Abstract
Among policy makers and scholars of foreign affairs, the predominant form of analyzing relations between nation-states has long been through the lens of a Realist worldview. An approach that views all nation-states’ political interactions as being motivated exclusively by the desire to acquire, retain, and project power, the Realist view of international relations is based on a broad set of secularist-materialist assumptions regarding human exchanges.1 While a Realist analysis can provide many remarkable insights as to the motivations of nation-states in the context of economic and military competition and conflict, it is less capable of anticipating, and less inclined to privilege, the impact of individual human motivations, religious and social movements, and identity-based politics on the conduct of international relations.
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Notes
Stanton Burnett, “Implications for the Foreign Policy Community,” in Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds., Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 293.
Henry Munson, Jr., Religion and Power in Morocco (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), iv.
This anchoring theory of this inquiry is deeply indebted to the work of Daniel Spencer and his important contribution of the concept “Ecological Location” to the work of Christian Ethics. Spencer describes ecological location as “enlarging the term sociallocation to include both where human beings are located within human society and within a broader biotic community …” Ecological Location, according to Spencer, also acknowledges that “how we are shaped to see and act in the world results from a complex interplay of physiological, social, cultural, and environmental/ecological factors. For ecological ethics (and, I would argue, the vast majority of social ethics), ecological location is the ‘relevant whole’ or context that must be taken into consideration in ethical reflection.” While Spencer’s application of Ecological Location focuses primarily on the individual or small group, this book seeks to expand and adapt the concept of Ecological Location to describe the circumstances of the overall population of a nation-state. See Daniel T. Spencer, Gay and Gaia: Ethics, Ecology and the Erotic (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1996), 295, 296.
“Turning to the earth” is a concept proposed by Larry Rasmussen in his book, Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 110.
Included among those Christian Ethicists who have engaged the topic of religion and international relations are the following: John Bennett, The Radical Imperative: From Theology to Social Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975);
Alan F. Geyer, Ideology in America: Challenges to Faith (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997);
Bryan J. Hehir, “Religion and International Affairs: Faith Can No Longer be Relegated to a Private Sphere in a World where State Sovereignty is Limited,” Nieman Reports 47 (1993): 39–41;
and Glen Stassen, Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998).
Sustainable Diplomacy’s normative guideposts are taken from Larry Rasmussen’s requirements for sustainability See Larry L. Rasmussen, Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 172–173.
For a complete synopsis of Rasmussen’s definition of sustainability, see David Wellman, Sustainable Communities (New York: World Council of Churches, 2001), 21–30.
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© 2004 David J. Wellman
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Wellman, D.J. (2004). Introduction: An Overview. In: Sustainable Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980977_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980977_1
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