Abstract

VIEIRA, Patrícia. Trading Our Way out of War: Perpetual Peace without Politics. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2018, n.116, pp.5-22. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.7088.

Proponents of perpetual peace have often identified politics as a problem standing in the way of peaceful relations between humans. They believed that, while politics exacerbates the differences separating nations, commerce brings human beings together. In this article, I trace the development of arguments against politics and for commerce from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth century. I argue that thinkers espoused an idealized view of commerce as an activity that fostered the development of a peaceful international community, while gradually eliminating economic inequalities. I also highlight how these arguments still resonate with today's debates on globalization.

Keywords : conflicts resolution; economic relations; free trade; globalization; peacebuilding; perpetual peace; political relations.

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