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The Hierarchical Society

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Risk and Hierarchy in International Society

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in International Relations Series ((PSIR))

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Abstract

The concept of an international society is arguably the English School’s most distinctive contribution to the field of IR. Containing elements of realism, liberalism and constructivism, the concept of an international society and the English School in general provide a unique perspective on how states interact with one another and how these relationships are structured and ordered. As Bull famously commented:

A society of states (or international society) exists 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.1

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Notes

  1. See Jean Bodin (1992), On Sovereignty: Four Chapters from the Six Books of the Commonwealth, Julian H. Franklin (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

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  2. Hugo Grotius (1925), De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres, Francis Kelsey (trans.) (Oxford: Clarendon)

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  3. John Austin (1879), Letters of Jurisprudence, or the Philosophy of Positive Law (London: John Murray).

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  4. Gerry Simpson (2004), Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

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  5. Evelyn Goh (2008), ‘Hierarchy and the Role of the United States in the East Asian Security Order’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 8(3): pp. 353–77

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  6. Jack Donnelly (2006), ‘Sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy: American Power and International Society’, European Journal of International Relations 12(2): pp. 139–70; Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations.

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  7. Notable examples of the latter include Hobson and Sharman, ‘The Enduring Place of Hierarchy in World Politics’; David A. Lake (2003), ‘The New Sovereignty in International Relations’, International Studies Review 5(3): pp. 303–23; Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations; Donnelly,’ sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy’

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  8. Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim (1996), ‘Hierarchy Under Anarchy: Informal Empire and the East German State’, in Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds), State Sovereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): pp. 240–77 and

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  9. Daniel Deudney (1996), ‘Binding Sovereigns: Authorities, Structures, and Geopolitics in Philadelphian Systems’, in Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds), State Sovereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): pp. 190–239.

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  10. See Goh, ‘Hierarchy and the Role of the United States’; Hobson and Sharman, ‘The Enduring Place of Hierarchy in World Politics’; Lake, ‘The New Sovereignty in International Relations’ and David A. Lake (2007), ‘Escape from the State of Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in World Politics’, International Security 32(1): pp. 47–79.

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  11. Ian Clark (1989), The Hierarchy of States: Reform and Resistance in the International Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): p. 2.

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  12. Gerrit W. Gong (1984), The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon): pp. 4–5.

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  15. There are exceptions to this. See Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society and Andrew Hurrell (2007), On Global Order: Power, Values and the Constitution of International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press): p. 54.

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  16. Robert Jackson (2000), The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States (Oxford: Oxford University Press): p. v.

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  18. Adam Watson (2007), Hegemony and History (Oxon: Routledge): p. 72.

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  19. Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 200. Also see Chris Brown (2003), ‘Do Great Powers Have Great Responsibilities? Great Powers and Moral Agency’, Global Society 18(1): pp. 5–19.

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  20. Christian Reus-Smit (1999), The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity and Institutional Rationality in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press): p. xi.

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  22. See Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds) (1996), State Sovereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) and Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State.

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  23. Benjamin de Carvalho, Halvard Leira and John M. Hobson (2011), ‘The Big Bangs of IR: The Myths That Your Teachers Still Tell You About 1648 and 1919’, Millennium — Journal of International Studies 39(3): p. 741.

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  24. For example, see Stephen Krasner (1999), Sovereignty: Organised Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

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  25. For example, see Andreas Osiander (2001), ‘Sovereignty, International Relations and the Westphalian Myth’, International Organization 55(2): pp. 251–87.

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  26. Hobson and Sharman, ‘The Enduring Place of Hierarchy in World Politics’, p. 72. The authors also note that sovereignty entails the exercise of supreme and exclusive authority over a given territory (p. 65). Also see Robert Jackson (1999), ‘Sovereignty in World Politics: A Glance at the Conceptual and Historical Landscape’, Political Studies 47(3): pp. 431–56.

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  27. As Lake suggests, many in the discipline remain wedded to the idea that sovereignty is indivisible and that hierarchy therefore cannot occur between states. See Lake, ‘Escape from the State of Nature’, p. 57. Also see Oyvind Osterud (1994), ‘Sovereign Statehood and National Self-Determination: A World Order Dilemma’, in Marianne Heiberg (ed.), Subduing Sovereignty: Sovereignty and the Right to Intervene (London: Pinter): pp. 18–32.

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  28. Wouter G. Werner (2004), ‘State Sovereignty and International Legal Discourse’, in Ige F. Dekker and Wouter G. Werner (eds), Governance and International Legal Theory (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff): p. 134

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  29. Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (1996), ‘The Social Construction of State Sovereignty’, in Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds), State Sovereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): pp. 1–21

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  30. Samuel M. Makinda (1998), ‘Sovereignty and Global Security’, Security Dialogue 29(3): pp. 282–3.

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  31. As Robert Jackson contends, post-colonial international society’s ‘negative sovereignty’ regime provides for the recognition of a state’s sovereignty without regard to that state’s authority over its territory or population. See Robert Jackson (1990), Quasi States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): p. 1.

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  32. George Orwell (1945), Animal Farm (Orlando: Harcourt Brace).

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  33. Lassa Oppenheim (1920), International Law: A Treatise (3rd edn, 2 vols) (London: Longmans, Green): sect. 70.

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  34. Ian Brownlie (2003), Principles of International Law (6th edn) (Oxford: Oxford University Press): p. 113.

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  35. Robert O. Keohane has similarly argued that we can conceive of gradations of sovereignty rather than treating it as an all or nothing concept predicated upon exclusive or absolute forms of authority. See Robert O. Keohane (2003), ‘Political Authority After Intervention: Gradations in Sovereignty’, in J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): p. 277. Similarly, Hameiri notes that recent state-building interventions are predicated on gradations of sovereignty between the intervening capacity builders and the states that lack capacity

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  36. See Shahar Hameiri (2010), Regulating Statehood: State Building and the Transformation of the Global Order (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan): p. 160. Also see Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations, p. 3.

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  37. David A. Lake (2009), ‘Regional Hierarchy: Authority and Local International Order’, Review of International Studies 35(S1): p. 37.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of New South Wales, Australia

    William Clapton (Lecturer in International Relations)

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  1. William Clapton
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© 2014 William Clapton

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Clapton, W. (2014). The Hierarchical Society. In: Risk and Hierarchy in International Society. Palgrave Studies in International Relations Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137396372_2

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