Traditions of War examines wars and military occupation, and the ideas underlying them. The search for these ideas is conducted in the domain of the laws of war, a body of rules which sought to regulate the practices of war and those permitted to fight in it. This work introduces three ideologies: the martial, Grotian, and republican. These traditions were rooted in incommensurable conceptions of the good life, and the overall argument is that these differences lay at the heart of the failure fully to resolve the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants at successive diplomatic conferences of Brussels in 1874, the Hague in 1899 and 1907, and Geneva in 1949. Based on a wide range of sources and drawing on a plurality of intellectual disciplines, this book places these diplomatic failures in their broader social and political contexts, bringing out ideological continuities through an illustration of the social history of army occupation in Europe and resistance to it.

Traditions of War brings together developments in political and legal thought, the conduct of military occupations, and the attempts by the international community to regulate the treatment of civilians within this aspect of warfare.

Republicanism is a powerful resource for emancipatory struggles against domination. Its commitment to popular sovereignty subverts justifications of authority, locating power in the hands of the citizenry who hold the capacity to create, transform, and maintain their political institutions. Republicanism's conception of freedom rejects social, political, and economic structures subordinating citizens to any uncontrolled power - from capitalism and wage-labour to patriarchy and imperialism. It views any such domination as inimical to republican freedom. Moreover, it combines a revolutionary commitment to overturning despotic and tyrannical regimes with the creation of political and economic institutions that realise the sovereignty of all citizens, institutions that are resilient to threats of oligarchical control. This volume is dedicated to retrieving and developing this radical potential, challenging the more conventional moderate conceptions of republicanism. It brings together scholars at the forefront of tracing this radical heritage of the republican tradition, and developing arguments, texts, and practices into a critical and emancipatory body of political and social thought. The volume spans historical discussions of the English Levellers, French and Ottoman revolutionaries, and American abolitionists and trade unionists; explorations of the radical republican aspects of the thought of Machiavelli, Marx, and Rousseau; and theoretical examinations of social domination and popular constitutionalism. It will appeal to political theorists, historians of political thought, and political activists interested in how republicanism provides a robust and successful radical transformation to existing social and political orders.