Political Culture, International Democracy, and Human Rights. A Literature Review

The present contribution seeks to retrace the theoretical foundations necessary for the development of research that uses the Italian case study of the Perugia-Assisi March for Peace and Fraternity as an opportunity to understand how the spread of a political culture of peace among the local authorities of a nation can contribute to the development of global peace. In order to comprehend the notions of a political culture and a political culture of peace, an analysis of extant literature on the subject is conducted, with a particular focus on Galtung’s contributions to the study of positive peace. Furthermore, the theories of international relations that have been most influenced by Galtung’s studies and that can most strongly answer the research question are analysed. In order to this end, we analyse Papisca’s theory of International Democracy and Falks and Kaldor’s theory of Global Civil Society, as well as the theories of City Diplomacy and the use that can be made of peace policies in a system of Multilevel Governance by applying the principle of subsidiarity, also with a view to the responsibility to protect one’s citizens.