Christopher Peys and Marina Cantacuzino, “The Forgiveness Project: a conversation about peace activism and the transformative power of story,” International Politics 60, no. 2 (2023): 506-36. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00432-0

Abstract: The Forgiveness Project is an organisation whose peace activism is devoted to the collection and curation of testimonies that bear witness to the transformative power of nonviolent, restorative responses to (violent) conflict, crime, and injustice. To the ‘Testify’ feature for International Politics Reviews, this conversational piece contributes a discussion of The Forgiveness Project, and its understanding of, reliance upon, and use of stories in the pursuit of peace. A conversation between Christopher Peys and Marina Cantacuzino, MBE, this dialogue aims to highlight how this award-winning advocacy organisation is doing global politics in a grassroots, bottom-up manner through its use of storytelling. This dialogue between Peys and Cantacuzino not only explores the non-prescriptive, narratively-driven theory of activism that informs the work of The Forgiveness Project, but it also uses affect theory to theorise forgiveness as a deeply divisive ethico-political value and form of practice.

Christopher Peys, “On the global politics of ‘decency’ and ‘restraint,’” Journal of International Political Theory 17(3): 553-565. https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211008941

Abstract: This essay offers a review of both Roach’s Decency and Difference: Humanity and the Global Challenge of Identity Politics and Steele’s Restraint in International Politics. Exploring the concept-driven modes of analysis employed in each of these two texts, this essay investigates how Roach and Steele theorize the moral, socio-psychological, and political struggles inherent to the notions of decency and restraint. This review is not only devoted to understanding Roach’s and Steele’s respective arguments about how global politics has been conditioned by the tensions inherent to decency and restraint but, also, to reflecting on how these two scholars suggest we deal—theoretically and practically—with the complexities of these two notions in today’s world. At a time when various forces of indecent, unrestrained behavior have arguably led to an exclusionary politics of identity, rancor, and enmity, Roach’s and Steele’s books demonstrate—conceptually, empirically, and normatively—how we can understand the global politics of decency and restraint, as well as how people(s) around the world can begin to take more dignified steps in a just, democratic direction.

Arendt Studies: A Journal for Research on the Life, Work, and Legacy of Hannah Arendt

Review of Worldly Shame: Ethos in Action, by Manu Samnotra. Lanham, Boulder, New York and London: Lexington Books, 2020. xv + 134 pp. $95/ £73 hardback. ISBN: 978-1-7936-1301-1.