This book provides an introduction to, and analysis of, the English School’s views on International Relations as they developed from the somewhat vague state/society distinction to the present focus on foundation institutions, regional organisation and the globalization of international society. It focuses on key thinkers and texts and turning points and moves our understanding of the English School beyond the past work of the British Committee to the more recent work of Barry Buzan et. al. to offer a comprehensive overview and interrogation from the leading lights of this arm of International Relations thought. This volume is one of the cornerstones of the EISA sponsored Trends in European IR Theory series complementing the volumes on International Political Theory, Liberalism, Realism, International Political Economy, the post-positivist tradition, and Feminism published for the centenary of IR as a discipline.
This book traces the development of the international society tradition from its origins in Grotius’ On the Law of War and Peace to its crystallization in Bull’s The Anarchical Society. It follows the idea of sociability among peoples as it was presented by Grotius and substantiated by Pufendorf, through the skepticism of Voltaire and Kant, to emerge as humanitarian warfare and human rights in the international liberal movement, ‘world society’ in the 20th century Catholic revival, and common practices and social understandings in the English School in the period of disciplinary development in international relations after the Second World War.
The first comprehensive account of the initial development of the 'Grotian tradition' in international relations theory, reaching entirely unexpected conclusions.
Bringing together the latest scholarship from a global group of expert contributors, this guide offers a comprehensive examination of the English School approach to the study of international relations. Explains the major ideas of the British Committee on International Relations, including the idea of and institutions connected to an international society, the emerging notion of world society, and order within international relations Describes the English School’s methods of analyzing themes, trends, and dilemmas Focuses on the historical and geographical expansion of international society, and particularly on the effects of colonization and imperialism Serves as an essential reference for students, researchers, and academics in international relations
Geared to the interests of modern historians of world decolonization and economic nationalism, this study of international relations will provide insight into issues relevant to nationalism and international society.
The Anarchical Society is one of the masterworks of political science and the classic text on the nature of order in world politics. Originally published in 1977, it continues to define and shape the discipline of international relations. This edition has been updated with a new, interpretive foreword by Andrew Hurrell.
The word 'legitimacy' is seldom far from the lips of practitioners of international affairs. The legitimacy of recent events - such as the wars in Kosovo and Iraq, the post-September 11 war on terror, and instances of humanitarian intervention - have been endlessly debated by publics around the globe. And yet the academic discipline of IR has largely neglected this concept. This book encourages us to take legitimacy seriously, both as a facet of international behaviour with practical consequences, and as a theoretical concept necessary for understanding that behaviour. It offers a comprehensive historical and theoretical account of international legitimacy. It argues that the development of principles of legitimacy lie at the heart of what is meant by an international society, and in so doing fills a notable void in English school accounts of the subject. Part I provides a historical survey of the evolution of the practice of legitimacy from the 'age of discovery' at the end of the 15th century. It explores how issues of legitimacy were interwoven with the great peace settlements of modern history - in 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919, and 1945. It offers a revisionist reading of the significance of Westphalia - not as the origin of a modern doctrine of sovereignty - but as a seminal stage in the development of an international society based on shared principles of legitimacy. All of the historical chapters demonstrate how the twin dimensions of legitimacy - principles of rightful membership and of rightful conduct - have been thought about and developed in differing contexts. Part II then provides a trenchant analysis of legitimacy in contemporary international society. Deploying a number of short case studies, drawn mainly from the wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and the Kosovo war of 1999, it sets out a theoretical account of the relationship between legitimacy, on the one hand, and consensus, norms, and equilibrium, on the other. This is the most sustained attempt to make sense of legitimacy in an IR context. Its conclusion, in the end, is that legitimacy matters, but in a complex way. Legitimacy is not to be discovered simply by straightforward application of other norms, such as legality and morality. Instead, legitimacy is an inherently political condition. What determines its attainability or not is as much the general political condition of international society at any one moment, as the conformity of its specific actions to set normative principles.
This book takes up one of the key theoretical challenges in the English School’s conceptual framework, namely the nature of the institutions of international society. It theorizes their nature through an analysis of the relationship of primary and secondary levels of institutional formation, so far largely ignored in English School theorizing, and provides case studies to illuminate the theory. Hitherto, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organizations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materializations of primary institutions. Building on legal and constructivist arguments about the constitutive character of institutions, it demonstrates how primary institutions frame secondary organizations and regimes, but also how secondary institutions construct agencies with capacities that impinge upon and can change primary institutions. Based on legal and constructivist ideas, it develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions as shared understandings enmeshed in observable historical processes of constitution, reproduction and regulation.
Is war an institution of international society and how is it constituted as such across the evolution of international society? This book is an inquiry into the purpose of war as a social institution, as originally put forward by Hedley Bull. It offers a comprehensive examination of what is entailed in thinking of war as a social institution and as a mechanism for order. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the subject of war has become increasingly relevant, with questions about who can wage war against whom, the way war is fought, and the reasons that lead us to war exposing fundamental inadequacies in our theorisation of war. War has long been considered in the discipline of International Relations in the context of the problem of order. However, the inclusion of war as an ‘institution’ is problematic for many. How can we understand an idea and practice so often associated with coercion, destruction, and disorder as contributing to order and coexistence? This study contends that an understanding of the core elements that establish the character of war as an institution of modern international society will give us important insights into the purpose, if any, of war in contemporary international relations. This ground-breaking book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of international relations, international relations theory, the English school, security studies and warfare.
