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On the global politics of “decency” and “restraint”

This essay offers a review of both Roach’s Decency and Difference: Humanity and the Global Challenge of Identity Politics and Steele’s Restraint in International Politics. Exploring the concept-driven modes of analysis employed in each of these two texts, this essay investigates how Roach and Steele theorize the moral, socio-psychological, and political struggles inherent to the notions of decency and restraint. This review is not only devoted to understanding Roach’s and Steele’s respective arguments about how global politics has been conditioned by the tensions inherent to decency and restraint but, also, to reflecting on how these two scholars suggest we deal—theoretically and practically—with the complexities of these two notions in today’s world. At a time when various forces of indecent, unrestrained behavior have arguably led to an exclusionary politics of identity, rancor, and enmity, Roach’s and Steele’s books demonstrate—conceptually, empirically, and normatively—how we can understand the global politics of decency and restraint, as well as how people(s) around the world can begin to take more dignified steps in a just, democratic direction.