Hedley Bull on International Society

291 Pages·2000·1.08 MB·English

by  Kai Alderson and Andrew Hurrell

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Hedley Bull on International Society
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Hedley Bull on
International Society
Edited and introduced by
Kai Alderson and Andrew Hurrell
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First published in Great Britain 2000 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0–333–68450–8
First published in the United States of America 2000 by
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 0–312–22859–7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bull, Hedley.
Hedley Bull on international society / edited and introduced by Kai Alderson and
Andrew Hurrell
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–312–22859–7 (cloth)
1. International relations. 2. International organization. 3. World politics.
I. Title. II. Alderson, Kai. III. Hurrell, Andrew.
JZ1310 .B85 1999
327.1'01 21—dc21
99–046716
Selection, editorial matter and Introduction ©Kai Alderson and Andrew Hurrell 2000
Text ©Mary Bull 1966, 1969, 1972, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2000
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written
permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P0LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained
forest sources.
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Preface vii
PART I INTRODUCTION by Kai Alderson and Andrew Hurrell
1 Bull’s Conception of International Society 1
2 International Society and the Academic Study of
International Relations 20
3 The Continuing Relevance of International Society 54
PART II HEDLEY BULL ON INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
I Society and Anarchy in International Relations (1966) 77
II The Grotian Conception of International Society (1966) 95
III The Twenty Years’ CrisisThirty Years On (1969) 125
IV The State’s Positive Role in World Affairs (1979) 139
V Natural Law and International Relations (1979) 157
VI The European International Order (1980) 170
VII Hobbes and the International Anarchy (1981) 188
VIII Justice in International Relations: The 1983 Hagey
Lectures (1984) 206
IX International Relations as an Academic Pursuit (1972) 246
Index 265
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Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank Helen Langley of the Bodleian Library
for her help and advice with the Bull papers; Tim Farmiloe at the
publishers for backing this project and for his patience; Carol
MacQueen for her research assistance; and, above all, Mrs Mary Bull for
her encouragement, advice and support.
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Preface
This collection brings together some of Hedley Bull’s most important
writings on the theory of international relations, concentrating on the
idea of international society. Hedley Bull was one of the major figures in
the academic study of international relations, and his development of the
idea that states form among themselves an ‘international society’ remains
his most distinctive and abidingly important contribution. After a period
of relative neglect, recent years have seen a renewed interest in Bull’s
work due in part to the ‘rediscovery’ of the importance of international
legal and social norms, concern over the potential for international
conflict across cultural divisions, and the recognition that moral dilem-
mas inhere in foreign policy decision-making and are unlikely to dis-
appear with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bull’s uniquely sober analysis of
the ‘asocial sociability’ of states continues to provide an essential starting
point for thinking seriously about the theoretical and practical issues
which dominate the international agenda.
The scope of Bull’s scholarship was immense and his writing on
international relations ranged extremely widely. However, one simple
but powerful idea constantly recurs: that states form among themselves
a society, and that this society must be understood on its own terms.
International society does not consist of a war of all against all, nor is it
a halfway house on the road to a truly universal human community.
This notion, which gave his work such unity and coherence, was not
original. Talk of a society of states had been an intellectual common-
place amongst writers from at least the early eighteenth century, and
Bull owed a self-acknowledged debt to others working in the field,
above all to Martin Wight.1 But while part of the strength of Bull’s
work lies in his engagement with these historical patterns of thought,
Bull went further than his predecessors in developing the idea of inter-
national society and in establishing it as a powerful vantage point from
which to analyse international politics, past and present.
Students of international relations will be familiar with Hedley Bull’s
The Anarchical Society, the work in which he developed most systematic-
ally the ideas explored in this collection.2Yet there is much to be gained
by placing The Anarchical Society in its broader context – in terms of
understanding its core arguments but also in terms of appreciating
the recurring themes and tensions that run through Bull’s writing.
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viii Preface
Unfortunately, many of Bull’s most important articles and papers on the
nature of international society are hard to locate or are out of print.3The
pieces chosen in this volume provide a good coverage of the range of
Bull’s writing on international society. The papers have been reproduced
in full as they originally appeared, save for some minor editing to ensure
stylistic consistency and to complete all bibliographic references.4
Together, they illustrate the richness of his thought, clarify some of the
more obscure aspects of the idea of an international society, and serve to
indicate both the points of continuity and the degree of evolution in his
thinking over time. They also exemplify Bull’s intellectual style: his sharp-
ness of writing and clarity of exposition; his intellectual rigour and tough-
ness; his irreverence and willingness to engage with contrary points of
view or with unfashionable ways of thinking about the subject; and
his insistence on addressing the big and important moral and political
questions that lie at the heart of the study and practice of world politics.
The first part of this book aims to highlight the main elements in
Bull’s conception of international society, revisit some of his most
important arguments, and reassess their contribution and current
relevance. These three introductory chapters draw heavily on Bull’s
unpublished papers, lecture notes, letters and outlines of projects left
unfinished at the time of his death. Chapter 1 provides a broad overview
of the idea of international society, especially for those coming new to
Bull’s work. It surveys the main elements of Bull’s conception of interna-
tional society and the way in which the idea of international society pro-
vided a framework for the analysis of twentieth-century international
relations. Chapter 2 looks in more detail at the relationship of Bull’s
ideas to the three major contending perspectives in contemporary inter-
national relations theory: neorealism, institutionalism and construc-
tivism. Chapter 3 analyses the extent to which Bull’s work remains of
continued relevance in understanding the political and moral dilemmas
of the post-Cold War world. We argue that the questions that Bull asked
and the intellectual framework within which he sought to answer them
remain valid and useful today. We hope that this collection will serve
not only to illuminate Bull’s own thought, but also to make a refresh-
ingly clear and robust contribution to contemporary debates over the
role of norms and institutions in maintaining and enhancing inter-
national order.
K. A.
A. H.
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Preface ix
Notes
1. See especially Hedley Bull, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International
Relations’, reprinted in Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (eds), Martin Wight:
International Theory. The Three Traditions (Leicester: Leicester University
Press, 1991), pp. ix–xxiii. Bull’s approach, however, was very different from
that of Wight: less resolutely historical, more systematic and driven by
theoretical questions, and more concerned, as J. D. B. Miller noted, with ‘the
actual processes of international relations than Wight cared to acquire’. See
J. D. B. Miller, ‘Appreciation, Memorial Service’ (1985), Bull Papers (here-
after BP).
2. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics,2nd edn,
with foreword by Stanley Hoffmann (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997).
3. For an earlier selection of Bull’s work on arms control and strategic studies
see Robert O’Neill and David N. Schwartz (eds), Hedley Bull on Arms Control
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987).
4. The exception is the transcript of Bull’s original discussion of ‘The Grotian
Conception of International Society’ at the meeting of the British Committee,
15 April 1962, which has been more heavily edited.