Frédéric Ramel

Perpetual Peace and the Idea of “Concert” in Eighteenth-Century Thought

During the famous Querelle des bouffons opposing the rival champions of French and Italian music in 1752, the king of Prussia—Frederick the Great—wrote to the French public, tongue-in-cheek. In his letter, he criticized the censorship preventing the performance of foreign musical pieces in the kingdom of France. The interdiction had, in his mind, international consequences: Tremble for the peace of Europe, [the Querelle] is an event that can overturn the equilibrium and the balance of powers that our fathers so wisely established. The system of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre is done for; never will we be able to put it into effect.

The Divan Orchestra: Mutual Middle-Range Transformation

Classical realism does not focus upon a leader’s motivations or perceptions. These are seen as secondary variables. According to Morgenthau, they are “futile and deceptive; even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge would help us little in understanding foreign policies” (Morgenthau, 1985, pp. 5–6). Nevertheless, new trends within realism have taken these factors into account to deal with the Cold War (Wolforth’s studies of how structural change is perceived at the international level) and with strategic interactions (Walt’s creation of the concept of balance-of-threat). Perceptual factors are now seen as pertinent within the hegemonic paradigm of international relations. The purpose of this chapter is to go beyond these uses. It analyses changes in perception as a determinant process in the construction of a couple1 in which an enemy image is dismantled and partner image created as part of the process of reconciliation (i.e. the image is transformed). Reconciliation “is characterized by mutual recognition and acceptance, invested interests and goals and developing peaceful relations, as well as fully normalized, cooperative, political, economic and cultural relations” (Bar Tal and Bennink, 2004, p. 15). What are the vectors of reconciliation? What kind of actors support a “reconciliation initiative” (Kaufman, 2006, p. 206), encouraging such a process of mutual acceptance and a commitment to a normalized, peaceful relationship?

On Words and Discourse: From Quantitative to Qualitative

This chapter introduces two types of methods of textual analysis by dealing with an empirical case (the state of the union discourses of the Bush Jr. and Obama administrations). The first part demonstrates the interest of using statistical textual analysis to explore voluminous corpus of texts, test assumptions, identify major lexical worlds and increase methodological rigor of textual data analysis. The second set of methods comes from political theory, with a focus on specific textual dimensions: classical or Straussian approach (the exegesis of texts), neo-Marxism (the linguistic structure of hegemony), Cambridge school or Skinnerian perspective (the usage of linguistic conventions in conceptual and historical contexts). By linking these two kinds of methods, the chapter intends to show the advantages of cross-fertilization between quantitative and qualitative tools for understanding political discourses.

Introduction: Understanding Musical Diplomacies—Movements on the “Scenes”

The exploration of the links between music and diplomacy has gained renewed interest in recent years, around what is called the acoustic turn in international relations. The reflection presented in this book aims to contribute to this turning point by putting the emphasis and the focus on the notion of “scenes.” The perspective adopted in this volume is to study music as a series of movements in international relations defined as scenes. The different chapters that compose this volume share several ideas about the acoustic turn in IR. They rely on an extension of musical material: sounds and voices are not restricted to music per se. This book shows that music is not an artifice or an ornament in diplomatic practices. To understand musical diplomacy is not only to gain access to the musical scenes “made” by ambassadors or diplomatic agents (Part 1). It aims at capturing the moments during which these ambassadors think of the diplomatic stage as a musical scene (Part 2), how international music scenes emerge, where the musical challenges become some objects of diplomatic negotiations (the music scene is imported on the diplomatic scene) (Part 3). These processes prove that sounds and voices make diplomacy and even more, world politics (Part 4). Contributors to this volume come from several disciplines (history, musicology, sociology, political science) and do not, therefore, mobilize the same framework for documenting and analyzing these diplomatic and musical scenes—a real pluridisciplinary look at music and international relations.

Taking Images Seriously, How to Analyze Them?

The democratization of digital technologies and the proliferation of pictures and videos have forced researchers to adopt new frameworks to study how societies and media take part in international politics. This chapter shows how images can be taken into account in political science and international relations analysis. To do so it presents various methodologies and concepts that can be used individually or together and details different approaches. It firstly looks at why and how to build up corpuses of images dealing with traditional questions of political science. It then shows how a researcher can deal with the question and the policies behind the production of images. The core of the analysis focuses on the issue of how to analyze images themselves, using aesthetics and visual concepts in political analysis. Finally, the chapter deals with the questions of the circulation and reception of these images.

How to understand international society differently: Mauss and the chains of reciprocity

In international relations, reciprocity means a phenomenon based on international law that maintains equality, continuity, and stability of cooperation between states. Most of the time, the logic of contract and rationalist perspectives prevail to deal with it. Nevertheless, reciprocity does not exclusively embody a contractual mechanism that aims at a symmetrical balance between two partners. Marcel Mauss was one of the first sociologists to observe the existence of group cohesion when studying reciprocity in his gift-giving model. Beyond a dual relationship, Mauss unveils an intergenerational solidarity that he calls “alternating and indirect reciprocity.” Implicitly, this refers to chains of reciprocity developed earlier by Malinowski. Yet, it enriches the notion by also including intergenerational links. This article proposes to extend the Maussian framework to the international level because sociology is not limited by borders of national societies as Mauss underlined himself. International chains of reciprocity are significant in several areas such as environment, cultural heritage, and economic development. By describing these chains, international relations scholars de-center the studies on reciprocity and explore the constitution of a world society. The chains of reciprocity are also very helpful to enter into a dialog with the English School both analytically (extension of the mechanisms that set up world society) and internally (contribution to the debate between pluralists and solidarists).

Inter-organisational systems and peace processes: restoring the local dimension

Abstract Peacebuilding is nowadays characterised by its polymorphism, with a variety of ostensibly complementary actors involved in the political, socio-economic and military domains. Instead of focusing on institutional discourses or designs that often prevail in academic literature, this special issue returns to concrete interventions. It addresses mechanisms of inter-organisational cooperation in the making. Based on the study of various local settings (Somalia, Liberia, Burundi and Kosovo), the three articles offer new insights into on-the-ground workings of cooperation. They show a discrepancy between the high-value international actors – first and foremost, international organisations – attach to cooperation and the frequently lacklustre results and occasional reverses thereof. On top of that, this special issue relies on several sociological tools and methods that are helpful to understand the complex interactions involved in inter-organisational cooperation in peace processes.

Quand le citoyen était musicien... Flûte, aulos et participation publique dans la Cité grecque

Une constante de la pensee politique consiste a definir la Cite antique democratique comme une societe holiste qui impose la participation politique. L’article montre, avec une methode empruntee a la sociologie musicale, que si certaines pratiques musicales (la flute et l’aulos) refletent bien l’implication du citoyen dans les affaires publiques, a partir du 5e siecle, une rupture apparait. Elle se caracterise par le recours croissant a des techniciens de la musique dans la tragedie, une forme de desengagement des citoyens quant a la pratique de l’instrument, l’apparition d’une frontiere entre professionnalisation et amateurisme, et l’utilisation de l’aulos pour des commandes particulieres et non seulement publiques. A partir du lien tenu entre citoyennete et pratique musicale, on montre alors l’emergence d’une individuation partielle, qui sans aboutir a la constitution d’un Moi moderne favorise l’expression d’une certaine individualite.