Christian Reus-Smit

The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions

Modern states have constructed a multiplicity of issue-specific regimes to facilitate collective action. The majority of these institutions are specific instances of the deeper institutional practices that structure modern international society, notably the fundamental institutions of contractual international law and multilateralism. Two observations can be made about fundamental institutions. First, they are “generic†structural elements of international societies. That is, their practice transcends changes in the balance of power and the configuration of interests, even if their density and efficacy vary. The modern practices of contractual international law and multilateralism intensified after 1945, but postwar developments built on institutional principles that were first endorsed by states during the nineteenth century and structured international relations long before the advent of American hegemony. Second, fundamental institutions differ from one society of states to another. While the governance of modern international society rests on the institutions of contractual international law and multilateralism, no such institutions evolved in ancient Greece. Instead, the city-states developed a sophisticated and successful system of third-party arbitration to facilitate ordered interstate relations. This institution, which operated in the absence of a body of codified interstate law, is best characterized as “authoritative trilateralism.â€

The Oxford handbook of international relations

PART I INTRODUCTION PART II IMAGINING THE DISCIPLINE PART III MAJOR THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES PART IV THE QUESTION OF METHOD PART V BRIDGING THE SUBFIELD BOUNDARIES PART VI THE SCHOLAR AND THE POLICY-MAKER PART VII THE QUESTION OF DIVERSITY PART VIII OLD AND NEW

Human rights and the social construction of sovereignty

Sovereignty and human rights are generally considered separate, mutually contradictory regimes in international society. This article takes issue with this conventional assumption, and argues that only by treating sovereignty and human rights as two normative elements of a single, inherently contradictory modern discourse about legitimate statehood and rightful state action can we explain key moments in the expansion of the international system during the twentieth century. After developing a constructivist argument about communicative action, norm formation and sovereignty, the article focuses on post-1945 decolonization, showing how ‘first wave’ post-colonial states played a crucial role in constructing the ‘international bill of rights’, how they invoked those rights to justify the norm of self-determination, and how this norm in turn licensed the proliferation of new sovereign states in Asia and elsewhere.

Imagining society: constructivism and the English School

This article critically examines the current relationship between constructivism and the English School. Scholars in each school have worked largely with stereotypes of the other, and this has greatly impeded productive dialogue and cross-fertilization. A more fruitful strategy is to treat both schools as bounded fields of debate, as rich and diverse realms of internally contested thought. Constructivism is characterized by three key axes of debate: between sociological institutionalists, Habermasian communicative action theorists, and Foucauldian genealogists; between unit-level, systemic, and holistic theorists; and between interpretivists and positivists. The English School is also divided between pluralists and solidarists, between those who identify the school with international society theory and those who see it as inherently multifaceted, and between those who emphasize interpretive or eclectic methodologies. Opening up each approach in this way enables us to identify new, more fruitful axes of dialogue between the two perspectives.

Politics and International Legal Obligation

Why do states recognize an obligation to observe the rules of international law? Existing accounts of international legal obligation suffer from the problem of ‘interiority’. They first ground obligation in some internal feature of the international legal system — such as consent, fairness or dialogue — but when these turn out to be insufficient, they fall back on assumptions about the legitimacy of the international legal system itself, for which they cannot account. The roots of this problem ultimately lie in flawed conceptions of politics that underlie these accounts. To overcome this problem, this article proposes an alternative, ‘interstitial’ understanding of politics that locates politics at the intersections of idiographic, purposive, ethical and instrumental forms of reason and action. This understanding of politics enables us to rethink the nature of institutional rationality, and in turn the bases of international legal obligation. Furthermore, it provides us with a conceptual framework that illuminates the relationship between historically grounded modes of politics and the legitimacy of particular institutional forms, including the modern system of international law. This argument is illustrated through an explanation of the sacral logic of obligation that undergirded the international legal system in the Age of Absolutism.

Liberal hierarchy and the licence to use force

Introduction Determining when states can use force legitimately is the central normative problematic in world politics. Domestically, constraining the states use of force with social and legal norms that confine state-sanctioned violence to a limited and clearly defined set of purposes and circumstances is essential to the maintenance of civil society and the protection of basic human rights. Internationally, circumscribing the conditions under which states may use force legitimately is critical to the maintenance of peace and stability in international society. And the degree to which legitimate force may be used internationally to constrain illegitimate force domestically lies at the heart of the problematic relationship between order and justice in world politics. Ever so gradually, through the trials of war and colonialism, a set of principles have evolved internationally to govern when states may use force legitimately. First, recognised sovereign states are held to be legal equals, even if differences in capabilities are profound and certain institutional accommodations have been made to placate great powers. Second, sovereign equality gives all states a basket of governance rights internationally - enshrined in the general principle (if not in practice) of ‘one state, one vote’ - and rights of autonomy domestically, most notably the paired rights of self-determination and non-intervention. Third, to uphold these sovereign rights, the international use of force has been severely circumscribed. States may only use force in their relations with one another if (1) they are acting in self-defence, or (2) they are acting collectively to uphold international peace and security. Finally, in situations other than self-defence, decisions to use force must be made multilaterally through the Security Council of the United Nations.

Reading History through Constructivist Eyes

Since the end of the Cold War there has been a renaissance in the study of history by International Relations scholars. Constructivists have been at the forefront of this rediscovery, turning to historical inquiry to highlight the contingent meaning and evolution of a myriad of international practices, processes, and social structures. To what extent, however, is this work informed by a distinctive philosophy of history, explicit or implicit? Do constructivists read history in a particular way? If so, what are the contours of their approach? This article takes up these questions, arguing that constructivist history is essentially ‘Skinnerian’ in nature, marking it off from realist-materialist histories, on the one hand, and histories of ideas, on the other. To illustrate this approach I end with a brief constructivist reading of the constitutional crisis that beset the Spanish Empire in the aftermath of the Napoleonic invasion and usurpation in 1808.

Constructivism and the English School

Constructivism and the English School are often said to bear striking family resemblances, a view encouraged by their mutual concern for the social dimensions of international life. Realist critics have been quick to tar both with the same brush, criticizing them for overemphasizing ‘logics of appropriateness’ in relations between states. ‘The English School and some other constructivist analyses’, Stephen Krasner contends, ‘understand institutions as generating agents that reinforce or enact, as a result of normative socialization into a common civilization, a particular set of principles, norms, and rules’.2 This sense of a common orientation has been promoted by constructivists and English School scholars themselves. When plotting international relations theories against individualist/holist and materialist/idealist axes, Alexander Wendt places constructivism and the English School in the same holist/idealist quadrant, subsuming all theories in this quadrant under the general rubric of ‘Constructivism’.3 Tim Dunne, prominent among the new generation of English School theorists, argues that there is ‘an affinity between the international society tradition and the work of constructivists like Alexander Wendt. Both assume the centrality of states, and both interrogate the meaning of international system/society according to the intersubjective practices through which it is constituted’.4

International Relations, Irrelevant? Don’t Blame Theory

It is now commonplace to bemoan our field’s lack of practical relevance, and to blame this sorry situation on our penchant for ever-more abstract theorising over the analysis of real-world phenomena. This article challenges this rendition of the problem. Not only is the theory versus relevance thesis difficult to sustain empirically, there are good reasons to believe that even the most abstract forms of metatheory are relevant to sound practical knowledge. More than this, though, the theory versus relevance thesis misconstrues the problem. The obstacle to practical relevance is not theoretical abstraction, but a series of other disciplinary problems: our lack of any real interest in the nature of politics as a distinctive form of human action (which so animated early scholars in the field); the loss of the field’s early practical intent; the sadly too common bifurcation of explanatory and normative inquiry; and the disappearance of the figure of the international public intellectual.

The constructivist challenge after September 11

Attempts to draw together the ideas presented in the book and to question the continuing relevance of the approach of the English School of International Relations to international relations. Argues that although the School has made a significant contribution to the discipline, more work needs to be done if it is to maintain its relevance. In particular, the School needs to address the relationship between international society and world society in more detail, identify and explore the many structures that underpin international society, rethink the pluralism-solidarism debate, and shed more light on the drivers and dynamics of change in world politics.