Order, Anarchy & International Society – Detailed Study Notes (Pages 52–60)

World International Society in the 20th Century

  • Early-modern notion of a specifically European “Christian” or “civilised” society of states eroded; by the 20th C. the idea shifts to a global or world-wide society.
  • James Lorimer (1880s) classified mankind into:
    • Civilised humanity → Europe & the Americas (full recognition).
    • Barbarous humanity → independent Asian states (partial recognition).
    • Savage humanity → remainder of mankind (no membership, only “natural” recognition).
      • Modern social-science echo: “modern / traditional / primitive societies.”
  • Today the UN’s near-universal membership delegitimises any claim that international society rests on a single civilisation; yet modernity = Western culture still supplies the implicit cultural core (to be revisited in Ch. 13).
  • Retreat from Vattel’s clear state-centrism back toward Grotius’ ambiguity:
    • New bearers of rights & duties: international organisations, trans-state groups, individuals (Nuremberg, Tokyo, UDHR).
    • No shared hierarchy among these agents → ongoing theoretical dispute.
  • Positivist reliance on existing practice (18-19th C.) replaced by renewed natural-law or normative proclamations (League Covenant, Kellogg–Briand, UN Charter).
  • Re-emergence of universalist / solidarist assumptions:
    • Distinction between aggressive vs defensive war  objective “just/unjust” causes.
    • Neutrality qualified by collective security doctrines.
  • Over-emphasis on reformist institutions → neglect of traditional order-bearing mechanisms:
    • Wilsonian denial of balance of power, suspicion of diplomacy, confusion of law with morality.

Reality vs. Idea of International Society

  • Question posed: do philosophical/legal theories match statesmen’s practise, esp. in crisis?
    • Example challenge: could Hitler’s Germany & Stalin’s USSR be said to share rules while fighting to the death?
  • Author’s contention: the element of society has always co-existed with elements of power-politics (Hobbesian) & trans-national solidarities/conflicts (Kantian).
    • Relative weight varies by period, theatre, actor.

Three Permanent Elements (Hobbes – Kant – Grotius)

  • Element 1: State of war & struggle for power.
    • E.g. 17-18th-cent. trade/colonial wars (Holland, France, England).
  • Element 2: Trans-national solidarity/conflict cutting across state lines.
    • Wars of Religion (pre-1648), French Revolutionary/Napoleonic upheaval, Cold War communist vs anti-communist blocs.
    • Both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary solidarities (Society of Jesus, Legitimism, “Dullesian” anti-communism).
  • Element 3: International society (common rules & institutions).
    • Predominant in 19th-cent. Concert of Europe interval.

Persistence Through Stress

  • Even in total war, states adhered to some common rules:
    • WWII: Geneva POW conventions largely observed on Western front; neutrals treated under normal rules; internal Allied/Axis dealings remained rule-governed.
    • Height of Cold War: US–USSR kept diplomatic ties, UN membership, recognition of sovereignty.
  • Underground survival of society → foundation for post-war reconstruction/détente.

Illustrations of Non-Society Encounters

  • Mongol conquests (Chingis Khan): doctrine of mandate of heaven accepted only by Mongols; no shared rules with victims.
  • Spanish Conquistadors vs. Aztecs/Incas: Spaniards debated Pope’s imperium mundi, evangelisation, hospitality duties; Indians did not share rule set.
  • Islam vs. Christendom: world divided into dar-al-Islam vs dar-al-Harb. Treaties = provisional; no permanent common society envisaged.

Role of Pretexts & “Just Causes”

  • Grotius: wars launched on justifiable causes (genuinely believed) vs persuasive causes (mere pretexts).
    • Need for any pretext restrains behaviour & signals respect for common judgement.
    • Absence of pretext = “wars of savages” (Grotius); Vattel: perpetrators are “monsters” subject to collective suppression.

Anarchical Society & the Domestic Analogy

  • Critique: lack of world government ⇒ “international anarchy” (G. L. Dickinson).
  • Domestic analogy (Hobbes): like individuals pre-contract, states are in a state of nature ⇒ no society possible without sovereign.
  • Three weaknesses:
    1. Hobbes’ three traits (no industry, no morality, war of all vs all) don’t fully apply: trade & law exist internationally.
    2. Even among individuals, order can arise without central coercion (Locke’s version of state of nature).
    3. States ≠ individuals:
      • Less vulnerable; possess organised defence.
      • Power asymmetry (great vs small) reduces universal vulnerability; only advent of many nuclear powers might equalise.

Clausewitz, Spinoza & Nuclear Qualifier

  • Traditional war = succession of acts, rarely absolute; defeat “passing evil.”
  • Nuclear weapons reopen question of instantaneous, absolute destruction ⇒ potential convergence with Hobbesian vulnerability.

Limitations of International Society

  • Danger of reifying the society element: must remember constant competition with power-politics & ideological divisions.
  • Order provided is precarious & imperfect; alternative structures may (in principle) yield better order.

Order, Rules & Institutions (Prelude to Chapter 3)

  • Order = patterns upholding elementary/primary goals (security from violence, stability of agreements, property/territory).
    • Derived from common interests, expressed & stabilised by rules, made effective by institutions.
  • Rules require eight supporting functions:
    1. Making
    2. Communicating
    3. Administering
    4. Interpreting
    5. Enforcing
    6. Legitimising
    7. Adapting
    8. Protecting (shaping social environment).

Government Inside the Modern State

  • Central institution possessing:
    • Overwhelming physical force
    • Near-monopoly on legitimate force
  • Performs all eight functions for domestic legal rules (legislature, executive, judiciary, police, armed forces, education, symbolic leadership, crisis-management).

“Ordered Anarchy” in Primitive Stateless Societies

  • Anthropological examples: Nuer, Dinka, Mandari (Sudan); Tallensi (Nigeria); Bwamba & Lugbara (Uganda/Congo); Konkomba (Togoland).
  • Characteristics:
    • No central political institutions; roles (kinship, ritual, local) overlap.
    • Yet demonstrate effective order via custom, moral/religious sanctions, lineage & locality group mechanisms.
  • All eight supporting functions performed decentrally:
    • Rule-making through evolution of custom.
    • Enforcement via conditioning, ridicule, curses, & inter-group retaliation.
    • Interpretation/administering handled by elders or lineage heads.
  • Demonstrates possibility of social order without government—analogous to anarchical society of states.