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Two roads to world society: Meyer’s ‘world polity’ and Buzan’s ‘world society’

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Abstract

If we are looking for sociological theories that spell out the institutions of the emerging world society, we have two main choices: John Meyer and his students from the Stanford-based world polity school and Barry Buzan, based at the London School of Economics and from the English School ‘world society’ stable. Meyer first put forward his ideas of an emerging ‘world polity’ in the 1970s, while Buzan came forward with his schema only latterly, in his 2004 From International Society to World Society. The two theories contend in both processes and the role of major institutions, but agree to a surprising extent on identities and transformational routes. Both theories have a good deal to say about the requirements for a world society and the institutions that comprise it, and a comparison between them reveals a good deal about how to theorize world society and what a plausible sociological theory would require.

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  1. University of Buckingham, Yeomanry House, Hunter St, Buckingham, MK18 1EG, UK

    Cornelia Navari

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  1. Cornelia Navari
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Correspondence to Cornelia Navari.

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Navari, C. Two roads to world society: Meyer’s ‘world polity’ and Buzan’s ‘world society’. Int Polit 55, 11–25 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-017-0068-2

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