From International Anarchy to International Society Theoretical Foundations

This book explores the realm of international political life that occupies a middle ground between the anarchy characteristic of international politics and the order characteristic of national politics. This is the realm of international society. As a starting point, this book shares the realist assumption that states reside in a Hobbesian international system whose default equilibrium is one of pervasive geopolitical competition. But it parts company with realism in positing that even if competition is endemic to global politics, it can nonetheless be overcome. As the international system matures, a Hobbesian world can give way to a Lockean world—one in which the practice of reciprocity and the fashioning of political compacts curb rivalry. Thereafter, the international system has the potential to evolve to a Deutschian world—one in which an international society based on communal norms and identities eliminates geopolitical competition and provides a foundation for stable peace.1 The logic of international society represents a synthesis of the logics of international politics and that of national politics. In the realm of international politics, each state is self-regarding and sovereign, all embrace oppositional identities, and order, to the extent it exists, emerges from the exercise of power. In the realm of national politics, sovereignty is unitary, identity is common, and order emerges from the institutionalization of power—as articulated by Max Weber and other theorists of the state. International society is located at the intersection of these two realms, containing characteristics of both. In this Deutschian middle ground, states exercise an attenuated form of sovereignty, identity is communal but not common, and order emerges