The English School & Constructivism

Question 1

What is the institutional genesis of the English School?

Answer 1

- The British Committee on the Theory
  of International Politics - 1959
- Want to create a British account of
  international politics
- Want to create a more ‘valuable’ path
  of study
- The irony - funded by the Rockefeller
  Foundation
- Hedley Bull

Question 2

Who was Hedley Bull?

Answer 2

- Attacks the American positivist
  political science
- Promotes the ‘classical approach’,
  espousing the importance of judgement
- Aspires to theorise change
- Fascinated with history
- The Anarchical Society - 1977

Question 3

What was the Anarchical Society about?

Answer 3

- Anarchy and order are not
  antithetical - anarchy and hierarchy
  are
- Order does not require hierarchy
- Order can exist under anarchy
- International society maintains order
  under anarchy

Question 4

What is the internal logic of the Anarchical Society?

Answer 4

• Anarchy → Lockean (cooperation can
  exist), not Hobbesian
• Elementary goals of social life →
  Life, truth, property
• Elementary goals of international
  society → Self-preservation, peace,
  limitation of violence
• Rules to regulate social life →
  Sovereignty, pacta sunt servanda,
  non-intervention
• Fundamental Institutions → Diplomacy,
  international, balance of power,
  great powers, war

Question 5

What are the sub-schools of the English School?

Answer 5

• Pluralism

* Solidarism

Question 6

What is Pluralism?

Answer 6

• English school sub-school
• Agreement on life, truth and property
• But high degree of social difference,
  there is no actual substantive
  agreement
• The institutions must protect the
  difference within a society
  characterised by heterogeneity
• anti humanitarian intervention -
  uphold sovereign understandings

Question 7

What is Solidarism?

Answer 7

• English school sub-school
• High level of agreement
• International society is
  characterised by a particular
  understanding of life, truth and
  property
• The institutions should promote not
  only order, but cultural agreement
• pro humanitarian intervention

Question 8

What in general is the English School?

Answer 8

• Is flexible
• Powered by the intellectual work of
  people like Locke and Grotius
• Develops a chain of reasoning that
  underpins the validity of the
  definitional category of the
  international society
• Order does not require hierarchy,
  order occurs when there are pattens
  of agreement son the five institutions
• The institutions allow judgements to
  be made about real-world events
  through the extent to which they
  protect the rules of social life
• Less predictive

Question 9

What was the state of IR theory in the 80s?

Answer 9

• Heat of the neo-neo debate
• News disagree on the relative vs
  absolute gains
• Neos agree on the types of questions
  that theory can and should answer
• News are fascinated with explaining
  continuity and consistency

Question 10

What was anarchy according to the neos?

Answer 10

- Anarchy is casual and one directional
  with one outcome
- Identity: static, survivalist,
  raitonal egoist
- Interests: utility maximisation

Question 11

How did the end of the Cold War affect IR?

Answer 11

• The mainstream is discredited (in
  terms of relevancy)
• A set of empirical real world events
  that need to be explained

Question 12

Who was Alexander Wendt?

Answer 12

• German working in the USA
• 1992 - “Anarchy is what states make
  of it”
• 1999 - “Social Theory of
  International Politics”
• Anarchy causes nothing, it is
  indeterminate
• Mainstream theories are wrong because
  they assume stasis which means they
  cannot explain change, such as the
  end of the Cold War

Question 13

What is the interpretation of Anarchy is what states make of it?

Answer 13

- Anarchy causes nothing, it must be
  interpreted 
- Ideational structures embed
  interpretation into the identity and
  interests of states
- Is US afraid of N.Korea’s nuclear
  capabilities because of material
  structures or ideational structures?
    - Enemy - identity
- A slave is not a slave without a
  master

Question 14

What if the constructivist view of identity?

Answer 14

- Institutions, actors, individuals →
  (the state) → interest & identity
- Ideas, interests and identity are
  infinitely malleable
- Allows for multiple different
  identities with other actors (Aus &
  US, Aus & Indonesia)

Question 15

Give an overview of constructivism

Answer 15

- Situated between rational choice
  approaches (the neo’s) and critical
  theory
- Anarchy is what states make of it
- Ideas and norms matter
- Identities and interests are
  endogenous
- Identities are mutually constituted
- Actors can have multiple identities
- Not a theory, is an approach &
  framework