The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics

366 Pages·2012·1.48 MB·English

by  Hedley Bull

The Anarchical Society
A Study of Order in World Politics
Fourth Edition
Hedley Bull
The Anarchical Society
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The Anarchical Society
A Study of Order in World Politics
Fourth Edition
Hedley Bull
Forewords by Stanley Hoffmann
and Andrew Hurrell
#HedleyBull1977
Forewordtothe2ndedition#StanleyHoffmann1995
Forewordtothe4thedition#AndrewHurrell2012
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
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Contents
Foreword to the Fourth Edition by Andrew Hurrell vii
Foreword to the Second Edition by Stanley Hoffmann xxviii
Introduction xxxiv
Part 1 The Nature of Order in World Politics 1
1 The Concept of Order in World Politics 3
2 Does Order Exist in World Politics? 22
3 How is Order Maintained in World Politics? 51
4 Order versus Justice in World Politics 74
Part 2 Order in the Contemporary International System 95
5 The Balance of Power and International Order 97
6 International Law and International Order 122
7 Diplomacy and International Order 156
8 War and International Order 178
9 The Great Powers and International Order 194
Part 3 Alternative Paths to World Order 223
10 Alternatives to the Contemporary States System 225
11 The Decline of the States System? 248
12 The Obsolescence of the States System? 272
13 The Reform of the States System? 286
14 Conclusion 307
Notes and References 309
Index 321
v
For Emily, Martha and Jeremy
Foreword to the Fourth Edition
Andrew Hurrell
Thirty-Five years on, the standing of The Anarchical Society as a
classic text is clearer than ever. It provides the most systematic and
powerful exposition of the view that states form among themselves
an international society; and it develops this idea as a powerful
vantage point from which to analyse and assess the possibilities of
order in world politics. At the core of The Anarchical Society is the
question: to what extent does the inherited political framework
provided by the international society of states continue to provide
anadequatebasisforworldorder?Bull’sworklinkscloselywiththe
debatesonglobalgovernancethathavebeensoprominentsincethe
end of the Cold War. But his focus is less on theoretical under-
standingofparticularinstitutionsandmoreonassessingtheoverall
character of institutionalization in world politics, the normative
commitments inherent in different ways of governing the globe and
theadequacyofexistinginter-stateinstitutionsformeetingpractical
and normative challenges. The Anarchical Society remains one of
the most important and most-cited works of the so-called English
SchoolofInternationalRelations.1Itisalsoafundamentalteaching
text.ItspedagogicalvaluerestsonthesheerqualityofBull’swriting
andanalysis–itsintellectualrigour,itsclarityofexposition,andits
capacity to unsettle established and comfortable positions. Bull
resisted calls for policy relevance and insisted that there was an
inner logic to academic enquiry that requires a willingness to ask
andpursueunfashionablequestionsandtobehighlyscepticalofall
purveyors of conventional wisdom.2
Clearly a very great deal has changed in the 35 years since the
book was first published and the first part of this Foreword asks
how well Bull’s analysis has held up and sets his approach and
conclusions against some of the major changes that have occurred
in the structures and practices of world politics. The second section
vii
viii Foreword to the Fourth Edition
assessestherelationshipofBull’sthinkinginTheAnarchicalSociety
to some of the main subsequent developments in International
Relations theory.
The Anarchical Society and contemporary world politics
On the face of it, there is much in Bull’s work that appears clearly
outdated. His heavy emphasis on the Great Powers, on the balance
of power and on war as an institution of international society; his
invocation of Grotius, Hobbes and Kant; and his central concern
with the ideas and practices derived from the classical European
state system of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – all this
seems far removed from the study of contemporary world politics.
Much of Bull’s thinking was heavily shaped by the concerns of the
Cold War, by the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and by the
problems of managing nuclear deterrence, and by the centrality of
superpower rivalry. He was deeply sceptical about many of the
arguments made in the 1970s that economic interdependence was
undermining the role of the state and transforming world politics.
His emphasis on continuity seemed then and seems much more
now,todownplaythedynamicforcesatworkinglobalpoliticsand
to fail to recognize the extent to which the international system has
been moving decisively ‘beyond Westphalia’. For many readers the
dramatic and far-reaching changes associated with globalization
make it very difficult to accept Bull’s prescriptive bottom-line: that
a thin pluralist international society of states remains the best
available means of upholding world order.
This was certainly the direction in which so much of the analysis
of international relations after the Cold War appeared to be
moving. Global order was widely understood through the lens of
liberal internationalism or, in the language of The Anarchical
Society, liberal solidarism. Globalisation was rendering obsolete
the old world of Great Power rivalries, balance of power politics
and an old-fashioned international law built around state sover-
eigntyandstrictrulesofnon-intervention.Bumpyasitmightbethe
road seemed to be leading away from Westphalia – with an
expanded role for formal and informal multilateral institutions; a
huge increase in the scope, density and intrusiveness of rules and
norms made at the international level but affecting how domestic
Andrew Hurrell ix
societies are organised; the ever-greater involvement of new actors
in global governance; the moves towards the coercive enforcement
of global rules; and a fundamental change in political, legal and
moral understandings of state sovereignty and of the relationship
between the state, the citizen and the international community. In
addition to an expansion of inter-state modes of governance,
increased attention was being paid to the world of complex
governance beyond the state. Such governance was characterised
by the complexity of global rule making; the role of private market
actors and civil society groups in articulating values which are
then assimilated in inter-state institutions; and the increased range
of informal, yet norm-governed, governance mechanisms often
built around complex networks, both transnational and trans-
governmental, and the inter-penetration of international and
municipal law and of national administrative systems. From this
perspective the state that had lain at the heart of Bull’s intellectual
world, was losing its place as the privileged sovereign institution
and instead becomes one of many actors and one participant in a
broader and more complex social and legal process.3
There is undoubtedly much in The Anarchical Society that seems
hard to square with the changes that have taken place in global
politics after the Cold War. Bull had, after all, expressed little
interest in formal international institutions, including the United
Nations.Hebelievedthatwhathesawasthedeeper‘institutions’of
the balance of power, war, the great powers, diplomacy and
international law were of more abiding importance. He had been
generally critical of ‘Kantian’ optimism about the spread and
impact of liberal democracy – the set of claims that would develop
intodemocraticpeacetheory.Theimpactofeconomicglobalisation
and political democratisation, the increased importance of trans-
national civil society, the increased density, scope and range of
internationalinstitutions,themultipleproblemsthatresultfromthe
break-up of states and ethnic self-assertion – all these factors have
developed to such a point that, for many commentators, Bull’s
narrow focus on the society of states is now wholly inadequate and
out-dated.
One possible response is simply to view Bull’s rather sober and
scepticalconclusionsasamarkinsandagainstwhichtheclaimsfor
change and transformation can be judged. Pedagogically it makes
great sense for students to read Bull alongside the many works of