- Main research focus: Changes in international order. Additional research interests include English School theory, mul... moreMain research focus: Changes in international order. Additional research interests include English School theory, multilateral diplomacy, international security and IR theory generally.edit
Change is often taken for granted and treated as commonsensical in international relations (IR) theory, but this treatment of change obscures the fundamentally different roles that scholars’ understandings of change play. Making the... more
Change is often taken for granted and treated as commonsensical in international relations (IR) theory, but this treatment of change obscures the fundamentally different roles that scholars’ understandings of change play. Making the underlying ontological views of history as determined- or contingent-explicit and addressing their interaction with pessimistic or optimistic normative outlooks, four ideal-typical conceptualizations of change can be distinguished: one in which change is cyclical, one in which it is progressive, one in which it is unpredictable, and one where it is malleable. Understanding which one is being employed in any given analysis will enhance comprehension both beyond and across theoretical fault lines.
The cyclical conception of change, at the interception of a determinist view of history and normative pessimism, is the archetypical realist position, which emphasizes continuity and reproduction rather than change. The progressive conception, combining determinist history with normative optimism, is the widespread idea of change as improvement, commonly drawn on in idealism, liberalism, and some forms of constructivism. The conception of change as unpredictable, squaring a pessimistic normative outlook with a contingent view of history, is an idea of change as random, irregular, and omnipresent. This view often underlies poststructuralism, feminism, and postcolonial perspectives. Finally, the combination of a contingent view of history with an optimistic normative outlook leads to a conception of change as malleable, where change is something that can be influenced, and the world can be bettered if enough people put their minds to it. This view is typical for historical sociology and large parts of the English school.
The cyclical conception of change, at the interception of a determinist view of history and normative pessimism, is the archetypical realist position, which emphasizes continuity and reproduction rather than change. The progressive conception, combining determinist history with normative optimism, is the widespread idea of change as improvement, commonly drawn on in idealism, liberalism, and some forms of constructivism. The conception of change as unpredictable, squaring a pessimistic normative outlook with a contingent view of history, is an idea of change as random, irregular, and omnipresent. This view often underlies poststructuralism, feminism, and postcolonial perspectives. Finally, the combination of a contingent view of history with an optimistic normative outlook leads to a conception of change as malleable, where change is something that can be influenced, and the world can be bettered if enough people put their minds to it. This view is typical for historical sociology and large parts of the English school.
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Many are now discussing the possible demise of the so called 'liberal international order' , but how can we know whether any international order is changing? This article argues for understanding order as maintained by institutions of... more
Many are now discussing the possible demise of the so called 'liberal international order' , but how can we know whether any international order is changing? This article argues for understanding order as maintained by institutions of international society and further theorises the role those institutions play in the stability or transformation of international order. To usefully put institutional analysis to work, this article, first, models the stylised evolution of a primary institution. Second, it illustrates this evolution with a discussion of the historical institution of trusteeship in order to historicise adaptation and transformation in international order. Finally, this leads to a generalised idea of how institutional analysis can be employed to study stability and transformation in international order. Beyond making a contribution to the wider debates about the possible demise of the current international order, this piece also fills a gap in English School theory, which is quite silent on the question of when international society furthers transformation, and when it furthers stability. Accepting the view of history that the future is contingent on today's events, this study suggests possible points where push comes to shove for change and continuity in international order more generally.
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This is a series of solicited articles requested by the editors of Vol. 51, emerging from a roundtable discussion held at the 2022 International Studies Association Convention. Each short contribution seeks to demonstrate the newest... more
This is a series of solicited articles requested by the editors of Vol. 51, emerging from a roundtable discussion held at the 2022 International Studies Association Convention. Each short contribution seeks to demonstrate the newest research of the English School of International Relations. These contributions tackle key questions including: the decline of liberal hegemony, the rise of China, the divide between soldaristic and pluralistic ethics, the engagement of the English School with Area Studies, theoretical approaches to grounding English School research and an investigation of the English School’s intellectual legacy. Section spéciale École anglaise
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In this article, Adam Watson's use of ideal types is revisited in order to distinguish between various kinds of international orders over time and address the different types of war which are logically possible in relation to them. The... more
In this article, Adam Watson's use of ideal types is revisited in order to distinguish between various kinds of international orders over time and address the different types of war which are logically possible in relation to them. The argument is that war differs between ordered and disordered circumstances, as well as among members, or between members and non-members of a given order. The aim is, first, to analytically distinguish between various types of phenomenon which all happen to include organised violence between political entities, and all be called war; and second, to demonstrate the utility of abstracting far enough from actual history to be able to apply analytical categories, a purpose which Watson would recognise. This contributes to freeing theorising about war from its Westphalian and Eurocentric straightjacket.
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This article is a reply to Bevir and Hall, who recently argued in this journal that the English School needs to reflect more on its philosophy. They are right. Yet, their preferred distinction between a structural and an interpretivist... more
This article is a reply to Bevir and Hall, who recently argued in this journal that the English School needs to reflect more on its philosophy. They are right. Yet, their preferred distinction between a structural and an interpretivist strand of the School is not a constructive way forward. This is because their distinction between a structural and an interpretivist strand of the school is too stark, their chosen dimensions for sorting through the School are arguably not the most fruitful, and the inclusion of the English School's normative agenda must remain independent of whether one is inclined to start from structure or from agency. After elaborating these points, the article moves on to suggesting a number of other philosophical issues which would be more relevant for the English School to work through. It ends with an empirical illustration of what an integrated English School approach, inspired by structuration, could look like.
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This is an article on Swedish coastal defence over four centuries. It seeks to understand the changes in Swedish naval policy over time by exploring how the understanding of the nature of war visible in defence planning varies over time,... more
This is an article on Swedish coastal defence over four centuries. It seeks to understand the changes in Swedish naval policy over time by exploring how the understanding of the nature of war visible in defence planning varies over time, due to both changing norms and changes in harder factors, such as geography, resources and adversaries' capabilities. Its primary aim is to account for the development of Sweden's naval capacities from the mid-seventeenth century onwards. For this, the article draws on sea power concepts. Its secondary aim is to explore the development of war as an institution of international society by studying only one-albeit historically very central-aspect of one state's warring capacity over time, namely its navy.
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The world’s littorals is an important theater for all sorts of human interaction. So, also for naval warfare, which increasingly has led defense planners to focus on littoral capabilities rather than on Mahanian high-sea battles. We... more
The world’s littorals is an important theater for all sorts of human interaction. So, also for naval warfare, which increasingly has led defense planners to focus on littoral capabilities rather than on Mahanian high-sea battles. We address the question of what littoral warfare means for different types of states. To that end, we develop a set of opposing ideal-types with regards to each type’s operational environment, aims, methods, and means for littoral warfare. We then use these ideal-types to analyze the naval doctrines of Sweden, the UK, and the US. This comparison generates some interesting results. For blue-water navies, littoral warfare is an additional burden and a high-risk endeavor, since the littoral, which the planning concerns is somebody else’s. For the small coastal state, correspondingly, littoral warfare is the sole purpose of its navy, and it can focus all its resources there as well as on cooperation with its air force and army, which are necessarily nearby. For blue-water navies, the objective of littoral warfare is to defeat the enemy, whereas for the small coastal state, it is deterrence.
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It is becoming customary to define the English School (ES) as a group of scholars participating in a common inquiry related to a few central concepts, notably that of international society. Although the roots of the ES are often... more
It is becoming customary to define the English School (ES) as a group of scholars participating in a common inquiry related to a few central concepts, notably that of international society. Although the roots of the ES are often attributed to the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics, it is now said to be more of an open society of impersonal ties rather than an exclusive community based on personal relations. But how true is that assertion? If the School is theoretically open to anyone, why are its members predominantly male, white and Western? In this piece, we discuss three obstacles that prevent the ES from becoming a more inclusive venture.
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The English school of international relations is in large parts focused on the study of historical change; at the same time, however, it is remarkably unclear on how to understand change in between the idealist belief in progress and the... more
The English school of international relations is in large parts focused on the study of historical change; at the same time, however, it is remarkably unclear on how to understand change in between the idealist belief in progress and the realist eternal cycles of recurrence. This article seeks to avoid this dead end by questioning the school's understanding of change as a commonsensical concept. It is argued that change would be better understood as composed of three facets: one ontological (what is change?), one explanatory (what causes change?), and one normative (is change desirable?). This metatheoretical reconceptualization of change permits cross-checking the three facets against each other for internal coherence, but most importantly, it makes visible the underlying assumptions used to study change, so that ideas of history, causes, and normative ideals can be openly scrutinized, questioned, and defended rather than treated as self-evident. The resulting suggestion of an internally metatheoretically coherent understanding of change in international society signifies a much-needed addition to the English school tool-kit. It brings a promise of a significant metatheoretical overhaul of the theory, which, if taken up, will open up new horizons for the school. In addition, it opens up similar metatheoretical inquiries into other international relations theories’ views of change.
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English School theorists argue that primary institutions uphold order in international society. However, they disagree about what those primary institutions actually are. Moreover, comparatively little research tackles the links between... more
English School theorists argue that primary institutions uphold order in international society. However, they disagree about what those primary institutions actually are. Moreover, comparatively little research tackles the links between primary institutions and secondary ones, embodied in international organizations. Yet, these different levels of international institutions contribute in specific ways to change and stability in international affairs. I argue for understanding primary institutions as practice-based and continuously discursively constructed. This allows us to explore how international organizations, although created by states, can themselves shape primary institutions. I illustrate my argument with examples from the United Nations (UN) Security Council. There are manifest tensions in the Security Council between, on the one hand, the evolving primary institution of great-power management and, on the other hand, the “frozen” secondary institution of membership rules. This has produced a lock-in of the primary institution. Indeed, we should recognize that such tension between institutions, rather than stability and harmony among them, reflects the normal state of affairs in international society.
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This article is concerned with the obligation of State Parties to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and discusses the politics involved in the reporting process, showing what strategy each state chooses to employ. An... more
This article is concerned with the obligation of State Parties to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and discusses the politics involved in the reporting process, showing what strategy each state chooses to employ. An empirical study shows that the reported improvements in children's rights depend not only on the State Party's economic means, but also on its will to report truthfully. Based on John Rawls' ‘The Law of the Peoples’, I develop four ideal types of state with regard to the reporting process, and present game-theoretical explanations for their chosen strategies. The outcome is that a burdened state, illustrated by Burkina Faso, will tell the truth about children's rights in the state; a high-risk state, illustrated by Guatemala, will conceal or avoid eliciting sensitive information for its reports; a quasi-established liberal democracy, illustrated by Estonia, will also conceal information that shows its child rights record is not as clean as that of a liberal democracy; and a liberal democracy, illustrated by New Zealand, will tell the truth, provide all available information and point out existing problems. The article ends with a discussion about how to take the political factor out of the reporting process.
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It is debated within the English school which primary institutions are present in international society; and also how to identify a primary institution in the first place. Engaging especially with Peter Wilson’s claim that both of these... more
It is debated within the English school which primary institutions are present in international society; and also how to identify a primary institution in the first place. Engaging especially with Peter Wilson’s claim that both of these issues need to be solved by ‘empirical grounding’ of primary institutions, it is argued in this paper that international organisations, once created by states, subsequently affect change and continuity of primary institutions. Contrarily to the tendency in recent English School research of trying to ‘pin down’ primary institutions, the claim here is that primary institutions are flexible over time and cannot be pinned down definitively. International organisations can both provide platforms for new institutions and lock existing ones in, thereby preventing them from changing which might have happened in the counterfactual case. If international organisations influence primary institutions, this creates an obstacle for the enterprise of placing primary institutions in fixed analytical categories. In Bull’s terms, the substance matter has a tendency of changing before our eyes and slipping between our fingers. This claim is illustrated by a discussion of four primary institutions identified in the debated reform of the UN Security Council and the replacement of the UN Commission on Human Right by the Human Rights Council.
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In mainstream approaches to the study of international relations, the ambition is often to study cause and effect; that is, how change in an independent variable causes change in a dependent variable. The English School attitude towards... more
In mainstream approaches to the study of international relations, the ambition is often to study cause and effect; that is, how change in an independent variable causes change in a dependent variable. The English School attitude towards this kind of explanatory social science endeavour has been lukewarm at best, and at times directly hostile. However, the schism over the idea of what constitutes a good explanation makes communication between different approaches to IR difficult. In this paper it is acknowledged that much recent work across the discipline has been grappling with other types of causal explanation than the traditionally positivist causality, while progress has also been made towards making the methods of the English School more explicit. These developments raise the questions of what ‘explaining’ and ‘understanding’ might mean to the English School, and what type of causal explanation could be acceptable to its theoretical ambitions. It is argued here that it is the English School’s view of history, as much as its epistemologically interpretivist orientation, which lies behind its disdain for traditional causal explanation.
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This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing questions that are likely to concern International Relations researchers in the years to come. We draw on recent scholarship to demonstrate the... more
This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing questions that are likely to concern International Relations researchers in the years to come. We draw on recent scholarship to demonstrate the utility, often underestimated, of the English School in making sense of topical issues in world politics. We revisit research on, first, the role of emerging powers and the future of world order; second, globalization and regionalization; and third, European security and Brexit. In each case, the ES sensitivity to nuance and its historical awareness make sense of the complexity and apparent contradictions of ongoing transitions. We conclude that the unique theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach of the English School makes it an essential resource for understanding and critically investigating current world politics.
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This chapter discusses how international organisations affect change and continuity of primary institutions. It conceptualises primary institutions as fundamentally flexible over time, although subject to locking-in as well as to... more
This chapter discusses how international organisations affect change and continuity of primary institutions. It conceptualises primary institutions as fundamentally flexible over time, although subject to locking-in as well as to emergence in international organisations. Primary institutions are practice-based and therefore evolving continuously, but international organisations are formally negotiated between states and so notoriously difficult to change. This leads to constant tensions between practice and rules, and sometimes to calls for reform. This claim is illustrated by examples from the UN Security Council. The conclusion to draw is that international organizations are neither window-dressing of international affairs, nor necessarily pushers for change. Rather, they contribute to stabilising an otherwise fluid institutional order.
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The English school of international relations is in large parts focused on the study of historical change; at the same time, however, it is remarkably unclear on how to understand change in between the idealist belief in progress and the... more
The English school of international relations is in large parts focused on the study of historical change; at the same time, however, it is remarkably unclear on how to understand change in between the idealist belief in progress and the realist eternal cycles of recurrence. This article seeks to avoid this dead end by questioning the school's understanding of change as a commonsensical concept. It is argued that change would be better understood as composed of three facets: one ontological (what is change?), one explanatory (what causes change?), and one normative (is change desirable?). This metatheoretical reconceptualization of change permits cross-checking the three facets against each other for internal coherence, but most importantly, it makes visible the underlying assumptions used to study change, so that ideas of history, causes, and normative ideals can be openly scrutinized, questioned, and defended rather than treated as self-evident. The resulting suggestion of an ...
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The overall topic of this thesis is the English School understanding of international order, which I approach specifically by analysing the English School idea of international institutions and the ...