Two of the most influential concepts of the long nineteenth century developed in a complex and entangled relationship that cannot be reduced to a mere dichotomy. At first sight, however, liberalism has often been interpreted “as both logically and morally incompatible with nationalism.”1 This incompatibility has been derived from the perspective of the early twentieth century when from the early 1920s onwards liberalism seemed to come under increasing pressure from both Bolshevism and fascism. Whether in its Italian version of fascism or in German National Socialism, European fascisms as the culmination of radical nationalism seemed to rely on the ultimate negation of those values and institutions which had been identified with the legacy of nineteenth-century liberalism, such as personal liberty, free trade, or a constitutional order. Hence the search for the early origins of the apparently obvious dichotomy between liberalism and nationalism followed the logic of retrospective teleology.

The chapter addresses the question of the definition of a Jewish collectivity as it was formed in Hellenistic and Roman times by Jews. Having a single Hebrew term to designate themselves, Bney Israel (“the sons of Israel”), Jews had to do without concepts such as ethnos, genos, laos, dēmos, populus, natio, polis, and civitas when referring to themselves as a collective group. The chapter examines the notions that Jews used in order to refer to themselves as an entity, and shows that the definition of Judaism by Jews was modeled in view of different concepts of other entities that were predominant in the Greco-Roman world and was influenced by the tension between political, geo-ethnic, historical, juridical and civic definitions. Each type of collective definition served a different realpolitik and was conditioned by different political circumstances, which determined the way in which Jews demarcated themselves as a group. The chapter aims to reveal the evolution that the definition of Judaism underwent in a period of great changes and focuses in particular on the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

The chapter addresses the question of the definition of a Jewish collectivity as it was formed in Hellenistic and Roman times by Jews. Having a single Hebrew term to designate themselves, Bney Israel (“the sons of Israel”), Jews had to do without concepts such as ethnos, genos, laos, dēmos, populus, natio, polis, and civitas when referring to themselves as a collective group. The chapter examines the notions that Jews used in order to refer to themselves as an entity, and shows that the definition of Judaism by Jews was modeled in view of different concepts of other entities that were predominant in the Greco-Roman world and was influenced by the tension between political, geo-ethnic, historical, juridical and civic definitions. Each type of collective definition served a different realpolitik and was conditioned by different political circumstances, which determined the way in which Jews demarcated themselves as a group. The chapter aims to reveal the evolution that the definition of Judaism underwent in a period of great changes and focuses in particular on the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

The purpose of this essay is to address the four organizing questions of the workshop. First, I discuss my own neoclassical realist staged theory of peacemaking, which incorporates other various subparadigms of realist thought, including balance of threat and hegemonic peace theories.My model is premised on the idea thatpeacemaking must begin as a top-down venture for the reasons realists and rationalists suggest, but that after a peace treaty or its equivalent is achieved, stable peace requires the treaty to be socialized using mechanisms derived from liberal and constructivist mechanisms. Second, I compare my paradigmatic model to other peacebuilding paradigms, emphasizing the ways in which atop-down approach to interstate peacemaking is derived from realist and rationalist theories of international politics and explain how it compares to the leading alternative approach, which is a bottom-up approach derived from liberal and constructivist theories. I address the implications my hybrid model has for the quest for a “positive” peace.Finally, I address the obstacles to peace and the policy recommendations that flow from my model.

When discussing violence in the Islamic milieu, the word jihad inevitably comes to mind, especially in the contemporary world. Jihad is almost invariably translated as “armed combat” or “fighting” in both academic and non-academic circles; and even as “terrorism” in politically-charged contexts. Such a monovalent understanding of jihad emerges primarily through consultation of the juridical literature and official histories that were produced after the eighth century of the Common Era and that are unduly privileged in academic discussions of this subject.

Jihad however emerges as a much more complex term when a broader range of primary Arabic sources are consulted. Such sources include the Qur’an and Qur’an commentaries (tafsir), collections of hadith, which refer to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as legal works.The central premise of this essay is that a closer study of relevant Qur’anic verses and a comparison of early and late extra-Qur’anic sources drawn from the above genres allows one to chart both the constancies and shifts in the spectrum of meanings assigned to the term jihad.This in turn allows us to better understand how changing socio-political circumstances affected the way Muslim scholars of different stripes conceived of the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate violence over time.