International Society: The English School

American scholars completely dominated the developing but

still youthful IR discipline. Stanley Hoffman made the point that the
discipline of IR was born and raised in America, and he analysed the
profound consequences of that fact for thinking and theorizing in IR.
IR scholars in Europe and elsewhere became more self-confident and
less ready to accept an agenda largely written by US scholars.
International Society
In the United Kingdom, a school of IR had existed throughout the period of
the Cold War which was different in two major ways.
1. It rejected the behaviouralist challenge and emphasized the
traditional approach based on human understanding,
judgement, norms, and history.
2. It also rejected any firm distinction between a strict realist and
a strict liberal view of international relations.
The IR school to which we refer is sometimes called the English School
particularly in UK. But in other countries like Australia, Canada, and South
Africa it is called International Society.
Thoughts of International society:
1. International Society theorists recognize the importance of power
in international affairs. They also focus on the state and the
state system. But they reject the narrow realist view that world
politics is a Hobbesian state of nature in which there are no
international norms at all.
2. Power and law are both important features of international
relations.
3. It is true that there is an international anarchy in the sense that
there is no world government. But international anarchy is a
social and not an anti-social condition: i.e., world politics is an
anarchical society.
4. Individuals are more important than states. International
Society theorists tend to regard IGOs and NGOs
American scholars:
The United Nations system demonstrates how both elementspower
and laware simultaneously present in international society.
1. The Security Council is set up according to the reality of unequal
power among states. The great powers (the United States, China,
Russia, Britain, and France) are the only permanent members with the
authority to veto decisions. That simply recognizes the reality of

unequal power in world politics. That is the realist power and

inequality element in international society.
2. The General Assemblyby contrast with the Security Councilis set up
according to the principle of international equality: every member state
is legally equal to every other state; each state has one vote.
The UN has promoted the international law of human rights,
beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
International Society theorists thus take a broader historical, legal, and
philosophical approach to international relations.