International Society

Abstract

In a recent issue of Cooperation and Conflict, Ole Waever argued that `theoretical progress is hard to find in the work on international society'. This article seeks to challenge this verdict by reasserting the continued relevance of the international society tradition to contemporary international relations thinking. In the first instance, an analysis of the evolution of the tradition demonstrates the movement of the English School from realism to a more normative view of international relations grounded in the vindication of the idea of international society. The second part of the article examines the contribution of international society thinking to academic international relations in the 1990s. Here we see the bifurcation of the English School into classical international society theorists who exhibit a high degree of continuity with the British Committee era, and critical international society theorists who take the work of Wight and Bull as their point of departure but who see their task as deepening the notion of community in the society of states and extend it beyond the society of states. Finally, the article concludes by suggesting that the English School's use of theory is implicitly constructivist, thereby aligning the School with progressive developments in social and political theory.