David Hume and international political theory: a reappraisal

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWIN VAN DE HAAR
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
International Society ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
English School ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

AbstractDavid Hume’s ideas on international relations are different than most international relations academics suppose. Close scrutiny of Hume’s views on the nation, international society, war, balance of power, empire and trade reveals the need to reassess his place within international political theory. Taking an English School perspective, the analysis also shows the possible benefits for IR theorists within this tradition to focus on Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, which will also strengthen the position of the pluralist perspective within international society.

Pluralism in international political theory

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
International Society ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
International Theory ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Basic Distinction ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
Better Than

Martin Wight once claimed there was no international political theory worthy of the name. In this I believe he was mistaken. But he also maintained, as Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts put it, that ‘the most fundamental question you can ask in international theory is, What is international society? Hedley Bull likewise drew a basic distinction, as several contributors to the volume edited by J. D. B. Miller and the late R. J. Vincent remind us, between the system of states and the society of states. Each of these volumes takes up Wight's question and explores Bull's distinction in various ways, most of them engaging and enlightening. For an overview of the main approaches and controversies in the study of normative international relations today one could scarcely do better than consult them.

The English School and Institutions: British Institutionalists?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laust Schouenborg
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
International Institution ◽  
Functional Perspective ◽  
Primary Institutions ◽  
Hedley Bull

The argument can be made, and has in fact been made, that the English School is primarily concerned with the study of institutions. The institutions of international society are social in a fundamental sense. That is, they are something above and beyond what one usually associates with an international institution. There are three dominant perspectives on what the primary institutions of international society are: functional, historical/descriptive, and typological. Hedley Bull was the major proponent of the functional perspective, and he identified five primary institutions of international society: the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, war, and the great powers. However, the historical/descriptive perspective appears to be the prevailing one. Nevertheless, various authors have started to think about the institutions of international society typologically. This has certain implications for how one views the cognitive objectives of the English School. The adherence to functional, historical/descriptive, or typological perspectives involves a positioning in relation to where international relations (IR), as a discipline, and the English School, as an approach to it, should locate itself in wider academia.

Minority Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 165-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
International Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Level ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Rights Issues

It has often been noted that the political claims of minorities and indigenous peoples are marginalized within traditional state-centric international political theory; but perhaps more surprisingly, they are also marginalized within much contemporary cosmopolitan political theory. In this chapter, I will argue that neither cosmopolitanism nor statism as currently theorized is well equipped to evaluate the normative claims at stake in many minority rights issues. I begin by discussing how the “minority question” arose as an issue within international relations—that is, why minorities have been seen as a problem and a threat to international order—and how international actors have historically attempted to contain the problem, often in ways that were deeply unjust to minorities. I will then consider recent efforts to advance a pro-minority agenda at the international level, and how this agenda helps reveal some of the limits of both cosmopolitan and statist approaches to IPT.

scholarly journals Anarchy in International Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silviya Lechner
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
English School ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Interaction Domain ◽  
Alternative Discourse ◽  
The Third ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
International Anarchy

The concept of anarchy is seen as the cardinal organizing category of the discipline of International Relations (IR), which differentiates it from cognate disciplines such as Political Science or Political Philosophy. This article provides an analytical review of the scholarly literature on anarchy in IR, on two levels—conceptual and theoretical. First, it distinguishes three senses of the concept of anarchy: (1) lack of a common superior in an interaction domain; (2) chaos or disorder; and (3) horizontal relation between nominally equal entities, sovereign states. The first and the third senses of “anarchy”’ are central to IR. Second, it considers three broad families of IR theory where anarchy figures as a focal assumption—(1) realism and neorealism, (2) English School theory (international society approach), and (3) Kant’s republican peace. Despite normative and conceptual differences otherwise, all three bodies of theory are ultimately based on Hobbes’s argument for a “state of nature.” The article concludes with a summary of the key challenges to the discourse of international anarchy posed by the methodology of economics and economics-based theories that favor the alternative discourse of global hierarchy.

scholarly journals Regional order and peaceful change: Security communities as a via media in international relations theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Koschut
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Security Community ◽  
Intellectual Heritage ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Community Concept

The security community concept generally inhabits a rather small niche in the study of International Relations, as the logic of community fundamentally challenges the prevailing logic of anarchy. In this article, it is argued both on ontological and theoretical grounds that the concept’s intellectual heritage and depth transcends the boundaries of existing theories. In this sense, the concept of security community serves as a via media by linking different strands of International Relations theory together and by bridging various theoretical gaps. This argument will be developed in two steps. Firstly, it will be shown that the security community framework developed by Karl W Deutsch is deeply rooted in International Political Theory without belonging to one particular branch. By locating the concept in International Political Theory, an exercise that has been neglected by the security community literature; it will be secondly demonstrated that the concept of security community takes the middle ground between specific strands of International Relations theory, as these strands are ultimately based on concepts of moral philosophy.

The Philadelphian system: sovereignty, arms control, and balance of power in the American states-union, circa 1787–1861

1995 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Deudney
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
American States ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Legitimate Violence ◽  
American Union ◽  
Real State

A rediscovery of the long-forgotten republican version of liberal political theory has arresting implications for the theory and practice of international relations. Republican liberalism has a theory of security that is superior to realism, because it addresses not only threats of war from other states but also the threat of despotism at home. In this view, a Hobson's choice between anarchy and hierarchy is not necessary because an intermediary structure, here dubbed “negarchy,” is also available. The American Union from 1787 until 1861 is a historical example. This Philadelphian system was not a real state since, for example, the union did not enjoy a monopoly of legitimate violence. Yet neither was it a state system, since the American states lacked sufficient autonomy. While it shared some features with the Westphalian system such as balance of power, it differed fundamentally. Its origins owed something to particular conditions of time and place, and the American Civil War ended this system. Yet close analysis indicates that it may have surprising relevance for the future of contemporary issues such as the European Union and nuclear governance.

David Hume’s Balancing Act: The Political Discourses and the Sinews of War

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
DANIELLE CHARETTE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
David Hume ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Balance Of Trade

Both champions and critics of “neorealism” in contemporary international relations misinterpret David Hume as an early spokesman for a universal and scientific balance-of-power theory. This article instead treats Hume’s “Of the Balance of Power,” alongside the other essays in his Political Discourses (1752), as conceptual resources for a historically inflected analysis of state balancing. Hume’s defense of the balance of power cannot be divorced from his critique of commercial warfare in “Of the Balance of Trade” and “Of the Jealousy of Trade.” To better appreciate Hume’s historical and economic approach to foreign policy, this article places Hume in conversation with Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Andrew Fletcher, and Montesquieu. International relations scholars suspicious of static paradigms should reconsider Hume’s genealogy of the balance of power, which differs from the standard liberal and neorealist accounts. Well before International Political Economy developed as a formal subdiscipline, Hume was conceptually treating economics and power politics in tandem.

Sovereignty under attack: the international society meets the Al Qaeda network

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barak Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
English School ◽  
State Actor

This article examines the complex relations between a violent non-state actor, the Al Qaeda network, and order in the international system. Al Qaeda poses a challenge to the sovereignty of specific states but it also challenges the international society as a whole. This way, the challenge that Al Qaeda represents is putting the survival of the system under risk. Consequently it requires that the international society will collectively respond to meet the threat. But challenges to both the practical sovereignty of states and to the international society do not have to weaken the system. Instead, such challenges if handled effectively may lead to the strengthening of the society of states: a robust international society is dynamic and responsive to threats. Its members could cooperate to adapt the principles and the institutions on which the system is founded to new circumstances. Through its focus on the preservation qualities of the international society this article also reinforces the significance of the English School to the study of international relations. It raises important questions that could be answered in the framework of the English School.

scholarly journals Complexity in international society: theorising fragmentation and linkages in primary and secondary institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Dennis R. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
International Society ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Structural Condition ◽  
English School ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Complex Systems Thinking

This article seeks to contribute to theorising the institutional structure of international society by exploring synergies between complex systems thinking and the English School theory of International Relations (IR). Suggesting that the English School already embraces key conceptual insights from complexity theory, most notably relational and adaptive systems thinking, it reconfigures international society as a complex social system. To further advance the English School’s research programme on international institutions, the article introduces the notion of “law-governed emergence” and distils two effects it has on global institutional ordering practices: fragmentation and clustering. These moves help to establish complexity as a fundamental structural condition of institutional ordering at the global level, and to provide a basis for taking steps toward better understanding the nature and significance of institutional interconnections in a globalised international society.

The Opinion of Mankind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sagar
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
David Hume ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, this book considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguments about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the “opinion of mankind,” the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, the book suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory.

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