Abstract
By the theory of international politics we may understand the body of general propositions that may be advanced about political relations between states, or more generally about world politics.1 It includes normative propositions, stating the moral or legal considerations that are held to apply to international politics, as well as positive propositions which define or explain its actual character. It includes comprehensive theories, concerned to describe or to prescribe for international politics as a whole, but also partial theories concerned with some element of it such as war or peace, strategy or diplomacy. It includes theories about international society or the international system, which deal with the interrelatedness of the various units (states; nations; supranational, transnational, and subnational groups’ etc.) of which world politics is made up, as well as theories about the units themselves. It includes theories developed in the self-conscious attempt to emulate the methods of the natural sciences, thus rejecting whatever cannot be either logically or mathematically proved or verified by strict, empirical procedures; and it includes theories propounded without a self-denying ordinance of this kind.
The Aberysthyth Papers: International Politics 1919–1969, Brian Porter (ed.) (London: Oxford University Press), pp. 30–50.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
James Bryce, International Relations (London, 1922), pp. vii–iii.
Sir Alfred Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Lam (London, 1936)
See Philip Noel-Baker, Disarmament (London, 1926)
James T. Shotwell, War and Its Renunciation as an Instrument of Policy in the Pact of Paris (New York, 1929)
David Davies, The Problem of the Twentieth Century (London, 1930).
Raymond Aron, Peace and War; A Theory of International Relations (London, 1966), p. 592.
W. T. R. Fox, The American Study of International Relations (Columbia, South Carolina, 1967), p. 82.
See Raymond Aron, Peace and War, and Stanley Hoffmann (ed.), Contemporary Theory in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1960) and The State of War (London, 1965).
W. T. R. Fox (ed.), Theoretical Aspects of International Relations (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1959), p. ix.
See Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (New York, 1953)
Karl W. Deutsch (ed.), Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, 1957).
See e.g. Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, (Princeton, 1959)
Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York, 1957), The Necessity for Choice (New York, 1960), and The Troubled Partnership, New York, 1965
Albert Wohlstetter, ‘The Delicate Balance of Terror’, Foreign Affairs (January 1959)
Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, 1960)
Klaus Knorr (ed.) NATO and American Security (Princeton, 1959)
Klaus Knorr (ed.), Limited Strategic War (Princeton, 1962).
For the former see Roger D. Masters, ‘World Politics as a Primitive Political System’, World Politics, 16 (4) (July 1964). For the latter see Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York, 1966) and Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative (New York, 1967).
See C. A. W. Manning, The Nature of International Society (London, 1962).
Lewis F. Richardson’s work of the inter-war period was virtually unknown until it was published posthumously in 1960. See Lewis F. Richardson, Arms and Insecurity: A Mathematical Study of The Causes of War, (eds.) (Nicholas Rashevsky and Ernesto Trucco, London, 1960); and Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, (eds.) (Quincy Wright and Carl C. Lienau, London, 1960).
H. Butterfield and M. Wight, (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations (London, 1966).
I have argued this in ‘International Theory: the Case for a Classical Approach,’ in Klaus Knorr and James N. Rosenau (eds.), Contending Approaches to International Politics (Princeton, 1969).
See Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication; Ernst Haas, The Uniting of Europe (Stanford, 1958)
Amitai Etzioni, Political Unification (New York, 1965).
See Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War (New York, 1959)
Inis L. Claude, Power and International Relations (New York, 1962).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1995 Oxford University Press
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bull, H. (1995). The Theory of International Politics, 1919–1969 (1972). In: Der Derian, J. (eds) International Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23773-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23773-9_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-61761-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-23773-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)