A fourth orientation might focus on mass cul-ture and either the stability or the fragility of public opinion vis-A-vis thedimensions of xenophobia, isolationism, expansion, domestic prosperity,white man's burden, racism, and the like. A fifth example might be psy-cho-dynamic in its orientation, frequently with a strong interest in thepersonalities of national leaders.The literature of world politics in general, and peace research in par-ticular, is chock full of these and additional outlooks, as well, of course,of varying combinations. Speaking for what appears to be the dominantperspective in the West over the three decades or so since peace researchbecame a discernible academic activity, replete with professional asso-ciations, journals, conferences, and curricula, I lean toward an eclecticeffort to synthesize many of these variables, most promisingly organizedaround the realpolitik model.In contrast to the wide range of theoretical perspectives, one findsonly two basic epistemologies. One, often embraced by those of a Marx-ian bent, finds expression in the philosophy and sociology of Mannheim,who was so impressed with the potency of nation, class, and gender thathe dismissed an objective social science of world politics or anythingelse as a psychological impossibility.4 Surprisingly-and despite the ob-vious fact that all serious scientists recognize the impact of social nicheand ideology, while counting on the explicitness of our procedures andthe reproducibility of our observations to minimize (but never whollyeliminate) such biases-one still finds adherents of this point of view.The more vehement disciples of the two Karls have even gone so far asargue that they have their own epistemology, which, though it rests uponand leads to assertions that can never be empirically tested, provides theonly avenue to social, economic, and political truth.Needless to say, those of us who believe that matters of war andpeace are too important to be left forever to the endless debate be-tween/among arguments that are extremely subjective, idiosyncratic, andmystical, gravitate toward a more quasi-positivistic epistemology. Few ofus would go as far as the extreme positivist A.J. Ayer, but remain in thetraditional Comtean mode, accepting the importance of the inductive-deductive mix and recognizing the limits of operationalism; hence, theconsensus around the proposition that empirical "truths" and "causal"inferences are, at bottom, inter-subjective.4. See, e.g., Karl Mannheim, ESSAYS ON THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE (1952).5. See, e.g., A.J. AYER, LANGUAGE, TRUTH, AND LOGIC (1936).1026 [Vol. 24:1023Blessed and AwardedIt follows from these two lines of argument-the theoretical and themethodological-that despite the need to be agnostic as to any particular"theory" of war, the question need not remain eternally open. With theformulation of rival models that are logically consistent and empirically(but not necessarily historically) confirmable (or for the purists, discon-firmable), we can arrive, by a mix of incremental inductive discoveriesand bold deductive leaps, successively closer to a compellingly accurateexplanation of international war, or at least some large subset of the phe-nomenon.This brings us, then, back to the task facing those who must choosethe appropriate recipients of a peace prize and, minimally, specify someof the criteria guiding that choice. That is, they must embrace, howevertentatively, the theoretical model that seems most accurate at the mo-ment, and most relevant to their historical period (if indeed, theparameter-shift problem across time turns out to be acute). But to dothat, while being consistent, requires them to evaluate two other dimen-sions of the contending models. One and the simpler, is the quality of theempirical and deductive evidence proffered in support of the variousmodels; they must become scientifically competent enough, or turn tothose who are, to go beyond either plausibility or popularity.The other, perhaps more difficult, is to find in the model of theirchoice, the role of knowledge and action. This can be complicated, but isfar from insuperable. What is needed, to put it differently, is an accept-able meta-theory, by which we mean a scheme that proposes one ormore explanations for war, that prescribes the rules, of evidence forevaluating these putative explanations, and at the same time incorporatesexplicit notions as to how individuals and groups, armed with the "best"explanatory theory, might go about modifying those sets of conditionsand patterns of behavior that produced war in the past. Presumably, then,the prize givers could say in good conscience that they think they under-stand "why" war occurs with such destructive frequency (an average ofsix international ones per decade since the Battle of Waterloo), why theybelieve that particular explanation, and how their recipient has acted ormight act to enhance the modification process which will reduce theprobability of war in the future.This is, one might say, a tall order, and not one for which the Nobelor other peace prize committees are typically trained. The peace researchcommunity has, therefore, a double opportunity to contribute to the re-duction or elimination of war. The first and most obvious is thediscovery of those conditions and events that best account for the inci-dence of the several-and as yet unidentified--classes of internationalwar. As our understanding of the etiology of war improves, we can serve1027Summer 20031Michigan Journal of International Lawas more knowledgeable consultants and/or critics of the practitioners,and increasingly sensitize them to: a) the quality of the evidence in sup-port of a given model; and b) the need to treat all single cases asmembers of a class of cases, to properly recognize the class to which thecase at hand should be assigned, and finally, the adaptive policy responseto that case.The second opportunity is less obvious, but no less important. It is tocreate incentives for peace prize committees to learn more about the ap-plicability of scientific method to the study of social conflict, toappreciate the connection between knowledge and policy, and thus to usethe prize as an explicitly recognized instrument for the eventual abolitionof war.Most scholars take a dim view of academic, literary, and politicalprizes-and for good reason. The criteria are typically invisible andjumbled, the judges incapable of applying them anyway, the extra-rational considerations immense, and the resulting awards a source ofembarrassment for many. But peace prizes, and especially the NobelPeace Prize, offer an interesting challenge to the whole idea of rewardingand/or enhancing merit in one or another sector. By attending to the evi-dence, and reasoning behind it, the judges could not only rehabilitate thelegitimacy of public prizes, but also strike an important blow for turningthe nations away from war.A good place to start the process of political action that could culmi-nate in the abolition of war would be at the point where relevant andcritical knowledge so crucial to appropriate political action will befound: the leadership of the peace research community. Clearly, Jakewould have been quite comfortable to be included in that category, andhis research output has indeed already contributed to achieving that ob-jective. Would that all of our research were as germane to this goal aswas his!1028 [Vol. 24:1023

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1324&amp;context=mjil

Blessed and Awarded are the Peacemakers? An Essay in Remembrance of Harold Jacobson

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

bepress Legal Repository

University of Michigan School of Law