Rethinking harmony in international relations
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088219868825 |
| Author | Damien Mahiet |
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088219868825
Journal of International Political Theory
2021, Vol. 17(3) 257 –275
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088219868825
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Rethinking harmony in
international relations
Damien Mahiet
Brown University, USA
Abstract
Harmony is a generally agreed-upon idea in international and diplomatic discourse. A
common theme in multiple traditions of thought, Platonist and Confucian among others,
it underlies today’s significant investments in musical activism, cultural diplomacy, conflict
resolution and peace building. Yet despite this wide currency and long history, the
idea of harmony seldom receives more than liminal attention in political theory. In the
context of Western thought, an essay written in the 1830s by the French philosopher
Jean Reynaud offers a striking point of departure: Reynaud defines diplomacy as ‘the
science of harmony among states’. This article, drawing from Reynaud’s text as well
from the wider history of music, art and political thought, maps a series of conceptual
fault lines that touch on the concept’s function in international thought; the inscription of
difference, dissonance, conflict and even war within the idea of harmony; the hegemonic
and imperial temptations harmony encompasses and legitimizes; and the theoretical
sources of harmony in nature and artifice. In effect, the concept of harmony offers less
a blueprint than a forum for imagining peace.
Keywords
Diplomacy, dissonance, harmony of interests, Jean Reynaud, musical activism, peace
One searches in vain for the word harmony in the entries and index of dictionaries and
encyclopaedias on international relations, world politics and diplomacy (e.g. in Badie
et al., 2011; Brown et al., 2018; Delcorde, 2005; Griffiths, 2008; Smouts, 2003). Hard
power and Hegemony are more likely occurrences for the letter H. Dictionaries that do
index harmony offer specific definitions as in the process of policy harmonization or the
idea of a natural harmony of interests (Evans and Newnham, 1998: 217–218, 304–306).
In this theoretical landscape, the definition of diplomacy as ‘the science of harmony
among states’ stands out.1 Proposed by the French philosopher Jean Reynaud in the first
half of the nineteenth century (Reynaud, 1866 (1838): 423; on Reynaud, see Cuchet,
Corresponding author:
Damien Mahiet, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown University, Box 1983, 172 Meeting
St., Providence, RI 02912, USA.
Email: damien_mahiet@brown.edu
868825IPT0010.1177/1755088219868825Journal of International Political TheoryMahiet
research-article2019
Article
258 Journal of International Political Theory 17(3)
2004), this definition offered an unorthodox object for a theory of international relations.
Harmony, as defined by the 1835 edition of the French Academy dictionary, foregrounded
the ‘perfect accord’ of several entities through their formation of a whole or their pursuit
of a common goal. Nineteenth-century authors typically presented a more realist defini-
tion of diplomacy as the ‘science of external relations’ and foreign affairs. ‘Politics’, the
Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich (1880: 1, 36) wrote, for example, ‘is the
science of the vital interests of states’. Of the dozen of historical definitions collected by
the former diplomat Ernest Satow for his 1917 Guide to Diplomatic Practice, only one
mentioned maintaining ‘good harmony among powers’ as the immediate objective of
diplomacy (Satow, 2011: 1, 1). Reynaud (1866) himself acknowledged that his definition
of diplomacy as the science of harmony among states departed from ‘customary ideas’
(1866: 424).
Yet even Metternich might not have entirely dismissed Reynaud’s definition of
diplomacy. To a member of his service in 1832, he wrote that ‘the talent of cabinets
must be to maintain peace and harmony’ (quoted in Sofka, 1998: 139). Metternich and
Reynaud, despite their opposite politics, both aspired to elevate diplomacy to a sci-
ence founded on laws. Where they differed was in the mode of calculation. While
Metternich started his calculus from self-interest, Reynaud (1866) argued that ‘truly
scientific and secure politics . . . calculates the interests of individuals after the har-
mony of the whole’ (1866: 424). Reynaud compared diplomacy with astronomy in its
progressive elucidation of objects and dynamics that initially appeared mysterious.
He outlined a specific plan for future world politics that began with the universal
establishment of nation-states and disqualified monarchies as moral persons on the
international stage. In his mind, diplomats contributed to establishing the more stable
and sustainable political units at the foundation of harmony while operating in a
‘political maze’ of which Europe was the centre (Reynaud, 1866: 448). In the contem-
porary state of mutual defiance, the use of influence and publicity – what Reynaud
(1866: 452) called ‘spiritual force’ – would ultimately outweigh domination. Reynaud
thus updated Kant’s project for perpetual peace through a conflation of national and
republican ideals; his originality lay in the rare invitation to consider harmony as a
concept that might elucidate the history of international relations and regulate the
practice of diplomacy.
This article, at the intersection of international political theory and the humanities,
explores the function fulfilled by the concept of harmony in international theory and the
challenges it presents. Four conceptual fault lines in particular complicate to this day the
meaning of harmony and its significance to diplomacy:
1. How does harmony belong to the fabric of politics? Harmony, often discussed
with reference to an idealized past or an imagined future, oscillates between a
political project and an apolitical utopia.
2. What forms of difference pertain to harmony? The nature and function of the
plurality encompassed within harmony define an ever-changing fault line
between those who accept dissonance as a component of harmony and those who
reject it as a danger. At the far end of the spectrum, war itself may be understood
as a component and an expression of the world’s harmony.
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