Dear Students of Bath University,
This is only a reference and not for you to plagarise. Thank you!
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Hedley Bull (1932-1985) became a “member of the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics in 1958. He was also one of the founders of international society approach. In 1966 he became a Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University. He then went to Oxford to take up the Montague Burton Chair of International Relations and remained there until his untimely death in 1985”
‘The Anarchical Society’ was first published in 1977. This book came to be known as Hedley Bull’s main work and also as an essential text which expresses the English School’s perspective on the construction, performance and outlook of the state system.
Given the book’s title, it is not wrong to assume that Bull’s thesis is about the absence or non-recognition of a higher level of authority in a system of states. This absence of course was not only subjected to a state system but could also be found in a society of states.
In his book, he explained what both system of states and society of states meant but he began first by explaining what a state was. This was only because as he pointed out ‘the starting position of international relations is the existence of states’ . The requirements for what a state should be are: that it must have a government and it must allege its claim of sovereignty over a well- distinct territory and a group of people. When this state itself have a sufficient amount of communication with one or more states only to enable each other to influence one another’s decision, this will lead them to ‘behave –at least in some measure- as parts of a whole’ . Hence this interaction between these states forms what is called a system of states. A society of states comes about when ‘a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions’ . With this brief description, a society of states can also presume to be a system of states but a system of states however will be able to exist without it too having to be a society of states.
Given the brief description above about Bull’s thesis, Bull’s true purpose and primary concern in his text had really to do with the nature of ‘Order’ in world politics and also meticulously into ‘the society of sovereign states’ . This concept of ‘Order’ itself can then be seen as the main theme to Bull’s text for he examines the concept systematically ‘on the basis of very clear definitions and theoretical categories’ . Before Bull articulates any of his work, he begins in each chapter with a number of questions, which proceeds to answers. With ‘Order’ he did the same and he looked at three major questions: ‘What is order in world politics? How is order maintained within the present system of sovereign states? Does the system of sovereign states still provide a viable path to world order?’ The book, of which is divided into three parts, will look into these three questions and provide explanations and answers for them.
“The Anarchical Society” as mentioned earlier was published in 1977. Hence when Hedley Bull wrote this book, most of the examples used to support his ideas and to present his point of views were taken from the state of affairs that was surrounding him then. He did however also go as so far back as to using the 15th century onwards, as an example and an explanation to look at whether ‘Order’ existed and how it was maintained in world politics. Still the ‘representation’ he used for his work takes place and was mainly focused on the early 20th century political situation. So what we have here are cases and incidents from World War I to World War II, followed by the many issues which were presented during the Cold War.
“The Anarchical Society” now a third edition includes a new foreword by Andrew Hurrell. It is a non-fiction book on political science and it acts as an educational textbook.
Part 1 of the book is about ‘The Nature of Order in World Politics’. In each of his chapter he sets out to explain what he is aiming to look at and work with. Most of it in this section of the book has to do with what order means, whether it exist, how is it maintained and how is order and justice conflicting. Here he brought up 3 such goals that all societies recognizes and will do what ever it takes to fulfill it. These 3 goals are recognize as elementary, primary and universal goals and is known to be as the order in social life where. It is also in this part of the book where he defines what international system and international society means. The purpose behind this chapter as Bull pointed out is that at the end of the day, despite the existence of anarchy, states do collaborate to form a society because there is ‘a sense of common interests in the elementary goals of social life; rules prescribing behavior that sustains these goals; and institutions that help to make these rules effective’.
Part 2 in the book is about ‘Order in the Contemporary International System’. Here Bull looks at the ‘Balance of Power’, ‘International law’, ‘Diplomacy’, ‘War’ and ‘the great powers’, to see how each one contributes to international order. In the ‘Balance of Power’ he made distinctions between simple and complex balance of power, general and local balances, subjective and objective existence, and fortuitous and contrived balance of power. The idea behind this is that balance of power is important because it ‘preserves the system of states’ and that it is ‘a conscious goal of the system as a whole’ . At the end of this chapter, Bull pointed out that ‘balance of power’ during his present time no longer is similar to the ones before because, the one thing that is contributing to this difference is, mutual nuclear deterrence. For international law, Bull looks at the nature, the contribution and the limitations of it. International law is important because it organizes, regulates and encourages states to work with each other hence contributing to international order. At the end of the day, international law changes and will also be progressing because it no longer acts as a rule that govern states but also as a rule that affects organizations, environment, individuals etc. Diplomacy not only helps communication between states, it also acts as a negotiator to agreements, minimizes any frictions between states and gathers information about neighboring states. Bull explains what all this is in great details and it is agreeable to agree with him that diplomacy is still very significant today. As for war and the great powers, Bull uses pre-cold war and cold war to explain how international order is achieve.
Finally in Part 3, this chapter is about ‘Alternatives Paths to World Order’. Bull looks at world government, new medievalism, reforms, etc to show that they are possible alternative to world order. His conclusion to this chapter is, ‘despite the existence in principles of alternatives to the states system of various kinds’ there was no clear evidence that the states system was in decline’.
The notes and references which Bull used to criticized and support his text are mostly from published works; magazines, journals, newspapers and especially books relating to international relations, power, politics, the state system, war. Most of these sources contributed well to his work for the nature of these sources itself carried forward information and thoughts from the past and the present (situation then) about world politics. The compositions he used came from key political thinkers, realist, liberalist, rationalist, etc (such as Hobbes, Machiavelli, Augustine, Kant, Wight), hence making the sources he used and consulted appropriate for his purpose.
To say that there are no weaknesses to ‘The Anarchical Society’ is not entirely true for there are a few. First of all, because this book was written during the Cold War and that ‘it was heavily shaped by the concerns of the Cold War and of superpower rivalry’ hence making this book rather outdated. Also with the political, economical and social changes that are surrounding us today, Bull’s narrow focus on society of states then made him ‘downplayed the dynamic forces at work in global politics and fail to recognize the extent to which the system was moving decisively ‘beyond Westphalia’’ . So this makes his work inadequate and obsolete. Secondly, the one thing which Bull neglected in his work was the importance of economic factors and forces. Andrew Hurrell and Stanley Hoffmann pointed this out as well.
Another weakness to Bull’s work is: unlike Martin Wight who uses his famous ‘three Rs – Realism, Rationalism and Revolutionism’ – to approach his work and also refusing to identify himself with any one, Bull decided to defend and take up the rationalist tradition to approach his question. This is a problem because ‘it is important to debunk realist and revolutionary claims’ for if not, it confuses the readers, making them uncertain on whether to choose a tradition or to just accept each one for its different element. Also, Bull’s work, as commented by Edward Keene, ‘provides a description of the pattern of order that developed in the European states-system that he almost completely ignored the other pattern of order which developed roughly simultaneously in the colonial and imperial systems that were established beyond Europe’.
One other thing about Bull’s work is that though he advice social scientists and philosophers to lay out the foundations of their moral positions when dealing with moral issues in foreign affairs, Bull himself never laid out any of his own foundation for his moral position. Stanley Hoffmann and Martin Griffiths noted this as well when writing their work on him.
If we were to look and discuss Bull’s work in the wider context, at first sight, it is not wrong to assume Hedley Bull is a realist. This is because according to Stanley Hoffmann, Bull rejected ‘all forms of utopianism and his most magisterial criticism of utopianism is to be found in The Anarchical Society’ , hence putting him in a position close to realism. This is not surprising because as pointed out by Tim Dunne, because ‘the English School has been misrepresented as a derivative of realism’ and ‘has suffered from its dismissal as just another form of realism’ . Dunne also managed to point out that the English school, shares some arguments with realism and their core claims tends to overlap with it, especially when recognizing the limits of accomplishing collaboration under anarchy . It is no surprise then that this tendency can be found in Bull’s work on ‘The Anarchical Society’.
Bull’s work definitely follows the traditions of the English school in many ways like how they are aware that the practices of international society will always be threatened by present realities coming from the ‘state of war’ and global transnational relations . Another example which is also noticeable is his text is how ‘solidarism and pluralism are used to understand how international society should respond to some key normative questions, e.g. the content of human rights, the causes and conduct of war etc’.
Despite the weaknesses and problems pointed out above on Bull’s work, ‘The Anarchical Society’ is a major work no doubt and the comprehensiveness of it makes it entirely well informed and stimulating to read. The structure and organization of Bull’s work was well premeditated, for it managed to convey his main point well. The flow of the content and information in each chapter successfully demonstrated his ability and his aim of answering his three key questions. The mechanisms he used varies from the balance of power, to international law, followed by diplomacy, etc, showing his clear intentions to illustrate how all of it contributes and brings international order about. Bull did look to solidarism as a possible solution and ‘its promise of a deeper consensus on substantive goals such as distributive justice, environmental protection and universal human rights’ when recognizing the weakness of an international society. His work in the end, as mentioned by him, was not to find a solution but to explore the nature of order. His conclusion to his work: that in the end, states system might be the best possibility to sustaining world order despite the existence of alternative paths and alternative forms of organization.
Of course ‘The Anarchical Society’ was only one of the many major writings written by Hedley Bull. Some of his work can be read as a compliment to this book such as, ‘The Control of the Arms Race: Disarmament and Arms Control in the Missile Age”(1961), “Society and anarchy in international relations”(1966), and “The great irresponsibles? The United Sates, The Soviet Union and World Order”(1980). Bull’s other work consists of: “International relations as an academic pursuit”(1972), “Martin Wight and the theory of international relations”(1976), “Hobbes and international anarchy” (1981), and others.
“The Anarchical Society” is a classic book. It is suitable and highly recommended for university students who are studying International Relations and also for students who are specializing in either International Relations Theory or just the English School. This book, overall, is an excellent piece of work on the international system and it shows how laws and institutions do eventually change and alter. The simplicity and breadth of it makes it easy for any student to read and understand the purpose behind it.
