Review

Reviewed Work(s): Theories of War and Peace by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cot,, Sean M.
Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller
Review by: Dan Smith
Source: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, Special Issue on Trade and Conflict (Jul.,
1999), p. 490
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/425302
Accessed: 07-09-2016 00:27 UTC
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tice - discursive or not - the fact r

* Antaki, Charles & Sue Widdicombe, eds,
1998. Identities in Talk. London: SAGE. 224 pp.are seldom free to negotiate our ow
will.
ISBN 0-7619-5060-5. Riggins, Stephen
Harold, ed., 1997. The Language and Politics of

AK

Exclusion: Others in Discourse. London: SAGE.

294 pp. ISBN 0-7619-0728-9.

Identity, as described in Identities in Talk, is * Brown, Michael E.; Owen R. Cote, Jr; Sean
something people 'do' in the exchange of talk, M. Lynn-Jones & Steven E. Miller, eds, 1998.
not something they 'are'. The contributors all use Theories of War and Peace. An International
'conversation analysis' approaches to the questionSecurity Reader. Cambridge, MA & London:
of how identities are 'done' - how identities are MIT Press. 566 pp. ISBN 0-262-52252-7.
used in everyday communicative interaction.
This perspective is contrasted to 'social identityTaken on their own terms, International Security
theory' and 'self-categorization theory' by its readers are outstanding International Relations
accent on how discourse works to define the
texts. In part, this reflects the strength of the
journal from which the articles are drawn. Over
events and situations where categories become
the years, editors of successive anthologies have
relevant, rather than how categories are switched
had a fine field to draw on; and within that field,
into activity by externally generated situations
they have made good choices. This new reader on
and events. Another defining feature of this book
theoretical knowledge on war and peace is no
is its emphasis on identities as resources. By con-

exception. The articles selected cover the 1990s.

trast, the contributors to The Language and
As a reflection of the journal, the collection has
Politics of Exclusion apply a broadly defined
the weakness of its strengths: if you want to know
'critical discourse analysis' to text and speech that

the latest in realism, this is a must; if you want to

contributes to the marginalization of minority
know the latest in anything else, look elsewhere.
groups. 'Discourses of Otherness' are viewed here

as powerful tools of dominant majorities. The collection contains several essential articles,
including the institutionalist theory debate
'Others' are groups that are devalued, excluded

initiated by Mearsheimer, and the same author's

and silenced through negative stereotypes. In this

gung-ho pessimism about the end of the Cold

context, identities are not resources: they are
War, depicting a return to the European political
strategies used primarily to dominate and subdue
order of the 1930s. There is also Christopher
the Other. The discourses of identity articulated
Layne's attack on democratic peace theory, which
by Others themselves tend to be contradictory,

asks a lot of very tough questions, despite its

complex and ironic. Rimstead, writing on negative constructions of identity in poor and biased case selection and spurious methodological
working-class women's autobiographies, objections. Among other notable contributions
are Mansfield and Snyder's distinction between
describes their act of self-representation as
'shameful as well as defiant'. The Other is thus
democracy, which may be stable, and democrativiewed basically as a victim. Rimstead and other zation, which can be dangerous; Thomas Homercontributors to this volume might be criticized by Dixon's survey of evidence on environmental

'conversation analysts' for creating the very scarcity and conflict; and Carl Kaysen's disidentity categories they analyse: in the case of cussion of the possible obsolescence of war.
DS
Rimstead, the 'poor and working-class woman'.
However, while Identities in Talk is more theoretically refined, The Language and Politics of

Exclusion is a far more inspiring and illuminating

book. This is because the idealized world of com- * Burleigh, Michael, 1997. Ethics and
municative equality exists only in theory. In prac- Extermination. Reflections on Nazi Genocide.

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