Order Through Justice? Accommodating the Third World

Abstract

While he was keen to throw bricks at orthodox thinking, question the prevailing logic on almost every occasion that presented itself, and reveal the partial political interests which so often lay behind claims of universal benefit, Hedley Bull did not portray himself as a radical thinker. He certainly argued that contemporary societies, and especially western ones, needed to be ready for the significant international change which was occurring and which was so often the result of one historical accident or another. But this did not mean that Bull was happy to see the collapse of the status quo which this adjustment would sometimes involve. The fact that an evolving international distribution of power and changing world opinion were demanding an accommodation did not necessarily mean that the change that was coming was a change for the better.