Bull’s Political Vision

Abstract

Although Bull is often identified as a theorist of international society, this volume has shown that there is more to The Anarchical Society than international society, narrowly construed. The contemporary relevance of Bull’s work is clearest when we recognize the flexibility of his conceptual framework and, in particular, the often overlooked potential of his concept of the ‘world political system’, of which modern international society is only a part. It is also helpful to recognize the provisional nature of Bull’s intellectual priorities and of his empirical and evaluative judgements. Bull’s argument that international society provides the surest route to world order reflected his judgement at ‘present’ and we can revise it today without doing violence to his intellectual project. This concluding essay highlights the flexibility of Bull’s approach and the provisional nature of his judgements while also reviewing the limits of this flexibility and identifying possible future directions of inquiry.