The Standard of ‘Civilisation’, the Expansion Thesis and the 19th-century International Social Space

Abstract

This article identifies a series of gaps in the English school’s thesis of the ‘expansion of international society’ from European to global extension, and presents two propositions that can correct these problems, and so give us a better understanding of the social space in which 19th-century international relations were carried on. First, we should replace the concept of ‘expansion’ with ‘stratification’, changing the terms of the enquiry from an examination of ‘entry into’ the society of states to an exploration of who was where in the 19th-century international social system. Secondly, we should add a more relational analysis of patterns of association to the English school’s predominantly institutionalist approach to the analysis of the structure of international society. To flesh out these two proposals, the article presents a neo-Weberian framework for thinking about international social stratification and an empirical analysis of patterns of treaty-making.