Globalizing the international: Bull's metaphysics of order

IF 2.2 1区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Theory Pub Date : 2023-01-30 DOI:10.1017/S1752971922000148

Regan Burles

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Abstract

Abstract As the origin story of the present world political order the globalization of international society serves as a unifying frame for the discipline of international relations. This paper considers the consequences of the shift from the ‘expansion’ to the ‘globalization’ of international society in relation to two main texts: Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society and Tim Dunne and Christian Reus-Smit's The Globalization of International Society. The analysis shows that Bull's conception of world order depends on a key distinction between aggregate and system which marks the difference between an aggregate of local political orders and a systematically unified world political order (a global international system). Because recent histories of the globalization of international society remain guided by Bull's distinction, they are unable to explain this transition in historical terms without transforming the global international order from the explanandum of the globalization of international society to its explanans. As a result, global histories of the globalization of international society grant a global international system a structural permanence the original expansion story was meant to contest. In doing so they change profoundly the kind of questions that can be asked regarding the origins, character, and future of political order on earth.

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全球化国际：布尔的秩序形而上学

摘要作为当今世界政治秩序的起源故事，国际社会的全球化是国际关系学科的统一框架。本文从海德利·布尔的《无政府社会》、蒂姆·邓恩和克里斯蒂安·鲁斯·斯密特的《国际社会的全球化》两个主要文本来思考国际社会从“扩张”向“全球化”转变的后果。分析表明，布尔的世界秩序观取决于集合与系统之间的关键区别，这标志着地方政治秩序的集合与系统统一的世界政治秩序（全球国际体系）之间的区别。由于国际社会全球化的近代史仍然以布尔的区别为指导，如果不将全球国际秩序从国际社会全球化解释转变为解释，它们就无法用历史的眼光来解释这种转变。因此，国际社会全球化的全球历史赋予了一个全球国际体系一种结构上的永久性——这是最初的扩张故事所要挑战的。在这样做的过程中，他们深刻地改变了关于地球上政治秩序的起源、特征和未来的问题。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

International Theory Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Editorial board International Theory (IT) is a peer reviewed journal which promotes theoretical scholarship about the positive, legal, and normative aspects of world politics respectively. IT is open to theory of absolutely all varieties and from all disciplines, provided it addresses problems of politics, broadly defined and pertains to the international. IT welcomes scholarship that uses evidence from the real world to advance theoretical arguments. However, IT is intended as a forum where scholars can develop theoretical arguments in depth without an expectation of extensive empirical analysis. IT’s over-arching goal is to promote communication and engagement across theoretical and disciplinary traditions. IT puts a premium on contributors’ ability to reach as broad an audience as possible, both in the questions they engage and in their accessibility to other approaches. This might be done by addressing problems that can only be understood by combining multiple disciplinary discourses, like institutional design, or practical ethics; or by addressing phenomena that have broad ramifications, like civilizing processes in world politics, or the evolution of environmental norms. IT is also open to work that remains within one scholarly tradition, although in that case authors must make clear the horizon of their arguments in relation to other theoretical approaches.