From International to World Society?: English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation

by Barry Buzan

• ISBN13: 9780521833486
• ISBN10: 0521833485
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Barry Buzan offers an extensive and long overdue critique and reappraisal of the English school approach to International Relations. Starting on the neglected concept of world society and bringing together the international society tradition and the Wendtian mode of constructivism, Buzan offers a new theoretical framework that can be used to address globalisation as a complex political interplay among state and non-state actors. This approach forces English school theory to confront neglected questions about both its basic concepts and assumptions, and about the constitution of society in terms of what values are shared, how and why they are shared, and by whom. Buzan highlights the idea of primary institutions as the central contribution of English school theory and shows how this both differentiates English school theory from realism and neoliberal institutionalism, and how it can be used to generate distinctive comparative and historical accounts of international society.

Author Biography

Barry Buzan is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author, co-author or editor of over fifteen books and has published widely in academic journals

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. English school theory and its problems: an overview

2. World society in English school theory

3. Concepts of world society outside the English school

4. Reimagining the English school's triad

5. Reconstructing the pluralist-solidarist debate

6. The primary institutions of international society

7. Bringing geography back in

8. Conclusions: a portrait of contemporary interstate society.