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Locke on the Moral Basis of International Relations
Author(s) -
Ward Lee
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00210.x
Subject(s) - sovereignty , normative , international relations , international law , political science , post realism , relation (database) , natural law , law , government (linguistics) , state (computer science) , natural (archaeology) , sociology , law and economics , international relations theory , politics , philosophy , linguistics , algorithm , database , computer science , archaeology , history
This article aims to focus analysis of Locke's theory of international relations away from the familiar discourse of sovereignty and natural law and toward a different discourse involving self‐government and international society. It argues that Locke's conception of international society balanced interrelated, overlapping, and even competing claims about sovereignty and natural law in a normative framework in which the right of self‐government replaced the principle of sovereignty as the moral basis of international relations. Thus, for Locke the norms deduced from the law of nature govern the international state of nature even as independent societies remain the primary executors of the law of nature in international society. The article concludes by considering how Locke's reflections on international relations may contribute to our understanding of contemporary debates about sovereignty, the use of force, and the ethics of intervention.