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Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), besides writing famous novels such as War and Peace, also wrote on political issues, especially later in his life, putting forward a political philosophy which might be termed 'Christian anarchism'. This book provides a comprehensive overview of Tolstoy's political thought. It outlines in a systematic way Tolstoy's thought, which was originally articulated unsystematically in diverse, often informal writing, such as pamphlets, letters, and speeches, as well as books, and in his novels, where Tolstoy's thinking is put forward implicitly through the novels' characters. The book sets out the basic themes of Tolstoy's political thought: his acceptance of the teachings of Jesus, his criticism of the way in which Jesus' teachings have been relayed by the church through traditional creeds and dogma, his passionate rejection of political violence by both the state and those working for reform, his plea for a nonviolent response to violence and injustice, and his call for society to forego its institutional shackles and enact a community of peace, love, and justice. The book also includes background information on the Russia of Tolstoy's time, including the religious context, and a discussion of how Tolstoy's political thought has been received by his admirers, who included Gandhi, and his critics.

Pacifism and anarchism have been until recently largely missing on the landscape of international relations (IR) theories, even though they help articulate valuable and nuanced reflections on core IR themes such as war and peace, the structure of the international order, and the multiple effects of political violence. In particular, an analysis grounded in the territory shared by pacifism and anarchism offers a focused vantage point from which an original contribution can be articulated around five main themes: the widespread fetishization of violence; the chronic sliding toward systemic militarism; the multifaceted manifestations of intersectional exploitation and domination enforced by states around the world; both current and potential alternative structurings of international politics; and reflections concerning political agency. This puts an anarcho-pacifist encounter with IR in a position to either develop further or dispute claims central to more established schools of IR theory. This article thus offers a normative reading of international politics, which adapts and develops arguments aired separately by anarchism and pacifism, demonstrates where they fruitfully overlap, develops anarcho-pacifism by extending its analysis specifically to international politics, and invites a reconsideration of established orthodoxies in IR theory by articulating a more radical, critical, and normative diagnosis of the Westphalian international order.

AbstractThe "war on terror" has brought to the fore the old debate on the role of religion in politics and international relations, a question on which Tolstoy wrote extensively during the latter part of his life. He considered Jesus to have clearly spelt out some rational moral and political rules for conduct, the most important of which was non-resistance to evil. For Tolstoy, Jesus' instructions not to resist evil, to love one's enemies and not to judge one another together imply that a sincere Christian would denounce any form of violence and warfare, and would strive to respond to (whatever gets defined as) evil with love, not force. In today's "war on terror," therefore, Tolstoy would lament both sides' readiness to use violence to reach their aims; and he would call for Christians in particular to courageously enact the rational wisdom contained in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy's exegesis of Christianity may be too literal and too rationalistic, and may lead to an exceedingly utopian political vision; but it articulates a refreshingly peaceful method for religion to shape politics, one that can moreover and paradoxically be related to by non-Christians precisely because of its alleged grounding in reason.