The Institutions of International Society

The “fundamental” or “primary” institutions of international society, among them sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, great power management, the balance of power, trade, and environmental stewardship, have been eagerly discussed and researched in the discipline of international relations (IR), at the theoretical, meta-theoretical, and empirical levels. Generations of scholars associated with not only the English School, but also liberalism and constructivism, have engaged with the “institutions of international society,” as they were originally called by Martin Wight and Hedley Bull in their attempt to develop a historically and sociologically informed theory of international relations. The fact that intense historical, theoretical, and empirical investigations have uncovered new institutional layers, dynamics, and complexities, and thus opened new challenging questions rather than settling the matter is part of its attraction. In the 1960s and 1970s, the early exponents of the English School theorized fundamental institutions as historical pillars of contemporary international society and its element of order. At the turn of the 21st century, this work was picked up by Kal Holsti and Barry Buzan, who initiated a renaissance of English School institutionalism, which specified the institutional levels of international society and discussed possibilities for institutional change. Meanwhile, liberal and constructivist scholars made important contributions on fundamental institutions in key engagements with English School theory on the subject in the late 1980s. These contributions and engagements have informed the most recent wave of (interdisciplinary) scholarship on the subject, which has theorized the room for fundamental institutional change and the role of international organizations in relation to the fundamental institutions of international society.

The English School and Institutions: British Institutionalists?

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.594 ◽

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 ◽

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.

Status in International Relations

International Relations ◽

10.1093/obo/9780199743292-0254 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Jonathan Renshon

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

Social Identity Theory ◽

Critical Element ◽

Status Inconsistency ◽

Collective Beliefs ◽

The Subject ◽

1960S And 1970S ◽

The 1960S ◽

Different Strains ◽

Status Position

Scholars from disparate traditions in political science and international relations (IR) agree that status—standing or rank in a hierarchy—is a critical element of international politics. It has three critical attributes—it is positional, perceptual, and social—that combine to make any actor’s status position a function of the higher-order, collective beliefs of a given community of actors. The term is commonly used in two ways. The first refers to status in its most purely positional sense: standing, an actor’s rank or position in a hierarchy. “Status community” is defined as a hierarchy composed of the group of actors that a state perceives itself as being in competition with. “Rank” is one’s ordinal position and is determined by the collective beliefs of members of that community. Status has long been a focus of IR scholars, dating back to (at least) the beginning of the “scientific study of international relations” that developed in the 1960s. Since then, two different strains of work—status inconsistency theory and social identity theory—have provided the basic theoretical scaffolding for much of the empirical research done since then. After the initial wave of research in the 1960s and 1970s, IR scholars seemingly moved on from the subject for a few decades. However, recent years have seen a renaissance in the study of status, with novel work being done across methodological and epistemological boundaries.

International theory and international society: the viability of the middle way?

10.1017/s0260210500117619 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 183-196 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Chris Brown

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

International Relations Theory ◽

Social Philosophy ◽

Point Of View ◽

Theoretical Terms ◽

Middle Way ◽

International Theory ◽

The Subject ◽

From the perspective of a particular kind of international theorizing, foundational questions about the nature of international society are a central concern. ‘Does the collectivity of sovereign states constitute a political society or system, or does it not? ’ is, according to Hedley Bull, the first of a series of questions that, taken together, constitute ‘Classical’ international relations theory and distinguish it from the ‘Scientific’ approach to the subject. Similar sentiments could be drawn readily from the work of the other authors whose writings collectively make up the International Theory, or International Society, or ‘English School’ approach to international relations theory. I have argued elsewhere that there are reasons why this emphasis on international society is mistaken. To cut a long story short, the burden of the argument is that an approach that places primary emphasis on the nature of international society is likely to isolate itself from the wider discourses of political and social philosophy in ways that cannot be defended in terms of any alleged sui generis features of international relations. Rather, international relations theory is best understood as an aspect of political theory and not as a discourse with its own rules and subject matter. However, this argument has been cast in ‘meta-theoretical’ terms and does not directly address the actual issue of the nature of international society; critics are entitled to point to the absence here of a clearly articulated, positive point of view. The purpose of this article is to begin to remedy this omission, by sketching the outlines of an examination of international society that would be less tied to traditional categories and in closer contact with broader movements in social thought.

The political international society: Change in primary and secondary institutions

10.1017/s026021051400045x ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 601-622 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

KILIAN SPANDLER

Keyword(s):

Institutional Change ◽

International Society ◽

Path Dependence ◽

Deep Structure ◽

The Political ◽

English School ◽

International Organisations ◽

Continuity And Change ◽

Autonomous Objects ◽

Primary Institutions

AbstractThis article intends to contribute to the theorising of institutional change. Specifically, it asks how dynamics in the ‘deep structure’ of international society correspond to changes in more specific institutions as embodied by regimes and international organisations. It does so by taking up the distinction of primary and secondary institutions in international society advocated by scholars of the English School. It argues that, while the differentiation offers analytical potential, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organisations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materialisations of primary institutions. Engaging with the concepts of structuration and path dependence will allow scholars working in an English School framework to explore more deeply the relation between the two kinds of institutions, and as a consequence devise more elaborate theories of institutional change. Based on this argument, the article develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions entangled in distinctive processes of constitution and institutionalisation. This model helps to establish international organisations and regimes as a crucial part of the English School agenda, and to enlighten the political mechanisms that lead to continuity and change in international institutions more broadly.

The English School: History and Primary Institutions as Empirical IR Theory?

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.298 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Barry Buzan ◽

George Lawson

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

Normative Theory ◽

English School ◽

Ir Theory ◽

Historical Approach ◽

School Work ◽

School History ◽

Primary Institutions ◽

Historical Accounts

How does the English School work as part of Empirical International Relations (IR) theory? The English School depends heavily on historical accounts, and this article makes the case that history and theory should be seen as co-constitutive rather than as separate enterprises. Empirical IR theorists need to think about their own relationship to this question and clarify what “historical sensitivity” means to them. The English School offers both distinctive taxonomies for understanding the structure of international society, and an empirically constructed historical approach to identifying the primary institutions that define international society. If Empirical IR is open to historical-interpretive accounts, then its links to the English School are in part strong, because English School structural accounts would qualify; they are, in other ways, weak because the normative theory part of the English School would not qualify. Lying behind this judgement is a deeper issue: if Empirical IR theory confines itself to regularity-deterministic causal accounts, then there can be no links to English School work. Undertaking English School insights will help open up a wider view of Empirical IR theory.

The Anarchical Society as Christian Political Theology

10.1093/oso/9780198779605.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

William Bain

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

Political Theology ◽

Thomas Hobbes ◽

English School ◽

Political Relations ◽

The World ◽

Artificial Nature ◽

Hedley Bull ◽

The Universe

It is widely accepted that in The Anarchical Society—the key text of the English School—Hedley Bull presents and defends the Grotian conception of international relations. This essay argues that Bull’s thinking about order is indebted to a medieval theological dispute about the nature of God and the extent of his power. This dispute yields a way of knowing and explaining the world that stresses the artificial nature of political relations, domestic and international. In other words, order between states is instituted in the same way that God made the universe, through will and artifice. Once this theological ground is uncovered it becomes apparent that Bull’s account of international order is consistent, not with Grotius, but with the thought of Thomas Hobbes. One of the crucial implications of this argument is that international society has not outgrown its European and Christian roots to the extent that Bull suggests.

Ethics of coexistence: the international theory of Terry Nardin

10.1017/s0260210500113270 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 213-222 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Chris Brown

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

International Political Economy ◽

Debt Crisis ◽

International Economic Order ◽

Normative Theory ◽

The South ◽

International Theory ◽

1960S And 1970S ◽

The 1960S

Normative international theory addresses the moral dimension of international society and the logic of ‘ought’ statements in international relations. The traditional content of normative international theory has been dominated by such issues as: the nature of international law and the moral basis of the rights and duties it imposes on states and individuals; the ethics of pacifism and the theory of the 6just war’ the morality of intervention; and, most fundamentally, the nature of the ethical requirements that need to be met if a system of inter-state relations can justly be characterized as an ‘international society’. While such issues have never disappeared from academic study, the dominant modes of international relations theorizing in the 1960s and 1970s—whether realist, neo-realist, pluralist or structuralist—were at one, if for different reasons? in keeping them at the bottom of the agenda paper. And yet, the 1980s has seen a revival of normative international theory. The reasons for this renewal of interest are two-fold. On the one hand, the traditional agenda of normative theory, as outlined above, has never lost its salience in the real world even if unfashionable in academia; since it is in the nature of fashions to change some sort of revival of interest in the old questions was to be expected. But of rather more importance has been the emergence of a new range of normative issues: demands from the ‘south’ for a New International Economic Order have placed the politics of redistribution on the international agenda for the first time—revisionist states in the 1980s no longer make territorial demands but appeal to status quo oriented states to make concessions on the basis of economic justice. In today's world normative statements are as likely to be about the debt crisis as they are to be about the conduct of the Gulf War or the US intervention in Grenada. Mainstream international relations theory has generally refused to ask or answer moral questions, but this strategy of avoidance has not succeeded. Questions such as ‘what ought to be our attitude to poverty in the South?’ or ‘how ought the world' financial system respond to the debt problems of Brazil or Zambia?’ cannot be wished away—as anyone who has taught international political economy will be well aware. Normative theory cannot answer questions like this but it can help each individual to provide his or her own response—and no more important task exists for the discipline of international relations.

The Expansion of International Society

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.513 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel M. Green

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

Cultural Imperialism ◽

English School ◽

The World ◽

History Of ◽

Phases Of Development ◽

The 1960S ◽

The 19Th Century ◽

Creativity And Innovation

The English School of international relations theory has its own particular account of the history of international relations, a key aspect of which is the expansion of a set of norms, practices and institutions—diplomacy, embassies, international law, sovereignty, the modern state—out of their formative cultural heartland of Europe and to the rest of the world over the past few centuries. This is the story of “European international society” spreading out to become a “global international society,” accelerating especially during the 19th century via cultural imperialism and colonial conquest. The writings of the English School on this Expansion Narrative have evolved since the 1960s, going through phases of development that have concretized the details of the Narrative’s history, elaborated on the processes behind the spread, and attempted to inject more scientific rigor into analysis. Over time a more profound challenge has also emerged, in a revisionist shift from a monocentric story of Europe training the rest of the world in the proper ways of domestic and international life, toward a polycentric, globalization model, in which different civilizations have learned from each other to create a synthetic, multicultural international society by the 21st century. These analytic tensions are a source of creativity and innovation for the English School and set it apart from other approaches to international relations.

DIPLOMACY AS AN INSTITUTION OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY IN ENGLISH SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

History and modern perspectives ◽

10.33693/2658-4654-2021-3-1-12-19 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 12-19

Author(s):

VICTOR MIRONOV ◽

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

International System ◽

Central Place ◽

Intellectual Structure ◽

English School ◽

School Committee ◽

The Social ◽

British Committee ◽

This article is devote to the analysis of one from the key institutions in the conception of international society. The aim of the article is identify historiographical aspects for the analysis diplomacy in the context of the English school’s approach to the study of international institutions. English school of International relations formed in the end 1950-1970. Some famous scientists (H. Butterfield, M. Wight, and H. Bull) took an active part in the creation of this scientific society. British Committee for the study of international politics was a main intellectual structure in the genesis of the school. Committee had worked during 25 years (1959-1985) and become a base for the development two first generations of English school of international relations. Herbert Butterfield was very famous English historian and first chief of British Committee during 1959-1967. He had conservative credo. He shared the idea of the decline of diplomacy and divided it into new and historical. During some time, his views on diplomacy in modern history came into conflict with wide interpretation international society - central concept of the school. Martin Wight saw in diplomacy as a minimal indicator of the social character of international system in any time, but he also inclined that diplomacy will not be play very much role in the future. At the same time, he did not accept the concept “international society” and preferred the idea of “system of state”. Concept “international society” become a symbol and different mark this scientific community thanks to the books by H. Bull in 1960-1970. Hedley Bull included diplomacy in his list main international institutes, but central place among them in his views played balance of power and international law. Modern adepts of the conception of international Society continue diplomatic research. The works of modern representatives of the English School are studies in the article. Main conclusion of this part of the article consist of that the functional analysis of the diplomacy become a base for the following development of British intuitionalism and an important part of the conception of international society today. The British institutionalism are highlighted general trends of the following development English school of international relations and some problems for the dialogue with American theory of International relations.

Why is there no gender in the English School?

10.1017/s0260210510000458 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 855-879 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

ERIC M. BLANCHARD

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Relations ◽

International Society ◽

Research Agenda ◽

International Politics ◽

Hybrid Approach ◽

English School ◽

AbstractWhy has English School theory, even as it has been re-imagined as critical international society theory, ignored the workings of gender in international politics? This article stages an encounter between the English School and feminists in International Relations (IR), first demonstrating the broad compatibility of the two approaches. I argue that to conduct a conversation between English School and IR feminist approaches, it is necessary to reconstruct the English School's three traditions – Realist, Rationalist, and Revolutionist – so as to allow a greater role for gender as a category of analysis. I then review the work of two key English School scholars, Hedley Bull and Barry Buzan with this reconstruction in mind. Finally, I argue that IR theorists who have participated in the recent English School revival should consider integrating gender into its theoretical and research agenda, and show several examples of how a hybrid approach can be brought to bear on the expansion of international society, diplomacy, and human rights.