Abstract
The causes of the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece have long obsessed international relations (IR) scholars, who often claim that Thucydides’ proto-realist History offers the definitive ancient account. But not everyone in Athens agreed with Thucydides’ bleak view that fear of the Other inevitably leads to violence. This chapter reflects on Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, which depicts the war between Athens and Sparta as rooted in political processes dividing people along gender and cultural lines. Themes in Lysistrata illuminate the role of protest, economic divestment and social non-cooperation in disarmament campaigns, including on killer robots and nuclear weapons. The chapter draws on the insights of feminist IR theory and the story of women’s occupation of the Greenham Common nuclear weapons base.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Acheson, R., Bolton, M., Minor, E., & Pytlak, A. (Eds.). (2017). The Humanitarian Impact of Drones. New York: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom & International Disarmament Institute, Pace University.
AFSC. (1972). Automated Air War. Retrieved from https://www.afsc.org/video/automated-air-war
Allison, G. (2015, September 24). The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War? The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/
Anderson, K., & Waxman M. C. (2012, December and 2013, January). Law and Ethics for Robot Soldiers. Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 12-313. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2046375##
Anderson, L. V. (2012, August 27). Do Sex Strikes Ever Work? Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/08/sex_strike_in_togo_do_sex_strikes_ever_work_.html
Aristophanes. (2002). Lysistrata and Other Plays (A. H. Sommerstein, Trans., 2nd ed.). New York: Penguin.
Beck, U. (2006). Living in the World Risk Society. Economy and Society, 35(3), 329–345.
Berger, H. (1990). Second World and Green World: Studies in Renaissance Fiction-Making. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bergman, C., & Montgomery, N. (2017). Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times. Chico, CA: AK Press.
Blume, K., & Bower, S. (2004). Lysistrata Project. Yes! Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/finding-courage/600
Bogad, L. M. (2006). Tactical Carnival: Social Movements, Demonstrations, and Dialogical Performance. In J. Cohen-Cruz & M. Schutzman (Eds.), A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics (pp. 46–58). New York: Routledge.
Bolton, M. (2013, March). Security for Whom? Putting a Human Face on Resilience: Critical Response Paper Following the Pace University 2012 ‘Summit on Resilience: Securing Our Future through Public-Private Partnerships’. In J. Ryan (Ed.), Summit on Resilience: Securing Our Future through Public-Private Partnerships. New York: Pace University Press.
Brettschneider, M. (2011). Heterosexual Political Science. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(1), 23–26.
Butler, J. (2011). Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street. Retrieved from http://eipcp.net/transversal/1011/butler/en
Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. (2016, February). Binder of Women. Retrieved from http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WomenExperts_1Feb2016.pdf
Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. (2018, May 16). Google, Other Companies Must Endorse Ban. Retrieved from https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/2018/05/google/
Campkin, B. (2013). Placing ‘Matter Out of Place’: Purity and Danger as Evidence for Architecture and Urbanism. Architectural Theory Review, 18(1), 56.
Central Office of Information. (1980). Protect and Survive. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Retrieved from http://scyfilove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Nuclear-War-Survival-Guide-British-Government.pdf.
Charlesworth, H. (2008, December). Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building. Feminist Legal Studies, 16(3), 347–361.
Cockburn, A. (2015). Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Cohn, C. (1987). Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals. Signs, 12(4). Retrieved from http://www.ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Cohn.pdf.
Cole, H., Mullen, M., O’Brien, T., & Coghlan, D. (2011). Ambassadors before They Knew It: Song Kosal and Tun Channareth, Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines, 1994–2011. Siem Reap: JRS.
Docherty, B. (2018, April 11). Statement by Human Rights Watch on Meaningful Human Control in Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to the Convention on Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts, Geneva. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/04/11/statement-human-rights-watch-meaningful-human-control-lethal-autonomous-weapons
Douglas, M. (2002). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge Classics ed.). New York: Routledge Classics.
Edwards, P. N. (1996). The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Enloe, C. (1990). Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fairhall, D. (2006). Common Ground: The Story of Greenham. London: I.B. Tauris.
Feminist Archive North. (2008, Summer). Treasures: Women’s Peace Activism. Feminist Archive North Newsletter, No. 3 (pp. 3–4). Retrieved from http://feministarchivenorth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2008/08/newsletter-no3-summer-08.pdf
Fihn, B. (Ed.). (2013). Unspeakable Suffering: The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. Geneva: Reaching Critical Will.
Gorbachev, M. (1984). Excerpts from Speech by Gorbachev. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/19/world/excerpts-from-speech-by-gorbachev.html
Grandmothers Keen. (2010). Greenham Women Keening in Parliament Square. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knWpLdlPD88
Harford, B., & Hopkins, S. (Eds.). (1984). Greenham Common: Women at the Wire. London: The Women’s Press.
Harrison, T. (1992). The Common Chorus: A Version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. London: Faber & Faber.
Hickman, J. (1986). Greenham Women Against Cruise Missiles and Others v. Ronald Reagan and Others. In J. Dewar (Ed.), Nuclear Weapons, the Peace Movement and the Law (pp. 200–218). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hochschild, A. (1969). The Role of the Ambassador’s Wife: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Marriage and Family, 31(1), 73–87.
Human Rights Watch. (2012). Losing Humanity: The Case against Killer Robots. Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/arms1112_ForUpload.pdf.
Hunt, E. (2012). Building a National Campaign. ICAN Campaigners Kit [Online]. Retrieved June 12, 2015, from http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Campaigners-Kit-Pernilla_final2.pdf
Johnson, R. (2016). Banning the Bomb: From 1950s Activism to the General Assembly via Greenham Common. In Civil Society Engagement in Disarmament Processes: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Ban (pp. 35–46). New York: UNODA.
Liddington, J. (1991). The Road to Greenham Common: Feminism and Anti-militarism in Britain Since 1820. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Masters, C. (2005). Bodies of Technology: Cyborg Soldiers and Militarized Masculinities. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7(1), 112–132.
McLaughlin, E. (2005). The Greek Plays. New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Minor, E. (2017, December). Missing Voices: The Continuing Underrepresentation of Women in Multilateral Forums on Weapons and Disarmament. Arms Control Today. Retrieved from https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/features/missing-voices-continuing-underrepresentation-women-multilateral-forums-weapons
Morgan, L. (2012). Diplomatic Gastronomy: Style and Power at the Table. Food and Foodways, 20(2), 146–166.
Morgenthau, H. J. (1978). Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (5th ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Pace University. (2014, October 29) Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams Gives Address on Gender and Disarmament at Pace University. Retrieved from https://pacenycmun.org/2014/10/29/nobel-peace-laureate-jody-williams-gives-address-on-gender-and-disarmament-at-pace-university
Paffenholz, T., Ross, N., Dixon, S., Schluchter, A.-L., & True, J. (2016, April). Making Women Count—Not Just Counting Women: Assessing Women’s Inclusion and Influence on Peace Negotiations. Geneva: Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative & UN Women.
Pettitt, A. (2006). Walking to Greenham: How the Peace-camp began and the Cold War Ended. South Glamorgan, Wales: Honno.
Roberts, J. T. (2017). The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roseneil, S. (2000). Common Women, Uncommon Practices: The Queer Feminisms of Greenham. London: Cassell.
Roseneil, S. (2012). Queering Home and Family in the 1980s: The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12681493.pdf
Rosengren, E. (2018). A Feminist Reflection on Nuclear Disarmament and Change (D. Hogsta, Trans.). Stockholm: Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons & WILPF Sweden. Retrieved from https://ikff.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/emma-rosengren-a-feminist-reflection-on-nuclear-disarmament-and-change.pdf
Sharkey, N. (2012, Summer). The Evitability of Autonomous Robot Weapons. International Review of the Red Cross, 94(886), 787–799.
Shepherd, B. (2011). Play, Creativity, and Social Movements: If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution. New York: Routledge.
Sjoberg, L. (2015). Seeing Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in International Security. International Journal, 70(3), 434–453.
Sommerstein, A. H. (2002a). Introduction. In Aristophanes. Lysistrata and Other Plays (A. H. Sommerstein, Trans., 2nd ed., pp. xi–xlviii). New York: Penguin.
Sommerstein, A. H. (2002b). Preface to Lysistrata. In Aristophanes. Lysistrata and Other Plays (A. H. Sommerstein, Trans., 2nd ed, pp. 133–138). New York: Penguin.
Thucydides. (2014a). The State of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Commencement of the Peloponnesian War. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Chapter 1. Retrieved from https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/thucydides/crawley/chapter1.html
Thucydides. (2014b). Sixteenth Year of the War—The Melian Conference—Fate of Melos. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Chapter 17. Retrieved from https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/thucydides/crawley/chapter17.html
Thurlow, S. (2017) International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—Nobel Lecture. Retrieved from https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2017/ican-lecture_en.html
Ullman, E. (2012). Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents. New York: Picador.
United Nations. (2017, July 7). (29th meeting) UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards Their Total Elimination. UN Web TV. Retrieved from http://webtv.un.org/search/29th-meeting-un-conference-to-negotiate-a-legally-binding-instrument-to-prohibit-nuclear-weapons-leading-towards-their-total-elimination/5496837948001/?term=nuclear%20weapons&sort=date
Ussher, J. (2002). Body Talk: The Material and Discursive Regulation of Sexuality, Madness and Reproduction. New York: Routledge.
Wakabayashi, D., & Metz, C. (2018, June 7). Google Promises Its A.I. Will Not Be Used for Weapons. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/technology/google-artificial-intelligence-weapons.html
Waltz, K. N. (1954). Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.
Waltz, K. N. (1979). Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Waltz, K. N. (1981). The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better. Adelphi Papers, No. 171. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Waltz, K. (1986). Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power. In R. Keohane (Ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (pp. 98–130). New York: Columbia University Press.
Webb, M. C., & Krasner, S. D. (1989, April). Hegemonic Stability Theory: An Empirical Assessment. Review of International Studies, 15(2), 183–198.
Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization, 46(2), 391–425.
Westad, O. A. (2005). The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Westmoreland, W. C. (2007). Gen. Westmoreland on the Army of the Future. NACLA. Retrieved from https://nacla.org/article/gen-westmoreland-army-future
Whyte, S. (2017). ‘Horror, Humour and Hope’ Getting ICAN’s Message Through Nuclear Disarmament Circus. Crikey. Retrieved from https://www.crikey.com.au/2017/10/10/humour-horror-and-hope-getting-icans-message-through-nuclear-disarmament-circus/
Williams J. (2014). Even Killer Robots Have a Gender Gap. Foreign Policy. Retrieved July 8, 2014, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/11/even-killer-robots-have-a-gender-gap/
Wittner, L. S. (2009). Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Zizek, S. (2008). The Plague of Fantasies. New York: Verso.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bolton, M.B. (2020). Act 3. Lysistrata: Meaningful Human Control. In: Imagining Disarmament, Enchanting International Relations. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17716-4_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17716-4_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17715-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-17716-4
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)