Jodok Troy

University of Innsbruck | UIBK

This article proposes a conceptualization of violence that builds on a tripartite relationship between violence, victims, and sacrifice that frames violence as a self-justifying sacrificial act. This conceptualization delineates the nature of violence by addressing its transformation from an instrumental act to a constitutional act, making violence...

Zusammenfassung Amtssitzpolitik ist das Bemühen, internationale Organisationen in Österreich anzusiedeln und entwickelte sich in der Zweiten Republik zu einem integralen Bestandteil österreichischer Außenpolitik. Amtssitzpolitik ist sowohl funktionale Notwendigkeit der Außenpolitik eines Kleinstaates als auch normativer Zweck, sich aktiv für die in...

English School accounts of international relations always stressed some degree of interaction between political international society and ideational world society. Yet, English School research, relying on agential and structural premises, often misses how and where international society and world society interact. If intermediation between the two...

Classical Realism represents a science of politics that is distinct from the conventional understanding of science in International Relations. The object of Realist science is the art of politics, which is the development of a sensibility based on practical knowledge to balance values and interests and to make judgments. Realism’s science and its o...

There are several considerations of the papacy’s vision of what global politics should be like. There are, however, few mappings of the papacy’s actual concept of global politics, of how it evaluates the current state of global politics, understood as global political, social, and economic trends, patterns, actors and their relationships. This arti...

From the beginnings of the UN Secretariat, its Secretaries-General reached out to a wide audience, considering themselves servants of peace beyond narrow organizational tasks. The article argues that it is the Secretaries-General perception as an international civil servant which led them to endeavour a more expansive role ever since. To unfold thi...

This article argues that how the United Nations (UN) conceptualizes legitimacy is not only a matter of legalism or power politics. The UN's conception of legitimacy also utilizes concepts, language and symbolism from the religious realm. Understanding the entanglement between political and religious concepts and the ways of their verbalization at t...

A Living Tradition. Catholic Social Doctrine and Holy See Diplomacy. By A. Alexander Stummvoll. Eugene: Cascade, 2017. XVIII+211pp. $ 22.40 paper. - Jodok Troy

Strategic communication has become a widespread, interdisciplinary term in society over the last few decades and is a process of targeted and networked communication. Strategic communication involves a communication concept that includes the analysis, planning, organisation, implementation and control of internal and external communication of compa...

Next to military means, causing disruption and interdiction, Western and local powers also relied on policies of containment to halt the expansion of the Islamic State’s territorial strongholds. Yet, a Cold War state-based strategy of containment seems not apt to counter a transformed Islamic State. This article, first, examines why containing the...

Religious actors and their political concepts are commonly assumed to be conservative, static, and aligned with the private contemplative world. Popes, however, regularly stand out from this narrative. The article contextualizes the papal human rights discourse since the 1940s and contributes a hitherto neglected perspective to the debate on human...

Targeted killing by drones is a systemic driven instrumental practice that overrides societal non-instrumental practices that are essential for international society. Doing so, targeted killing by drones is not simply another form of inflicting violence by technical means to political opponents. It also inflicts the agents applying this practice, t...

The unconventional nature of Holy See diplomats rests in the composite character of their ecclesiastical role as the Pope’s representatives and their legal diplomatic status and commencement to ordinary diplomatic practice. Holy See diplomacy is a form of conduct created by a set of mixed secular and religious standards in which agents are guided b...

In this article, I argue that there is a startling resonance between Hans Morgenthau’s conception of the political and power and recent analyses of an urbanizing international realm. By making this connection clear, I depart from a mechanistic understanding of politics, which tends to inform both conventional International Relations views and some...

This article introduces the special issue’s question of whether and how the current transformation of targeted killing is transforming the global international order and provides the conceptual ground for the individual contributions to the special issue. It develops a two-dimensional concept of political order and introduces a theoretical framewor...

For René Girard, mimetic rivalry is the main cause of violence. Mimetic theory addresses a fundamental problem of international relations theory: the problem of anarchy as it is outlined in basic texts of Realism, also acknowledging the conflicting potential of desire. The article argues for deepening the discussion between the mimetic theory of th...

This article argues that religion, as it represents itself in political conflicts, has as many occurrences as individuals confess to it and how those individuals interpret “their” religion in different contexts. A simple substantial or functional conceptualization of religion therefore has grave analytical shortcomings. This is also because the ori...

This article examines Austria's position as a small, neutral state in the international society as framed by the English School. This examination is chiefly done in the face of the effects of great power conflicts and their impact on Western Europe's society of states. In doing so, the article provides insights to the fundamental puzzles concerning...

Troy analyses how the understanding of religion in Realism and the English School helps in working towards the greater good in international relations, studying religion within the overall framework of international affairs and the field of peace studies.

This chapter has a dual purpose. Firstly, it evaluates the concept of Ethical and Christian Realism facing international conflicts. Secondly, it evaluates Realism’s religious, meaning also normative, roots. Since we are facing a ‘religious resurgence’ in global politics, it is essential to have a closer look at religious ethics, which are steadily...

This chapter evaluates the English School theory of international relations, the resulting possibilities of integrating religion into international politics and their theoretical framework. However, it should be noted that there is not an intellectually or geographically homogenous English School. Rather, the English School can be described as a ‘r...

This chapter evaluates the claimed ‘global resurgence’ of religion in global politics, that is in the ‘real world’ as well as in the academic subject of international relations, and its consequences. Whether there is a‘real’ resurgence of religion or whether religion is just more visible in the public sphere, it must be conceded that an amplified d...

This chapter reviews definitions and concepts of religion in the context of politics. I argue that a clear-cut definition of religion in the context of politics cannot be given; it is neither possible nor necessary. Rather, I argue that religion is more than a functional element of human life and more than an ideology — it is about absolute being....

‘The Pope! How many divisions does he have?’ was the famous response of Joseph Stalin to a question from the French secretary of state Pierre Laval concerning the situation of Catholics in Russia in 1935. This well known anecdote, documented by Winston Churchill, exemplifies the mainstream opinion regarding religion in politics — at that time and s...

This book began with the assumption that it is not possible to keep religion out of politics and thus out of international relations theory. Rather, as the previous chapters attempted to illustrate, taking religion, faith and their (spiritual and cultural) insights can contribute much — in positive (i.e. practical) as well as in normative terms — t...

This chapter provides an overview of the different approaches taken by international relations theories to acknowledge religion in their theoretical frameworks. Particularly, it evaluates the theories using the distinction between holistic–individualistic and inside–outside. The classical theories such as Liberalism and Realism are not satisfactory...

Today, the Holy See has formal diplomatic relations with almost all states around the globe as well as with the United Nations (UN), where it holds the curious position of a Permanent Observer. Representing a universal sacred mission, the Holy See views the UN as one of the most important avenues in international relations for pursuing its aims. Va...

Gerade weil der Heilige Stuhl keine hard power im traditionellen Verständnis besitzt, entwickelten sich insbesondere im Laufe des internationalen politischen Engagements während des 20. Jahrhunderts sowohl ausgeprägte soft power-Fähigkeiten als auch extensive diplomatische Aktivitäten. Dieses Engagement des Heiligen Stuhls findet dabei immer vor de...

The United Nation's secretary-general from 1953 to 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld, whose spiritual beliefs influenced his political activity, was searching for universality and solidarity as written in the charter of the UN. While in office, Hammarskjöld was able to unite personal belief and political rationale. This is the main reason he became a respecte...

The aim and scope of the article is to examine if Catholicism is or can be a major force in democratization. And if so, what are its core values and motivations? To examine this issue, it is also necessary to evaluate democratization outcomes where the church was not involved. We shall see that it is unavoidable to take into account fundamental Chr...

Religion has been largely absent in diplomacy, particularly in the Western world, for a long time. Some would even say since the Enlightenment. Moreover, religion has been ignored in present-day theories of international relations, and thus also in diplomatic studies. A recent 'resurgence' of religion in international affairs, however, presents an...

Postpositivistische Methoden gehören bereits zum festen Methodenspektrum sicherheitspolitischer Analyse. Sie verstehen sich nicht als Gegensatz zu den traditionellen Ansätzen, sondern als Ergänzung und Erweiterung. Der vorliegende Band trägt dieser Entwicklung in Richtung eines Methodenpluralismus Rechnung. Die Beiträge sind darauf ausgerichtet, di...