The International Society Tradition

The international society tradition is a distinct major tradition of thought, mainly cultivated in Europe, yet increasingly popular worldwide, and defined by five key features. In the first place, the distinctiveness of the tradition rests on its holistic conception of international society; an anarchical society, but a society nonetheless. This anarchical state society is constituted by common values, rules and institutions. Second, theorists within the tradition refuse the relevance of the so-called domestic analogy — that is, order conditioned by hierarchical authority — pointing out the possibility and existence of a non-hierarchical international order. Third, the tradition represents an institutional approach to the study of world politics, although the so-called ‘fundamental’ institutions include a number of fairly unusual institutions, including diplomacy, balance of power, international law, great powers and war. Fourth, though the tradition is somewhat split between more or less state-centric conceptions of international society; it is a question of degree rather than kind. Finally, the tradition represents a via media perspective on international relations, that is, a middle-of-the-road perspective. Somehow, situated between realism and liberalism, it can be characterized as a splinter grouping which used to be at home either in the realist tradition (see Chapter 4) or in various internationalist perspectives (Knudsen 2000).