English school
The English School (also liberal realism ; English English School or International Society ) is a political science school of thought, the core message of which is that the anarchy in international relations is abolished by states that through common values , norms and institutions in an international society are integrated.
It is considered a constructivist theory, but it emphasizes the indeterministic system of anarchy. It is heavily influenced by functionalism and realism .
The term is characterized by the research focus in Great Britain , as the main representatives of the English School (including Hedley Bull and Martin Wight ) worked at Oxford University and above all at the London School of Economics . It was coined by Roy Jones in 1981 in a review in which he actually called for people to finish school. The modern representative is Barry Buzan , who also teaches at the London School of Economic .
History and prehistory
Between the end of the 19th century and the First World War , the intellectual trend of liberal internationalism arose in Great Britain . John Atkinson Hobson in particular published studies and statements on the international problems of his time, such as a work on imperialism in 1902 and later on economic questions and the League of Nations. Norman Angell and Hobson warned of the danger of war between great powers. In England in the 1930s, David Mitrany and Edward Hallett Carr wrote writings that, in retrospect, established the theories of functionalism and realism. From 1959, under the leadership of Herbert Butterfield , Martin Wight, Adam Watson and Hedley Bull, the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics met to shed light on fundamental problems and various aspects (in theory and history) of international politics. In 1977 Hedley Bull authored The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. In the 1990s, it was further developed by the second generation .
Theoretical basis
Wight defines the three Rs :
- realism
- an anthropologically pessimistic worldview, see also realism (international relations) .
- rationalism
- who shares the realistic negative worldview, but sees an improvement through reason and institutions.
- Revolutionism
- cosmopolitan idealism assuming the existence of universal values.
Bull abstracts and reduces these to three competing spiritual traditions in his book The Anarchical Society :
- Realistic Hobbesian
- Based on the idea of Thomas Hobbes , states are in a permanent state of war. Peace is only possible temporarily because there is no central power.
- Universalistic Kantian
- According to Immanuel Kant, the focus is not on states, but on individuals as citizens of the world.
- internationalist-Grotian
- Hugo Grotius' teaching holds on to the existing anarchy (of the states), but works towards limiting conflicts through rules and institutions
State society
An international society is an organization of intergovernmental relations that goes beyond a normal community. It is characterized over the term of the international system ( International System ). The basic assumption is that states within an international society not only maintain a mechanical relationship to one another, as the balance of power suggests, but also have common interests and possibly identities. The original idea for Bull is the common interest to prevent total war ( all-out war ) and thus to create a stable order. For this reason, a society organizes jointly represented deep structures, ie primary institutions (balance of power, international law, management of the great powers, diplomacy, war). It is therefore more than a mere collection of interacting states.
"A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions. "
If, after a community of states has been established, there is a decline in the importance that states attach to common values, this society falls back into the state of community. Tim Dunne, one of the current representatives of the English School, describes the behavior of the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11th as partially imperialist, which contradicts the idea of a society of states.
Second generation
Since the 1990s, a second generation of the English School has been established that wants to develop the methodology rather than the tradition of the English School.
Richard Little , Barry Buzan and Charles Jones try to tie in with other schools of international relations, such as neorealism and constructivism.
Tim Dunne and Andrew Linklater currently occupy the three Rs of Wight with positivism for realism, hermeneutics for rationalism and critical theory for revolutionism.
literature
- Hedley Bull : The Anarchical Society. A Study of Order in World Politics. Macmillan, London et al. 1977, ISBN 0-333-19914-6 .
- Barry Buzan : From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization (= Cambridge Studies in International Relations. 95). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge MA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-521-54121-2 .
- Tim Dunne: Inventing International Society. A History of the English School. Macmillan et al., Basingstoke et al. 1998, ISBN 0-333-64345-3 .
- Andrew Linklater, Hidemi Suganami: The English school of international relations. A contemporary reassessment (= Cambridge Studies in International Relations. 102). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge MA et al. 2006, ISBN 0-521-67504-9 .
- Richard Little: International Relations Theory from a Former Hegemon. In: Christian Reus-Smit, Duncan Snidal (Eds.): The Oxford handbook of international relations. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2008, ISBN 0-19-921932-X , pp. 675-687.
- Hidemi Suganami: British institutionalists, or the English School, 20 years on. In: International Relations. Vol. 17, No. 3, 2003, ISSN 0047-1178 , pp. 253-271
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert Jackson , Georg Sørensen : Introduction to International Relations. Theories and Approaches , third edition, New York 2007, p. 47.
- ^ Siegfried Schieder, Manuela Spindler: Theories of international relations , Budrich, Opladen [u. a.] 2006, ISBN 978-3-8252-2315-1
- ↑ p. 247
- ↑ Bull, 1977
- ↑ p. 257
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
