Edward Keene

The Standard of ‘Civilisation’, the Expansion Thesis and the 19th-century International Social Space

This article identifies a series of gaps in the English school’s thesis of the ‘expansion of international society’ from European to global extension, and presents two propositions that can correct these problems, and so give us a better understanding of the social space in which 19th-century international relations were carried on. First, we should replace the concept of ‘expansion’ with ‘stratification’, changing the terms of the enquiry from an examination of ‘entry into’ the society of states to an exploration of who was where in the 19th-century international social system. Secondly, we should add a more relational analysis of patterns of association to the English school’s predominantly institutionalist approach to the analysis of the structure of international society. To flesh out these two proposals, the article presents a neo-Weberian framework for thinking about international social stratification and an empirical analysis of patterns of treaty-making.

International hierarchy and the origins of the modern practice of intervention

This article argues that hierarchy plays an important role in shaping the practice of intervention, and that the changing nature of international hierarchy is a crucial part of the story of how the modern practice of intervention emerged. It describes the early modern order of precedence, and contends that it was ill-suited to encouraging people to recognise intervention as a distinctive kind of practice. However, over the course of the eighteenth century the structure of international hierarchy changed, with the emergence of a new kind of grading of powers, which provided the context for the development of a practice of intervention after 1815.

Social status, social closure and the idea of Europe as a 'normative power'

This article examines Ian Manners’ idea of a ‘normative power Europe’. While discussing moral and political forms of normative power, it calls particular attention to a sociological approach based on Weberian ideas about status and social closure. The article then compares the present-day ‘normative power’ of the EU with the earlier European ‘standard of civilization’, and argues that the contemporary EU’s normative power rests on a more individualist and credentialist form of social closure. This may make it less vulnerable to criticisms of imperialism, but may also make it harder for the EU to retain its relatively privileged position in the generation of international norms and a coherent sense of its own identity.

The naming of powers

This article offers an historical examination of the evolution of the practice of representing international actors as ‘powers’, and the classification of them as different kinds of ‘power’. It argues that the practice emerged in parallel with the use of the language of sovereign states, and points to the importance of the body of journalistic literature on the ‘present state of Europe’, to the development of the usage of the term ‘powers’ and associated ideas about ‘interests’ and ‘pretentions’, which it contrasts with the tendency within the body of juristic literature to focus on the ‘rights’ of ‘sovereigns’. It also charts the contrary move in the discourse of powers towards a grading of different classes, whereas the tendency within the discourse of sovereigns was more towards equality, although the article also notes parallel elements of hierarchy within equality. The article concludes by asking how the ‘normative power Europe’ thesis fits with, but in some cases also departs from, these representational practices. For example, the idea is often used to convey the unique, sui generis nature of the EU’s identity as an international actor, whereas the normal tendency within the discourse of powers is towards more generic and class-oriented forms of identity.

The globalization of liberalism

Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction E.Hovden & E.Keene PART I: UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL LIBERALISM Moral Commitment and Liberal Approaches to World Politics R.O.Keohane The Harvard School of Liberal International Theory: A Case of Closure D.Long A Kantian Protest Against the Peculiar Discourse of Inter-Liberal State Peace J.Macmillan PART II: GLOBALIZATION AND LIBERALISM IN CONTEMPORARY IR Liberalism at the Global Level: The Last of the Independent Commissions? R.Falk At Home Abroad, Abroad at Home: International Liberalization and Domestic Stability in the New World Economy J.G.Ruggie Globalization, Market Civilization, and Disciplinary Neoliberalism S.Gill Global Civil Society: An Ethical Profile M.Frost A Project to be Realised: Global Liberalism and a New World Order T.Young PART III: INTERNATIONAL LIBERALISM BEYOND EUROPE China and Global Liberalism C.Hughes International Human Rights Norms and the State in Egypt and Tunisia: Globalization, Liberalism, and Culture K.Dalacoura Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Resistance: The Case of India A.K.Ramakrishnan Index

The English School and British Historians

The English school is often seen as an important point of contact between the study of history and the study of international relations. This largely derives from the belief that the school remained committed to historical (and normative) questions at a time when the International Relations discipline in America was becoming increasingly devoted to the development of general ‘scientific’ theories rather than seeking to account for the distinctive individuality and discontinuous evolution of the modern international system. While the ‘scientists’ were, according to Hedley Bull, ‘cutting themselves off from history and philosophy’,1 the members of the English school were always interested in telling the story of how the modern international system had originated and changed over time, in understanding its individual character in comparison with other ways of organising international politics, and in asking whether it provided for a just world order. They were trying, as Bull rather cosily put it, ‘to warm the coals of an older tradition of historical and political reflection during the long, dark winter of the “social scientific” ascendancy’.2 However, rather than contrast the English school with political scientists in the United States, in this article I will compare their work with that of historians in the United Kingdom during the period when the school was developing its account of modern international society, from the 1950s to the 1980s (roughly the lifetime of the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics). My reason for adopting this focus is that the distinction between the ‘traditionalist’ English school

The Treaty-Making Revolution of the Nineteenth Century

This article presents a descriptive statistical analysis of patterns of treaty-making from 1650 to 1914, suggesting that there was a revolution in the practice during the nineteenth century. At the most general level, it charts the dramatic increase in treaty-making activity, showing that this began no earlier than the final decade of the eighteenth century, and highlighting in particular the steady increase from roughly the 1830s to the 1860s as a key phase in the transformation of treaty-making practice. The article then examines variations in the activity of different types of treaty-maker. First, it looks at the treaty-making profiles of selected great powers, and confirms that in general great powers were more active than lesser powers, but also shows that some great powers found it hard to shake off their peripheral status within the network of treaties. Secondly, the article examines the participation of European, American, Asian, African and Middle Eastern States, and shows that while Europeans were clear leaders in the practice, we cannot treat the increase in treaty-making activity as a purely intra-European, or even Euro-American phenomenon. Finally, the article compares bilateral and multilateral treaty-making, arguing that while the latter does show some increase, particularly over the second half of the nineteenth century, it was actually decreasing as a proportion of total treaty-making activity, which raises questions about why multilateralism did not become more commonplace.

International intellectual history and International Relations: contexts, canons and mediocrities

This article reviews contextualist methods in intellectual history and discusses some of the specific challenges involved in their application to the study of International Relations (IR) and hence international intellectual history. While the broad thrust of these developments has been highly positive, the article argues that a distinction between classic and lesser works is a crucial part of the apparatus of the contextualist approach, which poses a problem in IR, where the idea of an established canon of great works has historically been less well developed than in the study of Political Theory or Law. As a result, the move towards contextualist methods of interpretation can force authors to restrict their focus onto a newly conceived, and somewhat narrow, canon, with a strongly political and legal flavour. The eclectic range of earlier, albeit less methodologically sophisticated, histories offer considerable resources for defining the scope of new empirical enquiries in international intellectual history, and the article concentrates on early modern journalism as an example of this opportunity.