Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School Author(S): Barry Buzan Source: International Organization, Vol
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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 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Organization. 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 bound- ary 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