(02_1_4)Why is There No International Thoery

http://ire.sagepub.com International Relations DOI: 10.1177/004711786000200104 1960; 2; 35 International Relations Martin Wight Why is there no International Theory? http://ire.sagepub.com The online version of this article can be found at: Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: David Davies Memorial Institute for International Studies can be found at:International Relations Additional services and information for http://ire.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://ire.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions: © 1960 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 22, 2008 http://ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from 35 WHY IS THERE NO INTERNATIONAL THEORY? BY MARTIN WIGHT &dquo;Political theory&dquo; is a phrase that in general requires no explanation. It is used here to denote speculation about the State, which is its traditional meaning from Plato onwards. On the other hand, the phrase &dquo; international theory &dquo; does require explanation. On first hearing, it is likely to be taken as meaning either the methodology of the study of international relations, or some con- ceptual system which offers a unified explanation of international phenomena-&dquo; the theory of international relations &dquo;. In this paper neither of these is intended. By &dquo; international theory &dquo; is meant a tradition of speculation about relations between States, a tradition imagined as the twin of speculation about the State to which the name &dquo; political theory &dquo; is appropriated. And inter- national theory in this sense does not, at first sight, exist. Some qualification, of course, is needed. There are many theoretical writings about international relations; some of them bear names as eminent as Machiavelli or Kant; and in the twentieth century they have become a flood. Yet it is difficult to say that any of them has the status of a political classic. This is a problem that besets the teacher of International Relations if he conceives of International Relations as a twin subject, distinct from but parallel with, the subject commonly known as Political Science or Govern- ment. Political Science has its tensions and internecine conflicts, to be sure, but it is in some sense held together by Political Theory, or as it is sometimes called the History of Political Ideas. The student of Government, however else he may be misled, is given an introduction tao the tradition of speculation and the body of writings about the State from Plato to Laski. But the student of International Relations cannot, it seems, similarly be directed to classics on his branch of politics of the stature of Aristotle or Hobbes or Locke or Rousseau. Is it because they do not exist? The question may be put in a different way. The teacher of International Relations is often given the impression that his subject sprang fully-armed from the head of David Davies or of Sir Mon- tague Burton. But if he seeks to trace it further back, behind the memorable Endowment whereby Andrew Carnegie left ten million dollars for &dquo; the speedy abolition of war between the so-called civilized nations &dquo;, to be applied when this end was achieved to other social and educational purposes, he finds himself involved in obscurity. In the nineteenth century and earlier, there is no suc- cession of first-rank books about the State-system and diplomacy like the succession of political classics from Bodin to Bosanquet. What international theory, then, was there before 1914? And if there was any, is it worth rediscovering? © 1960 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 22, 2008 http://ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from 36 One answer to the question is plain. If political theory is the tradition of speculation about the State, then international theory may be supposed to be a tradition of speculation about the society of States, or the family of nations, or the international community. And speculation of this kind was formerly comprehended under International Law. The public law of Europe in the eighteenth century has been described as &dquo; an amalgam of formulx, juris- prudence, political speculation and recorded practice &dquo;1. The speculative breadth of international lawyers has done something to create their reputation as futile metaphysicians, even after the influence of positivism disciplined them to neglect metalegal questions. When Tocqueville gave his presidential address to the Acad6mic des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1852, he distin- guished on the one side the study of the rights of society and of the individual, what laws are appropriate to particular societies, what forms of government to particular circumstances, citing as. examples the names of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Rousseau; and on the other side those who Undertake the same task with regard to the society of nations in which each people is a citizen-a society always rather barbarous, even in the most civilised periods, and whatever is done to appease and regulate the relations of those who compose it.2 2 And here he gave as illustrations the names of Grotius and Pufen- dorf. It might be worth adding that international law gained academic recognition in Britain well before political theory. The Chichele Chair of International Law and Diplomacy at Oxford and the Whewell Chair of International Law at Cambridge were founded in 1859 and 1866 respectively, and the Gladstone Chair of Political Theory and Institutions and the Cambridge Chair of Political Science only in 1912 and 1928. It is to the classical international lawyers that we must look in the first place for any body of international theory before the twentieth century. It is worth asking where else international theory is found. We might answer in four kinds of writing: (a) Those whom Nys called the irenists-Erasmus, Sully, Campanella, Cruce, Penn, the Abb6 de St. Pierre, and Pierre-Andr6 Gargaz. When Melian Stewall wrote a book on The Growth of International Thought for the Home University Library, writers of this kind provided her central line of progress from the Truce of God to the Kellogg Pact. But it is hard to consider them as other than the curiosities of political litera- ture. They are not rich in ideas; the best of them grope with the problem of how to secure common action between sovereign States, and thus gain a mention in the prehistory of the League of Nations. (b) Those whom it is convenient to’ call the Machiavellians: the succession of writers on raison d’itat of who~m Meinecke is the great 1 G. Butler and S. Maccoby, The Development of International Law, p. 7. 2 Oeuvres. ix. 120-1. © 1960 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 22, 2008 http://ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from 37 interpreter. In a footnote about the followers of Botero, Meinecke says, &dquo; There are real catacombs of forgotten literature here by mediocrities &dquo;.1 He does not so mean it, but one suspects that- the phrase will cover all the writers in his own book apart from those who are notable in another sphere, whether as statesmen, like Frederick, or as philosophers, like Hegel, or as historians, like Ranke and Treitschke. Bolero, and Boccalini, Henri de Rohan and Gabriel Naud6, Courtilz de Sandras and Rousset: can we see in them forgotten or potential classics? One difficulty in answering is that they are inaccessible except to the scholar, and this perhaps itself conveys the answer. (c) The parerga of political philosophers, philosophers and historians. As examples of this kind might be named Hume’s. Essay on &dquo; The Balance of Power &dquo;, Rousseau’s Project of Perpetual Peace, Bentham’s Plan for an Universal Peace, Burke’s Thoughts on French Affairs and Letters on a Regicide Peace, Ranke’s essay on the Great Powers, and J. S. Mill’s essay on the law of nations. Apart from the classical international lawyers, these are the most rewarding source in the quest for international theory. Is it more interesting that so many great minds have been drawn, at the margin of their activities, to consider basic problems of inter- national politics, or that more great minds have not been drawn to make these problems their central interest? The only political philosopher who has turned wholly from political theory to inter- national theory is Burke. The only political philosopher of whom it is possible to argue whether his principal interest was not in the relations between States rather than-or even more than-the State itself, is Machiavelli. With him, the foreign and domestic tondi- tions for the establishment and maintenance of state power are not distinguished systematically; and this alone-without other reasons. -would have justified his being annexed, by detractors and admirers alike, as the tutelary hero of International Relations. In this class, again, it would be necessary to place such miscellaneous political writers as Bolingbroke, whose Letters on the Study and Use af History contain a primitive philosophy of international politics, or Mably, whose Principes des Négociations is one of the more enduring pieces of his large output, or the Gentz of Fragments o~n the Balance of Porrver. (d) The speeches, despatches, memoirs and essays of statesmen and diplomatists. To illustrate speeches and despatches as a source of international theory, one might cite the authority of Canning over a generation of British foreign policy-for instance, the classic despatch of 1823 containing his doctrine of guarantees. To illus- trate memoirs, Bismarck’s Gedanken und Erinnerungen, perhaps the supreme example. To illustrate essays, Lord Salisbury’s early essays on foreign affairs in the Quarterly Review. It is clear, therefore, that international theory, or what there is 1 F. Meinecke, Machiavellism (English translation), p. 67 n.1. © 1960 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 22, 2008 http://ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from 38 of it, is scattered, unsystematic, and mostly inaccessible to’ the layman. Moreover, it is largely repellent and intractable in form. Gro~tins has to be read at large to be understood; the only possible extract is the Prolegomena, which gives a pallid notion of whether or why he deserves his reputation. Students cannot be expected to tackle Pufendorf’s De jure naturae et gentium libri octo, nor even his De o