State In International Society Research Articles

A ‘Uniform’ for All States?

A ‘Uniform’ for All States?

Testing the limits of international society? Trust, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific security

Abstract When Australia reneged on a AUD$90 billion submarine contract with France in 2021 as it joined AUKUS, a new trilateral military partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, it was accused of lying and breaching France's trust. This perceived act of betrayal not only led to a deterioration in the diplomatic relationship between Australia and France, but it also drew attention to the consequences of violating the norm of pacta sunt servanda—agreements must be kept. Although it is recognized that breaches of trust undermine relationships, what has been underexplored is how a violation of norms can also undermine the presumption of trust in international society more broadly. Focusing on how Australia broke its contract with France after it joined AUKUS, this article argues that Australia's conduct not only harmed its relationship with France, but it also led the European Union (EU) to raise questions about how much to trust AUKUS partners as it engages in the Indo-Pacific region. It posits that adherence to international norms is important for developing trust between states in international society and has the potential to facilitate cooperation and enhance security in the complex Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

‘What, Then, of the Land’?: Territoriality, International Law, and the Republic of New Afrika

Abstract This article charts how African American appeals to international law shifted away from a politics of petition to a politics of sovereignty with the growing influence of postcolonial states in international society and the UN’s recognition of a right to self-determination. Whereas earlier efforts by African-descended peoples in the Americas to gain a hearing before international bodies often required pushing the boundaries of international legal personality to include entities other than states, in the late 1960s and early 1970s a black nationalist group called the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) pursued international subjectivity in its traditional and fullest form: as a sovereign state. Examining the writings of RNA leaders, especially Imari Obadele, this article explores how the group’s claims for territory, reparations, and international subjectivity relied on international legal discourse about plebiscites, self-determination, and national development.

World society as collective identity: world society, international society, and inclusion/exclusion from Europe

In a world of regions, inside/outside dynamics—the identity politics of international society—are effectively reinstated. Accounting for these dynamics from an English School (ES) perspective requires, first, prior clarification of the place and role of the concept of identity in ES theory. Constitutive of society in both inter-state and inter-human domain, of international and world society, respectively, identity arguably is key to social structural ES theorising. This is visible in, second, the (in-)congruence of identities across domains, constellations of international and world society, instilling a state with the desire for belonging. Induced in this way is the ‘movement’ of a state in international society, triggering the identity politics of (regional) international society. This is illustrated, third, by the patterns of inclusion and exclusion currently on display at the Eastern boundary of the contemporary European society of states that transpire as the result of ‘neighbourhood’ states aspiring to join ‘Europe’.

The liberal state in international society: Interpreting recent British foreign policy

The question of who decides when a state has not met its international responsibilities (and therefore forfeits the right to non-intervention) and what kind of international action should be taken (from limited intervention to full-blown regime change) divides liberal foreign policy thinking. To understand the nature of that division, and what is at stake, this article distinguishes ‘neoliberal’ from ‘liberal internationalist’ approaches and locates them in an English School understanding of international society. Where the latter stresses the importance of observing the procedural norms centred on the United Nations, the former contests the legitimacy of such norms if they fail to deliver substantive liberal outcomes. The article then interprets British foreign policy discourse either side of the 2003 Iraq conflict through the prism of this debate. The central claim is that a more cautious approach to the use of force and American unilateralism has not silenced the critique of the UN system and that the international reaction to the Libyan intervention prompts the kind of reflection that continues to separate neoliberal from liberal internationalist approaches.

The rise of the welfare state in international society

In this article I seek to develop a case for viewing the welfare state as a primary institution in international society. This is with particular reference to Norden (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), where in the course of the 1930s, and particularly in the post-1945 era, the welfare state was elevated to a core principle of legitimacy, largely defining the idea of nationhood for these countries. Furthermore, I will attempt to show how the adoption of this principle of legitimacy conditioned the Nordic countries’ interpretation of a number of other primary institutions in international society such as diplomacy, war and trade. A key contribution of this approach is that it aspires not only to examine the evolution of one institution in isolation, as has often been attempted in English School scholarship, but to actively explore how institutions interact with each other.

Envisioning China?s Political Future: Elite Responses to Democracy as a Global Constitutive Norm

Democratic domestic governance has become a global constitutive norm. The fully socialized, “normal” state in international society is now expected either already to be democratic or embarked upon a democratization trajectory. But in China, the ruling Communist Party (CCP) rejects this norm and vows to construct an authoritarian new “political civilization” superior to democracy. Supportive Party intellectuals contend that most of the constitutive norms asserted to be global are actually manifestations of Western ideational power. CCP elites argue the impossibility of a global culture beyond the agency of states, which they regard as the ontologically primary actors in world politics. China’s rise—its rapid increase in comprehensive national power—affords these elites the material and ideational resources they need to resist reconstitution by global democratic norms. Their efforts will probably keep the international society of states significantly pluralist (in the English School sense) well into the future.

Liberalism and the Use of Force: Core Themes and Conceptual Tensions

Since the mid-1980s, a number of authors have asserted that there is a special kind of relationship between democratic states; or that liberalism promotes peaceful relations between liberal states; or that there exists a hierarchy of states in international society with liberal states at the apex of that hierarchy. Many of these theories touch on issues of liberalism, liberal states, and the use of military force. Yet they still do not directly address the key question of: when, and for what ends, liberals believe that military force may be used. An implicit intimation is often made that there is a monolithic liberal approach to the use of force. In contrast, this article identifies a variety of contemporary liberal views on this topic and argues that these depend upon the priority given to values such as those of tolerance and consent versus progress and civility, or those of cosmopolitanism versus communitarianism. On this basis, the article examines the liberal options for the use of force that can be justified in different ways by these different values, from self-defense to the creation of liberal entities, depending upon which liberal values predominate.

‘The Rules of the Game are Changing’: Fundamental Human Rights in Crisis After 9/11

Is there a crisis of legitimacy in relation to fundamental human rights commitments? At one level, the human rights regime has endured legitimacy problems from the outset, in part due to the scope and complexity of the standards but also as a result of the unwillingness of states to regard human rights norms as properly binding. I argue that September 11 and the responses this event triggered in the foreign policies of leading states in international society have taken the challenge to the regime to a new level. What makes it a crisis of legitimacy is the fact that those were crucial to the emergence of the regime, and the rights that are under siege are core ‘rights of the person’ and not aspirational rights. The closing discussion examines the possibility for a restoration of legitimacy. Consistent with the earlier theoretical discussion, the question of whether and how the legitimacy crisis can be resolved requires a differential response, depending on the site of the crisis, and the location of the audience. The concepts of international and world society provide analytical leverage in identifying both the causes of the crisis and the prospects for its resolution.

Defending the West: Occidentalism and the Formation of NATO

EITHER the traditional realist explanation nor liberal and constructivist alternatives are adequate to explain NATO’s formation. Existing explanations of the formation of NATO in International Relations (IR) theory all begin from the position that explaining NATO is a matter of explaining the specific decisions made by individual state actors. It is self-evident to most IR scholars that interstate alliances are arrangements produced by what states do, and that “action” in world politics means “state action.” This reductionist explanatory position parallels a number of individualist stances in the wider sphere of social theory, drawing its intuitive plausibility from a posited equivalence between individuals in society and states in international society: states are, as it were, the “people” of international society. 1 But by adopting this reductionist stance, IR theorists also acquire the central explanatory weaknesses of an individualist approach, particularly inasmuch as they aim to combine an individualist focus with a desire for explanations of social outcomes based on necessity rather than contingency. This “necessity individualism” hampers existing accounts in their efforts to explain the existence of the Alliance. In particular, two explanatory weaknesses characterize necessity individualist accounts. First, such accounts are characterized by a tendency towards the teleological reconstruction of history, in that they tend to read the stable bipolar situation of later years backwards into the incredibly ambiguous period of the period immediately following the Second World War. Second, necessity individualist accounts do not contain an adequate notion of agency, and as such deny the creative aspects of social action. As is usual in social theory, the empirical weaknesses of existing accounts are generated by their underlying theoretical problems; therefore, these theoretical problems must be addressed in order to generate a more robust empirical account. As necessity individualism is the underlying problem, it must be replaced with different theoretical

Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in International Society.

Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in International Society.

Revolution and world order: the revolutionary state in international society

Revolution and world order: the revolutionary state in international society

Revolution and world order: the revolutionary state in international society

Revolution and world order: the revolutionary state in international society

Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in International Society. By David Armstrong. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. viii, 328 pp. Bibliography. Index. $59.00, hard bound.

Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in International Society. By David Armstrong. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. viii, 328 pp. Bibliography. Index. $59.00, hard bound. - Volume 53 Issue 3