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SAGE Handbook of European Studies

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European Journal of Social Theory
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Tragedy, Reconciliation and Reconstruction

Mervyn Frost

CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, UK, mervyn.frost{at}kcl.ac.uk

This article explores the uses of tragedy as a mode of analysis in international relations. In tragic analyses, actors are portrayed as acting ethically, but through their deeds they bring about consequences that are contrary to the values in the name of which the deeds were undertaken. The good deeds bring about ethically obnoxious consequences. The article demonstrates how tragic analyses can be made of the actions of collective actors such as states and nations. Examples from Rhodesia, South Africa and the Balkans are used to demonstrate this. Tragic stories elicit sympathy for the protagonists. Such accounts are compared with rival accounts of the same acts, in terms of `just war theory', for example, which accounts do not generate sympathy but call forth emotions of outrage and condemnation. Finally, a case is made for the use of the tragic form of analysis in international affairs. Such analyses highlight the tensions and contradictions between rival social practices and point the way towards political transformations that will make a repetition of those cases of tragedy less likely in future.

Key Words: ethics • ethics in international relations • just war • tragedy

European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 11, No. 3, 351-365 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1368431008092567
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