Liberal warfare: A crusade twice removed

Hughes, David (2013) Liberal warfare: A crusade twice removed. International Studies Review, 15 (3). pp. 351-373. ISSN 1468-2486

Preview

PDF (Liberal Warfare: A Crusade Twice Removed) - Published Version Download (183kB) | Preview

Abstract

Since the 1990s, liberal warfare has attracted a good deal of debate and commentary, virtually all of which has been framed in the secular language of rights, sovereignty, power, and legitimacy. This article, in contrast, makes religion its central analytic category. Treating liberalism as a political religion, it argues that, insofar as liberal wars are fought primarily to uphold “universal” Western values, their motivation has something in common with medieval crusades. But, because that universalist ideal is vitiated by the self-interest of states, liberal wars in fact bear closer resemblance to anachronistic attempts to revive the crusading ideal in the late Middle Ages. Thus, they represent a distant, secularized echo of a pale imitation of the Crusades—or “a crusade twice removed.”

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	liberal warfare,humanitarian intervention,responsibility to protect,crusades,political religion
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Political, Social and International Studies (former - to 2014)
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	27 Jan 2014 16:10
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2024 16:51
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/47254
DOI:	10.1111/misr.12062

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item