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The English school of international relations: a reply to Sheila Grader

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Peter Wilson
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Extract

There is increasing acceptance among International Relations scholars that there is a group of writers which should be recognized as constituting a distinct school of thought. More often than not this school is called, following Roy E. Jones, the ‘English school’. However, acceptance of such a school is often accompanied by disagreement and confusion as to its definitive or unifying characteristics. In the January 1988 issue of this Review, Dr Sheila Grader directly confronted this disagreement and confusion by rejecting wholesale the assertion that there is an English school. However, her own assertions and arguments fail to convince. Indeed they serve to cast the matter into deeper obfuscation.

Type
Discussions
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 49 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1989

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References

1. Recent examples of such acceptance include R. J. Vincent, ‘Change and international relations’, Review of International Studies, 9 (1983), p. 69; Gene M. Lyons, ‘The Study of International Relations in Great Britain: Further Connections’, World Politics, xxxviii (1986), esp. pp. 630–3; and, Mark Hoffman, ‘Critical Theory and the Inter-Paradigm Debate’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 16(1987), pp. 238–41.

2. Jones, Roy E., ‘The English school of international relations: a case for closure’, Review of International Studies, 7 (1981), pp. 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Grader, Sheila, ‘The English school of international relations: evidence and evaluation’, Review of International Studies, 14 (1988), pp. 29–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Suganami, Hidemi, ‘The Structure of Institutionalism: An Anatomy of British Mainstream International Relations’, International Relations, vii (1983).Google Scholar

5. Jones, op. cit., pp. 2–6.

6. Manning, C. A. W., The Nature of International Society (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society (London, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Northedge, F. S., The International Political System (London, 1976), pp. 30–31, pp. 315–316.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., p. 42.

9. Ibid., p. 71.

10. Ibid., p. 109.

11. See csp. Ibid., pp. 109–10, pp. 202–24, p. 272, p. 275, p. 299.

12. Manning, op. cit., pp. 9–10.

13. Bull, op. cit., p. 318.

14. Bull, op. cit., p. 319. Her e Bull used system as synonymous with society. But the distinction between a system and a society was in general an important one in both The Anarchical Society, and The Expansional International Society (eds, Bull, and Watson, A.), (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar

15. Bull, op. cit., pp. 40–6.

16. Bull, op. cit., esp. pp. 315–17.

17. See for example, Steve Smith, ‘Utopianism’, in Smith, Steve (ed.), International Relations: British and American Approaches (Oxford, 1985), pp. 105–106Google Scholar; Hill, Christopher, ‘The Study of International Relations in the UK’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 16 (1987), p. 305.Google Scholar

18. Trigg, R., Understanding Social Science: A Philosophical Introduction to the Social Sciences (Oxford, 1985), p. 210.Google Scholar

19. Bull, op. cit., esp. pp. 315–20.

20. Manning, op. cit. p. 10.

21. Manning, op. cit. p. 5, pp. 18–20, pp. 57–9, pp. 182–3.

22. Manning, op. cit. p. 27.

23. Manning, op. cit. p. 23.

24. For Bull’s discussion of the nature of international society see Anarchical Society, pp. 24–52.

25. Bull, op. cit., pp. 40–1.

26. Bull, op. cit., pp. 41–6.

27. Manning, op. cit., p. 5, pp. 8–9, pp. 21–2, p. 27.

28. Suganami, op. cit., p. 2365.

29. Of much interest James Der Derian recalls that Hedley Bull once submitted a proposal to the Ford Foundation for a project involving the observation and interpretation of the ‘illusive’ meaning of conversations and behaviour at a diplomatic reception. On the other hand Bull was dismissive of survey analyses, and other such projects which chart the views of diplomats by way of interviews and questionnaires. See Der Derian’s ‘Hedley Bull and the Idea of Diplomatic Culture’, paper presented at the BISA Conference, Reading, December 1986.

30. See Bull, Hedley, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, 2 (1978)Google Scholar; Porter, Brian, ‘Patterns of Thought and Practice: Martin Wight’s ‘International Theory’, in Donelan, M. (ed.), The Reason of States (London, 1978Google Scholar); and, Wight, Martin, ‘An Anatomy of International Thought’, Review of International Studies, 13 (1987), pp. 221–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Bull, Anarchical Society, op. cit., Part I.

32. James, A. M., ‘International Society’, British Journal of International Studies, 4 (1978)Google Scholar. See also his, ‘The Contemporar y Relevance of National Sovereignty’, in Leifer, M. (ed.), Constraints and Adjustments in British Foreign Policy (London, 1972).Google Scholar

33. James, A. M., Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society (London, 1986).Google Scholar

34. Vincent, R. J., Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge, 1986).Google Scholar

35. Mayall, James, ‘Internationa l Society and International Theory’Google Scholar, in M. Donelan, op. cit., p. 122.

36. Hoffman, op. cit., pp. 238–41.

37. See for example, Steve Smith, op. cit., pp. 105–6.

38. Northedge, op. cit., and Northedge, , ‘Transnationalism: The American Illusion’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 5 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. It might be said that a ‘school of thought’ is based on, among other things, shared principles (see Grader, op. cit., p. 31). I have not focused on principles as such in this characterization since the principles which members of the English school endorse are, I believe, implicitly (and often explicitly) contained within what I have called their common arguments. Members of the English school are agreed, for example, that principles such as sovereign equality, pacta sunt servanda, and non-intervention are of great importance. However, this fact is largely derivative from their argument that norms, rules and values matter in international relations. For a brief summary related to this point, see Mark Hoffman, ‘Normative Approaches’, in M. Light, and Groom, A. J. R. (eds.), International Relations: A Handbook of Current Theory (London, 1985), pp. 27–45Google Scholar. See also Vincent, R. J., Nonintervention and International Order (Princeton, 1974Google Scholar); and for a recent discussion on state equality see the debate between Suganami, H. and Halliday, F. in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17 (1988).Google Scholar

40. Bull, Anarchical Society, op. cit., p. 24.

41. James, A. M., The Bases of International Order, (Oxford, 1973), p. viii.Google Scholar

42. Northedge, International Political System, op. cit., p. 26.

43. Suganami, op. cit., p. 2365.

44. Hoffman, Critical Theory op. cit., p. 239.

45. Suganami, op. cit., p. 2367.

46. Implicit in Mayall’s ‘International Society and International Theory‘ (op. cit., pp. 122–41) is that it would be a good idea to ‘accomplish’ a community of mankind, and that this might just be possible. Vincent suggests that in thinking about human rights and international relations ‘cosmopolitanism gives us a sense of direction’; although he ultimately comes down in favour of a society of states with a modified principle of non-intervention (Human Rights, op. cit., pp. 124–5, chs. 7 and 8). Northedge has argued that in its fundamental character and operation s the international system is ‘relatively resistant to purposive reform ‘ (International Political System, op. cit., p. 32), and that despite its imperfections ‘a better formula or more efficient system has not been found’ (Ibid., p. 323). According o t James, schemes for the radical restructuring of present arrangement s have little or no chance of being realized in the foreseeable future. Even if they were realized, it is very doubtful whether they would provide a better basis for maintenance of order (Sovereign Statehood, op. cit., ch. 10, pp. 257–65).

47. Bull, Hedley, ‘The Case for a Classical Approach’, in Knorr, K. and Rosenau, J. N. (eds.), Contending Approaches to International Politics (Princeton, 1969).Google Scholar

48. Suganami, op. cit., pp. 2364–6; and, Winch, Peter, The Idea of Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London, 1958), pp. 111–120.Google Scholar

49. Nardin, T., Law, Morality and the Relations of States (Princeton, 1983Google Scholar); Derian, James Der, On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement (Oxford, 1987Google Scholar); and Ashley, R. K., ‘The Powers of Anarchy: The Domestic Analogy and the Anarchy Problematique’, in Alker, H. R. Jr. and Ashley, R. K. (eds.), After Neo-realism: Anarchy, Power, and International Collaboration (forthcoming).Google Scholar