News
Europe’s liberal peace: Liberalism in illiberal times, 15 May 2024
Professor Andrew Cottey (Department of Government and Politics) will deliver his inaugural lecture on Wednesday 15th May, 5-6.30pm, in the Dora Allman Room, The Student Hub.
This is the first lecture in the Collective Social Futures inaugural series 2024.
Abstract
Against the background of Russia’s continuing war against Ukraine – Europe’s largest armed conflict since the Second World War – Prof. Andrew Cottey will explore the sources of war and peace in Europe and the prospects for peace on the continent in the 2020s and beyond. Drawing on international relations theory, he will argue that a liberal peace emerged in Western Europe after 1945, was extended into much of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s and 2000s, has fundamentally transformed international politics in Europe. For reasons that are likely to remain contested, however, Russia remains outside this liberal peace. Today, Europe’s liberal peace is threatened by illiberalism from without, in the form of Russia and other authoritarian powers, and within, in the form of populism. Cottey will also address the liberal imperialist critique of liberalism, arguing that it misunderstands the causes of war and peace in international politics. He will argue that we need to find a middle road between liberal hubris and liberal defeatism.
Professor Andrew Cottey
Anrew Cottey is a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork. He was Head of the Department of Government and Politics from 2013 to 2018. He has published widely on European security, EU foreign policy, NATO, European relations with China and Irish security and defence policy. He has been a NATO Research Fellow, a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a Visiting Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and was Chair of the Royal Irish Academy’s Standing Committee on International Affairs. His worked has been published in the journals International Affairs, Journal of Common Market Studies, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, European Security and Contemporary Security Policy. The third edition of his book Security in 21st Century Europe will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025.
Respondent: Prof. Mark Webber will respond to Andrew Cottey’s lecture. Mark Webber is Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham. Formerly the Head of the Department of Politics, History and International Relations at Loughborough University, he was also the Head of the School of Government and Society at Birmingham from 2011 to 2019. He has been a Trustee of the British International Studies Association (BISA) since 2014 and was BISA’s Chair in 2019–2020. Mark is a NATO specialist and a one-time scholar of Russia and the former Soviet Union. His work been published in the journals International Affairs, European Journal of International Security, Review of International Studies, European Security, West European Politics, and Journal of European Integration. He is co editor (with James Sperling) of the forthcoming Oxford University Press Handbook on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
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