Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School Author(S): Barry Buzan Source: International Organization, Vol

From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School Author(s): Barry Buzan Source: International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Summer, 1993), pp. 327-352 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706979 . Accessed: 15/10/2011 23:15

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http://www.jstor.org Frominternational system to internationalsociety: structural realismand regimetheory meet the Englishschool BarryBuzan

The purposeof thisarticle is to relatethe conceptof "internationalsociety" to structuralrealism and regimetheory. One aim is to bringtogether three bodies of theory-twolargely American, the otherlargely British-and to show how theycomplement and strengthenone another.Another aim is to clarifythe concept so thatit can be used withgreater analytical precision. To do this,I develop the argumentalong three lines. First, I establish definitionsfor "internationalsystem" and "internationalsociety" that enable a clear boundary to be drawn between them. Withoutsuch a boundary,the concept of internationalsociety is too fuzzyto be used eitherfor comparative analysis of differentinternational systems or foranalysis of the historicaldevelopment of any given internationalsociety. Second, I open up the question of how internationalsociety relates to world societyand tryto resolve the rather nebulous positionin the existingliterature as to whetherthese two ideas are complementaryor antagonistic.Third, I use the logic of structuralrealism to showhow internationalsociety can emergeas a naturalproduct of the logic of anarchy.This providesan alternative,functionally based accountto contrastto the largelyhistorical work of the English school. The argumentis that this functionalaccount is better suited to analysis of the contemporaryglobal, multicultural,international society because it answers questions about the expansionof European internationalsociety that are difficultto deal withif societyis primarilyconceived of in terms of historicalcommunity. It also providesthe tools forconceptualizing a complexinternational society ordered in termsof concentric circles representing lesser degrees of commitmentas one movesoutward from the center.The currentinternational society already has this structure,and the logic of uneven developmentsuggests that future developmentsof itwill also followthis pattern.

I would like to thankRichard Little,James Mayall, Nick Rengger,Ole Waever,Nick Wheeler, and the IntemationalOrganization referees for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

IntemationalOrganization 47, 3, Summer1993 ? 1993 byThe 10 Foundationand the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology 328 InternationalOrganization

In part,the articleis a response to Ole Waever'scriticism that the English school has largelystagnated despite the fact that it occupies an "extremely interestinglocale in the InternationalRelations landscape," representinga traditionof thoughtdistinct from realism and liberalismand able to combine elementsof both and put them into historicalcontext.' In part it is also a response to AndrewHurrell's critique of regimetheory that, in focusingtoo much on the particularand the rational,it has lost sightof some broader normativeand legal elements on which the phenomenonof contemporary regimesrests.2 Regime theoryand internationalsociety are part of the same tradition,but due to the peculiaritiesof academic discourse,they have become largelydetached fromone another. Regime theoryhas made considerable progressin itsown rightand could now benefitfrom being reconnected to the older traditionof internationalsociety that both puts it into a broadercontext (systemicallyand historically)and connectsit to the underlyingpolitical-legal frameworkof the moderninternational system. The literatureon international societyconnects the studyof regimesto both its intellectualroots and the earlierhistory of thephenomenon. The idea of internationalsociety goes back at least as faras Hugo Grotius.3It is rooted in the classical legal traditionand the notionthat internationallaw constitutesa communityof thoseparticipating in the internationallegal order.4 Within the disciplineof internationalrelations, the concept has been put forwardand developed by writersof the so-called English school, including E. H. Carr,C. A. W. Manning,Martin Wight, Hedley Bull, GerritGong, Adam Watson, JohnVincent, and James Mayall.5Bull has perhaps been its most

1. Ole Waever,"International Society-Theoretical Promises Unfulfilled?"Cooperation and Conflict27 (1992) pp. 97-128, and in particularpp. 98-100 and 121. 2. AndrewHurrell, "International Law and the Studyof InternationalRegimes: A Reflective Approach," in Volker Rittberger,ed., BeyondAnarchy: Intemational Cooperation and Regimes (Oxford:Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 3. Claire A. Cutler,"The 'GrotianTradition' in InternationalRelations," Review of Intemational Studies17 (January1991), pp. 41-65. 4. HermannMosler, The IntemationalSociety as a Legal Community(Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands:Sijthoff and Noordhoff,1980), p. xv. 5. See E. H. Carr, The TwentyYears Crisis,2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1946), pp. 162-69; C. A. W. Manning, The Nature of IntemationalSociety (London: LSE, 1962); Martin Wight, "Western Values in InternationalRelations," in Herbert Butterfieldand Martin Wight,eds., DiplomaticInvestigations (London: Allen and Unwin,1966), pp. 89-131; MartinWight, Systems of States(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977); MartinWight, Power Politics (Harmonsworth, England: Penguin,1979), pp. 105-12; Gabriele Wightand Brian Porter,eds., IntemationalTheory: The ThreeTraditions-Martin Wight (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991); Hedley Bull, The AnarchicalSociety (London: Macmillan, 1977); Hedley Bull, Justicein IntemationalRelations, 1983-84 Hagey Lectures,University of Waterloo,1984; Hedley Bull and Adam Watson,eds., The Expansionof IntemationalSociety (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984); GerritW. Gong, The Standardof "Civilisation"in IntemationalSociety (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Adam Watson, "Hedley Bull, State Systems,and InternationalStudies," Review of Intemational Studies 13 (April 1987), pp. 147-53; Adam Watson, "Systemsof States," Reviewof IntemationalStudies 16 (April 1990), pp. 99-109; Adam Watson, The Evolutionof IntemationalSociety (London: Routledge, 1992); John R. Vincent, Noninterventionand IntemationalOrder (Princeton,N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1974); JohnR. Vincent,Human Rightsand IntemationalRelations (Cambridge: The Englishschool 329

influentialrecent proponent, playing a leading role in gettingpublished the seminalearlier work of Wightand spreadingthe conceptmore widely into the internationalrelations literature.6 Despite itslong gestation, international society remains better developed as a historicalthan as a theoreticalconcept. Manning's foundationalwork, despite its undeniablymodern insightsinto the importanceof perception, belief, and language in constructinginternational political reality,was too convolutedand eccentricin expressionto attracta following(though it might yet find a revivalamong postmodernists).Wight's brilliant combination of historicaldepth and range, with the pattern-seekinginstincts of a social scientist,set the stylefor most of his successors.The analyticaltradition set by Bull and otherslargely followed Wight's historical track. The primeobjective was empirical analysis of the modern European-generatedinternational society.Wight's concern with exploring the concept across the historyof the internationalsystem has onlyrecently been followedup byWatson,7 and little attempthas yetbeen made to linkthe historical study of internationalsociety to the more abstract American modes of theorizingabout the international system. Both Carr and, at muchgreater length, Manning make muchof the factthat states (and thereforealso the idea of a societyof states) are in an important sense fictions,whose status rests on the strengthand breadth of people's willingnessto believe in, or merelyaccept, theirreality.8 This positionis not unrelatedto BenedictAnderson's discussion of "imaginedcommunities": the processby which people bond theirown identitiesto a communitywhose scale means thatit is farbeyond their ability to experienceit directly.9Carr makes much of the rhetoricalforce and politicalvalue of such ideas to those great powersthan can mobilizethem to supportthe internationallegitimacy of their positions.This viewopens up a morenormative aspect of internationalsociety as a conceptand providestwo answers to the questionof why one shouldadopt the idea as an approach to understandinginternational relations. The first answeris simplythat it workswell as an empiricaltool (whichis mostlywhat thisarticle is about). Here the case is thatthe conceptof societyfits with the

Cambridge UniversityPress, 1986); and James Mayall, Nationalismand IntemationalSociety (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1990). 6. See K. J.Holsti, Peace and War:Armed Conflict and IntemationalOrder 1648-89 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1991); and K. J. Holsti, "Governance Without Government: Polyarchyin Nineteenth-centuryEuropean InternationalPolitics," and Mark Zacher, "The DecayingPillars of the Westphalian Temple: Implications for International Order and Governance," in JamesN. Rosenau and Ernst-OttoCzempiel, eds., GovemanceWithout Government: Order and Changein WorldPolitics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 30-57 and 58-101, respectively. 7. Watson,The Evolution of Intemational Society. 8. See Carr, The TwentyYears Crisis,pp. 162-69; and Manning, The Natureof Intemational Society,especially chap. 3. 9. BenedictAnderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on theOrigin and Spreadof National- ism(London: Verso, 1983). 330 InternationalOrganization observeddata and offersa way of understandingit thatis not available using alternativeconcepts. The second answer is more political: there is a case for promotingthe concepton the groundsthat it constructsa wayof thinkingabout international relationsthat, if widely adopted, would have a beneficialeffect on the practice of how states relate to each other.In otherwords, the veryact of perceiving internationalrelations in societal terms will itself condition behavior by openingnew understandingsof what is possibleand whatis desirable.The idea of societyis self-reinforcinginasmuch as consciousnessof it helps to consoli- date and reproduceits reality. The idea thatlanguage is partof politicalaction has long been partof the realisttradition and is by no means absentfrom this work.'0 The next section sets out the centraldistinction between an international systemand internationalsociety. It raisesthe question of when an international societycan be said to existand beginsto approachan answerby examining two differentmodels of how an internationalsociety comes into being. The followingsection takes up a second core distinctionin the literature,that betweeninternational society and worldsociety. It arguesthat the literatureis unclearabout how these two ideas relate to each otherand thatthe natureof their relationshipis crucial to understandinghow, and indeed whether, internationalsociety can develop beyonda fairlybasic level. Next I tryto cast light on all of these questions by using structuralrealist logic to see how internationalsociety could evolve froman internationalsystem without the preexistenceof a naturalshared culture.Then I constructa definitionof the minimumconditions for internationalsociety in termsof mutualrecognition among sovereignstates of theirlegal equalityas actors and show how such a definitioncan be analyticallydeployed. Finally I summarizewhat is gained analyticallyby usingthe approach developed here and reflecton the utilityof bringingthe thinkingof the English school, structuralrealism, and regime theoryinto closer contact.

Internationalsystem and internationalsociety

Bull and Watson defineinternational society as "a group of states (or, more generally,a group of independentpolitical communities)which not merely forma system,in thesense that the behaviour of each is a necessaryfactor in the calculations of the others,but also have established by dialogue and consentcommon rules and institutionsfor the conductof theirrelations, and recognisetheir common interest in maintainingthese arrangements.""This

10. Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy:Neorealism to StructuralRealism (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1993), section3. 11. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, "Introduction,"in Bull and Watson, Expansion of IntemationalSociety, pp. 1-9. The quotationis drawnfrom p. 1. The Englishschool 331 definitionclearly establishes the principlethat system and societyare distinct. It also beginsto suggestwhere the boundarybetween them lies, thoughit does notspecify any detailed criteria for establishing it. It is particularlyuseful to the presententerprise because itsconception of systemis close to the mechanistic understandingof American usage.'2 It thus avoids the confusionthat exists betweensystem (as interactingparts) and society(as self-consciousand in part self-regulating)and opens the possibilityfor synthesizingthe English school with structuralrealism. On the English side, the terminologicalconfusion arisesfrom Wight, who used the term"systems of states"to mean whatis now meantby international society.13 The distinctionbetween system and societyis central.System is logicallythe morebasic, and prior,idea: an internationalsystem can existwithout a society, but the converseis not true.As Bull notes,the expansionof Europe startingin the fifteenthcentury created an internationalsystem long beforean international societycame into being.14Indeed, by Gong's argument,a trulyglobal internationalsociety (as opposed to a globallyoperating European one) did not beginto emergeuntil late in the nineteenthcentury.15 The internationalsystem existedbecause the projectionof European powerbrought previously isolated peoples and politicalcommunities into regular contact with each other.For a systemto exist requires the existence of units, among which significant interactiontakes place and thatare arrangedor structuredaccording to some ordering principle. The Bull and Watson formulationdefines significant interactionas being action such that "the behaviour of each [actor] is a necessaryfactor in the calculationsof the others."In the internationalsystem, the unitsare states (or independentpolitical communities). The interactions among theminclude war, diplomacy,trade, migration, and the movementof ideas. KennethWaltz notwithstanding,the consequences of anarchyvary according to the level and typeof interactionin the system.A systemin whichinteraction capacityis relativelylow, as duringthe ancientperiod of humancivilization, is quite differentfrom one in whichit is relativelyhigh, as in the late twentieth century.Whether or not interactioncapacity is sufficientlydeveloped to allow remoteunits to trade and fightwith each otheron a large scale, as in modern Europe, or whetherit is only sufficientto allow the carriageof a few ideas, technologies,and individualsbetween remotecultures, as between classical Rome and Han China, makes an enormousdifference to both the natureof internationalrelations and the impactof anarchicstructure.'6

12. Richard Little, "The SystemsApproach," in Steven Smith,ed., IntemationalRelations: BritishandAmerican Approaches (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 70-91. 13. Wight,Systems of States. 14. Hedley Bull, "The Emergenceof a UniversalInternational Society," in Bull and Watson, Expansionof Intemational Society, pp. 117-26. 15. Gong, TheStandard of "Civilisation"in IntemationalSociety. 16. Buzan, Jones,and Little,The Logic ofAnarchy, chaps. 4-9. 332 InternationalOrganization

The questionis, when can we say thatthe societypart of Bull and Watson's definition-thatstates "have establishedby dialogue and consent common rules and institutionsfor the conduct of theirrelations, and recognisetheir common interestin maintainingthese arrangements"-comes into being? Writerssuch as Gong, Watson, and Yongjin Zhang have grappledwith that question in tryingto determinewhen specificnon-European states (China, Ethiopia, Japan, Ottoman Empire, Siam) gained entryinto the globalized European internationalsociety.17 This enterprisehas made some progress despiteRoy Jones'sdismissal of thewhole idea of tryingto definemembership as hopeless.'8As well as the questionof who is in and who is out, thereis also thelarger and less-studiedmatter of when all or partof an internationalsystem can be said to have become an internationalsociety. Bull's analysisdoes not give much guidance on this point. He argues that internationalsociety is closelyassociated with the idea of internationalorder, whereorder means "an arrangementof social lifesuch that it promotescertain goals or values."'19This definitionis similarto the earlier one of Wight:"a systemof relationshipsfor certain common purposes."20 But if international society is a synonymfor order, the idea potentiallystretches across an enormousspectrum of possibilities,ranging from early, underdeveloped, and minimalat one end (such as normsagainst the seizureor murderof emissaries) to late, well-developed,and maximal on the other (a communityof states enmeshedin a networkof agreed regimesand institutionscovering much of their interaction-an expanded version of the "complex interdependence" formulatedby Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye).21The huge scope of this spectrumunderlines the need both for a boundaryto distinguishbetween systemand system-plus-societyand for some kind of model to handle the differentstages or levels of developmentof internationalsociety. Bull's crude notion that internationalsociety is subject to strengtheningand weakening trends is a rather feeble analyticaltool unless some benchmarkscan be established against which to measure the extent and directionof change. Indeed, his failureto establisha clearer analyticalframework caused him to reach whollymistaken and unnecessarilypessimistic conclusions about the developmentof internationalsociety in the twentiethcentury.22

17. See Gong, The Standardof "Civilisation"in IntemationalSociety; Watson, "Hedley Bull, State Systems,and InternationalStudies"; and YongjinZhang, "China's Entryinto International Society:Beyond the Standard of Civilization,"Review of Intemational Studies 17 (January1991), pp. 3-16. 18. Roy E. Jones,"The EnglishSchool of InternationalRelations: A Case forClosure," Review ofIntemational Studies 7 (January1981), pp. 1-13. 19. See Bull, TheAnarchicalSociety, p. 4; and Bull and Watson,"Introduction." 20. Wight,Power Politics, p. 105. 21. Robert 0. Keohane and JosephS. Nye,Power and Interdependence(Boston: Little,Brown, 1977). 22. BarryBuzan, People, States,and Fear: An Agendafor IntemationalSecurity Studies in the Post-Cold WarEra (Hemel Hempstead,England: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 166-74. The Englishschool 333

Before one can answerprecisely when an internationalsystem acquires an internationalsociety, it is necessaryto examine how an internationalsociety comes intobeing. There are twopossible views, and it is helpfulin understand- ing these to use the classical distinctionfrom sociology between gemeinschaft and gesellschaftconceptions of society.23The gemeinschaftunderstanding sees society as somethingorganic and traditional,involving bonds of common sentiment,experience, and identity.It is an essentiallyhistorical conception: societies grow ratherthan being made. The gesellschaftunderstanding sees society as being contractualand constructedrather than sentimentaland traditional.It is moreconsciously organizational: societies can be made byacts ofwill. The firstview of how an internationalsociety comes into being is rather forcefullyadvocated by Wight: "We mustassume thata states-system[i.e., an internationalsociety] will not come into being withouta degree of cultural unityamong its members."24This view resultsfrom historical analysis and fits closely with the gemeinschaftconception of society. Wight develops two examples to supporthis case, classical Greece and early-modernEurope. In bothcases, internationalsocieties developed in subsystemswhose unitsshared significantelements of culture,especially religion and language. The ancient Greeks shared a language and religionthat differentiated them from so-called barbarians.25Most Westernand Southern(though fewer Eastern) Europeans sharedthe culturalresidue of the Roman Empire,most notably in the Catholic churchand the Holy Roman Empire.26Watson continuedthe analysisin this vein,identifying an additionalnine cases.27Since a priorshared culture occurs in most of the main historical examples of internationalsociety (either naturallyor as a resultof earlier imperialhomogenizings), the forceof this argumentis strong.At a veryminimum it suggeststhat the preexistenceof a commonculture among the units of a systemis a greatadvantage in stimulating the formationof an internationalsociety earlier than would otherwiseoccur. Whetheror not it is a necessarycondition, as Wightargues, is arguable. Unfortunately,historical cases are few: eleven altogether,if Watson is correct.Even worse, the period of European expansion has so shaped and dominatedall subsequentdevelopments of internationalsociety that we are unlikelyto get any furtherclear historicalevidence of how an international societyforms de novo.Although the developmentof the betterknown cases of internationalsociety historically may have been associated with the preexistenceof a commonculture, there is no logicalnecessity for such an association. Indeed, the messy multiculturalhistory of the Middle East, with its many waxingsand waningsof empires,suggests that significant elements of interna-

23. F. Tonnies,Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft(Leipzig: Fues's Verlag,1887). 24. Wight,Systems of States, p. 33. 25. Ibid., pp. 83-85. 26. Ibid., chap. 5. 27. Watson,The Evolution of Intemational Society. 334 InternationalOrganization tionalsociety can formin a subsystemthat does not share a commonculture.28 This points to a functionalview, more in accordance with gesellschaft understandingof society,in which the development of internationalsociety can be seen as a rationallong-term response to the existenceof an increasingly dense and interactiveinternational system. Whetheror not unitsshare a commonculture, at some pointthe regularity and intensityof their interactionswill virtuallyforce the developmentof a degree of recognitionand accommodationamong them. As ruling elites recognize the permanence and importanceof the economic and strategic interdependenceamong their states, theywill begin to work out rules for avoidingunwanted conflicts and forfacilitating desired exchanges.Failure to do so would mean enormousinconvenience and, moreseriously, potential loss ofcompetitive advantage for those who failedto take thisstep when others had done so. Althoughwe have no fullydocumented historical model for this process,its logic is clear: internationalsociety could evolve functionallyfrom the logicof anarchywithout preexisting cultural bonds. This perspectivesolves some of the problems that arise for the gemeinschaftperspective when shared-cultureinternational societies develop close relations with states outside their civilizationalsphere. Examples here are Wight's difficultyin decidingwhether Persia and Carthagewere part of the Greek international societydespite their lack ofcommon culture29 and Bull's problemin seeinghow a European internationalsociety became a truly global one. Although European imperialismdid provideimportant elements of a commonculture for a global internationalsociety, the contemporarydevelopment of that society also containsa good deal of functionalaccommodation by states representing a diversityof cultures. While not challengingWight's hypothesis, Bull leans towardthat functional line in tryingto establishhis basic view of society.Given the inevitabilityof relationswith other units, a commondesire for order is theminimum necessary conditionto begin the evolutionof internationalsociety along gesellschaft lines. Except in internationalsystems with very low interactioncapacity, states cannot choose whetheror not to have a foreignpolicy. Note the location of mostutopias outside the internationalsystem and thecharacterization of many dystopiasas warfarestates. A minimaldesire for order begins to emergewhen leaders realize the disadvantagesof permanentchaos if interstaterelations remainwholly unregulated. Bull positsthree elementary goals as basic to any society:(1) some limitson the use of force,(2) some provisionfor the sanctity of contracts,and (3) some arrangementfor the assignmentof propertyrights.30 The idea is that mutual self-interestwill push leaderships into pursuing

28. See Michael Mann, The Sourcesof Social Power,vol. 1,A Historyof Power from the Beginning to AD 1760 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1986), chaps. 3-6 and 8; and Watson, The Evolutionof Intemational Society, chaps. 2-4, 6, and 12. 29. Wight,Systems of States, chap. 3. 30. Bull, TheAnarchical Society, pp. 4-5. The Englishschool 335 common objectives in these three areas and thus into constructingan internationalorder. As Watsonnotes, "The regulatingrules and institutionsof a systemusually, and perhaps inexorably,develop to the point where the membersbecome conscious of commonvalues and the systembecomes an internationalsociety."31 This approach, with its strongorientation toward realistconcerns with national security,provides a usefuland effectiveframe- workfor probing why otherwise competitive or even antagonisticunits establish "by dialogue and consentcommon rules and institutionsfor the conduct of their relations,and recognise their common interestin maintainingthese arrangements."Watson's term raison de systemecaptures this logic nicely.32 One weaknessof thisfunctional line, however,is thatit omitsthe notionof commonidentity that is centralto the conceptof society.To deservethe label, societieshave to containan elementof commonidentity, a sense of "we-ness," thatcomprises more than mere shared goals. Wight'sgemeinschaft line takes such an identityto be a historicalprecondition for internationalsociety and thereforedoes not have to considerthe issue. But how does shared identity come about in a gesellschaftsociety in whichthe unitsstart out withdifferent cultures? There are two possibilities.The firstand simplerbuilds on the Waltzianlogic that anarchygenerates like units.33As interactionmakes units more similar,it becomes easier foreach to accept thatthe othermembers of thesystem are in some importantsense the same typeof entityas itself.Mutual exchangesof thisacceptance enable a collectionof otherwisedisparate actors to considerthemselves members of a community.Historical discussions of how non-Europeanstates came to termswith what Gong has termedthe European "standard of civilization"are suggestiveof how this process of convergence towarda sharedidentity works, the moststriking case beingJapan's conscious reshapingof itselfinto a Westernstate during the late nineteenthcentury.34 The second possibilityfor gesellschaftcommunity concerns the more complicatedsituation of unlikeunits in anarchy.Waltz denies thispossibility, but JohnRuggie as well as BarryBuzan and RichardLittle argue that Waltz is wrongto close offthis element of structure.35Bull's term"neomedievalism" is gainingcurrency as a label for a systemof unlike units,though he saw that possibilityas incompatiblewith international society, which, like Waltz,he saw as strictlystate-based. Nevertheless, there is no logicalreason why neomedieval versionsof anarchicsystems could notdevelop international societies. In sucha system,shared identityas a similartype of unitis by definitionnot a basis for

31. Watson,"Hedley Bull, State Systems,and InternationalStudies," p. 151. 32. Watson,The Evolution of Intemational Society, p. 14. 33. KennethN. Waltz, Theoryof Intemational Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979), p. 93. 34. See Gong,The Standard of "Civilisation"in Intemational Society; Bull and Watson,Expansion ofIntemational Society. 35. JohnRuggie, "Continuity and Transformationin the WorldPolity: Towards a Neo-Realist Synthesis,"World Politics 35 (1983), pp. 261-85; and Buzan, Jones,and Little,The Logic ofAnarchy, chap. 3. 336 InternationalOrganization society.In a neomedievalinternational system, the onlypossibility for shared identityis not in acceptance of likenessas unitsbut in acceptance of a set of rulesthat legitimize the differentiation of unitsand establishthe distributionof rightsand responsibilitiesamong functionally differentiated actors. Compared with the primitivepossibility of shared identityamong like units,this is a complex and sophisticatedform of internationalsociety. It is difficultto imaginesuch an arrangementcoming about fromscratch. The historicalcase of medievalEurope had the enormouslegacy of the Roman Empire, especially theChurch, to underpinand enable it and is thereforea gemeinschaftmodel. It seems likelythat any futureneomedieval international society would have to evolvefrom an alreadystable international society of the like-unitstype. In the discussionthat follows I willtherefore concentrate mainly on the simplerform of like-unitsinternational society because it is the priortype. Nevertheless, the neomedievalform is worthkeeping in mindas an evolutionarypossibility for highlydeveloped international societies. In the gesellschaftmodel, it can be argued that shared goals and identity convergeat some point;that is, thatthe developmentof commonnorms, rules, and institutions-ofa sense of raisonde systeme-musteventually generate, as well as be generatedby, a commonidentity. A communityarrived at by this routewould be a narrower,more conditional,and more fragileone than that formedby a commonculture. Unless thereis some sense of commonidentity, however,society cannot exist. Curiously,Bull does not followhis own logic down thisline. Indeed, he does not discusscommon identity as an elementof internationalsociety at all. There are thus two distinctways for an internationalsociety to come into existence:what mightbe called the "civilizational"(gemeinschaft) and the "functional"(gesellschaft) models. Historically,the civilizationalmodel is the more powerful.Whether resulting from an originalshared culture,as in the case of the classical Greeks,or froman imperiallegacy of sharedculture, as in the case of Europe, civilizationalinternational societies have dominatedthe historicalrecord. There appear to be no pure cases of functionalinternational societies,but the functionalprocess is nonethelessvital to understandingwhat happens when an internationalsociety expands beyond its originalcultural domain. Unless a civilizationalinternational society can eithertranscend its originalculture or transmitit outward,it will inevitablybe confinedto some regionof the planet. In a postcolonialworld, a global internationalsociety can onlybe multiculturaland musttherefore have stronggesellschaft elements.

Internationalsociety and worldsociety

A second keydistinction acknowledged by mostof the writersassociated with the traditionis between "internationalsociety," which is about the natureof relationsamong states (or whateverpolitical units compose the international The Englishschool 337 system),and "worldsociety," which takes individuals,nonstate organizations, and ultimatelythe global populationas a whole as the focusof global societal identitiesand arrangements.International and worldsociety may refer to the entireglobal system-and contemporarydiscussion of themtends to have that focus-but they can also referto subsystemicphenomena (Europe, Islam, ancientGreece). It is thereforepossible formore than one internationalor "world"society to coexistor forone partof the systemto have an international societywhile otherparts do not. The centralquestion is how these two ideas relateto each other:are theycomplements or opposites?The literaturehas not yet explored this question adequately, and until the relationshipis made clearerit is impossibleto make muchprogress toward a layeredunderstanding of internationalsociety ranged along a spectrumfrom basic/minimal to highly developed.The discussionin the previoussection already has raised the issue. The civilizationaland functionalmodels of how internationalsocieties come intobeing seem to pointto quite differentconclusions about how international and worldsociety relate to one another.In the civilizationalview, especially as advocated by Wight,some element of world society is a preconditionto internationalsociety. In the functionalview, it is possible to imagineprimitive internationalsocieties existing without any elements of world society at all. Discussion of internationalsociety has takenplace largelywithin the realist framework,with writers stressing the centralityof the state and the role of anarchicstructure. World societyis associated more withidealist thinking:a possible and desirable developmentfor the futureand, as a presenttrend, largelyseen as antagonisticto the primacyof the state.These associationswith realismand idealismare unfortunateinasmuch as theyreinforce a tendencyto thinkof the ideas as necessarilyconflicting: states acting as bastionsof mutually exclusiveidentities preventing the emergenceof a world citizenryor global cosmopolitanismnecessarily undermining the identityand legitimacyof states and thus corrodingthe foundationsof internationalsociety. Andrew Linklat- er's workis a good exampleof the attemptto use a global logicof humanrights and humandevelopment to mountan assaulton the stateand to seek "a higher formof internationalpolitical life ... maximisingthe conditionsfor individual and collectiveself-determination."36 Surprisingly, this view also surfacesin the writingsof Bull, who arguesthat the extensionof internationallaw to subjects otherthan states (e.g., humanrights law) underminesthe internationalorder based on the societyof states.37Some realists,such as Hans Morgenthau,saw worldsociety as a preconditionfor a worldgovernment that would eventually bringthe anarchicera of the internationalsystem to a close.38

36. AndrewLinklater, "Men and Citizens in InternationalRelations," Review of Intemational Studies7 (January1981), pp. 23-37 and especiallypp. 34-35. 37. Bull, TheAnarchical Society, pp. 151-53. 38. Hans J. Morgenthau,Politics Among Nations, 5th ed. (New York: Knopf,1978), pp. 17-18 and 24. 338 InternationalOrganization

Thereis a contrarytendency to see thetwo concepts as somehowdevelopmen- tallylinked, as in the idea thatinternational society is a kindof waystation on the historicalroad away froma raw and unmoderatedanarchy and towarda world society.Bull hints faintlyin this direction.39Manning does so more explicitly.40Wight makes the incisiveobservation that the basis of international societylies bothin the recognitionof similaritiesbetween political units and in a general sense of commonhumanity, but he does not take the point further thanthat.41 It is on thisview that I plan to build,arguing that beyond a certain point,an internationalsociety cannot develop further without parallel develop- mentsin itscorresponding world society. None ofthe authorsin thetradition has attemptedto resolvethe relationship betweeninternational and worldsociety. This omissionallows, and is perhaps in part caused by,persistent ambiguities in the conceptof societyitself. Even sociology,whose job one mightthink this to be, has failedboth to definesociety as a unit of analysis and to separate social processes fromeconomic and politicalones.42 At least twodistinguished sociologists have advocatedrejection of "society"as an analyticalconcept on the groundsthat no unitcan be found to correspondwith it.43 However, from an internationalrelations perspective, it is not all thatdifficult to constructsocietal actors in termsof the strongidentity groupsgenerated by nationalismand religion.44Only when thisrelationship is clarifiedcan one make any progress toward a theoreticalmodel of how internationalsociety develops. Without such a model,the concept is trappedin historyand doomed to remain theoreticallynebulous despite the rising significanceof the phenomenathat it describes. The tensionbetween international and worldsociety is quite strongin Bull's writing,and his failureto explore common identitygoes some way toward explainingthe poorlydeveloped and unsatisfactoryrelationship in his work between internationalsociety (and internationalorder and international political system) and world society (and world order and world political system).In Bull's view there is no global world society,and he does not say muchabout it. He saysmore about worldorder and theworld political system, seeing these simplyas more-inclusivecategories than internationalorder and internationalpolitical system, containing relationships among a wide rangeof actorsin additionto states.But it is clear byinference, and byhis referencesto universalvalues, that the key differencebetween world and international societyis thatthe formeris based on unitsat the level of individualsand the latter,at the level of states (thoughinternational society can also be seen in

39. Bull, TheAnarchical Society, p. 319. 40. Manning,The Nature of International Society, chap. 14. 41. Wight,"Western Values in InternationalRelations," pp. 95-97. 42. Leon H. Mayhew,"Society," in InternationalEncyclopedia of the Social Sciences,vol. 14, 1968,pp. 583-85. 43. See Immanuel Wallerstein,The Politicsof the World-Economy(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1984) p. 2; and Mann, TheSources of Social Power,p. 2. 44. Ole Wzever,Barry Buzan, MartenKelstrup, Pierre Lemaitre, et al., Identity,Migration, and theNew SecurityAgendain Europe(London: Pinter,1993), especiallychap. 2. The Englishschool 339 individual terms as existingamong the ruling elites of states). For Bull, internationalsociety rests on common norms,rules, and identitiesamong states, whereas world society would rest on common norms, rules, and identitiesheld byindividuals across the system.In structuralterms, the modern politicalsystem of internationalsociety is anarchic,featuring the sovereigntyof states as the foundationof societal relations among them. The political structureof a potentialworld societyis ambiguous.It could be a hierarchy (worldgovernment); it could continueto be internationalanarchy; or it could be primal anarchyat the individuallevel-the stateless societyof classical anarchism-thateffectively eliminates the politicalsector. Although it has not been much discussed in relationto world society,the veryidea of a global societybased on individualspresupposes rather high levels of interaction capacity.Only on a denselynetworked and interactiveplanet-some versionof Marshall McLuhan's global village-could a shared identityand common normsdevelop at the individuallevel acrossthe system. As noted above, in some waysthese two levels of societyappear fundamen- tallyantagonistic. The cultivationof distinctnational identities and the explicit fragmentationof the global polityinto sovereign units appear at firstglance to be the antithesisof world society.Conversely, if the global citizenryshare a wide range of commonvalues, what is the point of organizingpolitically into separate states?But note how thissuperficially plausible antagonismdepends on the assumptionthat identitiesmust be mutuallyexclusive; that is, that people can hold onlyone identityat the expense of another.This is a rather nineteenth-centuryview of exclusivenationalisms. A postmodernview suggests thatpeople are quite capable of holdingseveral identities in parallel.One can, forexample, be English,British, European, and Westernall at the same time withoutthe same conflictthat would arise ifone triedto be, say,both English and Scottishor Englishand Frenchat the same time.Alongside this layered set one could also hold otherlarge-scale identities as a memberor supporterof variouspolitical, cultural, gender, professional, or religiousmovements. From this perspectiveit becomes possible to imaginethe developmentof a world society alongside national or civilizationalones without there being any necessaryerosion of one bythe other. A similaranalysis can be applied to internationallaw. Bull makes muchof thepotential conflict between international law and theinternational society of sovereignstates.45 He worriesabout the extensionof legal rightsto nonstate entities and individuals (human rights),fearing that such extensionswill underminesovereignty and thereforethe bases of internationalorder. His worrycould be justified,but it is not necessarilyso. Imagine a set of open, liberal states in which human rightsare firmlyembedded in each member's domestic constitution.All states are also committedto relativelyopen economic and culturalinteraction. Among such states, an internationallaw

45. See Bull, The AnarchicalSociety, chap. 6; and Bull, Justicein InternationalRelations, pp. 11-18. 340 InternationalOrganization

(i.e., a regime) of human rightswould do little more than codify and standardizeexisting practice. The case forantagonism between world society and internationalsociety is neitherautomatic nor firm.Opposed to it is a set of argumentssuggesting that if internationalsociety is to progress(or in Wight'sview even to come into being) beyond a rather basic level, then it can, and possibly must, be accompanied by world societydevelopments. The key link is in the level of makingforeign policy. In pluralistsocieties, mass opinion sets constraintson what kind of foreignpolicies can be promotedand sustained.In an international systemcharacterized by highinteraction capacity and complexinterde- pendence,policies of openness requirepublic supportacross a wide range of issues. Onlyif publics share certainvalues can such policiesbe sustained.Bull seems to lean in this direction,though apparentlywithout seeing the full significance,when he talksabout the need, at least amongelites, for a common culture,including language, art, epistemology, welfare values, and morals.46To the extentthat such a commonculture emerges among the masses as well, it shouldenormously reinforce the possibilityfor international society. There is thereforea plausible case that world society and international society can only develop hand-in-hand.An internationalsociety cannot develop past a fairlyprimitive level withoutbeing supportedby the developmentof elementsof "world" cultureat the mass level,and thisis trueon both the subsystemand global scales. Conversely,a world societycannot emerge unless it is supportedby a stable political framework,and the state system remainsthe onlycandidate for this. To pursue this argumentin more detail and to resume progresstoward answeringthe question of when an internationalsociety can be said to exist,it is helpfulto returnto the process of how an internationalsociety develops in a primitiveinternational system, this time thinkingit throughmore fullyin structuralrealist terms. This is not an attemptto representthe actual historyof how any giveninternational society developed. Instead, it triesto develop in abstractthe functionalline that internationalsocieties can evolve naturally fromthe logic of anarchy.One of its uses is to providea basis forrethinking some of the assumptionsabout internationalsociety that have come fromthe historicalapproach. It should also providea clearerway of thinkingabout the relationshipbetween internationalsociety and world society and lead us towardidentifying a boundary between international system and international society.

Systembefore society

The easiestway to constructan abstractdevelopmental model of international societyis to imagine an anarchic internationalsystem before any societal

46. Bull, TheAnarchical Society, pp. 315-17. The Englishschool 341 developmenttakes place: pure system,no society.For such a systemto exist,by definitionthere is significantinteraction among the units:they have become sufficientlynumerous and powerfulthat theiractivities regularly cross paths. Some peaceful interactionwill occur (trade, individualvisits, intermarriage), and these, along with conflictualcontact, will inevitablytransmit ideas and technologies.Trade automaticallycreates pressurefor codes of conductthat facilitatethe process of exchange and protectthose engaged in it. Without some assurances of security,trading activity would be severelyrestricted, or even extinguished,by piracy, theft, or excesstaxation. While levels of contactremain low (i.e., the systemhas a low interaction capacity),the internalconventions of societytoward strangers and the utilityof exotic trade may well keep interactionquite peaceful. But as interaction capacity increases, contact becomes more intense and the probabilityof conflictrises. Differentsocieties will findtheir boundaries rubbing up against each otherand willfall into dispute over territory, resources, and status.Some societieswill respondto the factthat there is a good livingto be made from piracyand aggressionand will specialize accordingly.Horse-mounted herds- men, for example, have sometimesfound that the tools and skills of their life-stylegive thema militaryadvantage over more sedentaryagriculturalists. Others will acquire imperial ambitions,finding internal legitimationfor expansionismin theirreligion, economy, culture, or simplyin theirsuperior power. Once thislevel of strategicinteraction is reached, all the unitswithin the systemcome underthe pressure of the securitydilemma and thebalance of power.Since the unitsshare no culture,do not formallyrecognize each other, and have no establishedconventions for diplomatic communication, it is easy forthe behaviorof each to take on a highlyself-centered and self-righteous characterin relationto the interestsof others. In individuals,an excess of inner-drivenover relationalbehavior is definedas autism.The international relationsof a systemwithout any societyare thus analogous to those of a madhouse:idiosyncratic, unpredictable, only weakly mediated by communicationand a sense ofraison de systeme,and easilymoved to violence. It is possibleto imaginea primitiveinternational system existing in thismode fora long timebut difficultto imagineit doingso withoutdeveloping at least a fewbasic elementsof internationalsociety. In such an underdevelopedsystem (or, as I have earliercalled it,"immature" anarchy47) the struggleof individual unitsto surviveautomatically leads to balance of power and the reproduction of the anarchicstructure of the system.48Casualty rates mightbe ratherhigh: some units would be obliterated(note the fates of Assyria,Carthage, the HittiteEmpire, the Incan Empire,and manyothers). The overallconfiguration of boundariesand membershipwould be unstable.In a naturalor free-for-all balance of powerof thistype, it is possible thatone unitmight gain controlof the system,temporarily transforming anarchy into a hierarchicalstructure,

47. Buzan, People,States, and Fear. 48. Waltz,Theory of International Politics. 342 InternationalOrganization untilinternal weakening and disintegrationallow the reemergenceof international anarchic relations (China, Persia, Rome). Such imperial episodes transmitelements of commonculture throughout the system,as the Hellenic and Roman empiresdid, and these elementscan play an importantrole in facilitatingthe developmentof international society when the systemreturns to anarchicstructure. Watsonpostulates a spectrumof possibilitiesfor systemic political structure, rangingfrom anarchy on one end, emphasizingthe independenceof units (e.g., classical Greece), to empireon the other,where the systemis controlledby a centralimperial authority (e.g., China and Rome). In betweenlie hegemony, suzerainty,and dominion,indicating increasing degrees of dominationover the systemby a major power.49The two ends of this scheme parallel Waltz's distinctionbetween anarchic and hierarchicalsystems, Wight's between a systemof statesand a suzerainstate system, Immanuel Wallerstein's between a "world economy" and a "world empire," and Michael Mann's between "multipoweractor civilizations"and "empires of domination."50Watson's innovationis to presenta spectrumrather than a dyadicchoice and to suggest thatthe ends representextreme and unstablepositions, with the middlerange beingthe more natural condition of internationalsystems. If we assume as a startingpoint a raw unsocializedanarchic system in which strategicinteraction among the unitsis in play,Waltz's "shovingand shaping" forcesof socializationand competitionwould be at work,pressuring units to adapt to thepractices of themost successful (and powerful)by punishing those that did not withweakness, insecurity, and possible loss of independence.51 This kind of intenseand regularinteraction necessitates the developmentof some conventionsfor communication and negotiationamong the units,which in turncreates pressurefor some formof recognition.Even if all of the units remainfundamentally at war,seeking to expand theirinfluence and territorial controlwhenever opportunity allows, there will stillbe periodsof truce,there will stillbe incentivesto trade,and therewill at timesbe the need or desireto formalliances againstother rivals or to negotiatecease-fires. The elementof commonhumanity would also sometimescreate pointsof contactover issues such as obligationsto the dead. Where long-termrivalry results in standoff,as betweenRome and Parthiaor classicalGreece and Persia,the durabilityof the factson the groundcreates incentivesfor the partiesto recognizeat least the realityof each other'sexistence. Unless one unitis able to dominatethe system,the pressuresof lifein the anarchyvirtually force the eventual developmentof at least a few basic

49. Watson,The Evolution of International Society, pp. 13-18. 50. See Waltz, Theoryof InternationalPolitics, pp. 114-16; Wight,Systems of States,chap. 1; ImmanuelWallerstein, "The Rise and FutureDemise of the World CapitalistSystem," Compara- tiveStudies in Societyand History,vol. 16, no. 4, 1974,especially p. 390; and Mann, The Sourcesof Social Power,chaps. 4 and 5. 51. Waltz,Theory of International Politics, chaps. 5 and 6. The Englishschool 343 elementsof internationalsociety. This would be trueeven if each of the units containedits own languageand culturegroup, with little or no commonculture amongthem, though it is easier if priorimperial or hegemonicepisodes have spread some elementsof commonculture. A versionof this situationarose duringEurope's encounterwith Asia duringthe nineteenthcentury, when Europeans used the idea of a "standardof civilization"in decidingwhether to treatAsian statesas legal equals or as subordinates.Reflecting on thisproblem at the time,the internationallawyer John Westlake argued that any country "withan old and stable orderof its own,with organised force at the back of it, and complex enough for the leading minds of that countryto be able to appreciate the necessities of an order differentfrom theirs ... must be recognisedas beingcivilised, though with other civilisation than ours."52 Here we findBull's functionallydriven logic of order that was sketched above. Units thathave no choice but to interactwith each otheron a regular, long-termbasis, and thatbegin to accept each otheras essentiallysimilar types of sociopolitical organization,will be hard put to avoid creating some mechanismsfor dealing with each otherpeacefully. They will need to be able to exchange emissaries or ambassadors. They will need to be able to make agreementsfor truce, alliance, or divisionof property.They will need, in other words,to be able to create some level of order in theirrelations in termsof Bull's threecore values of security,contract, and propertyrights. To do these thingsthey will perforce have to giveat least de factorecognition to each other as unitsand to develop some arrangementsfor diplomacy and makingtreaties. All of this will be true even if peace in the systemis merelyan interlude between renewed rounds of fighting,for in a systemwith even moderately developed levels of interactioncapacity (sufficient,say, for sustained force projectionor trade over distancesof a fewhundred kilometers), the costs and inconveniencesof not having such mechanismswould be intolerable. In Waltzianterms, those unitsthat failed to adopt such mechanismsonce others had done so wouldweaken themselvessufficiently to riskelimination from the system.

The boundarybetween international system and internationalsociety: mutual recognition ofsovereign equality

In thismodel of immature international anarchy, a preexistingcommon culture does notprovide the basis fora gemeinschaftinternational society. But through theinteractive operation of trade, war and thebalance ofpower, the transfer of technologies(both mechanical and social), intermarriage,travel, and the homogenizingeffects of periods of hegemony,suzerainty, dominion, or

52. Cited in Gong, The Standardof "Civilisation," p. 59. 344 InternationalOrganization imperialrule, unitswill tend to become more similarto each other.This is Waltz's logic of anarchygenerating "like units.""3The process neverreaches total homogeneity,but it can quite early reach sufficientlevels to facilitate communicationand some level of diplomatic exchange and recognition. Findinghimself in the gripof thisfunctional logic, Watson concedes that"no internationalsystem as definedby Bull has operatedwithout some regulatory rules and institutions,"even thoughthese are not sufficientlydeveloped to constitutean internationalsociety.54 In otherwords, elements of international societyexist even in a primitiveinternational system. At some point, the logic of contact and the desire for a degree of internationalorder will resultin the formationof an internationalsociety, but whatis thatpoint? By Watson's logic,the boundarybetween a systemwithout and one withinternational society cannot be definedby the mere presenceor absence of rules and institutionsamong states.Bull's definitionis not precise enough to avoid creatinga large grayzone in whichsome norms,rules, and institutionsexist, but not enoughto justifycalling it an internationalsociety. Watson evades the issue by suggestingan intermediatelevel of regulated systembetween mere interactionand shared culture.55In takingthis route he demonstratesthe difficulty discussed above of reconcilingthe gemeinschaft and gesellschaftunderstandings of society. Given his Wightianpredispositions toward a prior shared culture, he is clearly reluctantto accept that the unfoldingof gesellschaftfunctional logic will produce a societyand a sense of communitysufficient to stand comparisonwith the gemeinschaftunderstand- ingof society.It mayproduce common interests, norms, rules, and evenvalues and institutions,but these do not add up to a societyin Wight'sgemeinschaft sense. The gap between the functionaldevelopment of gesellschaftand the historicalevolution of gemeinschaftpoints to the intermediatezone, or gray area, as an alternativeto a distinctboundary separating international system frominternational society. But thisgray zone in whichWatson seeks refuge does notsolve the problem. It merelycreates two boundary problems instead of one (systemto grayzone and grayzone to society)and lends supportto critics such as Jones, Mann, and Wallersteinwho dismiss society as analytically useless because of itsoperational imprecision. The need fora firmboundary between system and societyis underscoredby thekinds of questionsthat arise in anyattempt to tracethe historicalevolution of internationalsociety. Since the logicof anarchyworks more powerfully over shorterdistances than longer ones (especiallywhen interaction capacity is low), internationalsocieties, like internationalsystems, will emerge initiallywithin regional subsystemsand only later develop at the level of the international systemas a whole. This region-firstlogic is true for both gemeinschaftand

53. Waltz,Theory of Intemational Politics. 54. Watson,"Hedley Bull,State Systems,and InternationalStudies," pp. 151-52. 55. Watson,"Systems of States,"pp. 100-102. The Englishschool 345

gesellschaftsocieties. It has threeimplications for the boundaryissue. First,it means thatinternational society will, to beginwith, be unevenlydistributed in the internationalsystem, with some regions(perhaps onlyone) havingit and othersnot. There is thereforea need to establishboundaries not onlybetween systemand societyper se (i.e., whetheror not anyinternational society exists) but also betweensocietal subsystems existing within larger nonsocietal internationalsystems (i.e., wheretwo or moreinternational societies exist contempo- raneously).Second, it opens the possibilitythat some of Wight'scivilizational, gemeinschaftinternational societies will face the challengeof expandinginto regionsalien to theirfounding culture. If thishappens, as it did in the cases of classical Greece and modern Europe, it brings the functionallogic of developinginternational society into direct contactwith the historicalone. How do expandinggemeinschaft international societies incorporate members that do not share theirculture, and what happens when one international societychallenges another? Third, this pattern of unevendevelopment means that even when some measure of internationalsociety takes effectover the whole internationalsystem, some partof the systemwill have moredeveloped (or at least more elaborate) internationalsocieties than others. As in economics,uneven developmentis the rule. The consequence once international societybegins to operate throughoutthe system(or perhaps,to start earlier,once a global internationalsystem exists within which there is at least one societalsubsystem) is thatlayers of concentricsocietal circles will develop. States in the core circlewill have more sharedvalues, and muchfuller sets of rules and institutions,than those in the outer circles. The existence of internationalsociety is not simplya yes or no issue. Withinyes, a spectrumof bothlevels of developmentand degreesof participationis possible. Given thatthe gap betweengesellschaft and gemeinschaftdoes pose a real problemin generatinga consensusunderstanding of "society"in its interna- tionalapplication, how is a distinctboundary between international system and internationalsociety to be demarcated?A solutioncan be foundin the idea of sharedidentity, which was notedabove as a necessaryingredient in the concept of society.If clear-cutcriteria for shared identitycan be established,then the need fora grayzone disappears,and the path to a distinctboundary is clear. In orderto workin thefunctional model, this shared identity needs to be rootedat least initiallyin thebehavioral criteria of gesellschaft rather than in thecultural ones of gemeinschaft.By these criteria the definingboundary between internationalsystem and societyis whenunits not onlyrecognize each otheras beingthe same typeof entitybut also are preparedto accord each otherequal legal statuson thatbasis. Mutual recognitionand legal equalitysignify not only a turningpoint in thedevelopment of rulesand institutionsbut also acceptance of a sharedidentity in whichstates accept each otheras beingthe same typeof entity.This act denies the possibilityof suzerain, dominion,and imperial relations(though not hegemonicones) and sets the minimumconditions for societalrelations among culturally diverse units. As Wightputs it, "It would be 346 InternationalOrganization impossibleto have a societyof sovereignstates unless each statewhile claiming sovereigntyfor itself, recognised that every other state had the rightto claim and enjoyits own sovereigntyas well."56 Historically,this transitionoccurred in Europe with the emergence of sovereigntyas the basic principle of interstaterelations.57 The claim of exclusiveright to self-governmentprovided a clear basis for legal equality despite differencesin power among the units. It raised territoryto political primacyand imposedon statesan obligationof noninterventionin each other's internalaffairs that was, and stillis, veryclear in principlethough extremely difficultand complex in practice.58To get the flavorof this difficulty,try answeringno to the philosophicalquestion: Is all interactionintervention? By acceptingeach otheras sovereignequals, statesform the sense of community amonglike unitsthat is the essentialingredient of any society.Note also how this definitionconfirms the centralityof internationallaw to international society.In its most basic and essential form,international society is a legal construction.From this point of view, the emphasis that Waltz puts on the powerfultendency of socializationand competitionunder anarchy to forcethe developmentof like unitstakes on a new significance,for it identifiesthe logic by whichthe naturaldynamics of anarchicinternational relations creates the conditionsfor a basic gesellschaftinternational society to develop. The formationand operationof such an internationalsociety marks several changes froma presocietal internationalsystem, though much remains the same. Balance ofpower and war carryover much as before,since both are main featuresof an anarchicinternational system. As can be seen in the historyof Europe duringthe eighteenthcentury, states still need to seek securityby adjustingto shiftsin the distributionof powerand status.59That is whywar and alliance remain legitimateinstruments of policy. But the possibilitiesfor formalizingand extendingdiplomacy and internationallaw are muchimproved by the institutionof sovereignequality. Diplomatic representationbecomes more secure and more continuous,and as Bull notes, internationallaw can move away fromnatural law into the widerrealms of positivelaw.60 With the foundationof legal equality,much scope opens forthe development of law as a way of orderingrelations among sovereignstates, though it can onlydevelop whereconsensus allows. As previously,great powers remain the mostinfluen- tial actors but now have the additional responsibilityof maintainingthe frameworkof orderrepresented by international society.61

56. Wight,Systems of States, p. 135. 57. Bull, TheAnarchicalSociety, pp. 33-38. 58. Mayall,Nationalism and InternationalSociety, pp. 18-21. 59. Holsti,Peace and War,chap. 5. 60. Bull, TheAnarchicalSociety, pp. 33-38. 61. Bull, TheAnarchicalSociety, chap. 9, especiallypp. 200-205. The Englishschool 347

The status of sovereign equality gives even less powerfulunits some protectionagainst elimination. The formalmutual recognitions required under sovereignequality serve to institutionalizethe externalstatus of sovereignty. Withoutan internationalsociety, units can onlyassert their claim to autonomy and establishit by sustainedand successfuldefense against challengers. With an internationalsociety, units can have theirclaims validated by the recognition of others. This validation gives them standingas sovereignmembers of a communityand reinforces,though as the Poles knowby no means guarantees, theirright to existas an independententity. The rightto existadds importantly to the securityof units by definingthe boundaries of legitimacyand order within which they function.In contemporaryinternational society, legal equality has been the basis for the delegitimizationof many threats of intervention,annexation, secession, and coercionthat were earlierseen as part of the natural behavior of states in an anarchic system.62In extremis,as demonstratedin recenttimes by cases such as Cambodia, Chad, Lebanon, and Somalia, externalsovereignty can even keep in existencestates whose internal sovereigntyis extremelyweak. External recognitionof secessions,as in the cases of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, seals the internaldemise of larger units. At themost basic level,the development of international society can proceed withno parallel evolutionof world society. At most,some minimalelements of commonculture among ruling elites is required,but in monarchical,autocratic, or authoritarianstates this can be constructedwithout reference to the masses. Ruling elites may favor the arrangementsof internationalsociety simply because theyfacilitate the maintenanceof the elites' rule.Among other things, some alleviationof externalpressure frees resources for the consolidationof domesticcontrol. International society favors states first, and thereis nothing necessarilybenign about the firstemergence of internationalsociety as far as the mass of the populationis concerned. One major change that comes with the advent of even a rather basic internationalsociety is thatpolitical order and the balance of power become explicitforeign policy goals formany (not necessarilyall) states.In his analysis of early-modernEurope, K. J.Holsti, for example, puts muchemphasis on the developmentof antihegemonicgoals as a drivingforce in the negotiationsthat producedmajor war-termination agreements at Westphalia(1648) and Vienna (1814-15).63 Most of the major powers were activelyconcerned to take measures that would prevent any one state, or any one dynasty,from dominatingEurope. This goal reflecteda passionate concernto protectthe systemof independentsovereign states: Watson's raisonde systeme.Interna-

62. Alan James, "The Equality of States: ContemporaryManifestations of an Ancient Doctrine,"Review of International Studies 18 (October 1992), pp. 377-92. 63. Holsti,Peace and War,chaps. 2 and 6. 348 InternationalOrganization

tional orderwas based on the legitimationof anarchyas definedby internationalsociety. Once thebalance of poweris recognizedas a possiblebasis fororder, rather than being, like the securitydilemma, simply an automaticconsequence or mechanismof the anarchicsystem, then the great powers can, if theyagree, consciouslymanage theirrelations to preservea balance.54In the nineteenth centurythis was done by agreementsover allocationof territoryand colonies. During the cold war it was achieved by superpoweragreements on levels of nucleararmament. In thisway the principleof balance can become a means of reducingconflict among the great powers and of moderatingthe security dilemma among them.It also gives great powers some security(again not a guarantee) against eliminationfrom the system.A developmentalong these lines may, as is well-established,increase threatsto minor powers or units outside the society that can find themselvesbeing used as resources for adjustmentsby the greatpowers. But the shiftto consciousnessabout order and the balance of power does create another significantdifference between internationalsystems with societiesand those without.In those without,the operationof the balance of powerworks automatically to reproducethe systemstructure. As unitsstruggle to preservetheir independence, they work to preservethe anarchicstructure of the system.As longas at least twoof themare successful,anarchy endures. But in systemswith an internationalsociety, the process of reproductionbecomes consciousand intentional,even ifthere is no specificawareness of or desirefor anarchicstructure as such.65Mutual recognitionas sovereignequals bystates is an affirmationof anarchicstructure. It givessystemwide legitimacy to the idea thatpolitical fragmentation defines international order, and overtime, it allows the workingof internationallaw and diplomacyto consolidateand institution- alize that idea. Conscious pursuitof the balance of power as an ordering principleof greatpower relations has the same effect.It reinforcesthe rightof greatpowers to existand institutionalizesan oligopolisticview of international order.

Conclusions

On thebasis of thedefinitions and clarificationsworked out above,it is possible to constructa relativelyclear image of exactlywhat is meantby international societyin the contemporaryinternational system. Present day international societyis a hybrid.In partit stemsfrom the gemeinschaftinternational society that developed in modernEurope and imposed itselfon most of the planet

64. RichardLittle, "Deconstructing the Balance of Power:Two Traditionsof Thought,"Review ofInternational Studies 15 (April 1989), pp. 87-100. 65. Buzan, Jones,and Little,The Logic ofAnarchy, chap. 9. The Englishschool 349 duringits imperial heyday, and in partit reflectsa gesellschaftprocess by which differentcultures embedded in a systemwith high levels of interactionhave learned to come to termswith each other.We have certainlycome a longway from the period in which internationalsociety was largely a globalized expressionof the European gemeinschaft,from which most non-European culturesand peoples were excluded by theircolonial or unequal status.The bottomline of thisinternational society is the mutualrecognition by nearlyall statesof each otheras legallyequal sovereignentities. By thatcriterion only a tinynumber of statesare now outsideinternational society. This trulyglobal internationalsociety is bydefinition a postcolonialphenom- enon. As one would expect fromits partlygemeinschaft origins, it has a European (now Western) core that is much more highlydeveloped than the rest of it in termsof havinga highernumber, variety, and intensityof rules, norms,and institutionsbinding its membersin a networkof regimes.And as one would expectfrom its partly gesellschaft origins, it is globallymulticultural in characterand significantlydifferentiated in termsof the degree of commit- mentwith which states adhere to it. The overall cohesion of this societyhas been substantiallyincreased by the demise of the Soviet Union, whichuntil 1990 led a challenge to the West in almost all areas of norms,rules, and institutionsexcept those concerning state sovereignty and nuclearweapons. The endingof the cold war removedthe obscuringdistraction of superpower rivalry,leaving a clearerpicture of a postcolonialglobal internationalsociety constructedin termsof concentriccircles of commitment.A small numberof pariah states are partiallyexcluded by the refusalof manyothers to accord themdiplomatic recognition. A fewstates such as NorthKorea and Myanmar (Burma) place themselveson the outer fringesof internationalsociety by acceptinglittle more than the basics of diplomaticrecognition and exchange.In the middle circlesone findsstates such as Argentina,China, and India that seek to preservehigh levels of independenceand select quite carefullywhat norms,rules, and institutionsthey accept and whatthey reject. In the core one findsthe maingenerator of and supportfor the global networkof regimes.One also findsa dense networkof overlappingregimes into which states voluntarily bind themselvesin pursuitof increasedsecurity, economic efficiency, environ- mentalmanagement, societal openness,and a range of otherobjectives. The European Communityhas progressedso fardown this road thatthe densityof itsinternational society is beginningto assume statelikequalities, bringing into questionthe continuedexistence of an anarchicinternational system among its members. The Persian Gulf War in 1991 illustratesparticularly clearly how the concentriccircles of international society operated and identifiedthemselves in relationto one violentand fundamentalchallenge to the existenceof one ifits accepted members.In the center circle stood the United States, whichwas willingto lead only if followedand to fightonly if givenwide supportand assistance.In the second circlewere othersprepared to fight,including some 350 InternationalOrganization membersof the Western core (principallyBritain and France) and others usuallyfurther from the ring'scenter but with immediate interests in theregion (principallyEgypt and Saudi Arabia). In thethird circle were thoseprepared to paybut not to fight,primarily core memberssuch as Japanand Germany.In the fourthcircle were those preparedto support,but not fightor pay. This group was large and contained those prepared to vote and speak in favorof the action,some of whomalso sentsymbolic military forces (such as Denmark). It included the Soviet Union and China as well as a mixtureof states usually residentin core and middlingcircles. The fifthcircle containedthose states satisfiedto be neutral, neither supportingnor opposing the venture but preparedto accept United Nations SecurityCouncil resolutionsas legitimate. Withinthese fivecircles stood the greatmajority of the internationalcommu- nityand all of the major powers. In the sixthcircle were those prepared to oppose, mainly verbally and by voting (i.e., still within the rules). This containedCuba, Jordan,Yemen, and a fewother Arab states.In the seventh circle stood those prepared to resist: Iraq. This case is only one (rather extreme)instance. It does not show,though it suggests,the normalconfigura- tion and membershipof the circles of internationalsociety. What it does illustrateis the factand the significanceof the concentric-circlesstructure of internationalsociety itself. If internationalsociety is understoodin theseterms, it is clearlymore than a regime.It mightbe seen as a regimeof regimes,adding a usefulelement of holismto the excessivelyatomized world of regimetheory. But it is also the legal and politicalfoundation on whichthe whole idea of regimesrests. There has to be some sense of communitybefore even a norm of reciprocitycan emerge, and it is to this that the internationalsociety traditiondraws attention.66As Hurrellargues, purely rationalist (and positivist)conceptions of regimeleave out the elementof communitythat is expressedin the international law that fundamentallyconstitutes the systemof sovereign states. Internationallaw defines what states are, and they cannot thereforebe independentof it. This backdropof internationallaw, and the communityof mutualrecognition of sovereigntyon whichit rests,is not merelya regimebut somethingmuch more basic: the politicalfoundation that is necessarybefore regimescan come intoplay.67 The combiningof regime theoryand internationalsociety opens up a fascinatingresearch agenda about how a global internationalsociety develops. Is the European Communitya model forwhere advanced international society leads (i.e., to integration),or should it be disqualifiedas a model for the internationalsystem as a whole on the groundsthat its own developmentis too much influencedby the pressure to become a larger (and thereforemore powerful)unit in a surroundinginternational system? Can one identifylevels of

66. Hurrell,"International Law and theStudy of InternationalRegimes." 67. Ibid. The Englishschool 351 developmentof international society and specifythem in termsof a spectrumof regimesin the economic,political, and militarysectors, stopping short of full politicalintegration? Can one specifythe details and the membershipof the differentcircles of internationalsociety by examiningstates' patterns of adherenceto rulesand norms,membership in institutions,and participationin regimes?Can one identifywhat conditionsthe developmentof international societyand whatmight cause it to go into decline? There is no guaranteethat internationalsociety is a one-wayprocess, and as the collapse of the world trade and financialregimes during the interwaryears suggests,unraveling is almostcertain to be a painfuland probablyviolent business. The questionof how internationalsociety develops requiresa clear view of how internationaland worldsociety relate to each other.It was argued above thatelements of world society are a preconditionfor international society if the latteris conceivedof in gemeinschaftterms but are not necessaryto the initial stages of a gesellschaftinternational society. This does not lead to the conclusionthat world societyis eitherirrelevant or opposed to the idea of a gesellschaftglobal internationalsociety. Indeed, when one thinksthrough the higherlevels of possible developmentof internationalsociety, involving dense networksof regimes,it becomes apparentthat such regimesmake the states and societieswithin them progressively more open to each othereconomically, politically,militarily, and societally.Pluralist, democratic states are thosemost attractedto highlevels of international society, and in such statesopenness can onlybe sustainedif societies themselves have convergedto a significantdegree. As internationalsociety develops, substantial elements of world society become increasinglynecessary to the stabilityand furtheranceof thatdevelopment, a truthrecently discovered by the governmentsof the European Communityin theircrisis over Maastricht.68 Indeed, at higherlevels of development,international society and world society,far frombeing contradictoryideas, become symbiotic.International societyprovides the political frameworkwithout which world societywould face all the dangersof primalanarchy. In return,world societyprovides the gemeinschaftfoundation without which international society remains stuck at a fairlybasic level. This interrelationshiptells us much about how and whythe contemporaryglobal internationalsociety is organizedinto concentriccircles. Because humankindis so deeply differentiatedculturally, it also tells us how difficultit will be-perhaps impossiblefor the foreseeable future-ever to create a uniformglobal internationalsociety. Extendingfrom this line of thoughton internationalsociety are questions about how the differentrings of itsconcentric circles do (and should) relateto each other. Here lies the problematicagenda of intervention.International societysets the rulesfor what is and whatis not legitimateintervention. These rulescan be difficultto fathomeven close to thecore of internationalsociety, as

68. Wweveret al., Identity,Migration, and theNew SecurityAgenda in Europe,especially chap. 4. 352 InternationalOrganization the case of the formerYugoslavia demonstrates.The question of how, or if, theyoperate across the ringsis even moredifficult. Do core membershave the rightto intervenein outer-circlestates over issues on whichthose states do not accept the norms or adhere to the regimes? In concrete terms,does the internationalcommunity have the rightto preventa state outside the nuclear nonproliferationregime (e.g., Pakistan) from acquiring nuclear weapons? Does it have the rightor responsibilityto attacka memberdiscovered cheating (e.g., Iraq or possiblyNorth Korea)? One cannot answer these questions adequatelyfrom within the perspective of the specificregime. A clearerview of what is and what is not legitimateand/or necessary intervention can onlybe developed on the basis of a fullerunderstanding of internationalsociety as a whole. Much of this researchagenda becomes available because of the joiningof Englishschool thinkingto structuralrealist theory. That linkmakes possible a gesellschaftconception of internationalsociety that fitsneatly into structural realistideas about the shapingeffect of systemicpressure on units."Like units" become a critical input into definingthe boundarybetween international systemswith and withoutinternational societies, and internationalsocieties become, like the balance of power, a natural product of the shovingand shapingforces of anarchy.This synthesisstrengthens both bodies of thought. The link rescues the English school from the stagnationof its historical cul-de-sacby giving the conceptof internationalsociety a muchfirmer claim to theoreticalstatus. For structuralrealism it opens usefulconnective channels to both historyand liberal theorythat are compatiblewith existingstructural realistanalysis. This fittingtogether of the Englishschool, structuralrealism, and regimetheory would appear to containno substantialdrawbacks and to offermany advantages in constructinga coherenttheoretical foundation for a wide-rangingand policy-relevantresearch agenda.