Abstract
International Relations (IR) is an Anglo-American discipline. It was founded in 1919 at Aberystwyth University. Immediately after the Second World War it found a particularly fertile ground for its development in the United States. Even if the discipline remained marked by its Anglo-American origins, a sociological school of international relations emerged in France in the 1960s, with two main authors Raymond Aron and Marcel Merle. This French sociology of international relations already dated back to the eighteenth century with Montesquieu and Tocqueville. In the context of the First and Second World Wars, Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, produced an embryonic sociology of international relations. After the Second World War, Aron’s sociology of international relations marked a break with the French school. His sociology was influenced by Max Weber and Carl von Clausewitz. He produced a comprehensive and historical tradition of international relations sociology and his analyses had a strong influence in IR specialists during the entire period of the Cold War. Today, his thought continues to exert influence on French and foreign internationalists as an essential reference point of the discipline. Marcel Merle, for his part, influenced by the work of Durkheim and Mauss, created an explanatory, positive school studying transnational relations which exerted influence on French and foreign internationalists as well. This contribution offers an historical overview of the development of this French tradition of sociology of international relations from the eighteenth century to the present time.
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Notes
On the subject of the origins of sociology, Emile Durkheim writes: “Determining the part that France has played in the development of sociology during the nineteenth Century means making, mostly, the history of this science; because it is at us and in this century that it was born and it remains for the most part a French science” (Durkheim 1970a: 111).
We deal exclusively with French authors. The exercise of the tradition, school of thought, ideas and authors overview is always delicate. It cannot contain authors and thoughts in rigid categories. It does not claim to be exhaustive and to present in details complex thinking. Therefore, it is necessary to excuse sometimes the summary nature of this presentation.
These are of two kinds: the first is external and concerns the menace of warlike aristocratic regimes on peaceful democratic regimes. The second is internal. It is about the individualism and democratic materialism which can have a negative effect on the constitution of military elites. These dangers are the origin of a paradox peculiar to democratic regimes: of all armies, it is those in democracies which are the most inclined to make war, when of all peoples, it is democratic peoples, because of the equalization of conditions, who are the most pacific. This paradox is explained by two reasons. First of all, by the fact that democratic regimes must continually seek to renew the spirit of citizenship in restoring the unity of the group against an enemy and the need to struggle against individualism and materialism withdrawal. Then, by the fact that democratic regimes and their military elites must avoid long periods of peace which make them vulnerable.
This affirmation of Tocqueville as to the rarity of war (foreign and civil) is inscribed in the tradition of the liberal theory of democratic peace, his constructivist version and also more generally the thesis on the obsolescence of war (see on democratic peace, Doyle 1983, 1986, 2011; Russett 1993; Russett and Oneal 2001; Weart 1998; see on the constructivist view of democratic peace, Risse-Kappen 1995a, b; Kahl 1998-1999; Lindemann 2004; see on the thesis of the obsolescence of major wars, Mueller 1989).
The objective is to produce a science of society’s organization (the social static which studies property, the family, language and the division of work) and the stages of historic progress (the social dynamic, the law of three states which focuses on the scientific spirit and its progress from the theological or military age, to the age of metaphysical abstractions, a transitory stage, finishing in the positive age, that of the industrial society where, as with Saint Simon, industrialists have replaced the military elites and scientists have taken the place of priests).
Durkheim succeeded at the ‘Aggregation’ of philosophy in 1882. In 1887, he is given the Chair of education and social science at the Faculté de Lettres in Bordeaux. In 1906, he is given the Chair of the science of education at the Sorbonne which in 1913 will become the Chair of the science of education and sociology.
Even if Durkheim regrets that Friedrich Ratzel’s method and object of Anthropological-geography is too ill-defined, he considers that: “these books are not only rich with interesting and ingenious insights, but he [Ratzel] has the great merit of taking geography out of isolation where it languished, to bring it closer to sociology, to make of it a truly social science, and he opened the way for what promised to be fruitful studiesˮ (Durkheim 1900).
His Latin thesis which is complementary to his principal thesis on La division du travail social, is related to La contribution de Montesquieu à la constitution de la science sociale.
Laurent Mucchielli also presents the role that Celestin Bouglé played in importing to France the thinking of George Simmel and that of Maurice Halbwachs in the reception of Max Weber’s work in France (Mucchielli 1993: 9–15). Therefore, the idea according to which Raymond Aron was the origin of the introduction of German sociology to France, mainly with his work La sociologie allemande contemporaine, and that a radical opposition between the French durkheimian school of sociology and the German weberian school would be an “historiographical mythˮ, because Durkheim had no knowledge of the works of Weber and the durheimians were not recalcitrant to Germans sociologies (Mucchielli 1993: 15–17).
Kenneth Waltz uses this lecture of Durkheim in his theory of international relations. Structural realism originates with the principle that the permanence of the international system’s structural anarchy is the consequence of the unforgiving character of solidarity between States (Waltz 1979). Other authors, however, take the other foot and consider that on the contrary a process of integration supported by universal moral principles has permitted the emergence of an organic solidarity in international relations reducing the risk of anomy and manifestations of abnormality of the international system (Larkins 1994; Barkdull 1995; Badie 2002; for a synthesis of how Durkheim’s thought is used in Waltz’s, Larkins’ and Wendt’s works see especially Ramel 2004a:497, b: 739).
Sociology can be divided into two areas of study: that of social morphologies that is the study of groups of human beings from a demographic, anthropological-geographic or geographic point of view (initiated by Friedrich Ratzel and which Durkheim found particularly interesting), and that of a social physiology concerned with structures in movement, and the function of these structures (Mauss 1969: 205). The first studies the group which forms society (to take the terminology of Comte, the static social). The second studies the representations and movements of this group (with Comte the dynamic social).
Marcel Mauss initially intended to publish a major work on the Nation. This project remained incomplete. He presented a communication on the same theme at the Philosophy Congress in Oxford in 1920 entitled “the Problem of Nationality”. The publication entitled The Nation correspond with the fragments published in 1956 by Henri Lévy-Bruhl in the review L’Année Sociologique (Fournier 2004: 207).
As a committed militant socialist he is close to Jean Jaurès. He is a founding figure in the newspaper L’Humanité. Similar to Durkheim he takes a stance in the Dreyfus Affair.
The work of Raymond Aron is particularly dense and atypical. It covers nearly the whole of the twentieth century. It comprises philosophy (1938a; 1938b; 1961; 1964; 1965a; 1965b), sociology (1935; 1963a; 1966; 1967a; 1971), International Relations (1962; 1973; 1984b), strategy (1948; 1951; 1959b; 1963b; 1976), political science (1955a; 1955b; 1957; 1958; 1959a; 1968; 1972; 1977). As a journalist, his articles on war have been published in three volumes: De l’armistice à l’insurrection nationale (1944), L’Age des empires et l’avenir de la France (1945), L’Homme contre les tyrans (1946). These three volumes have been united in one work: Chroniques de guerre. “La France Libre”, 1940–45, published in 1990 (Aron 1990a). The articles written for the Figaro (1947–77) have been united into three volumes by Georges-Henri Soutou: tome 1: la guerre froide: 1947–1955, tome 2: la coexistence 1955–65, tome 3: Les crises 1965–77 (Aron 1990b; 1994; 1997). His editorials for L’Express have been all put into one work: De Giscard à Mitterrand: 1977–1983, prefaced by Jean-Claude Casanova (Aron 2005a). He started to write mainly for the newspaper La France libre, when he was engaged in the Free French Forces in London, then for Combat, Le Figaro and L’Express. Once he had returned to France after the war, in 1944, he was offered the Chair of sociology at the University of Bordeaux. He refused this to devote his time to journalism. After, he taught at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), then at the Political Studies Institute (IEP) of Paris. He became a Professor at the Faculty of Lettres et sciences humaines at Paris University then later Directeur d’Etudes at the Ecole pratique des hautes études and then, last of all, Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of “Sociology of Modern Civilizationˮ until 1978. He founded a review Les temps modernes (with Sartre) in 1945, then the review Commentaire in 1978 with Jean-Claude Cassanova.
The sociology of Max Weber is a sociology of conflict and domination. Some of his writings on the types of power and the configurations of domination date to before the First World War. They bear witness to the interest that Weber has for the questions which are of central importance in his study of the modern world and which are sociological, historical and comparative (Weber 2015; see also the article by Hubert Treiber on the sociology of domination in the recent works on Max Weber, Treiber 2005).
On the different critics addressed to Raymond Aron, see especially the reminder that Jean-Vincent Holeindre gives at the debate organized by the review Annales following the publication of Paix et guerres entre les nations (Braudel et al. 1963). We also find there the response that Raymond Aron makes to his critics. See also Marcel Merle’s text, written after the death of Raymond Aron, which go over the same differences and similarities of their respective sociologies of international relations (Merle 1984). See also the text written by Bertrand Badie who questions the specificities and limits of the theory of international relations proposed by Raymond Aron (Badie 2005b). See finally the elements formulated by Dario Battistella concerning the critics of Marcel Merle and Bertrand Badie (Battistella 2013: 164–173; Battistella 2012a). For the criticism of Ben Kerkvliet and Oran young see Kerkvliet 1968 and Young 1969.
Initially it is a question of Institute Raymond Aron, where his archives are located and which was created in 1984 by François Furet who was then Director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
Jean Baechler was Professor of historical sociology in Paris IV – Sorbonne from 1988 to 2006. He was a member of the European Centre for Historical Sociology of Raymond Aron (1969–1984). He submitted his thesis for a Doctorate in 1975, entitled Les suicides, under the direction of Raymond Aron. He is an honorary member of the Groupe d’Etudes des Méthodes de l’Analyse Sociologique de la Sorbonne (GEMASS), founded by Raymond Boudon. He is a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (Institute of France). His work is particularly profound and rich, mainly about ideology (Baechler 1976), power (Baechler 1978), capitalism (Baechler 1971, 1995), democracy (Baechler 1985a, 1994), international relations (Baechler 1993, 1996), and war (Baechler 2016; Baechler and Holeindre 2014). Lastly, Jean Baechler produced a major anthropological work which tried to include all dimensions of humanity (see Baechler 2000; 2002; 2005; 2006; 2008; 2009a; b; 2010; 2011a; 2013; 2014).
Like Jean Baechler, Julien Freund, also completed a Doctorate with Raymond Aron. Their paths have points in common. Both were engaged in the resistance during the Second World War. At the end of the war Freund became a teacher. He later obtained a doctorate in philosophy. He became Director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) between 1960 and 1965. In 1965 he defended a thesis at the Sorbonne on the essence of politics. He is named Professor of sociology at the University of Strasbourg where he contributed to the development of the Faculty of Social Science and where he founded several centers for research notably the Institut of Polemology.
Jean-Pierre Derriennic defended his thesis for a Doctorate in Political Science, entitled Esquisse de problèmatique pour une sociologie des relations internationales in 1978 under the direction of Raymond Aron. Agrégé of Philosophy, he was researcher at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (FNSP) then Director of Research at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI) and Professor at the Political Studies Institute (IEP) of Paris, he is today Professor at the University of Laval in Canada.
Graduate from the Ecole libre des sciences politiques and agrégé in Public Law, Marcel Merle was director of the Political Studies Institute (IEP) of Bordeaux, he also taught as Professor at Paris 1 University and at the Political Studies Institute (IEP) of Paris (as underlined by Lyons, Marcel Merle was a colleague of the theorist of "Third World strategies", Edmond Jouve, see Lyons 1982; Jouve 1979). The subject of his thesis for his Doctorate, Le process de Nuremberg et le châtiment des criminels de guerre (1949), shows his interest in international questions. Together with Raymond Aron, Marcel Merle, has given to the sociology of international relations a place in the French academic domaine. Among his works, the most importants are La vie internationale (1963), Pacifisme et internationalisme XVII e et XX e siècles (1966), Sociologie des relations internationales (1974), Force et enjeux dans les relations internationales (1981), La politique étrangère (1984), with Christine de Montclos, L’Eglise catholique et les relations internationales (1988), Les acteurs dans les relations internationales (1986). La crise du Golfe et le nouvel ordre international (1991) and Bilan des relations internationales contemporaines (1995).
The classical approaches: philosophy, inspired by Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli, judiciary, inspired by Jean Bodin as represented by Georges Scelle, and diplomatic history, see works of Pierre Renouvin and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle.
This idea of Marcel Merle echoes the proposition of Gerges Scelle formulate in 1948 in his Manuel de droit international public, who adopted a similar perspective to that of Marcel Mauss and Emile Durkheim in considering that “international society does not result from the coexistence of States, but on the contrary from the interpenetration of peoples by the international Community (in the largest sense of the word). It would be very strange if the phenomenon of sociability stopped at the borders of a State” (George Scelle cited in Ramel 2006: 89).
The thesis of Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye has the same logic as that of Marcel Merle. In their work Transnational Relations and World Politics they show the importance of the emergence of transnational actors who possess their own foreign policies and which the States cannot control (Keohane and Nye 1972). This assessment questions the State-centered paradigm of the dominant realism, devoted to the appearance of a “pluralistic paradigm” which confirms the ever more important role of the non-state actors in world politics. The work of James Rosenau, Linkage politics, Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems is also complementary to the work of Marcel Merle who sought a convergence between national societies and the international system (Rosenau 1969 ). In The Study of Global Interdependence (1980) and Turbulence in World Politics (1990) the analysis reminds Marcel Merle’s reflections, notably on the interdependence of actors in the international system (tourist and terrorist), or the emergence in parallel to the interstate system of a “multi-centered” system which is the result of: the decline of the capacity of the State, an increase in the competences of citizens, changes in the role of authority and loyalty (new allegiances which disperse loyalty), increasing influence of groups and public opinion (see Rosenau 1980, 1990). In short changes which happen within the State and which impact on the international system.
For example, Marcel Merle shows that during the legislative elections in 1978 in France, foreign matters were not of major political importance. They only became so when translated into choices to be made in internal politics (see Merle 1978: 467–506).
Guillaume Devin’s article on “The international or comprehensive dimension in the teaching of political science”, published in the Traité de Relations internationales by Frederic Ramel and Thierry Balzacq is part of this tradition (Devin 2013). Guillaume Devin underlines in this contribution, citing in particular the article by Aristide Zolberg “L’influence des facteurs externes sur l’ordre politique interneˮ published in the Traité de science politique of Leca and Gravitz (Zolberg 1985) and that of Peter A. Gourevitch “Squarring the Circle: Domestic Sources of International Cooperation” (Gourevitch 1996), that “we have to forget that international studies are exclusively about international subjects. They cover a field which is much vaster, in which there are varying dynamics - at the same time endogenous and exogenous-, which produce ‘great transformations’ […] the discipline gains nothing by being prematurely divided between ‘internalists’ and ‘externalists’, but what is most important is the overall viewpoint” (Devin 2013: 1078, 1079).
“In 1966, Wilbert Ellis Moore, then in 1980 Johan Vincent Galtung, in 1982 Niklas Luhmann and in 1991 Anthony Giddens all made an attempt at sketching the outline of a sociology of globalization, but the studies which have been by far most methodical on the subject of globalization as a system without actors, is Immanuel Wallerstein, the first works of whom date back to 1979 and also to Roland Robertson (his research has been united in one volume in 1992)” (Busino 2006: 35).
In France there are numerous approaches from different disciplines to International Relations. These show the diversity of work carried out and perspectives used. These approaches are philosophical (Hassner, Giesen, Ramel, Holeindre, Colonomos, Jeangène Vilmer), sociological (Lindemann, Dorronsoro, Grosjean), judicial (Sur, Guilhaudis, Andréani, Delcourt), historical (Grosser, Soutou), geographical and geopolitical (Dussouy, Lacoste, Thual, Foucher), strategic (Chaliand, Vennesson), also economic (Laroche, Chavagneux, Cohen) and psychological (Baele, Grawitz), or from the point of view of the analysis of public policies (Smith, Joana, Buchet de Neuilly, Balzacq, Petiteville) (on these approaches see mainly Ramel, Balzacq 2013: 269–522; see also on the research subjects 525–1052).
We cannot give all the names of “internationalists” who are part of the French tradition of the sociology of international relations where the tendency is to transnationalism. We, therefore give the names of those whose work seems the most significant.
Josepha Laroche has supported the creation of the Centre d’étude et de recherches transnationalistes of the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She is its Director and has created the network International Chaos, which supplies information destined to students and researchers and also supplies on-line analyses (mainly by a TV network). International Chaos is also a collection of the publishers Harmattan dedicated to transnational studies. It publishes the works of authors interested in international questions from a transnational point of view (for example: the Tunisian transition, the First World War at the cinema, microfinance, violence, etc). This edition also publishes annually a transnational analysis of the international scene entitled Passage au crible de la scène mondiale (Laroche 2013).
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I would like to thank the reviewers of this paper for their useful commentaries. I am also grateful to Patricia Laurie for her assistance in the elaboration of the english version of this text, Julien Larregue for the coordination of this special issue and the Springer editorial team.
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Meszaros, T. The French Tradition of Sociology of International Relations: An Overview. Am Soc 48, 297–341 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-017-9339-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-017-9339-z