interventionism

interventionism, concept that addresses the characteristics, causes, and purposes of a country’s interfering with another country’s attitudes, policies, and behaviour. Political, humanitarian, or military intrusion in another country’s affairs, regardless of the motivation, is a highly volatile undertaking whose merits have long been debated by philosophers and politicians. (The term has also been used in economics to mean any type of government action that affects its own economy. For further information on humanitarian aspects of interventionism, see humanitarian intervention.)

An act needs to be coercive in nature to be considered interventionism. In other words, an intervention is defined as a threatening act that is unwelcome by the target of one’s intervention. Aggressiveness is also central to the concept of interventionism in foreign affairs: an interventionist action always operates under the threat of violence. However, not all aggressive acts on the part of a government are interventionist. Defensive warfare within a country’s own legal jurisdiction is not interventionist in nature, even if it involves employing violence to alter the behaviour of another country. A country needs both to act outside its boundaries and to threaten force in order to be an agent of interventionism.

A state can engage in a variety of interventionist activities, but the most notable is military intervention. Such intervention can take many forms depending on its stated goals. For example, a country may invade or threaten to invade another in order to overthrow an oppressive regime or to force the other to change its domestic or foreign policies. Other interventionist activities include blockades, economic boycotts, and assassinations of key officials.

However murky the legality of intervention may be, its morality is even murkier. Many have debated whether interfering with another country’s internal affairs can ever be justified morally. As with any dilemma, that of interventionism also arises from the struggle between two competing principles. Opponents of interventionism argue that interfering with another country’s policies and actions can never be right, regardless of the aggressor’s motivations, and that a country’s imposing its will on another is an unjustifiable act of violence. Conversely, one could also contend that defending the weak against the oppression of the strong is a moral duty that takes precedence over the right to be left unmolested. Evidently, both positions rest on strong moral arguments, which makes the interventionist debate traditionally passionate and, at times, strongly antagonistic. Furthermore, those who agree on the necessity of intervention may disagree on details such as the origin, magnitude, purpose, and timing of the planned intervention.