ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ I

The distinctions of the English School from the other schools and its merits are: a) ontological and epistemological pluralism, b) its historical approach repudiating both determinism and presentism, c) the significance given to values and cultural and civilizational identities.

Hidemi Suganami (1983) agreed with Jones on the existence of a distinct school and called it as “British institutionalist approach”. He identified five factors that united the authors of this approach:

1) aspiration to werthfreiheit (morally neutral analysis),

2) rejection of behaviourism or scientism,

3) reliance on sociological methods (institutional analysis),

4) unity and specificity of the states- system (autonomy of IR)

5) rejection of utopianism.

Suganami however disagreed with Jones and considered the contribution of the School to be significant and consequently he did not call for a closure.

Peter Wilson formidably argued for the existence of a distinct English School. He identified six characteristics of the School:

1) a perspective of the whole (holism), in other words, the view that international relations constitute a whole,

2) the idea of international society, the view that international relations can be conceptualized in terms of a society,

3) the existence of order within international relations unlike the prevalent conception of anarchy or disorder,

4) the institutional basis of international order rather than mechanical or hegemonial/hegemonic imposition,

5) rejection of utopian schemes

6) rejection of behaviourism.

Yurdusev argued for the existence of a distinct school and outlined basic premises as follows:

1) concern for history, historical explanation and classical works

2) international relations being an orderly realm

3) the view of the whole

4) the adherence to a via media (middle way) approach, in other words, precaution and refrain from the extremes

5) the significance of and emphasis upon cultural/ civilizational factors in international relations

6) the volitional/voluntaristic conceptualization of international society/system against mechanical/ structural conception

7) a broad historical perspective and the use of historical parallels to current problems (rejection of presentism)

8) avoidance of scientific jargon.

The founding members of the British Committee were:

The British Committee met for the first time in 1959 and then worked well into the mid-1980s. Initially the Committee met 3 times a year and discussed the selected issues over a week. In time we see other scholars participate in the meetings of the Committee and also scholars who were inspired by the workings of the Committee such as R.J. Vincent, M. Donelan, J. Mayall, A. James, G. Gong, to name but a few. Martin Wight and Hedley Bull have come to be recognized as the most prominent scholars among the authors of the English School. 

The British Committee worked in the way that members prepared and distributed draft papers among themselves and then they discussed them over a week. The first publication of the Committee came out in 1966, titled Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, edited by Butterfield and Wight. In addition to Butterfield and Wight, the book included contributions by other members of the Committee such as Bull, Howard and MacKinnon. The penultimate work that came out of the working of the Committee was published in 1984, titled The Expansion of International Society, edited by Bull and Watson. In-between, we see various works, either collective or individually authored, by members of the Committee or authors inspired by the works of the Committee. It is fair to say that the British Committee thus led to the formation of a body of works, which we now consider as the output of the English School of International Relations.

When one examines the composition and the working of the British Committee, some of the premises and arguments of the English School can be discerned. The Committee was composed of scholars coming from different disciplines, not just those coming from the discipline of IR.

Although the British Committee was founded by an initial American funding, it has been a prevalent view in the literature of IR that the English School was somewhat posed against the dominance of American approaches to the study of international relations, especially American Social Science approaches, i.e. the Behaviouralist School, arguing that international relations can be studied with the use of the methods and techniques of the basic sciences.

a positive definition of the English School can be made out of or within the British tradition. There may be identified four bastions from which the arguments of the English School are derived;

1. The empirical or historical tradition in epistemology, which could be traced back to Hume. Instead of rationalist explanations or abstract formulations
as seen in Continental Europe and the United States, the British tradition generally relied on empirical analysis and historical explanation.

2. The cautiousness and refrain from the extremes and the pursuit of a middle
way. Within the British tradition, one cannot find the salience of rigid and radical positions; instead, an effort to accommodate the extremes is highlighted.

3. The imperial and national tradition in which the diversity, rather than unity, was given prominence. Unlike the British tradition, the French, for example, emphasized the unity.

4. The diplomatic tradition. This tradition involved that the diplomacy must be given a chance until the last hour and resort to the use of force must be the ultimate choice.

International society has been the core concept of English School so that it has been well-explained compared to the two other concepts of international system and world society. International society is defined by four components: common interests, common rules, common values and common institutions.

The international system conception of the School is very much similar to the system conception found in Realist or Neo-Realist schools as both of them consider system in terms of an interdependence relationship and both of them take the sovereign nation states as the primary members.

With the conception of international society, English School significantly differs from the Realist approaches.

English School and Constructivist School too have similarities and differences. They both strive to show the social bases of international relations and for both of them society is constructed with norms and institutions.

Unlike the Marxist conception of history, the English School does not have a material and structural understanding of history as the English School scholars entertain a volitional/ voluntaristic and cultural/civilizational conception of history.

Contrary to the critical theorists, the English School’s concern for humanity does not implicate the transcendence of the existing states and cultural identities.

English School

behavioralist

pluralism

common parties

rejects

Realist

norms

existing

Historical orientation and concern for world community

The English School has a solid base in the theoretical milieu of IR with its basic premises and arguments.