Introduction

Praxis is a big book in every sense of the term (Kratochwil, 2018). It offers profundity on a wide range of topics over an equally wide range of disciplines – International Relations and Law are central but Political Philosophy and Social Theory are also addressed. But what, centrally, is Praxis about? Mathias Albert was faced with this question when writing his International Affairs review and, wisely, ducked it by describing the book as a collage, a judgement Friedrich Kratochwil invited by choosing Altdorfer’s ‘Die Alexanderschlacht’ as its cover illustration, a painting which is ostensibly about the Battle of Issus but actually offers a pictorial comment on more or less everything, up to and including the Day of Judgement (Albert, 2019). Such a collage makes for an exciting, challenging and often entertaining read, but it also means that any attempt to describe the main arguments of the book is in danger of falling into Borges’s trap of trying to create a map of the empire on a scale of 1:1 – in order really to do justice to this book of 500 pages it would be necessary to write another book of 500 pages (Borges, 1975).

To avoid falling into this trap I intend to focus on one set of arguments relating to sanctioning and punishment, chapters 6 and 7 of Praxis. The argument I want to develop is that Kratochwil’s answer to the issues raised by these topics is, in effect, a non-answer – he explains why current approaches to sanctioning and punishment are misconceived without providing an alternative. Perhaps of greater significance is the fact that he does not himself see this as problematic – he sees it as no part of his self-chosen brief to provide answers that are policy-relevant. Thereby hangs a more important tale: is the lack of interest in policy-relevant answers to the questions raised here indicative of a wider problem with the approach Kratochwil takes to politics and law?

Kratochwil on sanctions

As noted previously, Praxis is a book that defies summary, but it is at least clear that Kratochwil sees the practice of law as an important source of ideas and methods of reasoning for the study of international relations.