International Society as an Ideal Type

Abstract

The English School’s contribution to the study of international relations is often seen as a set of descriptively rich concepts that may be employed within a variety of theoretical approaches.¹ Nevertheless, few scholars think that this conceptual vocabulary is adequate. Some take the extreme view that the problems with it are so serious that we should use a different set of concepts, such as ‘global society’ or ‘global civil society’, to replace familiar English School ideas such as ‘international society’.² But that is a very sweeping judgment and one that threatens to overlook the value of, among others, the historical insights of the English School. A much more common approach is to begin with the conceptual apparatus provided by the school, expanding or redefining some of its central terms. This has been done from a variety of social theoretical perspectives.³ A prominent recent example is Alexander Wendt’s refashioning of Martin Wight’s ‘three traditions’ of ‘international theory’ into an account of three different kinds of ‘international social structure’, depending on whether the predominant form of interaction involves enmity (Hobbesian), rivalry (Lockean) or friendship (Kantian).⁴ More recently still, Barry Buzan has tried to build the English School’s tripartite distinction between international system, international society and world society into a more robust taxonomy, embracing, for example, a distinction between global and regional international societies, and firming up the school’s rather ambiguous idea of world society, in order to create a framework that will allow us to monitor structural changes in international relations particularly with a view to charting processes of globalization.⁵