English school of international relations theory

Theory of international relations

The English School of international relations theory (sometimes also referred to as liberal realism, the International Society school or the British institutionalists) maintains that there is a 'society of states' at the international level, despite the condition of anarchy (that is, the lack of a global ruler or world state). The English school stands for the conviction that ideas, rather than simply material capabilities, shape the conduct of international politics, and therefore deserve analysis and critique. In this sense it is similar to constructivism, though the English School has its roots more in world history, international law and political theory, and is more open to normative approaches than is generally the case with constructivism.

English School scholars distinguish between international system and international society. The former is a quasi physical realm, as proximate actors interact with one another. The latter is an intersubjective realm where actors are bound together through rules, norms and institutions. Hedley Bull defined the international system as being formed "when two or more have sufficient contact between them, and has sufficient impact on one another's decisions to cause them to behave as part of a whole."

Hedley Bull, however, argued that states share a certain common interest (usually the "fear of unrestricted violence") that lead to the development of a certain set of "rules". He thus defined an international society as existent when:

In Bull's view, any type of society needed to have rules about restraints on the use of force, about the sanctity of agreements, and about property rights. Without elements of these three there would be no society. These rules are expressed in a set of institutions that capture the normative structure of any international society. In the classical English School these were: war, the great powers, diplomacy, the balance of power, and international law, especially in the mutual recognition of sovereignty by states. To these could be added: territoriality, nationalism, the market, and human equality. Since these rules are not legally binding and there is no ordering institutions, speaking of norms would probably be more appropriate. States that respect these basic rules form an international society. Brown and Ainley therefore define the international society as a "norm governed relationship whose members accept that they have at least limited responsibilities towards one another and the society as a whole". States thus follow their interests, but not at all costs. Another way of looking at this would be through Adam Watson's term 'raison de système', a counterpoint to 'raison d'état', and defined as 'the idea that it pays to make the system work'. There are differing accounts, within the school, concerning the evolution of those ideas, some (like Martin Wight) arguing their origins can be found in the remnants of medieval conceptions of societas Christiana, and others such as Hedley Bull, in the concerns of sovereign states to safeguard and promote basic goals, especially their survival. Most English School understandings of international society blend these two together, maintaining that the contemporary society of states is partly the product of a common civilization the Christian world of medieval Europe, and before that, the Roman Empire and partly that of a kind of Lockean contract. English School scholars vary in terms of the claims they make about the "thickness" of the culture of the international society is, as well as the content of international society. The English School is largely a constructivist theory, emphasizing the non deterministic nature of anarchy in international affairs that also draws on functionalism and realism. It has been argued that, "the English School embodies the notion of a middle course between practical demands and moral claims. In contrast to the realist approach, the English School maintains that states are not entangled in a permanent struggle for power and that they limit their conflicts through common rules, institutions and moral imperatives. Unlike the revolutionist tradition, the English School accepts the realist premise that the state is the primary reality of the international political system and maintains that these imperatives foreswear the replacement of the society of states by a universal community of mankind." In this manner, the English School succeeds in incorporating the salient elements of the main traditions of International Relations theory.

The 'English ness' of the school is questionable many of its most prominent members are not English and its intellectual origins are disputed. One view (that of Hidemi Suganami) is that its roots lie in the work of pioneering inter war scholars like the South African Charles Manning, the founding professor of the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics. Others (especially Tim Dunne and Brunello Vigezzi) have located them in the work of the British committee on the theory of international politics, a group created in 1959 under the chairmanship of the Cambridge historian Herbert Butterfield, with financial aid from the Rockefeller Foundation. Both positions acknowledge the central role played by the theorists Martin Wight, Hedley Bull (an Australian teaching at the London School of Economics) and R J Vincent. The name 'English School' was first coined by Roy Jones in an article published in the Review of International Studies in 1981, entitled "The English school a case for closure". Some other descriptions notably that of 'British institutionalists' (Hidemi Suganami) have been suggested, but are not generally used. Throughout the development of the theory, the name became widely accepted, not least because it was developed almost exclusively at the London School of Economics, Cambridge and Oxford University.

According to George Washington University political scientist Martha Finnemore, who notes that she is an admirer of the English School, the English School has not been received positively in American IR scholarship because there is a lack of clarity in the methods used in English School scholarship (for example, a lack of discussion about research design), as well as a lack of clarity in the theoretical claims made by the English School. She notes that the English School is reluctant to clarify its causal claims, which she contrasts with Constructivist research in the American IR tradition where there is an emphasis on constitutive causality – "how things are constituted makes possible other things (and in that sense causes them)". She also notes that the English School does not engage in hypothesis testing, and that their works mirror the detailed narratives of historians rather than typical works in the social sciences. In a 1992 review of Martin Wight's work, Keohane criticized it, saying "Wight's greatest oversight is his neglect of the scientific or behavioral search for laws of action (or contingent generalizations) about world politics."