Political Friendship among Peoples
| Date | 01 April 2009 |
| DOI | 10.3366/E1755088209000317 |
| Published date | 01 April 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
POLITICAL FRIENDSHIP AMONG PEOPLES
CATHERINE LU
Abstract: Does the concept of political friendship make sense, and does
cultivating political friendship among peoples strengthen universal peace? This
article provides an Aristotelian account of political friendship as distinct from
but analogous to personal friendship. Political friendships, founded on mutual
recognition and respect, are characterized by consensual agreement about the
fundamental terms of cooperation. While promoting such political friendship at
the global level would be a measure to strengthen universal peace, another form
of friendship, politicized friendship, is to be avoided, as it is driven by rivalrous
rather than equitable self-interest, and breeds political enmity and strife. Taking
Aristotle’s insights about political friendship to the global arena, the article
considers Rawlsian peoples to be suitable subjects for political friendship. The
duty of assistance and the duty to oppose outlaw states illuminate demands of
political friendship among Rawlsian peoples that entail equity, power sharing
and even sacrifice.
Keywords: Aristotle, peoples, political friendship, Rawls
Introduction
One day after the attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11), members of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked Article V of its basic treaty for
the first time since the founding of the military alliance in 1949. Although the
measure did not automatically commit NATO members to support the United
States’ military responses to the 9/11 attacks, it expressed their solidarity with
the United States – ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’ – and their resolve to
commit to a collective defence strategy against the threat posed by Al-Qaeda.
In other expressions of solidarity after the attacks, many governments and
Journal of International Political Theory, 5(1) 2009, 41–58
DOI: 10.3366/E1755088209000317
© Edinburgh Univeristy Press 2009
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Catherine Lu
corporations took out full-page advertisements in The New York Times.The
Canadian government’s ad read, ‘We share your outrage, grief, compassion,
and resolve. The people of Canada are with you every step of the way. As
friends. As neighbours. As family’ (The Globe and Mail 2001). While this
expression of political friendship and solidarity arose in a particular context in
response to a specific event, friendship between nations and peoples constitutes
one of the declared general purposes of the United Nations –to ‘develop friendly
relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and
self-determination of peoples’ –and is identified as a key measure ‘to strengthen
universal peace’ (UN Charter, Article 1).
Does it make sense to think of military alliances or relationships between
countries, nations or peoples as involving some notion of political friendship?If
the case can be made for an intelligible concept of political friendship, is such
friendship conducive to good global politics or the end of universal peace? Or
might friendship among peoples, nations or states in world politics constitute a
source of discord, enmity and conflict?
If we take friendship between individual persons as our paradigm for the
concept of friendship, some might conclude that military alliances and political
relationships in general, even successful and enduring ones, fall well short of
genuine friendship. After all, the usually positive affective basis of personal
friendships is relatively absent from political relationships; and even political
and military alliances that exhibit mutual affection and concern invariably
include an instrumental dimension. Some might argue then that the constitutive
norms of friendship, characterized by mutually reciprocated and recognized
goodwill, are directly opposed to the constitutive norms of politics, characterized
at best by the pursuit of mutual instrumental or rational advantage. If this is the
case, then the concept and language of ‘political friendship’ cannot be anything
more than vacuous or intentionally deceptive rhetoric that politicians employ
to disguise self-interested motives and aims. As Simon Keller (2009) argues,
moral and political philosophers should not degrade the language of friendship
by mixing it with the politics of states.
In this article I consider an opposing argument found in Aristotle, that
good political relationships and a certain kind of friendship, distinct from but
analogous to personal friendship, go hand in hand. According to this view,
political friendship arises from a politics of mutual respect and recognition and
aims to cultivate consensual agreement on the fundamental terms of political
cooperation. Political friendships so conceived are a vital measure to strength-
ening civil concord and, one may argue, universal peace. At the same time that
Aristotle provides a stimulating resource for thinking about political friendship
among peoples, his critique of the practice of politicized friendship in ancient
Athens reveals the way in which certain kinds of partnerships in politics may,far
from contributing to concord, represent a source of political discord and conflict.
In this article I seek to provide a normative account of political friendship as
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