English School Methodology and Methods

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Navari
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
English School ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Classical Realism ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Hedley Bull

Coming from an empirical historical tradition, English School theory has a strong inductive core, represented in its historical narratives, and a positive approach to international law. But its core text is strongly deductive: Hedley Bull derived the basic precept of international society from a set of logical premises to which he attached a truth value. Its methodologies have varied accordingly, between agent-centered and structure-centered approaches, and it has deployed a variety of methods in respect to each, including anthropological interpretivism with regard to agents and historical and sociological institutionalism with regard to structures. Its focus on the state and institutions means that it shares method with regime theorists, and its focus on Great Powers and great power responsibility means that it shares some methods with regard to classical realism.

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.

An analysis of stagnation in multilateral law-making – and why the law of the sea has transcended the stagnation trend

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Making ◽  
Multilateral Treaties

Abstract The article explores the current stagnation in multilateral law-making based on an analysis of recent treaty attempts across various subfields of international law. It further examines why the law of the sea has continued to evolve despite this trend. The article demonstrates that states still regularly seek multilateral treaties to address new challenges. While there is some evidence of general treaty saturation, it is the current inability of traditional great powers to negotiate new binding norms which is the most constraining factor on multilateral law-making. This in turn is related to deeper geopolitical shifts by which traditional great powers, notably the United States and its allies, have seen their relative influence decline. Until the current great power competition ends or settles into a new mode of international co-operation, new multilateral treaties with actual regulatory effect will rarely emerge. The law of the sea has avoided the current trend of stagnation for primarily three reasons (i) a global commitment to the basic tenets of the law of the sea; (ii) a legal framework that affords rights and obligations somewhat evenly disbursed, allowing less powerful states to use their collective leverage to advance multilateral negotiations, despite intermittent great power opposition; and (iii) the avoidance of entrenched multilateral forums where decisions are reached by consensus only.

scholarly journals THE CRISIS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: CASE STUDY OF SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTE

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Obsatar Sinaga ◽  
Verdinand Robertua
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
International Law ◽  
South China ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Great Power ◽  
English School ◽  
China Sea

This research discussed the impact of Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision on the dynamic of South China Sea dispute. Court’s decision in July 2016 to give South China Sea based on UNCLOS’s regulation has provoked China’s objection. This research question is on How to understand the crisis of international law in the international political economy using English School Theory in the case of South China Sea dispute? To answer the research question, this research is using English School Theory (ES) with its two pillars namely pluralism and solidarism. This research shows two findings. First, the PCA decision has been used by the Philippines to be bargaining tool to obtain economic cooperation and appeased the failure of PCA ruling. Secondly, the PCA decision has provided momentum for China to transform their policy related to the South China Sea dispute with its role as the great power. Thirdly, the structure of international law as the primary institution would be consists of great power politics, ASEAN and economic diplomacy.   Key words: South China Sea, English School, Permanent Court of Arbitration, international political economy, international law   Abstrak   Penelitian ini membahas dampak keputusan Pengadilan Arbitrase mengenai sengketa Laut Cina Selatan. Keputusan pengadilan pada bulan Juli 2016 untuk memberi Laut Tiongkok Selatan berdasarkan peraturan UNCLOS telah memancing keberatan Tiongkok. Pertanyaan penelitian ini adalah bagaimana memahami krisis hukum internasional dalam ekonomi politik internasional dengan menggunakan Teori English School dalam kasus perselisihan Laut Tiongkok Selatan? Untuk menjawab pertanyaan penelitian, penelitian ini menggunakan Teori English School (ES) dengan dua pilarnya yaitu pluralisme dan solidarisme. Penelitian ini menunjukkan tiga temuan. Pertama, keputusan PCA telah digunakan oleh Filipina untuk menjadi alat tawar menawar untuk mendapatkan bantuan ekonomi  dari China dan meredakan ketegangan akibat keputusan PCA. Kedua, keputusan PCA telah memberi momentum bagi Tiongkok untuk mengubah kebijakan mereka terkait dengan perselisihan Laut Cina Selatan dengan memainkan perannya sebagai negara adikuasa. Ketiga, struktur hukum internasional sebagai institusi primer terdiri atas politik negara adikuasa, ASEAN dan diplomasi ekonomi.   Kata Kunci: Laut Tiongkok Selatan, English School, Permanent Court of Arbitration, Ekonomi Politik Internasional, hukum internasional

scholarly journals Interpreting great power rights in international society: Debating China’s right to a sphere of influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Zala
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
International Society ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
English School ◽  
Special Responsibilities ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Special Rights ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The special rights and responsibilities of the great powers have traditionally been treated as a key component – even a primary institution – of international society in the English School literature. Recent interpretivist work has focused on the meanings of special responsibilities in contemporary international society with far less scholarly attention being given to the corollary of this – special rights. This article uses an interpretivist approach to attempt to uncover what recent debates over China’s right or otherwise to a sphere of influence in East Asia tells us about understandings of great power rights in contemporary international society. The argument advanced is that if Beijing’s right to a sphere of influence is successfully rejected by the rest of international society without repudiating its status as a great power more broadly, China will indeed be a great power without historical precedent.

Hobbes among the Classic Jurists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Complete Identification ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.

China and International Adjudication

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Eder
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
International Law ◽  
South China ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
International Adjudication

China aims to become a “leader country” in international law that “guides” the international legal order. Delivering the first comprehensive analysis of case law and Chinese academic debates from 2002 to 2018, this book shows that gradually increased engagement with international adjudication is part of a broad effort to consolidate China’s economic and political gains, and regain great power status. It covers trade, investment, territorial and law of the sea matters – including the South China Sea disputes – and delineates a decades-long process between caution and ambition. Both in debate patterns and in actual engagement, this book finds remarkable similarities in all covered fields of law, merely the timetables differ.

The End of the Ottoman Empire, 2017. Color, 104 min. In English, French, and German with English and German subtitles. Director: Mathilde Damoise. Distributor: Icarus Films, http://icarusfilms.com/if-otto.

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-177
Author(s):  
Didem Havlioğlu
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Europe Today ◽  
Republic Of Turkey

Since the 1950s, historiographical trends in scholarship have re-considered the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent nation-state building of the Republic of Turkey. The social and political evolution of the imperial system into a nation-state has been alternatively explained through geopolitical pressures, domestic resistance, the expanding economy and modernism in Europe, and the inability of the Ottoman establishment to cope with the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. Constructing one holistic narrative of a vast time period of upheaval is a difficult endeavor for any scholar. In the case of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Republic of Turkey, ethno-religious networks, two world wars, geopolitical competition between the great powers, regional and pan-regional insurgencies, demographic displacement, nationalist fervor sweeping through the Balkan and Arab provinces and into Anatolia, and finally the Kurdish armed resistance renders succinct historical narratives all but impossible to achieve. Thus, while there are many stories of the end of the Ottoman Empire, an overview of the issues for students and general audiences is a much needed, but audacious, undertaking. Yet for understanding the Middle East and Southeastern Europe today, a critical narrative must be told in all its complexity.

scholarly journals Rising Powers, Responsibility, and International Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Gaskarth
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
China And India ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Responsible Action

Responsibility is a key theme of recent debates over the ethics of international society. In particular, rising powers such as Brazil, China, and India regularly reject the idea that coercion should be a feature of world politics, and they portray military intervention as irresponsible. But this raises the problem of how a society's norms can be upheld without coercive measures. Critics have accused them of “free riding” on existing great powers and failing to address the dilemma of how to deal with actors undermining societal values. This article examines writing on responsibility and international society, with particular reference to the English School, to identify why the willingness and capacity to use force—as well as creative thinking in this regard—are seen as important aspects of responsibility internationally. It then explores statements made by Brazil, China, and India in UN Security Council meetings between 2011 and 2016 to identify which actors they see as responsible and how they define responsible action. In doing so, it pinpoints areas of concurrence as well as disagreements in their understandings of the concept of responsibility, and concludes that Brazil and India have a more coherent and practical understanding of the concept than China, which risks incurring the label “great irresponsible.”

The Publication of the diplomatic papers of Other Governments

1947 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-377
Author(s):  
E. Wilder Spaulding
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
Small Powers

An expert on foreign affairs has summarized the limitation upon the right of a government to make public the diplomatic papers which it has received from another government as follows: “ … one party to a negotiation cannot, in honor and in courtesy, publish the negotiation without the consent of the other party, on pain of forfeiting that good-will upon which … ‘the peace of the world ultimately depends.’ ” This principle of consent to publication is accepted, with some reservations and exceptions, by American practice. But American practice in this matter is not generally accepted by all foreign offices and it is not precisely and definitely written into international law. It has been generally observed in normal times by the Great Powers, which have had most to gain by its application, and it has frequently been disregarded by small powers and by Great Powers in times of stress. It rests upon comity and reciprocity, not upon international legislation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document