Critical theorists, among others, have argued that theorists and scholars of international relations do not write in a vacuum, rather they are embedded in a historical context which shapes their reflection and analysis of the world (Cox, 1986). The historical canon of international relations, from Thucydides to Machiavelli to Hobbes – most often drawn on in sound-bite form to support realist themes – emerged from thinkers who had in some way participated in, and later reflected on, the dramatic changes occurring around them. This chapter is a much more modest effort to reflect self-consciously on the relationship between theory and practice, and how this gives rise to certain conclusions about an ethical foreign policy. It grew out of an invitation to discuss an ethical foreign policy from the perspective of my pre-academic experience in the peace movement and my subsequent research. The chapter begins with a brief biographical sketch of my experience. This is followed by elaboration on four points that link this experience to the question of an ethical foreign policy.

Background

In the 1980s, I worked at four different levels of political organisation relating to nuclear disarmament: as organiser of a city-wide campaign, as strategist for a campaign in the state of Minnesota, as one of the first three staff in the national office of the US Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, and then as editor of an international networking publication based in the Netherlands.