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Another Realism: The Politics of Gandhian Nonviolence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2012

KARUNA MANTENA
KARUNA MANTENA*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
Karuna Mantena is Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University, Box 208301, New Haven, CT 06520 (karuna.mantena@yale.edu).
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Abstract

Although Gandhi is often taken to be an exemplary moral idealist in politics, this article seeks to demonstrate that Gandhian nonviolence is premised on a form of political realism, specifically a contextual, consequentialist, and moral-psychological analysis of a political world understood to be marked by inherent tendencies toward conflict, domination, and violence. By treating nonviolence as the essential analog and correlative response to a realist theory of politics, one can better register the novelty of satyagraha (nonviolent action) as a practical orientation in politics as opposed to a moral proposition, ethical stance, or standard of judgment. The singularity of satyagraha lays in its self-limiting character as a form of political action that seeks to constrain the negative consequences of politics while working toward progressive social and political reform. Gandhian nonviolence thereby points toward a transformational realism that need not begin and end in conservatism, moral equivocation, or pure instrumentalism.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 106 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 455 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

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