Conceptualizing world society

Abstract

Despite Barry Buzan’s significant attempt to conceptualize world society, a set of questions pertaining to world society remain highly debated and are taken as central concerns to our investigation in this special issue. For example, what is the relationship between international and world society? Does the idea of world society promote or undermine international society? Does international society provide the basis for the development of world society and under what conditions? In which areas could we observe the development of a world society? Are there primary world society institutions? What is the distinct contribution of an English School conception of a world society to the study of international relations? Is world society thinking related to other theoretical approaches to the study of international relations and how? Can the normative, historical, and analytical approaches to the concept of a world society be reconciled? Is the concept of a world society the key to resolving the pluralist–solidarist debate and can this debate illuminate the concept of a world society? Do the different senses of a world society in the literature of the English need to be terminologically distinguished? These questions need to be revisited in order to advance the English School world society debate and tighten the English School’s theoretical coherence and to maintain its relevance.