Some people take orders all day. Others give them. And most people are somewhere in the middle. While relations of “who orders whom” are generally established through formalized hierarchies of authority, informal relations such as business partnerships and even friendships are also frequently hierarchical in some way: some business partners have more control over important resources, some friends have more clout. Indeed, status and reputation structure almost all areas of social life. To understand social structure, we must attend to both horizontal relations in which individuals are connected through frequently mutual feelings of belonging, as well as vertical relations of power, authority, deference, and status that are asymmetric. Ultimately, how community and hierarchy combine is one of the most vexing concerns in the social sciences. Building on the previous chapter’s focus on groups and cohesion, this chapter focuses on aspects of social structures that are more asymmetric, centralized, or hierarchical.

This chapter draws conclusions based on the impacts of exclusionary and hierarchical practices, the relative value of ‘top-down’ reform and ‘bottom-up’ activism, and the place of global learning in a gradualist approach to progressive change. Beyond that, the chapter considers how an approach inspired by American Pragmatism informs Global International Relations, which seeks to construct a discipline that is more inclusive of non-Western perspectives. The chapter draws parallels between the book’s reading of classical Pragmatism and non-Western ‘cosmologies’ like Confucianism. This has been introduced to contemporary Western IR mainly through the works of Yaqing Qin. The chapter does, however, build on other works identifying resonances across Deweyan Pragmatism and Confucian philosophy. The chapter argues that if the Pragmatist turn in Western IR continues, then it can be more easily harmonized with non-Western approaches. This at least signposts a path ‘towards’ Global IR, even if it does not fix the path’s end point. Indeed, the chapter argues that we should follow such signs because they do not fix the destination. Those points are for practitioners and global publics to construct and reconstruct as they work collectively to mitigate lived problems through communities of practice that are inclusive, reflexive, creative and deliberative.

This chapter addresses the book’s first question by focusing on what classical Pragmatism can tell us about the ‘practice turn’ in International Relations. It assesses the value – both descriptive and normative – of defining practice as pre-reflexive or habitual. Dewey was clear: habits can be useful, but only if those subject to their hold can improvise when practice produces unwanted consequences. Applying this to International Relations, the chapter shows how a failure to adequately reflect on the situational value of an ideological commitment to ‘democracy promotion’ – what Bourdieusian-informed Practice theory might call a Western ‘habitus’ – contributed to the maladapted response to the humanitarian crises in Syria and Myanmar. This again points to the centrality of reflection, deliberation, judgement and learning to the Pragmatist approach. The chapter develops that argument by examining how Dewey’s ‘pedagogic creed’ aimed to put individuals and societies in control of their habits and how his critique of the unhelpful hierarchies in formal education was extrapolated to form a theory of social learning, which included an emphasis on the role democracy plays in facilitating the reflexivity and deliberation.

Given China’s position in Pacific Asia, defining its regional centrality might seem a simple task. But centralities grander than merely geographical have been alleged and contested. Currently some maintain that China is the central kingdom because of its power. But it was conquered by the Mongols and the Manchus, and its present centrality is due more to its economic mass and connectivity than to its military. Others claim that hierarchy is natural to Asian culture, and China is the apex. But neighbors were often cynical about China’s moral stature, and China’s soft power is now at a low ebb. I argue that China was the center of regional attention in the premodern era, and that it has returned to center stage since 2008. The three basic reasons for China’s original centrality and its return were situational: presence, population, and production. The salience of all three disappeared with Western imperialism’s global presence, the devaluation of mere demography, and industrial production. Traditional and current centrality created asymmetric relationships between China and its neighbors, but the regional situations differ fundamentally.

This chapter introduces the theoretical framework of the book. It shows that the conundrum of a consensual world order can be disentangled by analyzing the mechanisms through which incumbents and potential challengers can gain and maintain power. For the United States, the fundamental challenge is to channel the political ambitions of potential successor leaders toward good governance and respect of human rights while avoiding becoming entangled with any specific incumbent in partner nations. Domestic political institutions that foster political successors and allow for regular and flexible channels of leadership turnover make it easier for the United States to attain friendly relations by easing more accommodating leaders into power. In a special twist, institutions that allow for regular and flexible channels of leadership turnover also create domestic political incentives that foster the attainment of better governance and more respect of human rights. In contrast, domestic political institutions that concentrate power in the hands of the incumbents, and curtail political competition, make it more difficult for the United States to exercise influence.

This chapter states the purpose of the book and its main argument. How can a world order that aspires to be consensual be managed and enforced? The book offers a systematic exploration of the mechanisms through which the United States was able to sustain a consensual world order. As the hegemon and enforcer of its world order, the United States acted like a “sheriff.” But whenever and wherever the United States relied upon the political ambitions of potential successors to favor leadership turnover, it was able to fulfill its preferences and to achieve better governance and greater respect of human rights. That made the United States a shrewd sheriff. In contrast, whenever and wherever the United States relied upon established dictators poised to rule for life or democratic presidents with no viable competitors, it turned into a bad cop that would either countenance bad governance and human rights abuses or would resort to coercion and coups to achieve its political goals.

International Relations scholars are increasingly studying different forms of sub- and superordination in the international system through analytical lenses such as hierarchy, hegemony, or authority. Drawing on these debates, this introduction sets out to establish the concept of rule as the defining feature of order in the international realm. More specifically, we argue that the manifold conceptual approaches to sub- and superordination in the international should be understood as rich conceptualizations of one concept: rule. We define rule broadly as constellations of formally or informally institutionalized sub- and superordination with the aim of affecting the distribution of basic goods and influence and of stabilizing expectations, regardless of whether these constellations are primarily of sociocultural, economic, or military nature. With this, we aim at advancing a research agenda that defines rule as a systematic approach to studying international politics. By promoting the concept of rule, we aim to show that rule can serve both as an integrating and a diagnostic tool for the study of the international “beyond anarchy.”

The ideology of the rule of law posits a hierarchical relationship with law and rules in a position of authority over the subjects. In international affairs, this is represented by the popular view that international order follows once governments accept the authority of international law and institutions. The idea that states are subordinate to international law is central to the international rule of law, but it directly contradicts the equally popular image of international affairs as a domain of anarchy. Anarchy presumes that governments are not subordinate to any source of authority while the rule of law says that they are. The fact that two apparently fundamental assumptions of international theory are incompatible with each other suggests an urgent need to look closely at both. This chapter examines the ideology of the international rule of law and compares it with domestic notions of the rule of law and with the idea of international anarchy. Once the rule of law is understood as a language of political justification, we can begin to make sense of its position as a source of authority that is superordinate to governments.

Over thirty years ago, Frank Klink and I wrote a paper on anarchy, authority, and rule—the first of its kind and a touchstone for subsequent theorizing about states and their relations. We sought to rebut prevailing claims about anarchy as the absence of authority and replace these concepts with a scheme centered on conditions of rule in every society. We identified three forms of rule: hegemony (inspired by Gramsci), hierarchy (drawing on Weber), and heteronomy (inspired by Kant, drawing on liberal theory). We argued that the relations of states exhibit elements of all three forms of rule to the abiding advantage of some few states. There is today a great deal of interest in rule in international relations but less interest in our three-part conceptual scheme. Looking back, I believe it holds up in its own terms but works even better when situated in an overarching framework linking three types of speech acts, derivative types of rules, and correlative forms of rule. I erected this framework in World of Our Making (1989) and reprise it here. I conclude by showing how modernity has reinvigorated status to support sovereign equality, thereby conjoining hegemony and hierarchy in a durably heteronomous world.

Anthropologists of ethics have often drawn inspiration from ancient virtue ethics and ordinary language philosophy. What might be gained for the study of ethics by drawing on a theory of values? This chapter shows that value theory, in allowing us to distinguish between moral and non-moral values, offers two ways of conceptualizing ethics. Narrowly conceived, ethics is about people’s efforts to realize moral values, hence to relate to other people in the right way. Broadly conceived, ethics is also about people’s efforts to relate in appropriate ways to the variety of values they recognize, including aesthetic and epistemic ones. Employed on their own or in combination, the narrow and the broad conceptions are uniquely suited for a systematic comparison of ethical life across a diverse range of societies. A comparative discussion of cases from Africa and Euro-America shows that while the content and relative weight given to moral values vary significantly, valuing things appropriately is always an ethical matter.

In this chapter, the most common narratives relating to the function and purpose of investment treaties are analysed that emerged from our data. The overarching discursive framework of the narratives about IIAs’ purpose was marked by the faith in their important role in economic development of the studied countries (IIAs as articles of faith). This broader view was undergirded by the idea of a linear and progressive march of history, in which earlier state and economic formations are eventually transformed into the universally superior social order of capitalist legality, rule of law, and good governance (IIAs as progressive economic development). This broader progressive narrative about IIAs was translated in more specific narratives about IIAs in specific temporal and spatial contexts. International investment agreements were, thus, viewed either as a natural necessity, as a necessary (lesser) evil in the march towards economic progress, or simply as benign instruments that merely reflect the progress already undertaken. Finally, IIAs were also signed to express cultural affinity and played a symbolic role in showing political like-mindedness (IIAs as symbolic tokens of political affinity). In some cases, IIAs helped to project countries’ self-perception of their position in the stylised international relation hierarchy as ‘developed states’.

This chapter examines the law of treaties in the jurisprudence of the ICJ. The author highlights the Court’s position on key selected issues of interpretation: specifically the language of the treaty; time and treaty interpretation; and the role of policy. The chapter also considers issues of systemic integration, hierarchy and concurrence of rules.

This chapter discusses the two main counter-frames that challenge the loyalist frame about deserters presented in Chapter 8. The main challenge comes from the deserters themselves, who refused to be labelled as traitors and do not want to be identified as ex-combatants, in addition to fearing being hunted down by both loyalists and FARC dissidents. The secondary challenge arises from the government, which continues to place all ex-combatants into the same category of desmovilizado and whose neglect of the collective economic projects promised in the peace agreement is creating mass abandonment of the protected reincorporation zones – thus dismantling the FARC hierarchy and putting the group’s stated revolution project into further jeopardy.

This chapter discusses the members of the ecumenical synods, beginning with the core members: the ‘athletes/artists who take part and win in sacred crown games’. Among these, several hierarchies are detectable: hierarchies based on agonistic victories (the more victories in sacred games, the better), on agonistic disciplines (some disciplines were regarded higher than others, e.g. kitharists were regarded higher than trumpeters and pankratiasts higher than runners) and on social background (not all competitors came from elite families). Next, the chapter proceeds to the members who offered competitive support: the so-called synagonistai of the thymelic synod took part in the performances but could not win prizes themselves; they were for instance secondary actors or choir members. In the xystic synod, the presence of trainers supporting individual athletes is documented. Finally there were other people who were not involved in the competitions themselves, such as support crews, administrative aides, family members of competitors and honorary members.