Rebooting Global International Society: Change, Contestation and Resilience (Governance, Security and Development) 3031113926, 9783031113925

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GOVERNANCE, SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT

Rebooting Global International Society Change, Contestation and Resilience Edited by Trine Flockhart Zachary Paikin

Governance, Security and Development

Series Editor Trine Flockhart, Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

The series addresses issues related to an international system that is increasingly dominated by changing and inter-linked processes of governance involving formal and informal institutions and multiple processes of change and continuity within security and development. In the area of security the processes involve traditional key actors in international society and new much less traditional actors engaging with new forms of security and including individuals, groups, and states. In the area of development, focus is increasingly on improvements in political and economic conditions for individuals and groups but from an understanding that development is dependent on good governance and security. Books published in the Series may engage with any one of the three topics on its own merits - or they may address the interplay and dynamics that occur when Governance, Security and Development interact (or collide) in an increasingly interconnected and constantly changing international system.

Trine Flockhart · Zachary Paikin Editors

Rebooting Global International Society Change, Contestation and Resilience

Editors Trine Flockhart Department of Political Science and Public Management University of Southern Denmark Odense, Denmark

Zachary Paikin Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Brussels, Belgium

ISSN 2945-7815 ISSN 2945-7823 (electronic) Governance, Security and Development ISBN 978-3-031-11392-5 ISBN 978-3-031-11393-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © clu/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To those whom I love: John, Emilia, Alexander, Helena and Phoebe. Trine Flockhart To my Bubby & Zeda, Marnie & Larry, who taught me the love of knowledge. Zachary Paikin

Praise for Rebooting Global International Society

“This is an ambitious volume of essays that addresses how change is enabled and produced by the institutions of global international society. In their quest, contributors intelligently blend classical and new English School writings with constructivist insights. The result is a thoroughly engaging and innovative book that is likely to stimulate a new wave of theorizing change in the global order.” —Tim Dunne, Provost at the University of Surrey, UK, and Emeritus Professor at The University of Queensland, Australia “One of Hedley Bull’s many achievements was to harness the intellectual resources of the sociological concept of fundamental institutions to give, in his day, a superior account of international order. Today, Flockhart, Paikin and their collaborators avail themselves of those same resources to revisit order in contemporary global international society, and the burning questions of the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of change in this society. It is a rich contribution to the International Relations discipline’s attempt to understand order.” —Laust Schouenborg, Associate Professor of International Politics, Roskilde University, Denmark “This is an interesting book, full of thought-provoking questions about change and adaptation in world order. It brings together traditional English School thinking about international society with alternative vii

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perspectives that enrich our thinking about global international society, and whether it needs ‘rebooting’, specifically in order to become less Eurocentric and more just. With their diverse line-up of contributors, Flockhart and Paikin manage to shine light from several angles on the idea of an evolving and adapting global international society. Using the key themes of change, contestation, and resilience, they combine traditional thinking about international society’s institutions with a broader view of the mechanisms of adaptation in international order. The result is an inspiring and fascinating read.” —Charlotta Friedner Parrat, Assistant Professor, Swedish Defence University, Sweden

Contents

1

Introduction: Rebooting Global International Society Zachary Paikin and Trine Flockhart

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Part I Theory and Concepts 2

Theorizing Change in the English School Trine Flockhart

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Contestation in Global International Society Zachary Paikin

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Resilience in Global International Society Elena Korosteleva and Irina Petrova

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The Relationship Between Primary and Secondary Institutions: Theorizing Institutional Change Tonny Brems Knudsen

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Part II Institutions 6

Sovereignty Is Dead, Long Live Sovereignty Christian Reus-Smit

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The Balance of Power and the Independence of Nations Morten Skumsrud Andersen

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CONTENTS

Change, Contestation and Resilience in Great Power Management Jorge M. Lasmar

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War—Still an Institution of International Society? Amelie Theussen

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Old Bull, New China Shop: The Institution of Diplomacy and the Sino-American Struggle for Influence at the UN Richard Gowan

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Cum Haereticis Fides Non Servanda: International Law’s Resilience in a Pluralistic World? Vincent Charles Keating and Amelie Theussen

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The Market in Global International Society: A Dialectic of Contestation and Resilience Barry Buzan and Robert Falkner

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Conclusions Richard Ned Lebow

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Andersen Morten Skumsrud is Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Head of the Research group on Global order and Diplomacy. His research concerns shifting relations of power and dominance between states, with a particular focus on hierarchy and empires, international conceptual history, and foreign investments and security. Buzan Barry is Professor Emeritus at the LSE, a Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS and a fellow of the British Academy. His works relevant to the market and the English School include: ‘Economic Structure and International Security: the Limits of the Liberal Case’, International Organization, 38:4 (1984) 597–24; From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (2004); ‘The Challenge of International Political Economy and Globalization’ in Alex Bellamy (ed.) International Society and its Critics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 115–33; An Introduction to the English School of International Relations: The Societal Approach (2014); The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations (2015, with George Lawson); and Global International Society: A New Framework for Analysis (2018, with Laust Schouenborg). He is currently working (with Robert Falkner) on a book that traces the fluctuating fortunes of the market as a primary institution of global international society.

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Falkner Robert is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. He has published widely on global environmental politics and international political economy, including books on Great Powers, Climate Change and Global Environmental Responsibilities (co-edited, 2022), Environmentalism and Global International Society (2021), The Handbook of Global Climate and Environment Policy (edited, 2013) and Business Power and Conflict in International Environmental Politics (2008). He is currently working (with Barry Buzan) on a book that traces the fluctuating fortunes of the market as a primary institution of global international society. Flockhart Trine is Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and Co-Director of the Center for War Studies at SDU. She is Chair of Business and Social Science at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study and series editor for the Palgrave series, Governance, Security and Development. Her research focuses on international order and transformational change, constructivism, ontological security, NATO, European Security, the liberal international order (and its crisis), transatlantic relations and multi-order governance. She is currently working on a monograph on the transformation towards a multi-order world. Gowan Richard is UN Director for the International Crisis Group in New York. He was previously a Consulting Analyst with ICG in 2016 and 2017. He has worked with the European Council on Foreign Relations, New York University Center on International Cooperation and the Foreign Policy Centre (London). He has taught at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and Stanford in New York. He has also worked as a consultant for the organizations including UN Department of Political Affairs, the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on International Migration, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Rasmussen Global, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Global Affairs Canada. From 2013 to 2019, he wrote a weekly column (“Diplomatic Fallout”) for World Politics Review. Keating Vincent Charles is Associate Professor and Head of Section for International Politics at the Center for War Studies, University of

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Southern Denmark. He has previously published on the consequences of the War on Terror on international human rights norms in International Studies Quarterly, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, and the International Journal of Human Rights, and in a monograph with Palgrave Macmillan. He has also published on global ideological contestation, with a particular focus on Russian conservative soft power and ideological influence in the West, in the Journal of International Relations and Development and International Politics. Knudsen Tonny Brems is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University. His publications include Power Transition in the Anarchical Society: Rising Powers, Institutional Change and the New World Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, edited with Cornelia Navari), International Organization in the Anarchical Society: The Institutional Structure of World Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, edited with Cornelia Navari), International Relations in Europe: Traditions, perspectives and destinations (Routledge, 2006, edited with Knud Erik Jørgensen), Kosovo between War and Peace: Nationalism, peacebuilding and international trusteeship (Routledge, 2006, edited with Carsten Bagge Laustsen), and articles on especially the English School, international institutions, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, intervention, great power management and world order. Korosteleva Elena is Professor of Politics and Global Sustainable Development, at the University of Warwick. She is Co-Founder of the Oxford Belarus Observatory (University of Oxford) and formerly Principal Investigator for the GCRF-funded project COMPASS (ES/P010849/1). Her interests include resilience, complexity, order formation and multiorder governance in Central Eurasia. Her recent publications include Special Issue ‘The Making of Resilient Communities in Central Eurasia’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 35(2) 2022 (with I. Petrova); ‘Community Resilience in Belarus and the EU response’ in Journal of Common Market Studies Annual Review, October 2021 (with I. Petrova); Special Issue ‘Russia between East and West, and the Future of Eurasian Order’ in International Politics, 58(3) 2021 (with Z. Paikin), and a monograph Resilience in EU and International Institutions (with T. Flockhart, 2020). Lasmar Jorge M. is Professor of International Relations at PUC Minas, Brazil, as well as the Dean of Post-Graduate Studies at the Milton

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Campos Law School. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is the co-founder and co-director of the Collaborative Research Network on Terrorism, Radicalisation and Organised Crime (TRAC), and currently is the Director of Legal Affairs of the International Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (INASIS). Lebow Richard Ned is Professor of International Political Theory at King’s College London and Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of almost fifty books on international relations, comparative politics, political theory, history, classics and philosophy of science. He has recently published his first novel and a book of short stories. He is a fellow of the British Academy and the recipient of many book awards and honorary degrees. Paikin Zachary is Researcher in the EU Foreign Policy unit at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels and a Non-Resident Research Fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy (IPD) in Toronto. He is also a member of the Network for Strategic Analysis, funded by the Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) programme of the Department of National Defence of Canada. His research interests focus on English School theory, international order, great power relations, Euro-Atlantic security, Russian foreign policy and Canadian foreign policy. His recent publications include ‘Through thick and thin: Russia, China and the future of Eurasian International Society’, International Politics 58(3) 2021 and ‘Great power rivalry and the weakening of collective hegemony: revisiting the relationship between international society and international order’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 34(1) 2021. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Kent. Petrova Irina is Lecturer in the Politics of Eurasia at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). She holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the KU Leuven. Previously, she worked as a postdoctoral Research Associate at the GCRF COMPASS project (ES/P010849/1), School of Politics and International Relations (University of Kent), assistant at the KU Leuven, University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS), and an adjunct lecturer at Vesalius College (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). Her research focuses on resilience, local ownership in Central Eurasia, as well as the EU’s and Russian foreign policies. Her

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recent publications include ‘Community Resilience in Belarus and the EU response’ in Journal of Common Market Studies Annual Review, October 2021 (with E. Korosteleva); ‘Societal fragilities and resilience: The emergence of peoplehood in Belarus’ (with E. Korosteleva) in Journal of Eurasian Studies. Reus-Smit Christian is Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Before joining UQ, Professor Reus-Smit held Chairs at the European University Institute and the Australian National University (where he was the Head of the Department of International Relations from 2001 to 2010 and Deputy Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies from 2006 to 2008). He is co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in International Relations book series, former editor of the journal International Theory and editor of a new multi-volume series of Oxford Handbooks of International Relations. In 2013–2014, Professor Reus-Smit served as a Vice-President of the International Studies Association. Theussen Amelie is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. She researches the changing character of war and its effects on political and legal norms relating to the use of force. Additionally, she writes about German and Danish foreign and security policy, including Baltic Sea security and defence reform. Her latest publications are an edited volume (together with Sten Rynning and Olivier Schmitt) on war and temporality, War Time, published with Brookings and Chatham House in 2021, and ‘International law is dead, long live international law: the state practice of drone strikes’ published in International Politics (2021).

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 5.1

The ideal-type ordering domain: input, reflections and output The dynamics of institutional change

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Rebooting Global International Society Zachary Paikin and Trine Flockhart

In this book, we ask if it is time to ‘reboot’ global international society (GIS). Our question may seem counterintuitive and a touch premature as the concept of GIS is a recent addition to English School (ES) terminology (Dunne and Reus-Smit 2017; Buzan and Schouenborg 2018) and its precise meaning and significance is not settled. Nevertheless, we pose the question for two reasons. First, we wish to address the emerging tendency, made by both supporters and detractors of American hegemony alike, of equating international society writ large with the expansion of the so-called liberal international order. Contrary to the prevailing political discourse, the latter represents a Western conception of order underpinned by Western-inspired institutions in place of a focus on the

Z. Paikin (B) Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, Belgium T. Flockhart Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_1

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increased connectivity, complexity and diversity of a global—and globalized—international society. Second, we pose our question not only with respect to GIS, but specifically with regard to its fundamental institutions. Several of the fundamental institutions underpinning GIS today face contestation from different constituencies and, at first glance, many appear unable to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. It must be stressed that we ask if GIS and its institutions need to be rebooted out of the greatest respect for Hedley Bull (1996), whose seminal tome, first published in 1977, we regard as the most authoritative statement on the concept of international society and the most in-depth analysis of how order is forged in an anarchical society. Our question is necessary not only because the world has changed substantially since the publication of The Anarchical Society but also because global governance has over recent years come to face a diverse variety of challenges and concerns (Suganami et al. 2017), even as our understanding of (global) international society, its historical trajectory and its political impact has developed in several fashions (See for example Dunne 2002; Buzan 2004; Bull et al. 2019). The question of how order is forged and maintained is still one of the most important questions in global politics, now imbued with an added urgency as established ordering practices and institutions appear to be out of step with expectations and increasingly unable to address the many challenges encountered in a globalized world in transformation. A re-evaluation of the institutions that are already regarded as fundamental for governance and order in English School theorizing, as well as other fundamental institutions that have been excluded or overlooked, is urgently needed. We, therefore, address some of the tensions and limitations in Bull’s original analysis that have come to light over the more than four subsequent decades of debate in the English School, which lead us to suggest that English School theorizing could be well served by paying more attention to debates that primarily have taken place outside the English School related to how institutions can remain resilient within an environment characterized by change and contestation. We would like to believe that had Bull still been alive, he would have welcomed such a project. The conceptual spine of Rebooting Global International Society consists of three distinct but closely connected concepts that so far have only played a very limited role in ES thinking. We argue that it is now time to incorporate considerations related to change, contestation and resilience into ES theorizing—together constituting an adaptation of ES

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thinking—to take account of the fundamentally altered conditions for global order that exist today. We approach the three concepts as a trinity of distinct but connected processes with significant relevance to a world that is characterized by high levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity—branded by Burrows and Gnad (2018) as the VUCAworld. In fact, while these four features are becoming more apparent to Western leaders and societies, they have been affecting much of the world for some time, buttressing our rationale for re-examining the foundations of order in a culturally diverse international society of global scope. Our focus is on GIS and its institutions and our analysis bridges different levels of ordering from the global to the local level. We argue that the IR discipline, including ES theory, has for too long been focused on states and structures, thereby overlooking important political dynamics and the role of agency-based behaviour at other levels of ordering than the state/international level. By including other levels of ordering, new and alternative ordering domains move into focus, such as the rise of competing international orders with diverging ideational foundations and the resurgence of illiberal forms of nationalism alongside dysfunctional democratic domestic institutions. We recognize the need to look more closely at the consequences of the VUCA-world at the levels of ordering below the global level, especially how these are experienced at the personal and local/domestic level, where a heightened sense of uncertainty and anxiety appear to have produced a range of negative emotions with direct political consequences seen in the rise of different forms of contestations such as populist politics. We, therefore, not only concur with Lebow’s observation that change gives rise to ‘multiple interrelated chains of causation [that] have unanticipated interactions and unpredictable consequences’ (Lebow 2009, p. 77) but we seek actively to incorporate some of these interconnections into our analysis. This book is both an homage to Bull’s contribution to English School theory, a critique of some of his choices and assumptions, and a pragmatic suggestion for how to adapt some of his conceptual and theoretical innovations to the conditions of the twenty-first century. We recognize that some will find that we are giving too much attention to contextualism that is not relevant to a timeless theoretical contribution. Those who think so will undoubtedly find our suggestion to ‘reboot’ a great master’s most celebrated concept as too dramatic—perhaps even disrespectful. To this we answer that the relevance and significance of any theoretical position can only be maintained through continuous reflection, adaptation

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and renewal in response to disciplinary developments and to a forever changing environment. This book is, therefore, intended as a continuation of the tradition of conversations in the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics1 that was the birthplace of the English School and that has been continued since the 1980s through countless debates and revisions that are still relevant today.

Connecting Order with Change, Contestation and Resilience The Anarchical Society is above all else a study of order in world politics. Bull was mainly concerned with what order is, where it is produced, and above all, how it could be maintained in an anarchical international society. In this book, we are certainly concerned with those questions, but where Bull was concerned with how order is maintained, we focus on how and why order changes and how and why order is sometimes contested. In addition, we ask what it means for (global) international society and its institutions to be resilient and how resilience can be achieved and maintained. In the more than four decades since the publication of The Anarchical Society, English School theory has periodically addressed the first two of these questions (Nexon 2009; Phillips 2011; Sakwa 2017) but there has not, to our knowledge, been a specific link to the question about resilience in (global) international society and its institutions. We add a distinctive understanding of resilience as an agent-based practice of self-governance to reflect on a forever changing environment and to continuously adapt to that environment to remain ‘fit for purpose’.2 Our understanding reinforces the link between change and contestation in global international society and necessitates engagement with issues of agency—issues which have only recently started to receive sustained attention (Adler 2008; Spandler 2015; Friedner Parrat 2017). Therefore, although the addition of resilience on the surface may appear to be a small step, the focus in this book on the trinity of change, contestation 1 The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics was started by Herbert Butterfield in 1959 to discuss the theory and history of international relations. The committee included, among others Martin Wight, Adam Watson and Hedley Bull who met regularly throughout the 1960s and 1970s. 2 For a conceptual exploration of this definition of resilience see Korosteleva and Flockhart (2021).

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and resilience opens space for a new perspective on traditional ES debates. These debates include the notion that the formation of a global international society was an outward and unidirectional process and mainly problematic because it would lead to normative and cultural contestation in societies that did not share the European cultural foundations of international society, as well as Bull’s view on international organizations as ‘pseudo institutions’ that were of lesser value than his rather narrow list of fundamental or—in Buzan’s revised terminology—‘primary’ institutions (Buzan 2004). The contributors to this book address some of these questions from a shared understanding that international society’s story has long been a global one, producing the concept of global international society (GIS) (Watson 1992; Dunne and Reus-Smit 2017). This is because GIS is not just an expanded international society in geographic scope but also in cultural-normative character and, therefore, in the nature of its rules, practices and institutions. Previous historical periods also featured international societies of global scope but, unlike the centre-periphery relations of the colonial period and the bifurcation of international society during the Cold War, what appears to be emerging now is the first truly global international society in modern history. With American unipolarity and the ‘liberal international order’ likely waning, the form of organization of the emergent—and tangibly distinct—GIS is now being litigated. In the process of transformation and globalization, GIS has been subject to significant normative contestation among its member states and from a growing number of constituencies. However, this book does not follow Bull in viewing contestation as a negative force that must be contained and preferably avoided. On the contrary, we view contestation as a necessary part of a healthy and dynamic society. Therefore, although we acknowledge contestation as a potential threat to the continued salience of the existing shared values of GIS, we stress that contestation is an important—even necessary—element in resilience-related processes of reflection, adaptation and renewal. To be sure, increased diversity within any social setting is likely to bring a rise in contestation, but if contestation is an essential step towards resilience, which itself is an ability to adapt and renew, then it is not necessarily a weakness but rather a source of strength. Given the limited attention to the dynamics of change and contestation in Bull’s work, revisiting these two important concepts and linking

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them to the question of the resilience of GIS and its institutions represents a worthwhile endeavour—especially against the backdrop of recent events including the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Bull was adamant that order had an intrinsic and universal value and he defined it in clear and unambiguous terms as a ‘pattern of activity that sustains the elementary goals of international society’ (Bull 1996, p. 8). However, securing the elementary goals of social life does not necessarily offer the prospect of an appealing or good life. For this to be achieved, activity within an international society would have to seek the achievement of a shared vision for the future and a reasonable prospect for having a good life. Although Bull was not very explicit about the potential for such a shared vision, he was adamant that all societies are held together by shared values which provide direction and purpose. Bull implicitly assumed the values of international society to be Western, although to be fair, he acknowledged that the expansion of international society into nonWestern states and regions would inevitably bring contestation against the Western conception of ‘the good life’ that he argued had characterized international society since its origins in sixteenth-century Europe. This is a tension that remains to this day in English School theorizing and which we address in this volume. It also lies at the heart of disputes over legitimate behaviour and ordering practices in contemporary GIS.

From International System to International Society to Global International Society In answering the question ‘where is order produced?’, Bull contended that order is either produced in the ‘international system’ or in ‘international society’, both being composed of sovereign states (or independent political communities).3 Bull argued that an international system exists ‘when two or more states have sufficient contact between them and have sufficient impact on one another’s decisions to cause them to behave— at least in some measure—as parts of a whole’ (Bull 1996, p. 9). An international society, on the other hand, exists when a group of states are ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values’, ‘conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules’ and ‘share in 3 Alternatively, it could be produced in ‘world society’, which contrary to the statesbased international system and society is based on an ontology of individuals and transnational actors working towards order from the bottom up (Buzan 2004, p. 36).

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the working of common institutions’ (Bull 1996, p. 13). The distinction between ‘system’ and ‘society’ has been the focus of one of the great debates in the English School (Buzan 1993; James 1993). At first glance, Bull’s definitions of ‘international system’ and ‘international society’ seem clear and the distinction between them straightforward. Yet, upon closer examination, it is not easy to see where system ends, and society begins and what the relationship between them might be. What separated ‘society’ from ‘system’ in Bull’s definitions was that system referred merely to physical interaction between states and strategic calculations about the effects of this interaction, whereas international society also involved a sense of common interest and established ordering practices associated with commonly held norms and values. Although this distinction appears logical, in practice it is problematic even to the point where James (1993) convincingly concluded that interaction between states without some degree of social content is, if not impossible, then of little importance. This raises the question of precisely what role, if any, the international system as defined by Bull might play in the production of order. Today, it is widely agreed among ES scholars that it is difficult to imagine any form of ordering domain that is not characterized by at least a minimum degree of social relations and shared understandings, suggesting that an international system logically ought to have similar social attributes to those found in an international society, even if it is probable that the social relations and institutions in the former will be thin in comparison with those in the latter. This implies that the distinction between different ordering domains must be explored along other dimensions of difference besides the ‘social’ versus ‘asocial’ dichotomy. Buzan and Schouenborg identify three such dimensions of differentiation, which they describe as segmentary, stratificatory and functional differentiation. The schema of three typologies refers to: (1) differentiation through levels of inclusiveness among organizationally similar subunits such as clans, sovereign states and international orders; (2) differentiation through social distinctiveness such as culture, religion or ideology; and (3) differentiation through convergence around types of activity that do not stem simply from rank or allegiance (Buzan and Schouenborg 2018, pp. 20–21). Using Buzan and Schouenborg’s schema, it seems that GIS has a high level of inclusiveness in terms of sovereign states but that other forms of organizational units such as other international orders or transnational

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movements do not currently receive much attention. In particular, the question concerning the relationship between GIS and other forms of international societies, especially the liberal international order and other competing or emerging international orders (or societies), needs to be addressed (Flockhart 2016a; Spruyt 2020). Questions related to differentiation through social distinctiveness are also receiving a surge of attention through interest in order and cultural diversity (Reus-Smit 2018; Phillips and Reus-Smit 2020), while convergence around types of activity need to be further investigated but could for example include convergence around specific issues such as climate change. As mentioned above, the notion that global international society represents just an international society with global reach is worthy of re-examination as we approach nearly a half-century since the publication of The Anarchical Society. In contrast with Bull and Watson’s (1992) account of international society’s ‘expansion’ from a Eurocentric point of origin, more recent ES literature has posited international society’s globalization over the course of several centuries. These novel accounts emphasize a historically ‘polycentric pattern of expansion’, thus making the case for a modern international society whose origins are truly global (Phillips 2017, p. 60), even if the advent of a truly global international society would take centuries to manifest itself. The process of GIS’s formation was also initiated by cultural units who themselves were not entirely homogeneous or self-contained (Phillips 2017, p. 43). Therefore, while GIS has gradually evolved to possess sufficient homogeneity to count as a society, it also contains a significant portion of difference within and between its constituent units (Buzan and Schouenborg 2018, p. 15). This characterization of GIS inevitably shapes how we understand the nature of—and potential for—resilience in its fundamental institutions. Moreover, recent literature has also suggested that GIS, faced with norms and institutions that are both proliferating and contested, could witness fragmentation into different categories of international societies operating within it, ranging from small and bounded regional international societies (or orders) to large ideologically based groupings of states (Flockhart 2016a). This comes alongside assertions that the liberal international order has not come to encompass the entirety of international society, representing instead merely one of its components—one that has periodically expanded and holds mixed appeal (Barnett 2019; Lebow and Zhang 2022). Moreover, while Bull acknowledged that international society is not the only force at work within the global political system,

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competing with international system and world society, it has taken more recent contributions to the ES canon to provide these alternative forces with a deeper conceptual grounding (See for example Buzan 2004). GIS is, therefore, increasingly seen to possess several layers of complexity. Bull explicitly places his concept of international society in line with a Grotian intellectual tradition situated between Hobbesian realism (international system) and Kantian universalism (world society) (Bull 1996, p. 25). However, as the Grotian tradition emphasizes the ‘element of consensus in the actual practice of states’ (Hurrell and Bull 2002, p. x), this option may be more suitable for less inclusive and bounded forms of international societies, whereas the highly inclusive and culturally diverse global international society may be less likely to fall strictly within the Grotian tradition. From a theoretical standpoint, the contribution of the concept ‘international society’—and later ‘global international society’— is that it can be conceived as the primary site for the production of order, which provided a necessary corrective to some of the traditional assumptions of mainstream IR theories such as realism and liberalism. But it might be argued that the criteria set by Bull for attaining the status of ‘international society’ may have been too stringent and that they may need to be adapted for contemporary GIS. To be fair, Bull did not believe that international societies inherently rested upon cultural homogeneity—this was an ‘empirical question to be investigated’ rather than an a priori assumption (Hurrell and Bull 2002, p. xix). However, as international law has become increasingly thick and international integration has challenged some of the contours of the sovereign state, cultural difference has inevitably become a more salient phenomenon (Hurrell and Bull 2002, p. xx). This emphasizes the question raised above about how cultural diversity and normative contestation drive processes of change in international society. Bull’s writings are not entirely blind to the process of normative change, for example, dwelling on the normative and cultural impact of the ‘revolt against the West’ for international society (Bull 1984). That said, this described a process of erosion rather than development—decline rather than innovation. For its part, the Eurocentric process of expansion that Bull conceptualized also represented a form of change, albeit a highly linear, unidirectional, and circumscribed one. This volume aims to provide a richer theoretical understanding of change, alongside its associated concepts of contestation and resilience, which—against a thematic backdrop emphasizing the centrality of cultural diversity—can contribute further to the development

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of ‘global international society’ as a distinct concept in the ES canon, albeit one that remains intimately linked to its forbear of international society tout court.

The Fundamental Institutions of (Global) International Society Bull argued that order in international society is maintained by a sense of common interests among its members, as well as through the proliferation of rules that determine what sort of behaviour is conducive to maintaining order (Bull 1996, p. 52). The latter are composed of constitutional normative principles, rules that set out the minimum conditions of coexistence between states, and rules to regulate cooperation between states (Bull 1996, pp. 65–67). To ‘protect’ these rules, states collaborate with one another through what Bull calls the fundamental institutions of international society, which he lists as the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, great power management, and war (Bull 1996, p. 71). Although Bull is explicit about which fundamental institutions he regards as essential, the question about which fundamental institutions to include remains far from settled. Some ES scholars include sovereignty, territoriality, the market, hegemony and nationalism alongside the more traditionally listed institutions (Clark 2011; Buzan 2014, pp. 101–112). Others disagree with the notion that sovereignty should be included, preferring to think of it instead as a ‘deep constitutional structure’ of international society (Reus-Smit 2013 and this volume). Moreover, the fact that GIS’s primary institutions are listed inconsistently throughout ES literature suggests that their importance can change with time—that they only serve to characterize international society at a given moment in history (Clark 2011, p. 53). In this volume, we have opted for a via media in the question of which fundamental institutions to incorporate, including Bull’s five original institutions but also tackling sovereignty and the market. Space permitting, one could also have added full chapters on nationalism, territoriality, human rights, multilateralism and more. Bull himself is not particularly clear about what he means by the concept ‘fundamental institutions’ except that they are not what he rather disdainfully calls ‘pseudo-institutions’, by which he means intergovernmental organizations and other forms of bureaucratic machinery (Buzan 2004, 165). For Bull, fundamental institutions were, therefore, conceived rather loosely as

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sets of ‘habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’(Bull 1996, p. 74; Brems Knudsen and Navari 2019, 24). Recognizing the significant definitional problems in Bull’s writing about fundamental institutions, Buzan (2004) went some way towards clarifying the concept as well as the distinction between fundamental and pseudo-institutions. In so doing, Buzan developed Bull’s discussion of rules, norms and values into a broader definition of primary and secondary institutions, where primary institutions were described as sets of ‘durable and recognized patterns of shared practices rooted in the values held commonly by the members of the order and embodying a mix of norms, rules and principles’ (Buzan 2004, p. 181). Secondary institutions were ‘consciously designed organizations with a functional and organizational purpose’, such as international institutions and regimes (Buzan 2004, p. 167). However, although Buzan’s revision opened for the possibility of assigning independent capacities for effecting change to secondary institutions (Friedner Parrat 2017, p. 3), the primary and secondary institutions were seen largely as operating according to a hierarchical and one-way relationship where the norms, rules and principles of the primary practice-based institutions were formalized in a range of treaty-based secondary institutions (Friedner Parrat 2017, p. 1). This, therefore, left the question of who are the makers and managers of change within the fundamental—or primary—institutions (Acharya 2018, p. 1)? And what is the relationship between the two? If primary institutions are the source of change in secondary institutions but are themselves merely sets of practices resting on norms and principles that have ‘emerged’ over time—rather than having been designed and subjected to intentional action by agents—then the dynamics of change within primary institutions will primarily be through a logic of structuration (Wendt and Duvall 1989; Knudsen 2019, p. 28). However, structuration tends to reify existing habits and practices rather than introducing new ones (Flockhart 2016b). The self-reinforcing nature of Bull’s fundamental institutions was not a problem for Bull because he was mainly interested in how international society had developed through a process of expansion and how it could be maintained within the extremely precarious security environment of the Cold War. Bull’s focus on stability rather than change was certainly understandable within the context of a bipolar superpower standoff, given the widespread apprehension that major change in the international environment would likely be catastrophic. However, within the context of the current changing

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and fluid environment, the implicit emphasis on the maintenance—rather than change—of order and its fundamental institutions leaves us without a theory of change that can allow us to move past the notion of international society’s gradual expansion to attain global reach (Dunne and Reus-Smit 2017) and the emergence, rather than intentional creation, of fundamental institutions. We believe that there is considerable potential in recent ES literature that looks at the constitutive relationship between primary and secondary institutions (Spandler 2015; Friedner Parrat 2017; Brems Knudsen and Navari 2019). This is an issue that will be explored in more depth in Chapter 5 by Tonny Brems Knudsen. We also believe that to engage with the many agency-based micro-processes that sustain and constitute all forms of social transformations, it is necessary to zoom in on the constitutive elements of ordering domains—whether that be a bounded international order such as the ‘liberal international order’ or GIS writ large (Flockhart 2016b; Acharya 2018). The chapters in this volume start from the premise that primary and secondary institutions both contain practice that can either reinforce or undermine the stability and legitimacy of the norms, rules and values of an international society. However, whereas both forms of institutions are sites of practice, the secondary institutions have a greater scope for intentional action than the more embedded and habitual practice in the primary institutions. This difference should lead us to expect secondary institutions to be the main site for reflection, adaptation and renewal in response to a changing external context, and also to be where initial responses to internal tensions and contestations can be found—especially in the context of what has regularly been referred to as the contemporary ‘rules-based international order’. The challenge, therefore, is to understand how and why agents acting primarily within secondary institutions sometimes undertake change-making action that may secure the resilience of both the institution itself and of GIS as a whole and—perhaps more importantly—why oftentimes agents do not undertake such action (Flockhart 2016b, 2020).

Structure and Content of the Volume This introduction has outlined some of the elements of disagreement between Bull’s characterization of international societies and more recent ES conceptualizations of GIS, but also some examples of lacunae with space for further investigation. The conceptual work performed thus far

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has emphasized the process of GIS’s formation and what implications this has for how to think about social interaction, contestation and the development of the norms, rules and principles that inform ordering within GIS. Building on this work, this book explores the role of the plurality of culture and the inevitability of contestation in GIS and what it implies for the processes underpinning change—and possibilities for resilience-building—in the primary institutions of GIS. Do rival visions of universality and difference threaten the core normative principles and primary institutions of GIS? What is the story behind the development— and possible unravelling—of GIS’s existing primary institutions and the possible need for new ones? How and to what extent are existing institutions able to remain resilient for GIS to remain fit for purpose? And who has agency in the context of these institutions and how do these institutions change or adapt to evolving circumstances? Our ambition is both a theoretical and an empirical one. Theoretically, we reflect on how Bull’s original contribution has fared into the first quarter of the twenty-first century, probing especially how a better understanding of change and agency within the fundamental institutions might be achieved; how contestation may be conceptualized as both a challenge for the unity of the global international society, but also as a positive dynamic of reflection; and how resilience as a practice of self-governance is an essential element in (global) international society’s continuous process of adaptation and renewal. The theoretical foundations for the volume will be laid out in four chapters in Part One, featuring contributions by Trine Flockhart, Zachary Paikin, Elena Korosteleva and Irina Petrova, and Tonny Brems Knudsen. In the first two chapters, Flockhart and Paikin will demonstrate how—far from representing an inherent threat to GIS— adaptation to change and creating space for contestation are necessary ingredients for the maintenance of order. This theme will be built upon by Korosteleva and Petrova in Chapter 4, who will further conceptualize how resilience in GIS can be achieved, underlining the importance of the ‘local’ as the site where agents buttress the foundations of a diverse global international society. Added detail is then provided by Knudsen, who elaborates on how secondary (i.e. formal) institutions and their primary counterparts are mutually constitutive, situating further drivers of change, contestation and resilience in this context. The chapters in Part Two then trace how the selected fundamental institutions have faced change and contestation in recent years and how, by whom and to what extent, practices of resilience as self-governance

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have been undertaken. The four theoretical chapters in Part One inform the chapters in Part Two, which constitute our empirical contribution. These chapters comprise contributions on Bull’s traditional fundamental institutions, as well as chapters that focus on other institutions that we argue might also be construed as fundamental institutions. The former includes chapters by Morten Andersen on the balance of power, Jorge Lasmar on great power management, Amelie Theussen on war, Richard Gowan on diplomacy, and Theussen and Vincent Keating on international law. Andersen’s chapter also touches on nationalism—or, more precisely, national self-determination and its relationship (and possible tension with) the operation of the balance of power. Barry Buzan and Richard Faulkner centre their chapter on the market, outlining its unique properties as a fundamental institution of GIS. Although the erosion and possible demise of the so-called liberal international order is often discussed today, the chapters in this section illustrate how some of GIS’s fundamental institutions have remained surprisingly resilient: despite its many failings, diplomacy at the United Nations has tempered the dynamics of SinoAmerican rivalry; the multiple meanings ascribed to the term ‘balance of power’ has provided that institution with remarkable staying power; and great powers continue to couch their actions in the language of international law, even when they violate it. The chapters in Part Two are ‘sandwiched’ between a chapter on sovereignty by Christian Reus-Smit and a chapter by way of conclusion by Richard Ned Lebow. We regard sovereignty as a special form of fundamental institution because it is a basic precondition for the existence of international society derived from the mutual recognition of the principle of equality and the principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs. However, these long-established principles are in flux and within a global—and globalized—international society, there may well be a need for different forms of recognition of composite political units and different conceptions of territoriality following the emergence of new bounded international orders (or societies) nested within GIS (Flockhart 2016a; Buzan and Schouenborg 2018; Brems Knudsen and Navari 2019; Mearsheimer 2019). In the final chapter, Richard Ned Lebow will provide a final summary of our findings, an assessment if GIS today can be said to be fit for purpose, and a reflection on the task of building order in an increasingly disorderly world. The idea for this project goes back to Zachary and Trine meeting up in London for the 2019 NATO Leaders Meeting. This was a time

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where COVID-19 was not yet part of our vocabulary and where the big topics of conversation were if NATO was ‘brain-dead’ and how climate change would impact global institutions. It made us wonder if existing IR theories were fit for purpose and if the global institutional foundations for cooperation and governance needed ‘rebooting’. We thought this a relevant question for the English School—a sentiment with which the authors we contacted seemed to agree. However, subsequent developments meant that our plans for close cooperation were reduced to meeting online at a virtual edition of the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention. It also meant that several authors juggled parental and professional lives within the confines of their homes. We are immensely grateful to all the contributors to the volume and for their willingness to carry on despite adverse conditions. Special thanks here go to our commissioning editor Anca Pusca for her support and patience. Also, a big thanks to our colleagues at the University of Kent and the University of Southern Denmark, as well as to the many English School scholars who over the years have provided their expertise and advice or who have just inspired us through their enthusiasm and love for what, to many, remains a slightly quirky part of International Relations theory. Most importantly, neither of us would have been able to take on the task of a project of this kind without the love, wisdom, support and tolerance of our respective families to whom we dedicate this book. Trine thanks her big family—her husband John; her wonderful grown-up children Emilia, Alexander, Helena and Phoebe; and their dog Rufus for demanding many walks. Zachary is particularly grateful for the presence in his life of his remarkable wife Meredith; his beautiful daughter Zelda; his siblings Henry, Teddy, Giulia and Noah; his parents Nancy and Steve; his stepparents Daniel and Francesca; and his grandparents Marnie and Larry.

Bibliography Acharya, A. (2018) Constructing Global Order: Agency and Change in World Politics. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Adler, E. (2008) ‘The Spread of Security Communities: Communities of Practice, Self-Restraint, and NATO’s Post—Cold War Transformation’, European Journal of International Relations, 14(2), pp. 195–230. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1354066108089241.

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Barnett, M. (2019) ‘The End of a Liberal International Order That Never Existed’, The Global. Available at: https://theglobal.blog/2019/04/16/theend-of-a-liberal-international-order-that-never-existed/ (Accessed: 31 May 2022). Brems Knudsen, T. and Navari, C. (eds) (2019) International Organization in the Anarchical Society: The Institutional Structure of World Order. 1st edn. 2019. Cham: Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Studies in International Relations). https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-319-71622-0. Bull, H. (1984) ‘The Revolt Against the West’, in Bull, H. and Watson, A. (eds) The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 217–28. Bull, H. (1996) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. 2. edn., 2. [print.]. London: Macmillan. Bull, H., Alderson, K. and Hurrell, A. (2019) Hedley Bull on International Society. Available at: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true& scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2550659 (Accessed: 30 May 2022). Bull, H. and Watson, A. (eds) (1992) The Expansion of International Society. Repr. Oxford: Clarendon Pr. Burrows, M.J. and Gnad, O. (2018) ‘Between “Muddling Through” and “Grand Design”: Regaining Political Initiative – The Role of Strategic Foresight’, Futures, 97, pp. 6–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.06.002. Buzan, B. (1993) ‘From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School’, International Organization, 47(3), pp. 327–352. Buzan, B. (2004) From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge studies in international relations, 95). Buzan, B. (2014) An Introduction to the English school of International Relations: The Societal Approach. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity. Buzan, B. and Schouenborg, L. (2018) Global International Society: A New Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, I. (2011) Hegemony in International Society. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Dunne, T. (2002) Inventing International Society: A History of the English School. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave (St. Antony’s series). Dunne, T. and Reus-Smit, C. (eds) (2017) The Globalization of International Society. 1st edn. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Flockhart, T. (2016a) ‘The Coming Multi-order World’, Contemporary Security Policy, 37(1), pp. 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2016.115 0053.

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Flockhart, T. (2016b) ‘The Problem of Change in Constructivist Theory: Ontological Security Seeking and Agent Motivation’, Review of International Studies, 42(5), pp. 799–820. https://doi.org/10.1017/S02602105 1600019X. Flockhart, T. (2020) ‘Is This the End? Resilience, Ontological Security, and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order’, Contemporary Security Policy, 41(2), pp. 215–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1723966. Friedner Parrat, C. (2017) ‘On the Evolution of Primary Institutions of International Society’, International Studies Quarterly, 61(3), pp. 623–630. https:// doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx039. Hurrell, A. and Bull, H. (2002) ‘Foreword’, in The Anarchical Society. 3rd edn. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. vii–xxiii. James, A. (1993) ‘System or Society?’, Review of International Studies, 19(3), pp. 269–288. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210500117437. Knudsen, T.B. (2019) ‘Fundamental Institutions and International Organizations: Theorizing Continuity and Change’, in Brems Knudsen, T. and Navari, C. (eds) International Organization in the Anarchical Society: The Institutional Structure of World Order. London: Palgrave, pp. 23–50. Korosteleva, E.A. and Flockhart, T. (2021) Resilience in EU and International Institutions: Redefining Local Ownership in a New Global Governance Agenda. Lebow, R.N. (2009) ‘Counterfactuals, History and Fiction’, Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 34(2 (128)), pp. 57–73. Lebow, R.N. and Zhang, F. (2022) Justice and International Order: East and West. 1st edn. New York: Oxford University Press. Mearsheimer, J.J. (2019) ‘Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order’, International Security, 43(4), pp. 7–50. https://doi.org/10. 1162/isec_a_00342. Nexon, D.H. (2009) The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press (Princeton studies in international history and politics). Phillips, A. (2011) War, Religion and Empire: The Transformation of International Orders. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge studies in international relations, 117). Phillips, A. (2017) ‘International Systems’, in Dunne, T. and Reus-Smit, C. (eds) The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–62. Phillips, A. and Reus-Smit, C. (eds) (2020) Culture and Order in World Politics: Diversity and Its Discontents. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press (LSE international studies). Reus-Smit, C. (2013) Individual Rights and the Making of the International System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Reus-Smit, C. (2018) On Cultural Diversity: International Theory in a World of Difference. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY: University Printing House. Sakwa, R. (2017) Russia Against the Rest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/public fullrecord.aspx?p=5046586 (Accessed: 30 May 2022). Spandler, K. (2015) ‘The Political International Society: Change in Primary and Secondary Institutions’, Review of International Studies, 41(3), pp. 601–622. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026021051400045X. Spruyt, H. (2020) The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies. 1st edn. New York: Cambridge University Press (LSE international studies). Suganami, H., Carr, M. and Humphreys, A.R.C. (eds) (2017) The Anarchical Society at 40: Contemporary Challenges and Prospects. 1st edn. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Watson, A. (1992) The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. London, New York: Routledge. Wendt, A. and Duvall, R. (1989) ‘Institutions and International Order’, in Czempiel, E.O. and Rosenau, J.N. (eds) Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990’s. Lexington: Lexington Books, pp. 51–73.

PART I

Theory and Concepts

CHAPTER 2

Theorizing Change in the English School Trine Flockhart

A common sight in the summer is to find the ground underneath lime trees covered with dead bees, whilst their still living relatives are busy collecting nectar in the canopy above. Reports about mass deaths of bees under lime trees go back more than a hundred years, so the sad fate of the bees is not caused by modern pesticides or environmental factors, and no chemical substances in the flowers of lime trees appear to be killing the bees. It seems that the bees die from exhaustion and starvation because they continue to collect nectar from the trees even after the flowers are depleted (Koch and Stevenson 2017). The question is of course why do the bees not seek other, alternative food sources nearby? Answers range from the bees being attracted to the scent of the flowers, that the bees are addicted to the caffeine in the flowers, or simply that they are not very good at changing their habits. In other words, bees are not that different from people who also frequently meet a sticky end through fatal attraction, addiction or failure to face up to the need for changing bad habits. The phenomenon of the bees is relevant for the questions asked in

T. Flockhart (B) Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_2

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this volume about rebooting GIS and its fundamental institutions because although it is plain to see that some of the fundamental institutions need to change and that the GIS itself is in a process—voluntary or not—of transition, it is also clear that the action that can bring about required change is often slow, incomplete or lacking, raising important questions about why people—just like bees—fail to change what is clearly a deadly practice? This chapter seeks to open for more focused and sustained theorizing1 about change in the English School to enhance our understanding of how order can be sustained, even in a challenging and transforming environment. An underlying question is why timely change is often not undertaken, leaving dysfunctional—and even deadly—practices to persist. The focus on change is closely tied to the other two conceptual foci of this volume—contestation and resilience—because as argued by Paikin in Chapter 3, contestation is often a precursor for necessary change and as argued by Korosteleva and Petrova in Chapter 4, resilience as selfgovernance relies on agents being able and willing to undertake reflective action in response to a variety of factors, including contestations, events and emergent change. The chapter is divided into four sections, starting with an overview of how change has been understood and theorized in the wider IR discipline and how it has been under-theorized until quite recently. Given the limited attention to change in the broader IR, it is perhaps not surprising that the same is true for the English School. In the second part, the chapter offers an account of how change has been conceived and theorized by Bull (1995) in The Anarchical Society and by Bull and Watson (1984) in The Expansion of International Society. In the third section, the chapter turns to look at more recent efforts within the ES to engage with the problem of change from a theoretical perspective and as a platform from which to further develop the change element in the English School. The chapter ends with a brief outline of a relational and holistic framework as a further contribution to theorizing change in the English School.

1 Gilpin defines a ‘framework’ as ‘an analytical device that will help to order and explain human experience’ whereas a theory serves as ‘an overarching explanatory statement’ (Gunitsky 2013, fn12). Both ‘theory’ and ‘framework’ are products, that come from a creative process of thinking and discovery known as ‘theorizing ’ (Swedberg 2014). This chapter engages with theorizing rather than theory.

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Thinking About Change in IR Change as a concept and a process in IR has always been in the rather peculiar position of being both omnipresent and absent: omnipresent because the foundational question in the wake of both world wars was how to peacefully change a disorderly and war-prone world into a better place (Carr 1939; Kristensen 2021; Paul 2018) and because the discipline’s focus was implicitly on change-related processes such as the rise and fall of powers and orders; the causes and effects of different forms of social, political, economic, cultural and technical change; changing practices, norms, institutions and identities; systemic and structural change as well as peaceful and violent change. Change as a generic phenomenon and as something that can be theorized, categorized and conceptualized (du Gay and Vikkelsø 2012) has, however, been largely absent as the IR academy developed a focus on stability and recurring patterns and a tendency to see institutions as ‘sticky’—as constraints on states’ agency rather than as active agents of change (Debre and Dijkstra 2021; Barnett and Finnemore 1999; Flockhart 2016). For better or for worse, the IR discipline ended up with a mindset that has made it difficult to address change, chance, and uncertainty, preferring instead to deal with the predictable, rational and linear (Kavalski 2020, 3). The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has certainly brought the question of change and transformation to the top of the agenda, not only in IR theory, but in policy and public debates of the ‘real world’. To be fair, interest in, and attention to, change and order transformation returned to IR after the sudden and unexpected end of the Cold War (Holsti 1998) and the simultaneous entrance of constructivism into the IR discipline. When Onuf (1989) declared that ‘the world is of our making’ and Wendt (1992) coined the phrase that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, the implication was that if the world really is ‘what we make of it’, recurrence is not ‘written in stone’ and it really is possible to ‘un-make’ dysfunctional practices. The constructivist claim that interests are neither given nor permanent but are influenced by norms and identity, which are themselves mutually constituted through practice and social interaction, upended the discipline’s view on change because it meant that structures can be changed through socialization and practice, which made the possibility for positive and peaceful change seem within reach. However, despite the initial promise that constructivism could bring change back into IR, its ability to do so was less far-reaching

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than anticipated. After more than thirty years of studying norms and identities, it is increasingly acknowledged that both norms and identities are akin to ideational structures, and although agent practice logically is the main source of behavioural change, practices are extremely stable as they very quickly become habitual, thereby taking on a structural quality (Hopf 2010; Flockhart 2016). It seems that just like bees are not very good at changing their deadly practice, human beings are also highly resistant to change and will—in the absence of a major critical and disruptive crisis— persist with their established practices long after these have ceased to be relevant. Drawing on the literature on ontological security (Laing 1990, 1969; Giddens 1991; Mitzen 2006), my research on agent motivations for undertaking change-making action suggests a clear link between agents having a sufficient level of ontological security and their ability to activate their agency (Flockhart 2016). As ontological security is a basic human need, which in turn depends on a high level of cognitive consistency and a stable identity, human beings are psychologically wired to prefer stability over change and will go to great lengths to maintain their cognitive stability—even if doing so has adversarial consequences. Yet, human beings can reflect on changes in their environment in ways that bees presumably cannot, and, provided they have a sufficient level of ontological security, are able to respond to a vast array of experienced stimuli. Adler (2019) captures the tension between the need for change and the need for stability, with the concept ‘meta-stability’ which refers to the necessity of constant small changes and adaptations in the practices of a social entity whilst its deep social structure and essence of being— expressed in its values and identity—remain relatively fixed. The link to ontological security is essential here because ontologically secure people (and institutions with agency through the people that constitute them) can activate their agency to change their practice in small and incremental ways that ensure ‘meta-stability’ without destabilizing their ontological security (Flockhart 2020a), whereas ‘big changes’ in the deep social fabric of an entity or person, almost certainly would undermine their ontological security and thereby bring the change process to a halt. Paradoxically, therefore, the most stable entities are those that change the most (Lebow 2018, 65) provided they can do so as specified by Adler and without undermining their ontological security. Although the constructivist promise for understanding change was not fully realized, there is today a renewed interest across all IR theories in

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the kind of mutually constitutive changes emphasized by constructivism coupled with a return to what the historian Charles Tilly referred to as the ‘big structures and large processes’ that transformed the world of the nineteenth century (Tilly 1984, 2) and which is now clearly doing so again. Moreover, with the rise of right-wing populism, it is increasingly acknowledged that contestations at the domestic level matter at the global level—the two are co-constitutive (Cooley and Nexon 2020). As a result, IR scholars are now raising their gaze from a fixation on global powershifts to also include other rapid and far-reaching processes of change in technology, climate, demography, science, modes of production and communication, which together have produced a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (Burrows and Gnad 2018). There is currently a move within the IR discipline towards a more relational focus (Goddard et al. 2019; Kurki 2021; Qin 2018) with a growing interest in complexity thinking to better understand the radical relationality, plurality and complexity of global life (Kavalski 2020, 468). The starting point in these theories is to recognize that the assumptions that ‘the whole represents the sum of the parts’ and that evolution and change follow a linear route are not valid anymore (Tomé and Açıkalın 2019, 5). The view that global life is characterized by a single ordering principle such as anarchy is not compatible with new thinking on relationality and complex adaptive systems (Korosteleva and Petrova in this volume) in which multiple forms of human and non-human relations interact to produce emergent properties, non-linear dynamics and co-adaptation (Gunitsky 2013, 39).2 There seems to be considerable promise in these new theoretical developments for both a better understanding of change as a process, and some much-needed humility about just how much we may never be able to fully understand, explain, anticipate or control change.

2 The three properties of complex adaptive systems are summarized by Gunitsky (2013, 39–43) as: emergent properties—meaning that attributes of the system cannot be derived solely from the attributes of its constitutive parts but ‘emerge’ from interactions and episodes of randomness resulting in unpredictability and difficulty in identifying causality; non-linear dynamics—meaning that small inputs may have large outputs and vice versa with multiple unintended effects and loops of feed-back in which cause and effect mutually reinforce each other making prediction almost impossible; co-adaptation bears some resemblance to structuration processes—it conflates evolution with adaptation and local maximization with strategic behaviour and accepts that system-unit interaction is a two-way relationship where the system shapes the units and vice versa.

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Theorizing Change in the English School Change, either as a concept or as a process, has also not played a major part in English School theorizing and one of the main contemporary criticisms of Bull is the curious lack of a theory of change in his work (Reus-Smit 2018; Dunne and Reus-Smit 2017). To an extent this is not surprising given that Bull’s primary theorization was about order and how order might be sustained through the institutions of international society in an anarchical system. Yet, as outlined above, to maintain a semblance of stability and order, agents must ensure meta-stability through constant processes of adaptation—because collapsing orders, or those that undergo full-scale (unwanted) transformation, often do so because they failed to respond, adapt to or transform with a changing context. In the current environment of crisis and fundamental change, the question of how order must be changed a little to prevent it from changing a lot raises the question of how Bull’s theory might be adapted to be better positioned for understanding how to meet the challenges arising from an environment in flux. To be fair, Bull recognized the contingent nature of the current system, hence implicitly recognizing that change is always in the making, but his focus was on how to maintain order in the face of the anticipated decline of the western-based international society (Humphreys 2017, 306) without acknowledging the need for continuous adaptation. Despite his concerns about growing contestations that he later termed ‘the revolt against the West’ (Bull 1984), Bull was convinced that within the structural context of a bipolar nuclear world and the political context of the Cold War, regrettably, the priority had to be order over justice (Bull 1995, 93). Consequently, the attention to change as a process and an ambition faded into the background and the primary concern became how to maintain order rather than how and why orders change, transform or collapse. The lack of theorizing change is especially evident in The Anarchical Society, which given the book’s influence within the English School writ large, framed the subsequent debate in the ES to also lack a concern with change. The omission was however barely noticeable within the political context of the Cold War and with the allure of the richness of Bull’s analysis and the novelty of the concepts introduced within the pages of The Anarchical Society. Bull was a master of taxonomic theorizing, characterized by naming, defining, classifying and categorizing the phenomenon of order and its elements and thereby introducing a wealth of new

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dichotomies and trichotomies such as international system/international society/world society and fundamental institutions/pseudo-institutions, which came to inform vibrant debates within the ES across the four subsequent decades (Reus-Smith 2018, 75). The downside of Bull’s taxonomic architecture is that it has been so powerful that followers and critics alike have struggled to free themselves from the frame set up by it, which arguably has limited the attention paid to change (Reus-Smit 2018, 75). With Bull’s focus on order through institutions, his analysis became de facto static because not only was his primary concern how the rather narrow selection of fundamental institutions could maintain a specific view of order rather than how the same institutions might bring about its change, he also clearly assumed that once developed, the fundamental institutions would stay more or less the same (Navari 2019, 55). Bull’s understanding of institutions as highly stable once established is perhaps the key to understanding the uneasy relationship with change in Bull’s theorizing. Recognizing change as processual and that even the smallest change can have overwhelming and unintended consequences (the butterfly effect) for the entire system—including the institutions— meant that all forms of change held the potential for disorder. If institutions were the source of stability and order in Bull’s theorizing, recognizing their vulnerability to external change would also undermine his primary objective of maintaining order. Bull’s selection and definition of institutions have also had profound effects on the ES understanding of change and continuity as it links directly to the question of agency. Despite the centrality of institutions for understanding how order is maintained, unlike the careful definitions of order and international society in The Anarchical Society, the conception of international institutions and the definition of ‘fundamental’ and ‘pseudo institutions’ remained rather vague and confusing and the understanding of agency within the international society was limited to states. The problems associated with Bull’s definition of institutions were laid out in impressive detail in two separate publications in 2004 by Holsti (2004) and Buzan (2004). Both raised the issue that Bull seemed to focus more on what institutions are not, rather than what they are. In the key statement on institutions in The Anarchical Society Bull summed up this important aspect of his schema by suggesting ‘[b]y an institution we do not necessarily imply an organization or administrative machinery, but rather a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’ (Bull 1995, 71). In the following sentence, Bull seemed to circumscribe their importance by

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denying the institutions agency, noting that they ‘do not deprive states of their central role in carrying out the political functions of international society or serve as a surrogate central authority in the international system’ but rather they serve as ‘an expression of the element of collaboration among states in discharging their political functions—and at the same time as a means of sustaining this collaboration’ (Bull 1995, 71). Not only is there a fair amount of vagueness in the definition of institutions but institutions appeared to be forms of structures with little consideration about either change or agency and the agency that was under scrutiny was almost solely associated with states. Whilst the lack of a theory of change might be understandable in the context of the central questions asked in The Anarchical Society, the absence of a thorough conceptualization and theorization of change is odd in Bull and Watson’s later edited volume The Expansion of International Society (1984). The volume is centrally concerned with understanding an important process of international social change (ReusSmit 2018, 83), underlined already on the first page where Bull and Watson declare their purpose to be ‘to explore the expansion of the international society of European states across the rest of the globe, and its transformation from a society fashioned in Europe and dominated by Europeans into the global international society of today […]’ (Bull and Watson 1984, 1). Notwithstanding the declared centrality of social change, the book itself contains no discernable theory of change. Instead, the process of change that is investigated within the pages of The Expansion of International Society rests on a long-standing fascination with the historical process of how the European-based international society developed and spread across the globe from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries onwards. The volume is primarily interested in cultural change which produced different perceptions of common interest in a context of coexistence and cooperation; how a system might transform into a society and how a society may expand to include more members (Hoffmann 1986, 185). Yet despite the centrality of change, the dynamics and sources of change remained either a fuzzy background process or were linked to specific transformational ‘moments’ implicitly seeing change as either a linear process towards a particular goal/set of values or as ruptures that invariably carried the risk of disorder. Bull’s work may have lacked an explicit theoretical conception of change, but implicitly his work rested on a very particular theoretical and

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conceptual position. Change ultimately was conceived in a commonsensical way, which lacks metatheoretical coherence (Friedner Parrat 2020, 760) and either as progress towards a specific end or as instability carrying the risk of disorder. More importantly, the implicit view of change in The Expansion of International Society conveyed and reinforced a narrative founded on a very particular historical account (Dunne and Reus-Smit 2017, 427) which identified selected past sources of change such as the Reformation or (European) technological breakthroughs. However, like all historical accounts, the ‘expansion narrative’ is a constructed representation of the past that served to make sense of the present (Koselleck 2002, xiii; Flockhart 2010). Although it claimed to provide an account of history, it presented a transhistorical, linear and progressive development across time, in which the character of the present international order was projected backwards so that discontinuous ruptures and differences between historical epochs were smoothed over and packaged as a natural outcome (Hobson 2002, 151). The expansion narrative not only produced an illusion of ideational continuity and a firm anchorage of the present international society in the past, it also offered little on the question of what change is and who the makers of the observed change are. For most of the history of ES theorizing, the process of change has, therefore, led the curious existence of being at once omnipresent through the many rich empirical investigations undertaken within the ES whilst being almost wholly absent as an object of theoretical analysis and as a theory of change.

Towards Theorizing Change in the English School The disciplinary genealogy of the gradual move towards embracing change as an important topic in ES theorizing has been excellently outlined by Cornelia Navari (2019), suggesting that the foundations for more sustained work to theorize change in the ES can be traced to Wendt and Duvall’s (1989) piece on how institutions are open for change due to the mutual constitution between fundamental institutions and state actors (see also Knudsen’s chapter in this volume). The move towards questioning the ES approach to change should perhaps be credited to Kalevi Holsti (2004) who grasped the nettle of Bull’s lack of explicit theorizing of change and his confusing approach to institutions. Holsti’s initiative was further consolidated and developed when Barry

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Buzan later the same year published From International to World Society? in which Buzan laid the foundations for theorizing change in international society through his distinction between primary and secondary institutions, defined respectively as sets of ‘durable and recognized patterns of shared practices rooted in the values held commonly by the members of the order and embodying a mix of norms, rules and principles’ (Buzan 2004, 181), and as ‘consciously designed organizations with a functional and organizational purpose’ (Buzan 2004, 167). Buzan’s conflation of Bull’s separate discussion of rules, norms and values into the broader definition of primary institutions, was both a significant upgrade in terms of differentiating between the two forms of institutions and it indicated that the sources of change in the primary institutions was likely to be found in the values, norms, rules and principles that together constituted the primary institutions. This is a major departure from Bull, who saw the values, norms, rules and principles as having been stable or in linear development since the sixteenth century. Moreover, given the findings of constructivism that norms and values are rooted in identity and Adler’s suggestion that meta-stability rests on the stability of the social essence of an entity, change in primary institutions is likely to be rare and difficult to realize. From around 2015 a group of ES scholars under the leadership of Navari and Knudsen (2019) have built on the work by Wendt, Duval, Holsti and Buzan by zooming in on the primary and secondary institutions as sources of change and by bringing in the question of agency into ES theorizing by linking the question of change more closely to the constructivist literature on the mutual constitution between structure and agency (Spandler 2015; Friedner Parrat 2017; Knudsen and Navari 2019). The new literature maintains that although Buzan’s revision opened for the possibility of change through institutions (Friedner Parrat 2017, 3), the two forms of institutions appeared to be in a hierarchical and one-way relationship, where the norms, rules and principles of the primary practice-based institutions were formalized and converted into political action in a range of treaty-based secondary institutions (Friedner Parrat 2017, 1). In doing so, a much more prominent role was afforded to the international organizations that Bull had so disdainfully dismissed as (overstudied) pseudo-institutions that had deflected scholarly attention away from more important issues (Bull 1995, xviii). Buzan’s schema was nevertheless problematic because the hierarchy between the

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two forms of institutions implicitly suggested that norms, rules and principles are located in the primary institutions and are only subsequently funnelled into the secondary institutions (Spandler 2015; Friedner Parrat 2017), implicitly suggesting that constitutive practice is the preserve of primary institutions and ignoring that secondary institutions can be conceptualized as agentic communities of practice that are also constitutive (Adler 2008) and organized in accordance with values, norms, rules and principles and that they are sites of intentional change-making action, adaptation and renewal (Korosteleva and Petrova this volume). Moreover, the tangible secondary institutions are more likely to be met with contestations and challenges to their legitimacy (Paikin this volume), which suggests that secondary institutions are more likely to initiate adaptation and renewal. Therefore, although there is an emerging ‘turn towards change’ in ES theorizing, important issues in the relationship between primary and secondary institutions still need to be resolved (see Knudsen this volume).

Theorizing Change Through a Framework of Ideal Types The Navari and Knudsen initiative is an excellent start to theorizing change in the ES and the focus on institutions—both primary and secondary—certainly represents an important addition to the journey towards a better understanding of the process of change. However, the perspective alters fundamentally if ordering domains such as GIS are seen as a complex adaptive system, rather than as a closed system populated by states and governed through a range of primary and secondary institutions towards a particular value-based end. Despite the importance of institutions, privileging them as the main space where change takes place will miss other sites and processes of change and will exclude other relationships constituted through a much richer collection of actors and influences than those found in the limited number of primary and secondary institutions. A basis, therefore, exists for further exploration of the sources and processes of change in international society that moves beyond institutions by including the many micro-processes and co-constitutions that take place within a range of interconnected social domains as a myriad of different agents, including ‘ordinary people’ (Maull 2019) engage in reflective action that either reinforce or undermine the set of habits and practices that form the basis of order. I follow

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the advice of Duncombe and Dunne (2018, 25) to, on the one hand, redirect our gaze towards the deeper constitutive elements of orders to thereby be able to more fully engage with the micro-processes that ultimately make, un-make and sustain the global international society and its institutions, whilst also remaining cognizant about what Kavalski calls ‘the around’—the context that is always in flux, transforming and adapting to the emergent rhythms of new circumstances (Kavalski 2020, 17; Korosteleva and Petrova this volume). Recognizing change as both an emergent phenomenon involving a myriad of intentional and habitual actions, unintended consequences, random events and the many intra- and inter-actions that change us (Kurki 2021) requires a relational and holistic approach that can encompass the multiplicity of global life without getting overtly embroiled in detail and recognizing that there are important dynamics that are unknowable, and which lack identifiable causal pathways (Weick 2000). Although the mutually constitutive relationship between primary and secondary institutions is important, processes of change cannot be assumed limited to just these particular sites but must be recognized as a much more complex phenomenon taking place within a mesh of interconnected processes, different forms of social domains and involving many types of agents—including institutions and those working on their behalf. By way of opening up for thinking along these lines, I briefly outline the contours of such a relational and holistic perspective as a springboard for further theorizing of change in the English School. The framework rests on Bull’s understanding of order as a condition that is specific to, and constituted within a variety of social domains (GIS, international orders, institutions, states and a myriad of interacting social domains from the local to the global level) each with the aim of sustaining the elementary goals of social life, related to ‘life, truth and property’ (Bull 1995), but each also aiming for the achievement of their specific shared vision for the future. I summarize the vision for the future as the shared idea of what constitutes the ‘good life’ (Jackson 2005; Williams 2011; Phillips 2011; Flockhart 2021) including all the many big and small ideas, norms, values and principles about what makes life worth living. The sense of the ‘good life’ constitutes the deep social essence of the domain and is what distinguishes one social domain from another, even in cases where to the outside observer, there may not be much concrete and measurable difference from other similar social domains.

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I draw on Weber’s (1949) conception ‘ideal-type’ to uncover change as generic processes taking place within a vast variety of social entities, which in ‘real life’ include large and small social entities, ranging from families, states, fields of governance to international orders and the overall GIS (Buzan and Schouenborg 2018), but which are here conceptualized as ideal-type ‘ordering domains’ all with the same constitutive elements (Flockhart 2020b). I have set up the ideal-type ordering domain as consisting of three constitutive elements arranged around a relatively stable shared vision for the ‘good life’. For the domain to be stable and resilient, it must continuously strive towards alignment between the three constitutive elements, which additionally must be individually and collectively in alignment with the domain’s sense of the good life. The constitutive elements are: power which is expressed in a specific identity reflecting the identity of the domain’s hegemon and the shared vision for the good life (Zarakol 2017); principles, which are derived from the domain’s identity and articulated through a sense-making narrative specifying the norms, rules and values that define appropriate behaviour for the vision of the good life; and practices (Bueger and Gadinger 2017) which are performed through a range of formal and informal institutions, such as the primary and secondary institutions of the GIS, to optimize the prospects for realizing the vision of the good life. Practices within these institutions can be habitual to sustain extant patterns of power and principles or they can be strategic action designed to achieve specific outcomes (Flockart 2016; Hopf 2018), including adaptation and renewal in response to stimuli from a forever changing context in ‘the around’. The schema suggested here maintains Buzan’s distinction between primary and secondary institutions, but it sees both as performative fora for practice and action that are in equal measure constituted by the patterns of power, principles and practice of the ordering domain and its shared vision of the good life. As such there is no hierarchical relationship between the two, although secondary institutions with their organizational apparatus are more likely to have the capacity for strategic change-making action, and as mentioned above, are more likely to face contestations and to be evaluated in terms of their performative capacity. Rather than focusing on dyadic relationships of mutual constitutiveness between primary and secondary institutions, the schema thus suggests that more complex processes of alignment in, and between, the constitutive elements of the social domain will take place on a continuous

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basis in response to a wide variety of different stimuli and relationality. Moreover, the framework considers that all ordering domains exist within the complex context of ‘the around’, from which the ordering domain is constantly bombarded with different forms of stimuli with the ever-present potential for destabilizing one or more of the domain’s constitutive elements or its shared knowledge about what constitutes the good life. All such stimuli from ‘the around’, including unintentional consequences of own actions, are likely to impact the individual constitutive elements in different ways. Misalignments can manifest themselves through shifting patterns of salience of the shared ideas underpinning the sense of the good life, contestation against the core values of the domain, failing legitimacy of the power patterns, or dysfunctional practices that undermine the domain’s capacity to stay ‘fit for purpose’. The point is that such stimuli—including contestations—are a normal part of being, which require agents to continuously reflect on their environment and, when necessary, to take adaptive action to resolve any misalignments and tensions between the constitutive elements and between the idea of the good life and the power, principles and practice elements of the social domain. This continuous process is illustrated in Fig. 2.1.

Fig. 2.1 The ideal-type ordering domain: input, reflections and output

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Conclusion This chapter set out to prepare the ground for developing a theory of change in the English School. Such a task has become more urgently needed in recent years as the world has moved into a phase that seems to have many similarities to past transformations of orders and which certainly is challenged by simultaneous change processes that appear to be generating multiple forms of contestations and demands for reflection and adaptation. The Russian invasion of Ukraine accentuates this process by having reconfigured the process from a rather abstract and distant process of order transformation to a concrete and existential crisis that will spell the end of the existing post-Cold War order with momentous consequences for the future of the GIS. An understanding of change as a generic process, and as something that is mostly resisted, but which at critical junctures is actively pursued, is needed because resistance to, or embrace of, change have very real implications for the ability of the institutions of GIS to remain resilient. The findings here are closely intertwined with issues related to contestation and resilience, as contestation is seen as a major input into an ordering domain with a significant potential for destabilizing the ordering domain and its constitutive elements, but also as important articulations of dysfunction expressing a need for renewal (Paikin this volume). The chapter is also closely linked to the issue of resilience because the framework suggests that an ordering domain is resilient when it can continuously adapt and renew its patterns of power, principles and practice to remain ‘fit for purpose’ according to its vision for the ‘good life’ (Flockhart 2021; Korosteleva and Flockhart 2020). Change is, therefore, both omnipresent through the constant action to ensure alignment between the three constitutive elements and between them and the vision for the ‘good life’. At the same time, change appears to be absent because meta-stability reflects constancy of the values underpinning its social fabric and defining its purpose and vision for the good life (Berenskoetter 2011). There is therefore a need to evaluate more closely these processes of change and their link to different forms of contestation and resilience-building from an ES perspective.

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Mitzen, J. (2006). Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma. European Journal of International Relations, 12(3), 341–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066106067346 Navari, C. (2019). Modelling the Relations of Fundamental Institutions and International Organizations. In T. B. Knudsen & C. Navari (Eds.), International Organization in the Anarchical Society (pp. 51–75). Palgrave. Onuf, N. G. (1989). World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. University of South Carolina Press. Paul, T. V. (2018). Assessing Change in World Politics. International Studies Review 20(2), 177–185. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viy037 Phillips, A. (2011). War, Religion and Empire: Transformation of International Orders. Cambridge University Press. Qin, Y. (2018/2012). A Relational Theory of World Politics. Cambridge University Press. Reus-Smit, C. (2018). Cultural Diversity and International Order. International Organization, 71(4), 851–885. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00208183 17000261 Spandler, K. (2015). The Political International Society: Change in Primary and Secondary Institutions. Review of International Studies, 41(3), 601–622. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026021051400045X Swedberg, R. (2014). Theorizing in Social Science. Stanford University Press. Tilly, C. (1984). Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. The Russell Sage Foundation. Tomé L., & Açıkalın S. ¸ N. (2019). Complexity Theory as a New Lens in IR: System and Change. In S. ¸ Erçetin & N. Potas (Eds.), Chaos, Complexity and Leadership 2017 . ICCLS 2017. Springer Proceedings in Complexity, Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89875-9_1 Weber, M. (1949). The Methodology of Social Science. Free Press. Weick, K. E. (2000). Emergent Change as a Universal in Organizations. In M. Beer & N. Nohria (Eds.), Breaking the Code of Change. Harvard Business School Press. Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization 46(2), 391–425. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0020818300027764 Williams, J. (2011). Structure, Norms and Normative Theory in a Redefined English School: Accepting Buzan’s Challenge. Review of International Studies, 37(3), 1235–1253. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210510000768 Zarakol, A. (2017). Theorising Hierarchies. In A. Zarakol (Ed.), Hierarchies in World Politics (pp. 1–14). Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Contestation in Global International Society Zachary Paikin

English School (ES) theory has traditionally conceived contestation as having a deleterious impact on international society. This assumption flows directly from the definition outlined in The Anarchical Society, which posits that international society is rooted in a ‘common set of rules’ and ‘common institutions’ (Bull 2002, 13), both of which would presumably be undermined by normative contestation among states. What is more, traditional ES institutions such as sovereignty, the balance of power, great power management, diplomacy and international law all reveal a preference for some form of order over disorder (Buzan 2004, 251). It was feared that ‘anti-social’ behaviour contrary to shared or established norms could cause some of these institutions to erode; for instance, the pursuit of primacy by a ‘rogue hegemon’ could endanger the role of balance of power as a fundamental institution and thus unravel one of the established ‘ties of society’ between states (Clark 2011, 37–8). At first glance, therefore, there appears little basis to conceptualize contestation as a core pillar of global international society (GIS). Like

Z. Paikin (B) Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, Belgium

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_3

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anarchy, contestation appears to embody a manifestation of how international relations are not ordered (Donnelly 2017, 244–5). Such is not the case with this volume’s other two core concepts. Although resilience in this volume is conceptualized as the ability to change through adaptation and renewal (see Korosteleva and Petrova’s chapter), it nonetheless is aligned with the goal of avoiding the collapse of GIS. And though ES writers have been primarily concerned with stability and maintaining order (Flockhart, this volume), change has on occasion had a basis in traditional ES writings: for example, Watson’s famous ‘pendulum’ model (1997, 118–23) depicts international society as alternating between periods of greater or lesser influence by a single power, even if this acts as an automatic corrective mechanism that preserves its functioning. Yet recent ES scholars have looked more favourably upon the notion of contestation. In their recent tome revisiting some of Bull and Watson’s assumptions in The Expansion of International Society, Reus-Smit and Dunne (2017, 36) assert that contestation should be viewed not as ‘incorporative or corrosive, but as an engine of international social development’. Contestation need not be seen necessarily as undermining the foundations of international society in every instance, but rather can help to ‘establish which norm is appropriate and how to implement it’ or add to the ‘re-/construction of normative meaning’ (Wiener 2014, 19). In other words, it is possible to conceive of contestation as an important—and perhaps even necessary—ingredient of a healthy and resilient international society. A basis, therefore, exists to revisit the place of contestation in ES theory, especially given the advent of a truly global international society rooted in a ‘universal order of sovereign states’ and no longer centred on (or dominated by) a culturally homogenous Europe (Reus-Smit and Dunne 2017, 29). But first, why is contestation important and under what theoretical circumstances can it prove beneficial? This chapter will begin by showing how debates from outside the ES canon can prove useful for theorizing about contestation in GIS, while also explaining why the English School provides fertile ground for such theorizing. It will then dwell on the relationship between culture and contestation in international society before discussing the sources and impact of great power contestation today, which has tragically culminated in the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

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Theorizing Contestation in the English School Despite the misgivings of its early scholars, the English School does present a suitable venue for theorizing about contestation. Buzan (2014, 20–9) highlights that while the English School may not be a ‘normative theory’ it nonetheless offers a ‘theory about norms’, with fundamental institutions embodying a ‘social contract’ rather than a ‘mechanistic property’. If norms can be agreed upon for the purpose of supporting the workings of a society of states, then they can also be contested. The issue concerns the definition and contours of international society itself. Early ES authors such as Bull (2002, 8–19) and Watson (1992, 311–23) theorized that international societies were distinct forms of political organization from international systems, with the former going beyond mere strategic interaction into the realm of shared norms. Distinguishing between these two entities allows one to fear that excessive contestation can lead to the erosion of society and a reversion to systemic politics. Bull (2002, 303) contended that the contemporary system of states can only remain viable ‘if the element in it of international society is preserved and strengthened’, which would require ‘maintaining and extending the consensus about common interests and values’ that inform international society’s common rules at a time when such consensus has declined. As Buzan (2004, 15) succinctly puts it, it is easy to believe that ‘society is essentially good and nice, and that more of it is therefore better’. However, Bull’s perspective ignores the possibility of forms of solidarity, cooperation or universality that do not necessarily require conformity of values (Linklater and Suganami 2006, 153; Paikin 2021a). More recent ES writings also assert that no appreciable difference exists between system and society, given that mere mutual recognition is inherently social (Reus-Smit and Dunne 2017, 32). This difference goes beyond mere semantics: given that there can be no fear of the element of society disappearing due to normative disagreement, space, therefore, exists to conceptualize contestation as a feature—rather than a bug—of international society. Zürn (2020) further highlights this fact by disassociating international institutions from cooperation: with today’s international discord often occurring in and about international institutions, the existence of contestation does not eliminate the existence of some sort of ‘global governance’. Indeed, even Bull concedes that in the context of a major war or normative conflict, international society ‘does not disappear

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so much as go underground’, which qualifies the extent to which any apparent return to systemic politics is permanent (Bull 2002, 40). There appears to be widespread consensus today that growing normative contestation is having a deleterious effect on interstate relations—in particular on multilateralism and the ‘liberal international order’. Yet contestation also permits an often-necessary identification of problems such as inflexible practices or out-of-date institutions, encouraging them to change and reform so that they can remain ‘fit for purpose’ (Flockhart 2020). Or as Wiener (2014, 4) puts it, norms ‘must be contestable so as to both indicate potential legitimacy gaps and to overcome them’. In fact, ambiguity is both ‘inherent in any norm’ and ‘results from struggles over the content of specific norms’, making it unsurprising that norms are ‘continuously contested’ (Lake 2017, 23). A similar logic underpins Wiener’s (2018, 28) assertion that since norms are ‘both structuring and socially constructed’, they are always ‘contested in principle’. Contesters of the status quo may also possess limited aims which do not go so far as to challenge the entirety of an established political order, further buttressing the argument for considering contestation to be a feature of international society. For example, it is possible for a state to challenge the perceived excesses of Western hegemony while simultaneously defending a particular vision of international society that is at least partly rooted in the preservation of the status quo (Sakwa 2017, 47). In the case of Russia, although its invasion of Ukraine has blown a hole through some of international society’s cardinal norms, Moscow nonetheless insists on certain principles and arrangements that enjoy a basis in the postwar order, such as the special rights of great powers (i.e. Yalta) and the current setup of the UN Security Council. Teitt (2017, 327) similarly notes that while China has not unilaterally adhered to all Western standards, it has nonetheless balanced its challenge to Western dominance with appeals to international law. Theorists deal with characterizing the effects of contestation in different ways. Some, such as Lebow, focus on the destabilizing effects that may follow the erosion of the normative order of a given society, embodied in elements such as nomos (law/custom) and hegemonia (legitimate leadership). The resulting imbalance at one level of analysis— international, domestic or even individual—can destabilize other levels, leading Lebow to conclude that orders are more likely to unravel than to be sustained (Lebow 2008, 55–88). Erosion can be the result of the consistent violation of established rules, a critical mass of powerful actors

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behaving in a novel fashion, or the pursuit of parochial goals (2008, 67–89, 497–8). However, Lebow is careful to distinguish between the breakdown of norms and outright anarchy (2008, 89). This sentiment is also expressed in Zürn’s (2020) work on legitimacy and contestation, noting that an ‘authority crisis in a global political system is something else than anarchy in the international system’ and that challenges to prevailing rules and institutions may result in ‘changes in [their] mode of working’ rather than their ‘total demise’. Therefore, rather than view all contestation as damaging, what is required are operationalizable criteria to determine what sort of contestation engenders erosion or renewal. However, for the purposes of an ES analysis, a qualification is first required concerning terminology. Some theorists, including Lebow (2008, 2018), analyse the conditions under which orders break down. Others, such as Wiener (2018, 1), refer to ‘global society’ albeit not explicitly through an ES lens. These differences naturally raise the question of whether contestation has the same impact on society as it has on order. A natural reflex would be to assume that while international orders have come and gone, a common (albeit evolving) international society rooted in recurring norms and institutions has prevailed throughout modern history. This would be in line with Bull’s (2002, 8) characterization of an international order as a presumably variable ‘pattern of activity’ needed to sustain the ‘elementary or primary goals of the society states’ or with Knutsen’s (1999, 7–8) contention that modern history has featured several orders across time, each of them underpinned by a different hegemonic power. However, more recent ES scholars assert that a breakdown of order represents a failure of the rules and institutions which constitute an international society (Reus-Smit and Dunne 2017, 31–2). Rather than an order being a mere feature of society, this conceptualization aligns more with the notion that international society rests upon the international order (Paikin 2021b). And while Sakwa (2017, 44) may conceptualize international order and international society as separate entities, they are nonetheless interrelated ones, since states are capable of simultaneously competing with one another in the realm of international order and projecting their preferred norms onto international society. Therefore, contestation over order should not be viewed as an obstacle to discussing the effects of contestation in international society. Wiener provides a classification of norms that can assist in the task of operationalizing contestation. Specifically, she distinguishes between three

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types of norms: type-1, entailing ‘universal moral claims that are widely shared, in principle’; type-2, which embody ‘organising principles’ such as ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ and the ‘equal culture of sovereignty’; and type-3, which are ‘specifically defined standards, rules and regulations for specific policy measures’ (Wiener 2014, 36–7). The question then concerns ‘where contestation of shared norms of global governance generates conflict, rather than enhanced legitimacy’ (Wiener 2014, 49). This, in turn, requires a definition of legitimacy, especially as Wiener herself notes that ‘norms are not prioritised or valued according to their “legality” but according to the perception of their “legitimacy” on the part of norm users’ (2014, 3). According to Reus-Smit (2014), ‘legitimacy is an inherently social phenomenon. Whether or not an actor or action is legitimate depends on the perceptions of others, perceptions made with reference to prevailing intersubjective understandings’. The intersubjective nature of legitimacy is particularly apt for this chapter’s characterization of contestation as a feature of international society. On the one hand, the presence of contestation imposes limits on the potential effectiveness of appeals to morality as a source of legitimacy. On the other hand, legality alone cannot buttress legitimacy, given that international law is but one of GIS’s varied fundamental institutions. Wiener (2014, 19–21) also identifies three stages in the process of norm development: a ‘constituting’ phase, during which the formal validity of the norm is established by international society; a ‘referring’ phase, in which norms are identified as constituting an ‘appropriate indicator of behaviour or a source of social obligation’; and an ‘implementing’ phase, in which norms are put into practice. The fashion in which norms are contestable is then outlined: it is the ‘formal validity’ of a norm that is contestable at the constituting stage, the ‘social recognition’ of a norm at the referring stage, and the ‘cultural validity’ of a norm at the final stage (Wiener 2014, 29–30). Wiener sees the ‘legitimacy gap’ in international society today as residing between type-1 ‘fundamental norms’ and type-3 ‘standardized procedure’, which can be plugged by providing stakeholders with access to ‘regular contestation’ during the intermediate phase (2014, 50). Indeed, it appears natural that the legitimacy gap should lie at the level of type-2 norms: standardized, formal rules are by their nature inflexible, whereas a functional international society is difficult to envisage if fundamental norms are contested. Of particular importance is which sort of contestation each type of norm is expected to face. Due to their ‘high degree of formalization

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and thin moral reach’, type-3 norms are likely to face reactive contestation, whereas type-1 norms are most likely to be subject to proactive contestation (Wiener 2018, 59–62). Synergies can be found between this approach and Sakwa’s (2017, 44) two-level model of international politics rooted in ES theory, with global international society embodying the top level and the international order—or ‘multi-order world’ (Flockhart 2016)—lying at the bottom. Given that society lies ‘on top’ of the order(s), subsequent conceptualizations have developed the notion that an international order represents a foundation on which society rests: instability within the former can lead to the erosion of the latter (Paikin 2021b). Particularly in an era of ‘thick’ and formalized rules and international institutions, type-3 norms can be seen as embodying the contemporary international order, whereas type-1 and type-2 norms provide the content of international society. As Wiener (2014, 53) puts it, intermediate-level contestation can help to avoid ‘misunderstandings or disagreements that are prone to generate conflict through spontaneous or strategic contestation at a later point in time’. An inflexible order that fails to allow ‘healthy’ or inclusive contestation of norms will, therefore, see the implementation of type-3 norms contested reactively, which in turn can engender proactive and unhealthy contestation of some of the more fundamental norms and institutions of GIS. This appears to embody a relatively succinct description of the events which have led to the deepening of great power rivalry over recent years. Yet since the absence of sufficient contestation of norms at the referring stage results in the cultural validity of the norm being challenged during the process of implementation, it is appropriate first to address the question of culture in international society.

Culture, Contestation and International Society The English School of International Relations has traditionally provided the most prominent home for discussing the relationship between culture and international order (Reus-Smit 2018, 84). Even the continued development of GIS and of globalization has not impeded ‘cultural division and diversity’ from continuing to occupy an important place in international society (Hurrell 2020, 118). This is highlighted, for example, through differences in the nature and type of primary institutions which operate at the global and regional levels (Goh 2014, 184–6). In fact, in the post-Cold War era, as the international legal order has moved towards

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greater transnationalism and sovereignty has become more qualified, the ‘political salience’ of cultural difference as a key factor in international society has increased (Hurrell 2002, xx). Wiener (2014, 56) also contends that ‘under conditions of globalisation and in the absence of wholesale transnationalisation, inter-national relations must be understood as inter-cultural relations’. Yet despite the strong relationship between culture and order present in ES writings, Reus-Smit highlights some of the shortcomings of traditional ES literature on the topic. For instance, Watson (1992, 318) asserts that a society that ‘goes beyond rules and institutions to shared values and assumptions’ has historically developed within a single cultural framework. Such a perspective views the supposed ‘expansion’ of international society from its European core into a global context as having inherently weakened the ties of society. Reus-Smit and Dunne (2017, 38) challenge this, contending that societies have historically emerged out of heterogeneous rather than homogeneous social contexts. Other ES writers believe that the issue of cultural diversity can be ‘transferred to the domestic realm by the institution of sovereignty’, creating a pluralist international society in the process (Reus-Smit 2018, 107). But this would imply that cultural difference cannot account for contemporary interstate normative contestation, which does not conform to Wiener’s assertion that international relations should be thought of as intercultural relations in the current global context. According to Reus-Smit (2018, 189), the management or governance of diversity has been a ‘key imperative of order building’, necessitating the development of norms and practices known as ‘diversity regimes’ to ‘configure authority and organize diversity’. In contrast with earlier ES views which relegate diversity to the domestic realm, diversity regimes extend from the international towards the domestic, with the result being that ‘defining the parameters of legitimate cultural politics within states’ represents an important feature of the management of international cultural diversity (Reus-Smit 2018, 214–5). Because these diversity regimes ‘license some forms of difference over others’, they create ‘social and political hierarchies’ which ‘fuel struggles for recognition as material and cultural conditions change’ (Reus-Smit 2018, 189). In other words, tension, change and contestation are baked into the fabric of a diverse international society. This is a theme which has a basis in twentyfirst-century ES writings. For instance, Buzan (2004, 186) sees tensions among the primary institutions of international society as being a ‘key

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driving force’ in its evolution. In particular, nationalism’s rise to primary institution status in the nineteenth century ‘played a key role in both the reinterpretation of some Westphalian institutions and the demise of others’ (Buzan 2004, 244). Among other things, nationalism was able to undermine elements of the established dynastic order such as spheres of influence and the balance of power (Hurrell 2020, 128). In fact, GIS features not only tensions between primary institutions but also ‘stark contradiction[s]’ and trade-offs between various dimensions of legitimacy, the latter of which include process, values, effectiveness, specialist knowledge and persuasion (Hurrell 2007, 80–91). Despite the fear among traditional ES scholars that the expansion and cultural diversification of international society would weaken normative cohesion (Bozeman 1984, 397–405), more recent writings within the English School have circumscribed the degree and impact of contestation. Kang (2014, 74) highlights how East Asian states transitioned and adapted from their traditional regional order to a Western and Westphalian order in less than a century. Hall (2017, 353) notes how decolonization strengthened existing principles of international society such as sovereignty and non-intervention. Moreover, Buzan (2004, 133) has illustrated in his classification of international societies how normative pluralism is not akin to a Hobbesian system based on the principle of ‘might makes right’, in line with the assertions outlined above that contestation and anarchy should not be equated. At the same time, it should be recalled that the growth of international solidarity, instances of interstate homogeneity and demands for global justice—what ES theorists refer to as solidarism—do not equate to the phenomenon of support for a Western conception of human rights and liberal solidarism (Buzan 2004, 158; Hurrell 2007, 296). Buzan (2004, 150) makes clear that, rather than human rights, it is in the realms of economic ‘joint gain’ and the ‘pursuit of knowledge’ where the greatest solidarist gains in international society have been made so far. The confusion among some in the West between solidarism and liberal solidarism might be attributed to a mistaken assumption that international society’s institutions represent a ‘culturally neutral set of mediating mechanisms’ (Hurrell 2020, 126). International law and international society may have moved beyond ‘pluralist coexistence’ towards ‘complex global governance’, but this is not akin to the ‘“thicker” institutional culture’ present within the Western community (Hurrell 2020, 130–6).

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These more recent theoretical perspectives paint a mixed picture— one in which contestation is inevitable but not always detrimental to the order in question. What they reveal is that contestation at the level of social validity need not be existential, but that contestation at the level of cultural validity has the potential to be more problematic. The ‘principle of contestedness’ will remain a major feature of international relations so long as the latter operate ‘under the condition of diversity’ (Wiener 2014, 50–2). But attempts to impose a monistic frame on a culturally diverse international society are likely to produce contestation at the phase of norm implementation. If left unaddressed, in time this may lead to contestation of a more fundamental—and unhealthy—nature.

Contestation of the Liberal International Order Despite the supposed final triumph of liberalism and popular narratives surrounding the ‘end of history’, recent developments have vividly attested to the continued presence of normative contestation in GIS. Among those norms that have been litigated are the limits of state sovereignty and the rights of great powers, touching on the nature of fundamental institutions of GIS and the question of intersubjectively perceived legitimacy. This renewed contestation has also raised concerns over the survival of what many have called the ‘rules-based international order’, which may become a casualty of Moscow and Beijing’s joint opposition to Western hegemony and liberalism. Yet although interstate relations since World War II have been rooted in varied forms of integration and ‘thick’ international institutions, this ‘rules-based order’ has at times proven difficult to situate conceptually. Bull (2002, 64–8) asserts that any international order is rooted in some form of rules. Moreover, the postwar era was not necessarily the first to feature a rules-based framework stressing common values and identities (Mead 2021). Nonetheless, in contemporary parlance, the term ‘rulesbased order’ denotes a certain degree of rigidity when it comes to the determination and application of the rules—what Porter (2016) calls the ‘competitive invocation of rules’ or the ‘lawyerizing of foreign policy’, reflecting the proliferation and deepening of normative content within international society over the course of modern history (Watson 1992, 183; Paikin 2021b). The ‘rules-based order’ should, however, be distinguished from the ‘liberal international order’, even if both terms are often used interchangeably. Although international institutions occupy a central

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place in the theory of liberal internationalism, the contemporary liberal order owes its genesis to the immediate aftermath of World War II. This endowed it with a structure rooted in US hegemony, and as Ikenberry (2018) notes, this ‘inside’ system became the ‘outside’ system upon the Cold War’s conclusion. In addition to Western hegemony, the contemporary liberal order possesses other features which have become increasingly salient in the post-Cold War period—and which distinguish it from mere rules-based cooperation. These include the promotion of democracy and human rights, the nominal favouring of economic integration and the pursuit of military interventionism for ostensibly humanitarian purposes. Given that the hegemonic, political and economic foundations of the liberal order are clearly contested at the global level, the liberal international order should, therefore, be understood as merely one component of the present-day international order and should not be used as a shorthand for today’s international order writ large. Due to the global scope of many of today’s secondary (i.e. formal) institutions, the term ‘rules-based international order’ may come closer to being synonymous with international order writ large, with certain primary institutions such as diplomacy and international law reflecting its nominally underpinning logic. However, other less ‘rule-friendly’ (in the stricter sense) fundamental institutions persist as well, such as the balance of power and great power management. Although they may partly take the form of mechanisms embedded within secondary institutions such as the United Nations, they nonetheless point to the reality that there is more inherited normative content in GIS today than mere rules-based cooperation. Therefore, as the terms ‘liberal order’ and ‘rules-based order’ do not entirely capture the fabric of contemporary international society, relations between Western and non-Western powers are inevitably characterized by a degree of normative contestation due to the culturally diverse fabric of GIS. On the one hand, the postwar era has gradually seen change in how non-Western states relate to international society, buying into many of its norms and practices by virtue of their quest for recognition in a post-colonial age (Bull and Watson 1984, 433–4). ‘Radicalism’ on the part of countries such as China and India has been replaced by ‘conservatism’, a more cautious approach that replaces reforming international society with resisting ‘Western attempts to institutionalize new international norms and practices that accord with Western values’ (Hall 2017, 357–8). Zhang (1998) has similarly described China’s interaction with

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international society over the post-Mao era as a form of gradual ‘dealienation’. This process has been accompanied by the formation of the world’s first truly global international order (Sørensen 2016, 20; Khanna 2019, 2; Zürn 2020), whereas previous eras featured international relations that were rooted more explicitly in a centre-periphery dynamic or self-contained blocs (Flockhart 2016; Reus-Smit and Dunne 2017, 29). Therefore, in principle, the advent of a more culturally diverse international society is not necessarily accompanied by an increase in ‘unhealthy’ contestation. At the same time, while one might assume that economic and political globalization would bring about the increasing homogenization of GIS, it is also true that ‘increased institutional enmeshment has created new forms of global inequality’—rather than the end of sovereignty, it is a world of ‘differentiated sovereignties’ in which most states are ‘rule-takers’ (Hurrell 2007, 67). According to Sakwa (2017, 18–42), the post-Cold War West adopted an expansionist posture, pursuing ‘some sort of tutelary relationship’ with international society. Similarly, Hurrell (2007, 59) highlights not only the selective application of liberal values and unequal power that has characterized a non-negligible component of international politics in the post-Cold War era, but also a ‘persistent violation’ of core pillars of liberal thought, including the belief that ‘knowledge is always subject to questioning and revision and that open liberal institutions, including at the international level, are essential for that questioning and revision and for guarding against fundamentalisms of all kinds, including liberal fundamentalism’. Attempts to increase the homogenization of international values and standards are most likely to prove durable if they can incorporate a strong element of shared belief, rather than being adopted by other actors due to calculation or coercion (Buzan 2004, 154). As such, although one of the principles of liberal internationalism is supposedly to organize the international space along rules-based lines (Ikenberry 2018), in its current incarnation, it appears in some ways to have reduced access to genuine contestation, pushing it from the level of multilateralism—where it may have a reinforcing effect—to the level of GIS itself. The contested nature of the liberal order also partly owes itself to the contradictions of liberal internationalism itself, or at the very least to the tensions between liberalism and the persistence of more realist-oriented organizational logics in international society (Rae and Reus-Smit 2013, 90). Ikenberry (2020, 152), one of liberal internationalism’s greatest

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proponents, concedes that liberal ideas both ‘provided an impetus for Western imperialism and inspiration for movements that have opposed it’. In fact, due to the uneven distribution of power among states, the liberal international order has needed to ensure the continued fulfilment of effectively imperial functions—such as the maintenance of rule-based order— even as it officially rejected the legitimacy of empire (Musgrave and Nexon 2013, 230). For his part, Sørensen (2011) highlights competing imperatives within liberalism, oscillating between a respect for diversity (‘restraint’) and a desire to promote liberal democratic values (‘imposition’). Indeed, the relationship of liberal internationalism with cultural diversity has proven inconsistent across history, attempting at various times to ‘celebrate’, ‘escape’ or ‘extinguish’ it (Ikenberry 2020, 138). Relatedly, the liberal order also faces the challenge of embodying a universalist project even as it relies on American hegemonic and Western cultural foundations (Ikenberry 2020, 155). These contradictions and tensions, among others, have inevitably resulted in a gap between the norms which nominally underpin the liberal order and the actual practice of interstate behaviour perceived as necessary to uphold order, even if great powers often attempt to justify their violations of international norms by appealing to those very norms. The situation is exacerbated by the rejection of certain facets of liberalism—including free trade and democratic norms—by voters and populist movements in the West, some of which have managed to win power. The perception that Western countries have begun to abandon the norms, values and institutions that they created because they no longer serve Western interests only reinforces the West’s perceived hypocrisy, resulting in a deepening of outright contestation of the liberal international order and contested interpretations of rules-based cooperation. Contemporary Russia and China may not reject the inherited normative content of GIS in its entirety, paying lip service to the importance of varied aspects of international law and institutions: the UN Charter, the UN Security Council and the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states. Yet the fact that Moscow and Beijing are not outright revolutionary powers does not diminish the potential for contestation, especially when some of the pillars of the liberal international order— a rigid body of international law, attempts to spread a monistic set of values, and a structure rooted in Western hegemony—are by their nature inflexible.

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Russia’s failed attempts to integrate into Western institutions and China’s unsuccessful efforts to reform the Asian Development Bank initially resulted in the proliferation of rival institutions such as the Eurasian Economic Union or the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, clearly a form of reactive contestation rooted in type-3 norms. These rival institutions may conform to the rules-based character of the existing order and therefore do not challenge the established content of GIS as such. But they also helped to lay the groundwork for the secondary institutions of what Flockhart (2016) calls the ‘multi-order word’, while additionally nurturing certain civilizational discourses such as Russia’s ‘Eurasian’ distinctiveness from Europe and China’s Silk Road revivalist ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, both of which challenge US unipolarity and the Western monopoly on normative term-setting. As time has gone by, contestation moved from occurring over functionalist bodies towards more fundamental principles, exhibiting rival interpretations of primary institutions. Opposition to NATO’s 2011 mission in Libya has highlighted the existence of differing views over the extent to which state sovereignty is contingent; Russia’s 2015 intervention in Syria has challenged the post-Cold War Western monopoly on great power management of international society through the use of force; and Vladimir Putin’s wars in Georgia and Ukraine to stop NATO expansion underline contradictions between nationalism and the balance of power, as well as the contested nature of war.

Conclusion This chapter has highlighted how contestation should be understood as a feature of GIS. Much like Lebow’s ‘cultural theory’ of IR, a culturally diverse GIS will privilege change in place of stability (Lebow 2008, 58). However, while contestation can serve to render GIS more robust, it can also take on more ‘unhealthy’ forms. Normative and cultural contestation of the liberal international order—including opposition to free trade and certain forms of diversity within Western societies and challenges to Western hegemony and liberal norms internationally—has escalated to the level of more fundamental litigation of the normative and institutional structure of GIS. This demonstrates the extent to which contestation at the level of order can affect international society writ large, which illustrates how international society rests upon the international order and

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provides an example of the close link between order and society identified by Reus-Smit and Dunne in The Globalization of International Society (2017, 31–2). Moreover, it raises the question of how to render GIS’s foundations more resilient in the face of rapid change and varied forms of contestation, which will be the focus of the next chapter.

Bibliography Bozeman, A. (1992 [1984]) “The International Order in a Multicultural World”. In: H. Bull and A. Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 387–406. Bull, H. (2002 [1977]) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, Third Edition. Bull, H. and Watson, A. (1992 [1984]) “Conclusion”. In: H. Bull and A. Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 425–36. Buzan, B. (2004) From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, B. (2014) An Introduction to the English School of International Relations. Cambridge: Polity Press. Clark, I. (2011) Hegemony in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donnelly, J. (2017) “Beyond Hierarchy”. In: A. Zarakol (ed.), Hierarchies in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 243–65. Flockhart, T. (2016) “The Coming Multi-Order World”, Contemporary Security Policy 37 (1), pp. 3–30. Flockhart, T. (2020) “Is This the End? Resilience, Ontological Security, and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order”, Contemporary Security Policy 41 (2), pp. 215–40. Goh, E. (2014) “East Asia as Regional International Society: The Problem of Great Power Management”. In: B. Buzan and Y. Zhang (eds.), Contesting International Society in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 167–87. Hall, I. (2017) “The ‘Revolt Against the West’ Revisited”. In: T. Dunne and C. Reus-Smit (eds.), The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 345–61. Hurrell A. (2002) “Forward to the Third Edition: The Anarchical Society 25 Years On”. In: H. Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. vii–xxiii. Hurrell, A. (2007) On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hurrell, A. (2020) “Cultural Diversity Within Global International Society”. In: A. Phillips and C. Reus-Smit (eds.), Culture and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115–36. Ikenberry, G.J. (2018) “The End of Liberal International Order?” International Affairs 94 (1), pp. 7–23. Ikenberry, G.J. (2020) “Liberal Internationalism and Cultural Diversity”. In: A. Phillips and C. Reus-Smit (eds.), Culture and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 137–58. Kang, D.C. (2014) “An East Asian International Society Today? The Cultural Dimension”. In: B. Buzan and Y. Zhang (eds.), Contesting International Society in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 73–92. Khanna, P. (2019) The Future Is Asian: Global Order in the Twenty-First Century. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Knutsen, T.L. (1999) The Rise and Fall of World Orders. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lake, D.A. (2017) “Laws and Norms in Making of International Hierarchies”. In: A. Zarakol (ed.), Hierarchies in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 17–42. Lebow, R.N. (2008) A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linklater A. and Suganami H. (2006) The English School of International Relations: A Contemporary Reassessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mead, W.R. (2021) “The End of the Wilsonian Era: Why Liberal Internationalism Failed”, Foreign Affairs, January/February. Musgrave, P. and Nexon, D.H. (2013) “States of Empire: Liberal Ordering and Imperial Relations”. In: T. Dunne and T. Flockhart (eds.), Liberal World Orders. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 211–30. Paikin, Z. (2021a) “Through Thick and Thin: Russia, China and the Future of Eurasian International Society”, International Politics 58 (3), pp. 400–20. Paikin, Z. (2021b) “Great Power Rivalry and the Weakening of Collective Hegemony: Revisiting the Relationship Between International Society and International Order”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 34 (1), pp. 22–45. Porter, P. (2016) “Sorry, Folks. There Is No Rules-Based World Order.”, The National Interest, 28 August, available online at: https://nationalinterest. org/blog/the-skeptics/sorry-folks-there-no-rules-based-world-order-17497. Rae H. and Reus-Smit C. (2013) “Grand Days, Dark Palaces: The Contradictions of Liberal Ordering”. In: T. Dunne and T. Flockhart (eds.), Liberal World Orders. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 87–105. Reus-Smit, C. (2014) “Power, Legitimacy, and Order”, The Chinese Journal of International Politics 7 (3), pp. 341–59.

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Reus-Smit, C. (2018) On Cultural Diversity: International Theory in a World of Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reus-Smit, C. and Dunne, T. (2017) “The Globalization of International Society”. In: T. Dunne and C. Reus-Smit (eds.), The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 18–41. Sakwa, R. (2017) Russia Against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sørenson, G. (2011) A Liberal World Order in Crisis: Choosing Between Imposition and Restraint. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Sørenson, G. (2016) Rethinking the New World Order. London: Palgrave. Teitt, S. (2017) “Sovereignty as Responsibility”. In: T. Dunne and C. Reus-Smit (eds.), The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 325–44. Watson, A. (1992) The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. Abingdon: Routledge. Watson, A. (1997) The Limits of Independence: Relations between States in the Modern World. Abingdon: Routledge. Wiener, A. (2014) A Theory of Contestation. Heidelberg: Springer. Wiener, A. (2018) Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhang, Y. (1998) China in International Society Since 1949: Alienation and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Zürn, M. (2020) “On the Role of Contestations, the Power of Reflexive Authority, and Legitimation Problems in the Global Political System”, International Theory 13 (1), pp. 192–204.

CHAPTER 4

Resilience in Global International Society Elena Korosteleva and Irina Petrova

To say that we live in times of transformational change, associated with growing complexity and contestation of international orders, is perhaps an understatement given Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The fluidity of the situation shows well the difficulty of assessing the resilience of global international society (GIS) and the resilience of the fundamental institutions envisaged by Bull to ensure order. Events that would previously have been unthinkable are now reality, and what previously seemed certain is now in flux. From the mounting dissent inside Russia against the war and the willingness of Russia’s authorities to incarcerate thousands of Russian citizens, to the Belarusian military forces refusing to be part of this war, China’s geopolitical fence-sitting and the many (perhaps self-imposed) constraints of the West in responding to

E. Korosteleva (B) University of Warwick, Coventry, UK I. Petrova University College London, London, UK

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_4

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Putin for fear of escalation—in other words, factors are abound to demonstrate the limitations of our understanding about how and why orders are contested and how they change and maintain their resilience. The recent developments in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and elsewhere in the Eurasian space expose how much global resilience depends on ‘the local’, and its many complex relations and its capacity for responding to change and contestation at the local level—among the human community—be it in fighting the war or surviving adversity in general. However, these developments also reveal the de facto limitations to the institutions of sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, the balance of power, war and great power management, as well as the challenges faced by the secondary multilateral institutions of GIS, especially when ‘the local’ is not included in the wider picture. Though the war still continues at the time of writing, Russia’s blitzkrieg ‘operation’ in Ukraine has already failed whatever the outcome on the ground, owing to the former’s inability to acknowledge local dynamics in its invasive order-making. The change we witness today forces us to rethink how we should understand and manage change—especially when occurring through contestation—and, more importantly, local input (here defined as resilience) to forge order and to make governance more effective on all levels, in what is now known as a ‘VUCA-world’ (Burrows and Gnad 2017)—a world of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. From this perspective, it may well be that a threefold dynamic of change, contestation and resilience necessitates a ‘rebooting’ of Global International Society to account for present-day developments. This chapter aims to show how ongoing change and contestation are closely linked to resilience and/of the local , and how the latter may be useful for English School (ES) theory to engender new ways to make the ES more able and relevant for explaining the increasing plurality of orders and the complexity of GIS today. Much of what this volume is about derives from processes of change and transformation. It would not be an overstatement to say that one of the key challenges for IR to date has been the endemic nature of change (Baker 1991; Feder 2002; Kavalski 2016; Flockhart’s chapter in this volume), and even more so, how we understand and respond to it. Change is always around us: temporal, spatial and omnipresent. However, our perception of it only recently has become more complexified to see it not as ‘teleological’ or ‘linear’, let alone as man-made ‘progress’ (Chandler and Reid 2016, 14), but as ‘multiple interrelated chains of causation

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[that] have unanticipated interactions and unpredictable consequences’ (Lebow 2010, 77). If applied to world politics today, this means that it is imperative to deal with change more responsively on a global level, and to accept contestation as a regular and natural process of opening to new ideas. More so, at the heart of it, is the necessity to account for the local ; specifically, to account for resilience as a relational process of selforganization and self-governance, in which communities from the ‘local’ to the ‘global’ levels respond to change to stay ‘fit-for-purpose’ in the collective pursuit of the good life. In this chapter, we essentially postulate that resilience is a missing key of the English School theorizations, to help understand how orders form, survive and transform on all levels. What does it mean, however, ‘to stay fit-for-purpose’—to stay resilient in relation to change and contestation? We suggest that this directly relates to the ability of the local —the human community—to self-organize in the pursuit of its vision for the good life and to correct itself when these visions and promises are not delivered as an open system, responding to change in an adaptive and/or transformative way. We argue that it is precisely local communities that form various orders and shape and favour a particular set of order arrangements, delivering them institutions in the process (Bull 2012, 4–5). To understand these orders (on all levels) and their arrangements, one must recognize resilience as ‘the local’ where change is constituted and contestation occurs (Kauffman 2017; Korosteleva and Petrova 2022). Only by understanding and engaging with the granular and often hidden processes of self-organization of (local) ordering domains (Flockhart 2016) in response to change and contestation—or what Kavalski calls ‘living in and with change’—can one ‘open the potential for coming to terms with the turbulence of global life’ (2016, 12, emphasis in original). The complexification of change and contestation calls for the repositioning of GIS as well from ‘the global’ to ‘the local’, or what Bull referred to as the ‘elementary’ goals that encompass an ‘exhaustive list of goals common to all societies’ (2012, 5, emphasis added), with a primary focus on the ‘human community’ as a ‘constellation of persons or groups’, which together with the elements of social life, including life, truth and property, form the ‘working of […] international society’ (2012, 308). This chapter, thus, will discuss resilience, not just as adaptation to change through contestation, but as a process of transformation, with change due to contestation, rooted in the local and the hitherto understudied notion of the ‘human community’ in Bull’s work. Unpacking resilience as

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a process of the self-ordering community in pursuit of these elementary goals will highlight what makes ordering domains resilient and the institutions supporting them ‘fit for purpose’. Resilience and its constituent elements imply being much more responsive to change and contestation, serving to underline why resilience-thinking—bottom-up, inside-out and around—must underlie the workings of GIS today. In what follows, we first explore resilience as a way of thinking, followed by a conceptual clarification about how change and contestation are intimately interwoven with resilience in a world of complexity; and why we need to adopt resilience-thinking as a new analytic for understanding and engaging with the concept of GIS, seen as an assemblage of multiple ordering domains and rooted in the human community as a primary construct. Then we shall consider the potential role of resilience in ES and what can make complex systems—be it a person, a community, a state or a global society—more resilient in the face of change and contestation in the highly complexified world of today.

Resilience as a Way of Thinking in a Changing and Contested World Resilience is a contested concept, which has evolved over time and whose meaning varies significantly depending on the theoretical approach and ontological background of those using the concept. The use of the term resilience ranges from resilience as the ability of a system to cope with, or bounce back, following a crisis; an entity’s ability to stretch but not break (Bourbeau 2018); to a currently widespread neoliberal reading of resilience as guided adaptation or governmentality (Joseph 2013); and, finally, to viewing resilience as a form of self-organization constituted in social communities ranging from the local to the global level (Chandler 2014; Korosteleva and Petrova 2020, 2022). The latter understanding is what is adopted in this chapter, and which seems to have particular relevance for English School theory as will be elaborated upon below. This meaning of resilience is of relevance for understanding how the fundamental institutions and the overall GIS remain ‘fit for purpose’ as defined by their individual vision for the future, within a continuously changing and contested environment. It is no wonder that resilience played no role in Bull’s writings because the concept of resilience was developed in the 1970s in ecology, psychology and psychiatry and did not enter the IR discourse until the

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early 2000s, and subsequently as the central concept in rethinking the European Union’s Global Security Strategy in an admittedly far more complex, connected and contested world (EEAS 2016). In its application in ecology, psychology and psychiatry, the concept of resilience signified the ability of a system to bounce back to normality after being exposed to a shock or crisis, which was an understanding that was initially also adopted within IR across its major theories. In realism-based IR scholarship, the view of resilience was influenced by the understanding of interstate dynamics as fixed and stable with given preferences and internal structures facilitating their ability to bounce back, and, hence, to stay resilient. Similarly, whereas liberalism and constructivism acknowledge the malleable nature of international institutions, resilience is still often associated with this bouncing-back logic (Bourbeau 2018, 1–2), presupposing the need to stick to the existing institutions and the existence of universal patterns for facilitating resilience, often vested in Western structures (Buzan and Schouenborg 2018, 8). Importantly, such an understanding of resilience implies a unidirectional path of change for GIS towards Western institutions, where contestation is framed as adversity and requires mitigation. Since the early 2000s, critical approaches offered a different perspective on resilience. Instead of bouncing back, resilience in this perspective was seen as the ability to adapt to change and as a mode of governance facilitating adaptability through identifying potential vulnerabilities and preventively addressing them by developing the necessary capacities (Joseph 2013). Resilience was thus conceptualized as a way of governing and of adjusting actors’ behaviour through ‘empowerment’ and ‘capacity-building’, which—perhaps paradoxically—was well-aligned with neoliberal thinking, which shifted attention from the outside (institutions, organizations) to the inside world through the construction of a ‘neoliberal subject’ (Chandler and Reid 2016). Resilience however, was still conceptualized as a governmentality by the West over the rest, to sustain the monocentric model of GIS (Buzan 2018) through the external construction of ‘vulnerable’ groups for the sake of their protection and empowerment, for the purpose of reform and adaptation in accordance with Western institutions (Amo-Agyemang 2021; Ejdus 2017; Joseph 2013). In the early 2010s, the post-neoliberal approaches emerged to argue that this external ‘empowerment’ to make communities more resilient was an illusion. The neoliberal thinking guided and shaped by external

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knowledge-holders (Korosteleva 2018; Schmidt 2015), as a rule drew on premeditated solutions and knowledge templates of Western institutions, promoting ‘good governance’ premised on Western norms and ‘decided by Western interests, transmitted through a normalizing discourse that transfers responsibility to local agents’ (Joseph 2013, 44). Although building on bounded rationality, resilience as a form of neoliberal governmentality assumed the possibility of knowing and, hence, planning; it therefore implied the possibility of preparedness for potential challenges, (mis)guided by unproblematized causality of the uncomplexified life (Corry 2014). In this chapter, we argue that ‘resilience is always more’ (Bargues-Pedreny 2020), and when connected to change and complexitythinking, exposes our limitations of knowing, and requires continuous self-learning, and transformation, from the local to the global.

Connecting Change and Contestation to Resilience Resilience, both as a property of a system and an analytic of governance, has been amply discussed in the literature over the past decades as a possible solution for managing and adapting to change and inherent contestation (Chandler and Coaffee 2016; Tierney 2014; Walker and Cooper 2011; Korosteleva and Flockhart 2020; Korosteleva and Petrova 2022). However, the connection between change, contestation and resilience is not always fully elaborated and is rarely placed in the context of the current change and contestation of GIS and its institutions, which is what this volume seeks to do. As discussed by Flockhart (Chapter 2), change and the need for adaptation to change have always been one of the major challenges for GIS. This is especially the case of today’s more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, VUCA-world (Burrows and Gnad 2017), or the world of emergence1 (Kauffman 1995), of which we become increasingly (self-) aware. The change is characterized by a growing number of actors positioned on different levels, and their, respectively, more complex agencies, associated with dispersed decision-making, fragmented common interests, proliferation of networks, sharing of resources, resulting in pooled

1 Emergence is a process of self-organization when actions of multiple actors lead to a qualitatively new behaviour without any central control.

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sovereignty and their intense multiplexity (i.e. the interaction of multiple networks). It is the world of emergent—yet disjointed—ideas, interests, preferences, resources, institutions, organizations, interaction networks, challenges, etc. where formal and informal realms coexist, and where strong and subtle relations form and/or disappear in a constant nonlinear, relational and unpredictable manner. It is thus the world of a mesh (Kurki 2020; Morton 2010) where everything is connected and ‘woven together’—complexus in Latin meaning ‘inclusion’, ‘encompassing’ or ‘encircling’—part of intra- and inter-action, plaiting multiple ‘human and natural systems’ into one and many, which come to define ‘global life’ as ‘coexistent of “worlds”, “domains”, “projects”, or “texts” of ongoing and overlapping interconnections’ (Rosenau 1988, in Kavalski 2016, 4). It is a world ‘marked by discontinuities and new vulnerabilities which come with emergence, where ‘global life’ may consist of more than just one international society or a system: it is a ‘world where many worlds fit’ (Escobar 2018), otherwise referred to as a multiplex (Acharya 2017) or a multi-order world (Flockhart 2016). We have also learned that the world today, with its multiplex actors, orders, rules and institutions, is not a closed/simple system (Harrison 2007), where input could directly determine the output being subject to a mono-causal and linear relation; and where action could engender a premeditated reaction.2 The world today has proven to be an open system(s), unpredictable and uncontrollable, where contestation comes as a natural and essential process of adaptation and transformation (Dunne and Reus-Smit 2017), and requires institutions to be agile and responsive to change. This is what in essence Edkins refers to as ‘the political’— an open space and a process, ‘within which actions, events, and other phenomena acquire political status in the first place’ (1999, 2); or what Zizek calls ‘the moment of openness, of unpredictability, when the very structuring principle of society, the fundamental form of a social pact, is called into question—in short, the moment of global crisis overcome by the act of founding a “new harmony”’ (1991, 193–5, in Edkins 1999, 3). It is through contestation, within ‘the political’ as an open space of ideas/authority, the established orders with their rules and institutions are gauged against their promises and new social practices are instituted, 2 This is why to understand resilience in conjunction with change and contestation we have to go beyond the English School (ES), where ‘the local’ self-ordering elements and their operation and contribution to the global system remain largely understudied.

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bottom-up and inside-out, in the pursuit of new goals and a better life. Hence, while contestation of international liberal institutions, rules and norms may often be seen in the literature as a challenge, or even a threat for GIS (Buzan and Schouenborg 2018, 2), it is actually a necessary and processual way of adapting and responding to change, and the challenges of a bureaucracy of ‘politics’ once ‘the political’ is settled and a new order legitimized (Edkins 1999). Furthermore, Wiener’s theory of contestation posits that ‘the principle of contentedness reflects the agreement that the norms, rules and principles of governance are contested and that they therefore require regular contestation in order to work’ (Wiener 2014, 3). Therefore, rather than trying to protect the existing institutions and perceiving contestation as an act of adversity, it is important to acknowledge that change and contestation are inherent features of a complex life, which are essential for GIS to engage with, to remain ‘fit for purpose’ in the pursuit of set goals (see Flockhart’s and Paikin’s chapters in this volume). These processes of emergence and contestation are part and parcel of what is now known as complex global life (including GIS), and is yet to be adequately grasped by IR, where mainstream theories ‘with their tradition of state-based analysis, have difficulties with the crosscutting and intersecting character of many complex challenges’ (Kavalski 2016, 2). This complex life requires a new kind of thinking that, instead of seeing the world as one of ‘things’ (e.g. people, states) that ‘move’ (e.g. balance, trade) against ‘backgrounds’ (e.g. resources, the environment) in ‘patterns’ traceable and understandable by ‘us’ (Kurki 2020, 4), would conceive of complex life as one of dynamic entanglements (Chandler and Pugh 2021; Latour 2017), a mesh (Morton 2010, 2013) made up of processes and relations in permanent movement. Such an ontological approach would shift the attention from fixed subjects and their qualities to the relational mesh of processual intra- and inter-actions inside-out and bottom-up, and the ‘environment “around” the conventional focus on interstate relations. The focus then is on an environment which conceptually constitutes as well as causally conditions (although not in a mono-causal and linear fashion) states and other actors’ (Kavalski 2016, 4). In summary, the complex and relational understanding of IR and the world around us, with a focus on the local and its self-governance (what we term as resilience here), is essential for understanding change and how to respond to it in a sustainable way. This in turn necessitates rebooting

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GIS today to (re)constitute its vitality and agility when dealing with change and emergence. Relational and very much contested, global life— and GIS for that matter—reflects its multiplex nature, essentially constituted bottom-up, of diverse culture regimes (Reus-Smit 2018), orders (Flockhart 2016), post-human non-anthropocentric realities (Cudworth and Hobden 2016) and their respective rules and institutions. The real challenge here is how to manage this complex and contested global life, in its dynamic entanglements, to stay ‘fit for purpose’ in relation to given goals and be more responsive to change on all levels, as a nexus between the local and the global. Resilience as a process of a community’s self-ordering in response to change is unpacked further in the next section, bringing together the insights from Bull’s seminal work and recent scholarship on community resilience.

The Salience of the ‘Human Community’ in Making GIS Resilient Departing from the positivist ontology which sustains both the understanding of resilience as the ability to bounce back and adapt to change, we argue that the ‘mesh’ (or multi-level entanglement of relations) of complex global life (Kurki 2020) renders a different reading of resilience. In the VUCA-world of unknowability and unpredictability, it is impossible to prepare for potential challenges, firstly because many of them lie in the realm of the ‘unknown unknowns’ (Chandler 2014); secondly, because interactions in an open system develop in a nonlinear, relational and processual manner, which makes attempts to develop adaptation capacities preventively or preparedly a challenging task with no guaranteed results. Furthermore, adaptation processes are immersed into varied constellations of local conditions—the ‘environment around’ in Kavalski’s words (2016)—affecting responses to emerging challenges. In this context resilience means not just growing capacities (via institutions and resources) for adaptation to change, but a process of transforming, with change as a post-hoc response to a manifested challenge (Chandler 2014, 2021). In the world of mesh, a challenge is most effectively addressed at source by the actors and relations concerned, drawing on their inherent strengths and capabilities, often opaque and hidden in their germination (Chandler 2021); it is essential that the response comes inside-out and bottom-up—originating from the local knowledge, preferences and

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practices. Self-organization and self-ordering thus lie at the heart of our understanding of resilience, which signify both the ability to transform with change in a relational manner—to ‘become with’ (Chandler 2021) and self-governance as a process of becoming. In a complex nonlinear world of change and contestation, resilience is unequivocally constituted at the local level, at the root-source of change, going through multiple relational feedback loops and competing ordering ideas, which result in self-organization of community/society drawing on its inner strength and resources, with external assistance as necessary (Korosteleva and Petrova 2020) when responding to change and/or adversity. Complexity-thinking thus implies that to handle change more efficiently on any level, local dynamics should become the primary focus of analysis. Bull, in his seminar work The Anarchical Society alluded to, but did not fully elaborate, this way of thinking. His observation was simple: any order has a purposive sense; it is an arrangement relating to how to achieve a certain (common) purpose to satisfactory needs. The purposive course forms around a set of goals, which Bull argued, ‘may be said to be elementary’ in their requirements: these are ‘a constellation of persons or groups […] with expectation of security against violence, of the honouring of agreements or of stability of possession’ (2012, 5, emphasis added). These elementary goals, often summarized as life, truth and property, form the foundation of international society because without them there would be no society. However, Bull also insisted that an international society is premised on a human community, whose needs and goals require sustainment, in response to change. This thinking brings us to the key postulate of this chapter, premised on Bull’s (unstated) understanding of resilience as a local input to the global, and self-organization/selfordering of the local as an intrinsic component of governance—along with change and contestation—required to make global ordering more sustainable. Resilience, in this case, serves both as analytic and a process of self-governance by the human community(-ies), formed to advance common interests, in the pursuit of shared goals, with the support of respective infrastructures and agreed rules of engagement. A ‘complex life’ refers to ‘semi-turbulent and turbulent environments where change is imminent and frequent’ (Doodley 1997, 92)—that is, precisely what the VUCA-world denotes, the world of emergence and contestation, where change is best dealt with locally, as a process of collective self-organization rooted in Bull’s understanding of the ‘human

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community’ (2012). The latter in turn relies on ‘a shared vision’ (Berenskoetter 2011) and ‘individual’s readiness for change’ (ibid., 91) in their pursuit of elementary goals, being (self-)reliant on inherent communal resources, relational processes and capacities, because all fundamental forces and structures ‘arise from local processes and not by means of action at a distance’ (Gell-mann 1995, 177). All these core tenets of a complex life we argue elsewhere (Korosteleva and Flockhart 2020) are quintessentially reflected in the concept and practice of resilience as self-governance going well-beyond neoliberal thinking, which invariably limits a sense of freedom and creativity of the individual to their external responsibilization. As discussed above, we define resilience as a quality of a complex adaptive system that enables entities to cope, bounce back, adapt and survive in search of an equilibrium (Korosteleva and Petrova 2021; Luhmann 1990). Resilience, in the context of complex and relational life, ‘is always more’ (Bargués-Pedreny 2020) and should serve as an analytic of governance that draws on the ‘inside-out and about’ relations between persons, their visions and aspirations, local preferences and resources; as well as ‘the right to opacity’ (Glissant 1997) by the human community of relations (Chandler 2021) to define their trajectory of development in response to a changing environment. Resilience thus emerges as a useful and innovative framework, in a world of emergence and contestation, to assist GIS with becoming more responsive to change, by way of centralizing the role of the local — the person, or the society, where change is constituted, and which is loosely encapsulated by Bull’s conception of ‘the human community’—as a foundational element in shaping ‘the global’, and understanding what makes these human communities resilient in the face of change, and how they can stay ‘fit-for-purpose’ while adapting to change. The relevance of human communities cannot be underestimated, as demonstrated by the continued resistance and resilience of Ukraine, which, when faced with annihilation, instead experienced the rise of peoplehood, to challenge the act of violation of their vision of the ‘good life’, this way resisting imposition of an old order. Flockhart (2021) argues that while Bull’s account of order is essentialist inasmuch as it assumes a ‘shared and stable vision of the good life’ (8, emphasis added); given current developments in our understanding of a complex life, we should insist on a less essentialist definition that is more grounded in the social (local) context. The human community is precisely ‘where ordering takes place’ and where change is constituted in

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the pursuit of given goals, and this is what ‘could be conceptualized as an ideal-type ordering domain’ (Flockhart 2021, 10) whereby power is manifested in a specific social identity, in principles which specify the norms and rules that define appropriate behaviour and social sanctions, and in practices which could be habitual and/or reflexive to ‘bring about transformation and renewal’ (ibid.). In a complex life, as Flockhart contends in this volume, if change were to affect one element of the domain, it would necessitate adaptation in the other two, to remain ‘fit for purpose’ and responsive ‘to a constantly changing environment’ (2021, 9). In other words, central to a responsive ordering domain is resilience as a governing modality and a foundational principle of the local , enabling a complex system to self-organize in the most adaptive ways in response to change. This principle, however, is presently missing in our understanding of GIS and how it should stay fit for purpose. At the heart of an ideal-type ordering domain is a shared vision for or sense of the ‘good life’, shaping and being shaped by the social (local) context, or what Bull referred to as ‘the human community’ (2012). Not only is this vital for the very formation and survivability of the human community as it brings people together in their endeavour for the attainment of shared goals; it also conditions how they see their future—for if a shared vision is intense and unifying, it may lead to the profound transformation of ordering arrangements in response to change. It is thus a relational process of becoming with, rather than being a human community (Chandler 2021; Berenskoetter 2011; Kurki 2020), which assumes nothing stable or fixed about it.3 Having a ‘shared vision’, a sense of a good life, can be a very powerful driver that not only helps communities to cope with stress and pressure of the everyday and adapt to a perhaps less accommodating or even challenging, external environment; it also aids transformation and renewal of the human community when crisis is profound, thus signifying readiness for change ensuing resilience and survivability. A sense of the ‘good life’ in an ideal-type ordering domain therefore speaks to all three of its elements—power modalities, principles and practices of the human community—being always a process that connects past philosophies of life with future aspirations, challenging some established patterns of human activity and institutions

3 This was precisely Putin’s mistake to assume the stability and acceptance of the old ‘Soviet’ order when invading Ukraine, in hoping for a quick win.

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to support them, to bring out new aspirations into the open for contestation. The human community therefore is always a host to a pluriverse of existing and emergent cultural regimes (Reus-Smit 2018), each enjoying and competing for their own ‘creative visions’ of the future (Berenskoetter 2011) premised in and shaped by their principles and practices of life. Not recognizing this, and more so, not engaging with this more broadly—through transformation and adaptation to change—may lead to the decline of orders and even to the decline of GIS as a universal ordering domain within which other (non-universal) ordering domains are located (Bull 2012, 307). While a sense of the good life offers motivation and drive for the pluriverse of the human community, what sustains it is the institutions of the domain to help realization of their creative visions. These too ought to be rooted in the local , ‘the human agency’ to be responsive to change, through self-organization and self-reliance especially. Recent literature showcased prominent examples of self-organization reflecting on the importance of these elements. For instance, agaciro (dignity, selfworth), a philosophy, identity and policy originating from Rwanda, aims to move away from the mentality of dependence and international aid, and replace it with self-reliance and solidarity (Rutazibwa 2014). It puts forward the vision of relationality and self-help, emphasizing the local structures as more attuned to people’s aspirations as compared to global development discourses. Agaciro is echoed in the Andean concept of buen vivir (good living), explained in a nutshell as ‘collective well-being according to culturally appropriate conceptions’ (Escobar 2018, 148). Hygge as a ‘highly treasured characteristic of Danish society’ (Flockhart 2021), tuteishyia in a Uniate world (Petrova and Korosteleva 2021), or jamaats which embodies both ‘the place, the thinking and the soul’ of Muslim communities (Nasritdinov 2021) are all examples of the empowering vision that acknowledges multiple development paths (up to defying the universality of linear progress), plurality of local knowledge, and relational understandings of complex life (Korosteleva and Petrova 2022). The emphasis on the community of relations, their networks and institutions—human agency more broadly—is emerging as a key to societal resilience, which in Asian philosophy could be seen as ‘dahlez’: a door that connects the internal and external worlds, in an organic and continued fashion (Nurulla-Khodzhaeva 2019). These fundamental institutions, however, need to be adaptive and agile to be able to accommodate change and respond to the emergence

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of opportunities (or conflicts) promptly: on the surface they may ‘stay calm and carry on’ but the hidden processes of change and adaptation to change via self-organization are always afoot. In a spur of profound change, what could emerge is a transformative moment from becoming to being of the human community, thus connecting the local communities with an international society as a collective of persons being fully mobilized by their vision, resources and capacities at the moment of existential threat or severe violation of the community’s elementary needs. This was recently exemplified by the Arab Spring ‘al-harak’ that captures ‘the essence of the political, social, cultural, and religious people-driven ferment’ (Sadiki 2016, 339), or the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ on the Maidan in Kyiv and the ongoing war with Russia at the time of writing, potentially instances of reaching the moment of becoming, turning into a qualitatively different entity, with a sense of dignity (agaciro) and selfworth to fight for and protect one’s future. Therefore, in their moment of extreme crisis, which seemingly would undermine resilience, resilience was increased and the sense of the good life consolidated. In other words, resilience as a quality, a process and a way of thinking in a complex adaptive system as part of complex life begins at home, and is manifest via, and supported by, an assemblage of constitutive components, including identity driven by a shared sense of a ‘good life’, an awoken sense of worth and dignity, and formal and informal communal support infrastructures, all of which could turn existing capacities into true capabilities of peoplehood to challenge existing power arrangements and to de-legitimize established practices in their fight for a better future when faced with adversity. This non-exhaustive list of resilience components underscores the primacy of the local and its ability for self-organization and self-governance, to make global governance, in a more complex and uncontrollable VUCA-world, more sustainable and effective. The thinking means that when one talks about change and contestation, on different levels (including GIS), resilience is always part of the equation: it makes an open system reflective and responsive to its needs, creative and adaptive, thus remaining or aspiring to be ‘fit for purpose’ according to the vision of the community.

Conclusion The epistemological meanings of resilience have evolved, as we discussed in this chapter. If conceived as a way of thinking and as an analytic of

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governance, it should allow us to better respond to change and stay agile and adaptive to the challenges of complex life. As a framework, resiliencethinking serves at least three purposes: it helps us re-capture the role of the local where change is constituted, in shaping the global, where ordering contestation occurs. It also aids our understanding of what it means to be resilient by focusing on its constitutive elements of identity, shared goals, memories, emotions and visions of the good life, support infrastructures, resources and institutions—or what Flockhart (2021) has referred to as the patterns of power, principles and practices of a range of ideal-type ordering domains—including the local . Finally, it also nudges us in the direction of accepting the emerging pluriversal/polycentric arrangement of ‘the global’—the multi-order world (Flockhart 2016)—which consists of ‘several types of international orders, each with its own vision for a good life and each nested within a global international society and an overall, albeit thin, vision for the [shared] conception of the good life’ (2021, 18). This suggests that when we think of change and contestation in the context of resilient GIS, it is as much about the acceptance of a plurality of international orders as it is about conceiving of the ways for their development and cooperation (or cohabitation at the very least). At present, however, contemporary GIS is caught between two seemingly opposite processes: on the one hand, with the emergence of new orders, identities and different aspirations for the good life, the international power gap is closing, ‘meaning that the Western-global international society is becoming more of a de-centered global one’ (Buzan 2018, 239), on the other hand ‘significant shadows of the old Western-centric core-periphery structure remain, and since the end of the Cold War a re-emergence of the new de facto ‘standard of civilization’ has become obvious’ (ibid.). This hierarchical structure is increasingly contested, and according to the complexity-thinking logic, the persisting monocentric model of GIS appears unsustainable (Escobar 2018; Kothari et al. 2019). As argued by Escobar, ‘unsustainability springs from the cultural structure of modernity itself (Ehrenfeld 2009, 210); modern solutions will not do. John Ehrenfeld’s ontological design approach leads him to conclude that sustainability will be brought about only if ‘a cultural upheaval’ takes place (ibid., 211). For many ethno-territorial social movements, sustainability involves the ‘defence of an entire way of life, a mode of being-knowing-doing’ (Escobar 2018, 45). Taken from the local perspective of resilience, as a missing foundational element of primary institutions in the ES thinking, this urges the question of how different

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conceptions of order should be rethought to coexist within a global ordering domain such as the GIS. Complexity-thinking and the notion of resilience developed in this chapter insist on going beyond modernist ontology and positivist epistemology by embracing the complexity of life. It implies ‘rebooting’ the way of thinking about GIS by focusing on the local and giving the communities ‘the right to opacity’ and freedom to develop along their own trajectories grounded in their specific identities and good life aspirations. Thinking about complex life from the perspective of self-organization and relationality opens the possibility of GIS as composed of constantly emergent/changing orders and transforming institutions in which different conceptions of the good life provide a space where dissimilar groups can find common ground while simultaneously disagreeing on their general outlook (Buerger and Gadinger 2017, 11, in Flockhart 2021, 12). This is what constitutes a resilient—agile and responsive to change—GIS as a ‘single complex system for harmonious coexistence, in which various sub-global international societies expand and interact until they form a global one’ (Buzan 2018, 5). Acknowledgements We thank the editors of this volume for their helpful comments to the earlier drafts of this chapter, the GCRF COMPASS funding (ES/P010849/1) and Participatory Research England project on Ukraine at the University of Warwick, without which this research would have not been possible.

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CHAPTER 5

The Relationship Between Primary and Secondary Institutions: Theorizing Institutional Change Tonny Brems Knudsen

In the classical English School theory formulated by Martin Wight, Hedley Bull, Adam Watson and Alan James among others, the key institutions of international society were the historical, sociological and fundamental ones including mutual recognition of sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, the balance of power, great power management and the regulation of war. International organizations mattered as well, but mainly as what Robert Jackson (2000, 105–113) called the auxiliary framework of international society. Inspired by Kalevi Holsti (2004), Barry Buzan (2004) presented international organizations as secondary institutions situated in and structured by the primary and historical ones (Navari 2019). This meant theoretical innovation and definitional clarification, but Holsti and Buzan did not theorize the role of international organizations in processes of fundamental institutional change.

T. B. Knudsen (B) Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_5

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Here, the early constructivist contribution by Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall (1989) has been particularly helpful for recent attempts to formulate an English School theory of institutional change in which fundamental institutions and international organizations are mutually constitutive (Spandler 2015; Knudsen 2016; Navari 2016; Knudsen and Navari 2019). This implies that international organizations may stimulate change in the practices of fundamental institutions, or, more rarely and dramatically, in their constitutive principles. This chapter tries to go further by specifying the drivers of organizational and fundamental institutional change as international shocks (historical institutionalism), new logics of appropriateness (sociological institutionalism) and the solving of shared problems (rational choice institutionalism). Furthermore, it clarifies the various forms of contestation involved in these drivers of change and the implications for institutional and societal resilience. This includes a distinction between contestation from the periphery and contestation from the center. Finally, it applies the resulting theoretical framework to key aspects of the changing international order, namely the reinforced ‘revolt against the West’ (Hurrell 2018, 92–94; Bull 1984, 217–228) and the ongoing power transition including the 2008 economic and financial crisis, the rise of China and the resort to force by Russia in Syria (2015) and Ukraine (2014, 2022).

The Fundamental Institutionalism of the English School The concept of fundamental or basic institutions played a central role to Martin Wight, Hedley Bull and Adam Watson among others in their attempt to formulate an early theory of international society in the 1960s and 1970s. They derived these institutions from international history and the history of ideas as ideal types, shaped by a broader logic of international society (Wight 1977, 1978; Bull 1977).1 Wight pointed to mutual recognition of sovereignty, diplomacy, trade, war, the conference systems, international law, great power management, the balance of power, collective security, alliances, guarantees and neutrality as historical 1 The idea of fundamental institutions is also evident in Butterfield and Wight (1966), though without an explicit use of the term. Inspired by Charles Manning (1962), Alan James (1973, 1978, 1986) referred to certain phenomena (1978, 97) or practices as bases of international order and key elements in the social structure of international society.

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and sociological institutions (Wight 1977, 29–33, 129–152; 1978, 107– 143, 168–185). In doing so, he stressed their importance for the unique societal qualities of the modern states system (Wight 1977, 129–152; 1978, 105–112).2 This was a key inspiration for Hedley Bull in his attempt to formulate a holistic theory of international society and account for its orderly elements. According to Bull (1977, 13, 65–74) ‘a society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions’. In Bull’s theory of international society, states recognize common interests and values—especially the minimum requirements of social coexistence (limitation of violence, the keeping of promises and the stabilization of possession), peace as the normal condition of international relations and the independence of states. These are primary or elementary goals of international society (Bull 1977, 16–20). Furthermore, they consider themselves bound by common rules supporting such common goals (Bull 1977, 67–71). Finally, states cooperate in historically developed institutions in order to promote these common goals and rules (Bull 1977, 71–74, 101–229).3 From this, follows logically a basic element of international order: ‘a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary goals of the society of states’ (Bull 1977, 8). In Bull’s historically informed theory of international relations, there is an intrinsic relationship between order and society because the common rules and institutions of international society support a set of primary goals among states, and thus patterns of meaningful activity. Bull referred to the institutions of international society as ‘basic’ and ‘fundamental’ (Bull 1977, xiv), and he defined them as ‘a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’ (1977, 74), including those relating to international order. Based on classical studies of international history, international law and the history of ideas,

2 For an extensive account of the institutions of international society in English School, constructivist and liberal theory, see Knudsen (2021). On the English School as a theoretical tradition, see Navari (2021). 3 This logic is particularly evident in Bull’s work (1977, 66–74), but also in Wight’s (1966, 89–131; 1978, 105–112).

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Bull identified, analyzed and theorized the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, war and great power management as the effective, order-promoting institutions of international society (Bull 1977, xiv, 24– 40, 71–74, 101–229). This was a narrower list than those put forward by Martin Wight (see above), but some of Wight’s fundamental institutions were subsumed under those stressed by Bull. Moreover, Bull (1977) focused exclusively on institutions, which had played a key role for the maintenance of international order throughout the history of international society, whereas Wight focused on societal institutions more broadly. For both of them, the method was the construction of ideal types based on historical interpretation and the formulation of a general theory of international society. Consequently, their lists of fundamental institutions (and the accounts for their working) were hardly exhaustive, as indicated also by Bull’s references to developments in the rules and institutions of international society at the time of writing (1977, 38–40). In English School theory, order is a main rationality of the institutions of international society as practiced by states and other actors over time, though, as stressed by Bull (1977, xii), not the only one. More broadly, fundamental institutions represent elements of constitutionalism in international society (Wight 1966, 95–97, 102–104; Bull 1966a). This would seem to indicate a considerable potential for a study of international change, understood as changes in the constitutional or institutional machinery of international society, and such studies have appeared in English School literature over time (Knudsen 2021). However, as argued by the editors in the introduction to this volume, there has been a much stronger focus on continuity, especially in the theoretical contributions of the school. The reason is simple, namely a desire to base the case for an orderly international society on stable foundations, capable of transcending both the realist notion of it as nothing but a narrow and direct effect of power, and the liberal notion of it as a product of— perceived—shaky foundations such as interdependence and international organization. For these reasons, Bull deliberately overstated his point about the relative insignificance of international organizations, which were best seen as ‘pseudo institutions’ (Bull 1977, xiv), because of their perceived political weaknesses and temporal character, compared to the historical and durable institutions that had materialized in Europe and elsewhere since

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the Middle Ages.4 This theorization was an attempt to escape the traps of earlier idealist organizational studies. Although they were important as supportive arrangements, the reality of international order and international society did not hang on world organization like the League of Nations and the United Nations—or in ‘the hopes commonly placed in them’ (Bull 1977, xiv) —but on durable institutions, less vulnerable to power-political change (and associated realist arguments).

Enter Holsti and Buzan: Institutional Levels and Markers of Change Looking at The Anarchical Society as a whole, Bull did not ignore the role of international organizations, but he clearly gave priority to the more fundamental institutions of international society, not least theoretically. However, Bull (1977, xiv, part II) showed the way for later waves of scholarship by stressing the importance of international organizations as supporters of the more fundamental ones. In Taming the Sovereigns, Kalevi Holsti (2004, 24–25) distinguished between foundational and procedural institutions in an attempt to specify the institutionalism of the English School and the potential for change. Foundational institutions (such as sovereignty) define the privileged status of states and the fundamental principles, rules and norms upon which their mutual relations are based, while procedural institutions (for instance, the market) are composed of repetitive practices, ideas and norms which regulate the interaction of states. This implies a ‘nesting’ of regulative and organizational machineries into the deeper constitutive ones identified by Wight and Bull (Navari 2019, 55–60). Furthermore, Holsti (2004, 18–27) stressed the potential of historical and sociological institutions as markers of major change associated with the rise and decay of such institutions. Finally, he found growing institutional complexity to be the dominant form of change. These ideas were picked up by Barry Buzan (2004) in his ambitious attempt to revitalize English School theory: From International to World Society? Here, he distinguished between primary (fundamental) and secondary (organizational) institutions (Buzan 2004, 166–167, 187),

4 Some of these institutions were traceable in other historically known political systems as well (Wight 1977; Watson 1992).

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where the former were divided into master and derivative institutions (182–187). Secondary institutions were explicitly situated or embedded in primary institutions (Buzan 2004, 182, 186–187), much like Robert Keohane (1988, 381–390) had done it before from a neoliberal standpoint with the argument that international organizations were more precise, rationalistic and binding expressions of the older, broader and sociological institutions identified by the English School. This provided further clarification and precision while the hierarchy between primary and secondary institutions was maintained. Furthermore, Buzan followed Holsti in an open approach to major historical change in which primary institutions are ‘neither permanent nor fixed’, but likely to ‘undergo a historical pattern of rise, evolution, and decline that is long by the standards of a human lifetime’ (Buzan 2004, 181). Furthermore, Buzan pointed to the possibility of institutional variation across regional international societies, which may receive or incorporate global primary institutions in different ways or cultivate their own unique primary institutions (Buzan 2004, 217–222; Buzan and Gonzales-Pelaez 2009). The Added Value: Narrow and Broad Conceptions of Institutional Change The long list of fundamental or primary institutions in Holsti and Buzan’s work, and the idea that such institutions may come and go (though over a long timespan), calls for a distinction between—and a combination of—a narrow and a broad approach to what may be termed ‘fundamental institutional change’ (Knudsen 2016, 2019a, 28–33). In the narrow approach, fundamental institutions are the ones that are, in certain respects, logical and historical preconditions of international society and its basic qualities of order and justice.5 In Wendt and Duvall’s (1989) terminology, these fundamental institutions are constitutive of international society. In Navari’s (2014, 5) argument (building on Searle and Schatzki) they are integrative practices without which ‘the domain would lose its character as an international domain’, meaning an international society. 5 See, for example, Wight’s (1977, 135, 141–147) perception of mutual recognition of sovereignty and diplomacy, James’ (1973, 1978) perception of international law and Bull’s (1977) perception of the balance of power, great power management and the regulation of war.

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In the broad approach taken by Holsti and Buzan, primary institutions are constitutive of a particular international order or historical period (Knudsen 2019a, 31–32). Drawing on Searle and Meyer, Buzan (2004, 165–167, 173, 181) sees primary institutions as social facts that define the legitimate game of international relations and are taken for granted by state actors.6 However, the broad approach pays attention not only to the societal purpose of primary institutions, but also to the dominant political patterns of interaction in various historical orders, like religious practices and messengers in pre-modern international societies and dynasticism and colonialism in (early) European international society (Buzan 2004, 179, 183; Buzan 2014, 108–109; Holsti 2004, 239–274). As for contemporary international society, Buzan (2004, 179–184; 2014, 101–112, 135–163) has proposed equality of peoples, nationalism, environmental stewardship and democracy as primary institutions in addition to the fundamental institutions stressed by earlier exponents of the English School, while Christian Reus-Smit (1997) includes multilateralism.7 The distinction between the narrow and the broad approach offers further analytical potential in fundamental institutional analyses. The narrow approach identifies a set of relatively stable and persistent institutions that can hardly disappear, but may change, for instance, away from their originally European ways of operating or toward more pluralist, solidarist or post-colonial rationalities (Buzan 2014; Knudsen 2019b, 2022). The broad approach pays attention to additional institutions that are constitutive of a given historical period or order (for instance, colonialism during the expansion of European international society) but not of (global) international society as such, and to institutions that are constitutive of a particular version of international society, for instance, a solidarist international society (Buzan 2014; Knudsen 2019b). This offers additional historical and analytical flexibility in the analysis of institutional change. 6 A broader sociological approach to the institutions of international society is also discernable in the early contributions by Manning (1962) and Wight (1977, 1978): rules and institutions as meaningful interaction. 7 Nationalism or national self-determination as a fundamental institution is often asso-

ciated with James Mayall (1990), while Robert Jackson (2000) suggested environmental stewardship. Trade or the market has been treated as an institution by Wight (1977), Holsti (2004) and Palmujoki (2022). Laust Schouenborg has added further institutions based on a functionalist approach (Schouenborg 2011; Buzan and Schouenborg 2018, 199–204).

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Enter Early Constructivism: Agency and Mutual Constitution In a landmark article entitled ‘Institutions and International Order’, Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall (1989) distinguished between the ‘old institutionalism’ of the English School and the ‘new institutionalism’ championed by Robert Keohane and Stephen Krasner among others. Furthermore, they aligned classical English School scholars including Charles Manning, F.S. Northedge, Alan James and Hedley Bull with upcoming post-structuralist and constructivist scholars like James Der Derian, Richard K. Ashley, John Ruggie, Friedrich Kratochwil, and Wendt and Duvall themselves. Their goal was to develop a social constructivist approach to international relations and the question of change, and in doing so, they introduced important meta-theoretical clarification to the older sociological and historical institutionalism of the English School. First, Wendt and Duvall argued that ‘the international political system is not only a system of states but also a society of states’. Here, they built directly on the old institutionalism of the English School. The choice-theoretic and ‘economic’ (why do states choose to cooperate and seek gains in an anarchical system) approach had its merits, but it ‘blinds scholars to some equally important, if not even more fundamental processes of “ordering” in the international system’ (Wendt and Duvall 1989, 51–52). Second, they explicitly proposed the term ‘fundamental institutions’ for the balance of power, international law, diplomacy and war (among others). Drawing on constructivist structuration theory, they specified these institutions as ‘shared intersubjective understandings’ which ‘constitute state actors as subjects of international life in the sense that they make meaningful interaction by the latter possible’ (53). Third, they argued that fundamental institutions structure (in the sense of shaping) state action and interaction, because they make certain forms of meaningful interaction possible, while international organizations and regimes tend to specify, regulate, constrain and organize international interaction (54). Importantly, they concluded with the argument that both types of institutions have both constitutive and organizing effects on international practice (60–63). Fourth, they argued that notwithstanding their constitutive effects on states, fundamental institutions and international organizations depend on states for their reproduction, meaning that states and institutions are in a mutually constitutive relationship. The same goes for fundamental institutions and international organizations, since

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the former are constitutive of the latter, which in turn reproduce and potentially change the former. These arguments clarified how fundamental institutions shape the interaction of states in a sociological, constitutive way without determining them. Furthermore, they encouraged IR scholars to pay renewed attention to the constitutive and organizing effects of fundamental institutions, which Wight, Bull and others had done, but without this precise terminology. Moreover, they related international organizations and regimes to fundamental institutions as their designed and regulative manifestations, with the important addition that international organization may have some constitutive effects on international relations, just like fundamental institutions.8 Finally, they indicated that change in the principles and practices of fundamental institutions, driven by international organizations, states or other agents, are much more likely than realized in traditional English School theory, because fundamental institutions are intersubjective constructs requiring ongoing reproduction. The Added Value: An International Society Theory of Institutional Change The encounter between early constructivism and the English School inspired scholars like Tim Dunne (1995) and Christian Reus-Smit (1997) in their attempt to develop a sociological theory of international society and international institutions. More recently, it has been invoked to answer key questions about institutional continuity and change in modern international society raised by a number of scholars.9 How can fundamental or primary institutions such as mutual recognition of sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, the balance of power and great power management be open for change, as they evidently are, and at the same time continue to serve as bases of international society and its elements of order and justice? What is the role of international organizations as agents of change? What are the drivers of fundamental institutional change?

8 For a further discussion of Wendt and Duval’s contributions, see Knudsen (2019a, 27–31, 38–39, 41–42; 2021) and Navari (2019, 61–63). 9 See, for instance, Schouenborg (2011), Wilson (2012), Knudsen (2013, 2016, 2019a, 2019b), Buzan (2014), Brütsch (2014), Spandler (2015), Friedner Parrat (2014, 2017), Navari (2016, 2019), and Knudsen and Navari (2019).

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To answer these questions some conceptual clarification is required. Inspired by classical international society theory and Wendt and Duvall’s (1989) focus on constitutive and reproductive logics, I define a fundamental or primary institution as (1) a set of principles that are constitutive of international society and its basic qualities of order and justice, and (2) an associated set of practices by which the constitutive principles are reproduced at a given point in time, with (3) the combined effect of structuring the actions and interactions of states in a sociological rather than a deterministic sense. On this basis, institutional continuity can be understood as the ongoing reproduction of one or more constitutive principles, which are integrative of modern international society or a given historical order (cf. the distinction between a narrow and a broad approach to the fundamental or primary institutions of international society above). Institutional change can be understood as changes in the practices by which the constitutive principles are reproduced or maintained or, more rarely and dramatically changes in the constitutive principles themselves (Knudsen 2019a, 38–39; Navari 2019). This implies a variety of possibilities for fundamental institutional change, the most common form being changes in the reproducing practices of a fundamental or primary institution. Since these institutions are constitutive of states and other agents as well as the game of international relations, including elements of international order and justice, change in their reproductive practices are by no means trivial. Rather, they would amount to a change in the operation of a given international order. Examples include the shift to more cooperative practices of the balance of power and great power management after the Cold War, and the fluctuating dynamics of rivalry, balancing and concert in the evolving multipolar world order (Knudsen 2019a). Great power management has continued to operate over these two periods in the sense that great powers have special rights, duties and ordering effects on international society, but in very different ways. Change in the constitutive principles of fundamental institutions are also possible, and such ones may amount to even deeper changes in international society, such as the gradual reservation of the legitimate use of force (war) for self-defense and defense of international peace and security by UN Security Council authorization after World War I and II. As evident, it is possible to theorize, conceptualize and study change in the foundations and working of fundamental institutions, not just the rise and fall of fundamental or primary institutions over long historical

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periods. The latter is a major, but also relatively rare, form of fundamental institutional change, though the rise, or revival, of fundamental institutions like environmental stewardship (Jackson 2000; Buzan 2014) and humanitarian intervention (Knudsen 1999; 2019b) has been studied and theorized since the end of the Cold War. The former is a more common but still highly important form and marker of fundamental institutional change, and one that holds potential when it comes to understanding the emerging international order.10 The second key question regarding the fundamental institutions of international society concerns their relationship with international organizations. A return to the argument by Wendt and Duvall (1989) that fundamental institutions and international organizations are mutually constitutive rather than hierarchically ordered has stimulated new theoretical and empirical research. Here, the starting point is the assumption that although fundamental institutions are constitutive of international organizations, the latter do a lot to reproduce the former since this is part of their rational design (Wendt and Duvall 1989, 65–66; Spandler 2015; Knudsen 2019a).11 Since international organizations embody, specify and reproduce the constitutive principles and associated practices of fundamental institutions, they also have the potential to introduce or canalize change into the institutional foundations of international society (Knudsen 2019a, 41–42). As an example, the UN Charter and Security Council was designed in ways that promoted concert over other historical practices of great power management (such as rivalry, balancing and spheres of influence) and a new constitutive principle of war, namely, to reserve it for self-defense and UN-authorized defense of international peace and security (Knudsen 2019b, 180–182). Hereby, the establishment and working of the UN played a part in laying the foundations for the post-war order, just like it played a key role in the revival of humanitarian intervention, international criminal jurisdiction and informal trusteeship arrangements following the end of the Cold War.

10 See the contributions to this volume and the volume by Knudsen and Navari (2022). 11 In their original argument, Wendt and Duvall (1989) drew on the liberal, rationalist

or new institutionalism as well as the English School, reflectivist or old institutionalism as compared also by Keohane (1988).

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In another recent example, Kilian Spandler (2015, 2019) compared the post-war evolution of the European and Southeast Asian regional international societies, revealing the gradual shaping, or sudden change, of fundamental or primary institutions in peculiar European and Asian ways by means of organizational design. In Europe, the key changes included a dismantling of colonialism (but not of continued European overseas influence or imperialism) and the pooling of sovereignty at the European Community to reduce the risk of renewed great power war. In Southeast Asia, the key changes included the post-colonial rejection of the perceived illegitimate primary institutions of great power management, the balance of power and intervention in the framework of ASEAN. Such examples reveal the constitutional potential of international organizations in global and regional international societies, since they are affecting their fundamental institutional bases.

Enter Political Science: New Institutionalism on Change in International Society Cornelia Navari has raised an important question, namely how to account for agency in fundamental institutional analysis (Navari 2016; 2019, 66–72). Inspired by Wendt and Duvall (1989), Wilson (2012) and Spandler (2015), Navari’s answer is to conceptualize the role of the ‘practitioners’—state leaders, diplomats, bureaucrats, international lawyers, governmental and non-governmental representatives—as located between primary and secondary institutions, as they operate in both institutional settings simultaneously. The practitioners are doing the same things, or nearly the same things repeatedly to sustain the institutional order (Navari 2019, 66). It is also the practitioners, driven by material, ideational or socially generated interests and orientations, who introduce changes in primary and secondary institutions in response to shocks to the international order (historical institutionalism), or according to new logics of appropriateness (sociological institutionalism), or in the attempt to solve new international problems (rational institutionalism). These are the major sources of institutional change identified by the ‘three new institutionalisms’ in Political Science (Hall and Taylor 1996), as translated into International Relations. In historical institutionalism, the focus is on broad norms systems, institutional path dependence and the power relations laid down in norms, rules and procedures over time. The primary sources of change

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are shocks to the wider social order and its institutional structures, leading to critical junctures where major changes are possible (Hall and Taylor 1996, 937–938, 940–942). This approach resembles the traditional English School understanding of fundamental institutions in several ways, including their relative resistance to change leaving major shocks such as economic crisis, military intervention or war as the most likely triggers of fundamental institutional change. Recent shocks to the international order include 9/11, the 2008 financial and economic crisis, the ongoing and rapid power transition and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In sociological institutionalism, the focus is on ideas, norms, values and culturally informed practices or codes of action. In older streams of thought, institutions socialize the agents into the roles associated with culturally embedded norms and values, while newer streams stress the institutional scripts that are indispensable for interpretation and meaningful interaction (Hall and Taylor 1996, 946–950). As stressed also by Wendt and Duvall (1989), institutions are constitutive of both the identities of the actors and their interaction. The primary source of change is new logics of appropriate behavior stemming from, for instance, new ideas or normative convictions put forward by agents. Institutions are likely to respond to such new logics of appropriateness to maintain the legitimacy of the institution and its members (Hall and Taylor 1996, 949). Applied to the revised English School institutionalism, international organizations socialize states and other agents into new logics of appropriateness, which may also feed into the deeper level of fundamental institutions (Navari 2019; Knudsen 2019a). Recent examples of new logics of appropriate behavior include the involvement of regional organizations in UN Security Council decisions on humanitarian intervention and peacebuilding, with several fundamental institutional ramifications. In rational choice institutionalism, the actors have a fixed set of interests or preferences, which guide their strategic action in the pursuit of maximum goal attainment. Here, institutions are created and developed to provide information and solve collective action problems by means of rules and procedures (Hall and Taylor, 944–945). This means that institutions are established, or changed, as rational attempts at collective goal attainment or the solving of new, shared problems. In International Relations, this approach to institutional continuity and change is more relevant to the rationalist quarters of realism and liberalism than to the reflective and interpretive approach of the English School. However,

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traditional English School theory has treated international organizations as the supportive (Bull 1977) or auxiliary (Jackson 2000) machinery of international society, meaning the more specific and designed expressions of fundamental rules and institutions, and recent English School theory has made the case for fundamental institutions and international organizations as mutually constitutive (see above). This means that rational organizational responses to new collective problems may feed into the fundamental institutional structure of international society. Recent examples include the international response to climate change at the UN and beyond. Environmental stewardship may amount to a rising fundamental institution with significant consequences for the game of (more or less) responsible great power management, diplomacy and international law (Jackson 2000; Falkner and Buzan 2019; Kopra 2019). Another recent example includes the collective response to complex or hybrid warfare in UN peacebuilding and interventionism, which adds multi-stakeholder complexity and new forms of governance to the fundamental institutions of sovereignty and war (De Coning and Peter 2019).

Contestation, Resilience and Complexity in Institutional Change Contestation is closely linked to the three sources of change discussed above. As pointed out by Zachary Paikin in his chapter in this volume, a contestation of specific international rules and institutions does not necessarily amount to an undermining of international society, or its institutional bases, as sometimes indicated by classical English School theorists like Hedley Bull.12 This may be the case, however, if a given contestation is strong enough to nullify the very legitimacy of fundamental institutions and their constitutive principles, leading to institutional or societal decay. We may denote this as a negative or revolutionary contestation, bearing in mind that the destruction of a social institution may sometimes be for the better, as in the case of the end of colonialism. On the other hand, a given contestation may lead to updated logics of appropriateness, or to a collective realization that already established

12 The clearest examples being Bull’s (1966b, 1977, 1984) treatment of the solidarist conception of international society and the ‘revolt against the West’.

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logics of appropriate behavior still command widespread international support and legitimacy (here Paikin builds on Antje Wiener’s constructivist take on sociological institutionalism). In this case, contestation is a way of challenging, testing and revising the intersubjective understandings laid down in international institutions thereby providing for stable processes of constructive change allowing the institution to remain legitimate in the eyes of the greater part of international society. We may denote this as a positive or evolutionary contestation, since it adds to the resilience of the given fundamental institution or international society as a whole. The reservation of the legitimate use of force for the defense of international peace and security, as stipulated in the UN Charter, is an example, since this was an attempt to outlaw all forms of war that do not serve the common good. These negative and positive (or revolutionary and evolutionary) processes of contestation work well as ideal types, but the reality of international politics is more complex. Various forms of contestation may lead to longer periods of institutional turbulence and uncertainty. New logics of appropriateness, or new habits or procedures, may take a long time to materialize. A combination of the idea of contestation and the three major sources of change identified by the new institutionalisms of Political Science can shed further light on this question. Following historical institutionalism, contestation is typically either the purpose or the consequence of a shock to the international order and its institutional framework. This was the case, for example, with the alQaeda terror attack on New York and Washington on 9–11 directed against American and Western hegemony. The attack and the response by the United States led to both institutional change and institutional turbulence. First, it resulted in a much wider access to legitimate military intervention against terrorism, which was accepted at the UN with important (permissive rather than restrictive) ramifications for the fundamental institution of war. Second, it resulted in a certain undermining of civil rights and international humanitarian law (Guantanamo), which was, however, disputed by UN officials and NGOs, among others. Third, it led the United States into a period of (reinforced) hegemonic dictate and the promotion of preventive warfare spearheaded by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was, however, strongly rejected by the UN and greater parts of the international community. Arguably, it was not the shocking attack on 9–11 which presented the strongest contestation of US hegemonic

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leadership, but the widespread negative reaction to the way the United States responded to the attacks. According to sociological institutionalism, contestation is almost by definition an element in the promotion of new logics of appropriateness, though these may either challenge or supplement existing ones. The ‘revolt against the West’ in the 1960s and 1970s (Bull 1977, 1984), and ongoing (Hurrell 2018), put forward in international organizations and especially the UN is an obvious example. What was increasingly contested and rejected as inappropriate by Third World leaders and newly established regional organizations following World War II was any continuing practices of neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism, denial of national selfdetermination or independence, inequality, exclusion and marginalization (Bull 1984; Ayoob 2002, 2010; Spandler 2019). Arguably, this was not so much a rebellion against the fundamental institutions of the Westphalian society of states, but rather against the unequal operation of sovereignty, diplomacy and international law as evident in formal organizations and international practice. Self-determination and access to decision-making fora were among the organizational and fundamental institutional changes triggered by this contestation from the periphery, though still not to a satisfying degree for many Third World actors. Contestation of established rules and institutions from the center is also possible, such as the post-Cold War revival of humanitarian intervention. This revival was led by the West, but with sufficient international support to provide for a practice of humanitarian intervention at the UN in the 1990s and the adoption of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) at the UN World Summit in 2005. The argument surrounding the post-Cold War revival of humanitarian intervention was that nonintervention in the face of mass atrocity crimes is inappropriate, when there is a fair chance of stopping the atrocities without doing more harm than good (Wheeler 2000). The fundamental institutional changes included a return to humanitarian intervention as an institution of international society, a qualification of absolute notions of sovereignty, and a shared understanding that great power management involves the consideration of humanitarian concerns and initiatives (Knudsen 1999, 2019b). In Western quarters, humanitarian intervention and R2P were sometimes associated with the promotion of a ‘liberal world order’. In terms of the basic principles, however, in asserting that mass atrocity crimes may legitimately be stopped by means of sanctions or force and only the UN Security Council (or regional organizations) can take legitimate decisions

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about humanitarian intervention, it was fundamentally a solidarist change in the institutional structure of international society. For this reason, the R2P may survive the ongoing power transition, regionalization and counter-reaction to Western attempts to promote a liberal world order (Jakobsen and Knudsen 2022). In the context of rational choice institutionalism, contestation may appear as a demand for collective action in response to a materializing problem, leading to institutional creation or change. An obvious example is the mobilization of new scientific and technological knowledge about climate change by climate activists, NGOs and states in the attempt to push, for example, the UN toward more refined and more ambitious attempts to institutionalize climate protection into its machinery and work. As mentioned, such political contestation and organizational change have ramifications for the reproduction and change of fundamental institutions like great power management, international law and sovereignty. These examples of contestation in connection with shocks, new logics of appropriateness and collective problem-solving underline the point that institutional change no longer takes place in a relatively simple Westphalian society of states. As pointed out by the editors in their introduction to this volume, the global international society of today is characterized by agentic, social and technological complexity (see also Flockhart 2016). Shocks to the institutional framework of global international society may be mitigated—or exacerbated—by transnational relations, for instance, in the case of power transition, war and economic crisis. New logics of appropriateness may be carried forward by a variety of actors, as in the case of human rights, humanitarian law and the equality of states and peoples. Technology may stimulate institutional invention or change, as in the area of climate change. This is the totality of international relations, indicating that global international society resembles domestic societies in terms of complexity and processes of change. The institutional dynamics discussed above take place in this wider social environment (Fig. 5.1).

The New World Order as Institutional Change: Drivers, Contestations and Resilience In brief, two key aspects of the unfolding world order will serve as a further illustration of this theoretical framework and model, namely the

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FUNDAMENTAL INSTITUTIONS

Arrows: Mutual constitution

Shocks New logics of appropriateness Rational problem solving

CONTESTATION

Triggers of change:

STATES AND OTHER AGENTS

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS

OUTCOMES:

Resilience =

stable processes of institutional change

Disintegration = prolonged turbulence, illegitimacy

Fig. 5.1 The dynamics of institutional change

ongoing power transition and the revitalized revolt against the West. As indicated by the discussion of the relationship between international society, international order and fundamental institutional change, I regard order as a basic quality of modern international society (institutional and rules-based patterns of activity that sustain common, elementary goals), while a given world order is characterized by the particular constellation, operation and perception of (primary) rules and institutions at a specific point in time. In the period from the end of the Cold War until the economic and financial crisis in 2008, the rules and institutions of international society was to some extent shaped by US and Western attempts to promote liberal values and principles in global international society. Some scholars call this the ‘liberal world order’ (Ikenberry 2009, 2018), which should, however, not be confused with order or world order in a basic sense (Knudsen and Navari 2022; Flockhart 2022). There is widespread agreement that the liberal or hegemonic world order—or era—is in retreat (Hurrell 2018; Ikenberry 2018; Mearsheimer 2019), but not on the outcome of this process. The approach suggested here is to regard this as a question of fundamental institutional change, triggered especially by changes in power and values. The ongoing power transition (Organski 1968; Rauch and Wurm 2013) has long roots including the economic boom in China and larger

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parts of Asia, the falling Western share of the global economy and (in a broader sense) a considerable dissatisfaction with Western attempts to promote liberal forms of government (Layne 2012; Hurrell 2018; Mearsheimer 2019). This process can be conceptualized as a series of shocks to the institutional framework of international society, and certainly the Western position in it, including the rapid rise of China, the 2008 economic and financial crisis and the Russian resort to force in Georgia (2008), Syria (2015) and Ukraine (2014, 2022). These shocks represent various forms of contestation, carried forward by states and other actors inside the mutually constitutive institutional framework of international society, leading to changes at the level of fundamental institutions and international organizations, beginning typically with the latter. The 2008 economic and financial crisis gave non-Western great powers and modernizing states the opportunity to show their potential as responsible stakeholders in economic crisis management, and to question the viability of the neoliberal model of capitalism and demand global inclusion in economic decision-making. The renewal and momentum of the G-20, a regionalization of trade arrangements and some ongoing turbulence in trade rules were among the organizational consequences (Palmujoki 2022). At the fundamental institutional level, this means the involvement of a broader circle of states in economic (great power) management and possibly increasing clashes over the basic principles and legitimacy of the trading system, which seems to be basically resilient (Palmujoki 2022). China’s rise and the wider power transition has challenged the West and its attempt to promote liberalism and democracy more than the fundamental institutions of international society (Knudsen and Navari 2022). China has increasingly demanded organizational and fundamental institutional changes, for instance, in the UN system, in the relationship between sovereignty and international humanitarian law, in the operation of great power management and in the resort to collective intervention. However, these demands, and the associated institutional changes are arguably of a transformative rather than a genuinely revolutionary character (Buzan 2010). What China is looking for, and what has increasingly become a reality, is a role as a full great power, and an operation of sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, great power management and the use of force, which is more pluralist and less solidarist, and thereby in accordance with China’s interests (Zhang 2022). This may involve a considerable threat to solidarist rules and institutions like humanitarian

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intervention, R2P and international criminal jurisdiction, but here China needs to take not only the views of the West but also the Global South into consideration (Jakobsen and Knudsen 2022). Russia’s foreign policy has been described as anti-hegemonic and antiliberal in recent years (Kurowska 2014), but the means have become increasingly risky and desperate, amounting to a shock to the institutions of international society, especially in the context of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, and earlier interventions in Ukraine (2014) and Syria (2015). Arguably, the Russian resort to military intervention, war and annexation in recent years has a lot to do with power transition. First, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems determined to change the relative decline of Russia as a great power as compared to the time of the Soviet Union, seemingly without much self-constraint. Second, he seems to have been under the impression that Russia could take advantage of the relative retreat of US hegemony (apparently a miscalculation).13 Russia’s complaints over Western gains and insufficient respect of its great power status since the end of the Cold War may not be altogether ill founded, but the means of interstate aggression against Ukraine (and the conduct of warfare in Syria) is fundamentally at odds with the laws of war. This has led to substantial measures of soft and hard balancing against Russia, especially by the United States and the EU, and to a widespread rejection of the aggression against Ukraine in the UN General Assembly on 2 March 2022 (141 votes to 5, with 35 abstentions). This implies that the rules of war, non-intervention and state sovereignty remain important and legitimate (China and India have been reluctant to condemn or sanction the Russian attack on Ukraine, but presumably for strategic rather than legal reasons). In turn, the balance of power has become more confrontational, while the fate of collective great power management is uncertain. Turning to the revolt against the West, this remains a considerable force for institutional change. It has arguably gained renewed strength with the economic growth in much of the Global South, the decentralization and diffusion of power and the retreat of US hegemony. As argued by Mohammed Ayoob (2002, 2010), the revolt is not an attack on the institutions of international society, but a demand for different priorities regarding both order and justice. Colonialism, neo-imperialism and late independence left most states in the Global South with the challenges 13 For a discussion of Russia and power transition (written before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022), see Skak (2022).

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of late state-building and political marginalization. Consequently, they have a priority for the consolidation of domestic order and the promotion of interstate justice, especially in the form of equality and national self-determination. What is new is the more self-confident attempt by regional international societies to define their own rules and practices, often by means of regional international organization, and to administrate, defend and promote these rules and practices at global institutions like the UN (Aning and Edu-Afful 2016). In Africa, such rules and practices include the African principle of humanitarian intervention (article 4H in the Charter of the African Union) and the anti-coup norm (evident in a several African Charters and protocols including those of the Economic Community of West African States). What is contested by African organizations is externally engineered regime change and interventions (traditionally by Western great powers). What is demanded is African control over such decisions when they relate to the African continent. This has increasingly been the case in UN decisions on humanitarian intervention and peacebuilding in Africa, for instance, in the cases of Côte d’Ivoire 2011, Mali 2012–2013, Congo 2013 and Gambia 2017, meaning that ‘regional ownership’ has become a key principle and practice, regionally as well as globally (Jakobsen and Knudsen 2022). At the fundamental institutional level, this means that great power management and humanitarian intervention is illegitimate in Africa without regional involvement. Moreover, African agents are likely to regard great power obstructions of African sponsored interventions as unwarranted and illegitimate interference. This development challenges both Western and Asian great powers, but in different ways. Great power management and humanitarian intervention remain legitimate and resilient institutions if global players are receptive to regional perspectives. In sum, the shocks, contestations and new logics of appropriateness associated with the ongoing power transition and the revitalized revolt against the West have led to several changes in international organization and in fundamental institutional practices, while their constitutive principles seem to enjoy continued widespread international support. This indicates—at least in the broad terms of the present analysis—a considerable resilience of the institutions of international society at a moment where the unipolar and hegemonic world order, characterized by the Western promotion of liberalism, is giving way to a multipolar, regionalized and pluralist one.

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Conclusion This chapter has made the case for an international society theory of institutional change in which fundamental institutions, international organizations and states (and other actors) are mutually constitutive. The agents of international relations reproduce both fundamental institutions and international organizations, and in doing so, they have the capacity to introduce changes in both the organizational and the fundamental institutional structures of international society. The main triggers of such changes are international shocks, the spread of new logics of appropriateness and the realization of new or better opportunities for collective and rational problem-solving. In all three cases, various forms of contestation are likely to be involved in the drive for, or implementation of, institutional change and the starting point will often be the political frameworks of international organizations. The outcome may be longer periods of turbulence and uncertainty regarding the legitimacy, principles, practices and procedures of fundamental institutions and international organizations. Such negative contestations may lead to a disintegration of international society and the associated elements of order and justice. Alternatively, the outcome may be adjustments or deeper changes in the institutional framework of international society, meaning a positive contestation in the sense of an adaptive, legitimate and resilient international society. However, the scale of disorder and disintegration on the one hand, or institutional change on the other, depends on what is being challenged, also in the context of the current transition to a new world order. Is it the basic legitimacy of fundamental institutions? The operation of their associated practices? Or the Western attempt to promote liberal rules and values at international organizations? What is shocked, shaken or (possibly) dismantled is arguably mainly some aspects of the liberal superstructure of the post-Cold War order, and the problem is therefore bigger for the West than for the rest of international society.

Bibliography Aning, K. and Edu-Afful, F. (2016). African Agency in R2P: Interventions by African Union and ECOWAS in Mali, Cote D’ivoire, and Libya. International Studies Review, 18(1), 120–133.

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PART II

Institutions

CHAPTER 6

Sovereignty Is Dead, Long Live Sovereignty Christian Reus-Smit

This book is about the resilience of global international society’s core institutions, and asks what if any remedial actions can, and should, be taken if they prove less than robust. Sovereignty is the most elementary of such institutions: the institution on which all other institutions rest. A key question, therefore, is how resilient sovereignty is today, at a moment when the modern international order faces multiple challenges. Yet the death knell for sovereignty has sounded before. In the 1970s, when decolonization had only just universalized sovereignty, it was seen as threatened by transnationalism, and after the Cold War it was globalization doing the corrosive work. Claims are different today, of course. Many argue that state power is on the rise, driven by new security challenges, the global refugee crisis, and the imperative of pandemic governance. State power and sovereignty are not the same things, though. The former is about the capabilities of individual states, the latter, as we shall see, is a principle for distributing political authority. The capabilities of states can rise and fall, and differences between them widen or narrow, but an order can remain robustly sovereign. Many do consider this principle under

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threat, however. While the ‘unbundling’ of authority onto international organizations may have faltered, multilateral trade agreements routinely transfer authority from states to private actors, especially multinational corporations (Buthe and Mattli 2011). And within states, campaigns for indigenous sovereignty, and other forms of autonomous local governance, are prompting experiments in delegated or associated authority. Yet none of this is new, as Stephen Krasner argues famously. States have always upheld the principle of sovereignty while actively ‘compromising’ it: sovereignty is nothing more than ‘organized hypocrisy’ (1999). How then should we assess the resilience of sovereignty? This chapter develops a framework for thinking about this question, one that helps to make sense of its contested history and present condition. This requires significant departures, however, from English School theory, which this book takes as its starting point. Section One summarizes the School’s account of sovereignty and Section Two suggests three revisions. The first is to treat sovereignty, and the order it constitutes, as one among several large-scale historical configurations of political authority. Indeed, I argue that such configurations ought to be the focus of International Relations (IR), as this allows us to contextualize and particularize global international society and treat it as an historically unique governance assemblage (Reus-Smit 2020, 11–28). The second revision is to see this assemblage, like all historical configurations of political authority, as a ‘recognition order’, one constituted by the politics of legitimate agency. The third revision, which returns to my earlier work, insists that while sovereignty is a foundational organizing principle, it is nonetheless a dependent value: it can only be justified with reference to other goods it is meant to serve (Reus-Smit 1999, 29–30). Together, these revisions enable us to identify, in Section Three, the principal forms of contestation and change that have conditioned sovereignty historically, and to assess, in Section Four, their presence and possible effects today. Before proceeding, a word on terminology. Many scholars follow Barry Buzan in distinguishing between two kinds—or levels—of institutions in international society: primary and secondary. The former are institutions that are ‘constitutive of both states and international society in that they define both the basic character and purpose of any such society’ (Buzan 2004, xviii). The latter are the issue-specific ‘institutions talked about in regime theory [that] are the products of certain types of international society […] and are for the most part consciously designed by states’ (Buzan 2004, xviii). Buzan counts as primary a wide range of institutions,

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some of which are ‘master’ institutions (e.g., sovereignty, diplomacy and trade) and others are ‘derivative’ (e.g., international law, multilateralism, alliances and war) (2004, 184). Though widely used, I have long been concerned that this way of categorizing international institutions fails to differentiate between two important kinds of institutions, and that this difference is not captured by Buzan’s master and derivative categories. Some institutions, like sovereignty, define the units of political authority and how they stand in relation to one another, but others, like diplomacy and international law, presuppose the ordering work done by sovereignty and then constitute the basic institutional practices that enable sovereign units to coexist and collaborate. To capture this distinction, I prefer a tripartite typology of international institutions (Reus-Smit 1999, 12– 15). The deepest are ‘constitutional structures’, which define the units of authority. Sovereignty is just such an institution, as are empire, suzerainty and heteronomy. ‘Fundamental institutions’ sit on top of these deep structures, providing the basic norm-governed practices that condition relations between political units. Diplomacy, international law, war and the balance of power all fit this category. Lastly, there are ‘issue-specific’ institutions or ‘regimes’, which are concrete applications of basic institutional practices to specific functional problems. These are what Buzan terms ‘secondary’ institutions. In what follows, I locate sovereignty within this tripartite typology of constitutional, fundamental and issue-specific institutions.

Sovereignty in English School Theory The institution of sovereignty is foundational in English School theory. When opening his discussion of international order in The Anarchical Society, Hedley Bull declares that ‘[t]he starting point of international relations is the existence of states, or independent political communities, each of which possesses a government and asserts sovereignty in relation to a particular portion of the earth’s surface and a particular segment of the human population’ (1977, 8). International relations, so conceived, has existed only at particular moments in world history when identifiably sovereign states existed and interacted, the classic cases being Ancient Greece, China in the ‘Warring States’ period, Renaissance Italy, Absolutist Europe, and modern international relations from the nineteenth century onward (1977, 9). Of crucial importance to the English School, such identification depends not only on the existence of practically independent

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states, with a demonstrated capacity to defend their autonomy, but on the international recognition of their sovereign rights (1977, 8–9). In short, sovereignty for the English School is an institution, a set of social (and at times legal) norms about how political authority ought to be organized and about which polities should be accorded sovereign rights. This understanding of sovereignty undergirds all the characteristic moves and commitments of English School theory. Bull’s argument that an ‘international system’ exists when a group of states interact enough to take each other into account assumes that these are independent— or sovereign—states (1977, 9). The same is true of his concept of an ‘international society’, which exists when states share common interests and values, accept that they are bound by common rules, and maintain institutions to uphold these rules (1977, 13). All of this presupposes the existence of sovereign states. It is important to note, however, that for leading English School theorists, and prominent constructivists as well, the institution of sovereignty is foundational only to international societies, not international systems, which require nothing more than the practical independence of states, not social recognition. Indeed, it is widely argued that international systems transform into international societies when sovereignty comes to rest on mutual recognition, not just material capacity (Buzan 1993; Ruggie 1993; Wight 1977, 23). Elsewhere I have critiqued this argument, as it is near impossible to find historical examples of interacting sovereign states where there was no degree of recognition, or at least struggles over such recognition, raising questions about the boundary between—and integrity of—the concepts of international system and society (Reus-Smit 2013a, 15–19). The institution of sovereignty is also fundamental to the English School’s debate about order and justice in international relations. For ‘pluralists’, the mutual recognition of sovereignty, and attendant norms of non-intervention and self-determination, are essential to the preservation of order among states. International order, Bull argues, depends on commonly accepted rules, the most basic of which holds that the preservation of the society of sovereign states is ‘the supreme normative principle of the political organization of mankind’ (1977, 68). Essential to such preservation is the mutual respect of sovereign rights, without which the society of states would unravel. From such a perspective, order has priority over justice. Not only is ‘justice, in any of its forms, realizable only in a context of order’ (Bull 1977, 86), but the preservation of order— and the requisite protection of sovereign rights—may cause or permit

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injustices (Bull 1977, 91). Upholding the norm of non-intervention may allow gross human rights violations, for example. These views are often contrasted with those of ‘solidarists’, who commonly prioritize justice over order. It is important to note, however, that solidarists of the English School, as opposed to more thorough going cosmopolitans, still assume an international order founded on the institution of sovereignty. As Bull said of Hugo Grotius (a solidarist) and Lassa Oppenheim (a pluralist), ‘[b]oth assert the existence of an international society and of laws which are binding on its members states in relations with one another’ (1966, 53). The key difference is that solidarists argue that the institution of sovereignty can, and should, be qualified to accommodate the demands of justice. For Grotius this meant limiting the sovereign right to wage war to just wars alone. More recently, solidarists have argued that in humanitarian emergencies, when states are preying on their own populations, sovereign rights should not prevent international intervention (Wheeler 2002). Indeed, members of the English School have been among the most outspoken advocates of the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (Bellamy 2015). The English School’s thesis about the ‘expansion’ of international society also centers on the institution of sovereignty. It holds that a society of sovereign states emerged first in Europe, imperialism extended the rule of European states across the globe, and gradually, as non-European polities like China, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire were accorded sovereign rights and decolonization dismantled Europe’s empires, international society ‘expanded’ to encompass the globe (Bull and Watson 1984). At the highpoint of European imperialism, Eddie Keene observes, different rules applied within the society of states to those in the realm of empire. The Europeans were content ‘adopting one kind of relationship, equality and mutual independence, as the norm in their dealings with each other, and another, imperial paramountcy, as normal in their relations with non-Europeans’ (Keene 2002, 21). The ‘expansion’ story is one of non-European states gradually being accorded sovereign rights, and thus joining the society of states (and, for the English School, strengthening the norm of sovereignty in the process). The institution of sovereignty worked, in this context, not only to structure international society by determining how political authority within would be distributed, but also to bound that society from unrecognized polities. This bounding was maintained through all manner of informal practices, but it was also formalized: the legally codified ‘standard of civilization’ set criteria

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for which peoples and polities should be granted sovereign recognition. The English School’s account of these processes obscures the violence of European imperialism, the humiliations of imperial subordination and the struggles for recognition that international society’s global spread entailed. The policing of the sovereign order’s boundaries is commonly presented as a practical issue. The ‘European powers’, as Gerrit Gong argues, ‘faced the challenge and difficulty of drawing the non-European countries into their system of international relations in an orderly and humane way, as much as possible within the international legal guidelines which were themselves evolving to cope with the expanding domain of international law’ (1984, 171). Similarly, admission to the club of sovereign states is presented as a rational aspiration of non-European polities. As Bull puts it, although such polities ‘in some cases were incorporated in the international system against their will, they have taken their places in international society because they themselves have sought the rights of membership in it, and the protections of its rules, both vis-à-vis the dominant European powers and in relation to one another’ (1984, 124).

Three Revisions If the purpose of this chapter is to consider the resilience of the institution of sovereignty, and the processes of change and contestation it has experienced over time, then the English School’s understandings are helpful only with significant revision. The School was ahead of the curve in conceiving sovereignty as a social institution. It is one of the principal sites of reflection on the ethical dilemmas produced by this institution. And it has always treated the institution of sovereignty, and the society of states it undergirds, as historically contingent, not as a timeless structural formation requiring little if any explanation (which much of the rest of the field assumed). Three revisions are required, however, to reap the full benefit of these insights. The first is to see the institution of sovereignty for what it is—as a set of rules and norms governing the organization of political authority—and to locate it conceptually and historically in relation to other institutionalized ways of configuring authority. Political authority is understood here as legitimate power; power that is considered, by relevant social constituencies, to be rightful. The organization of political authority, it

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follows, is the distribution of legitimate power: its allocation to particular units and definition of how these units stand in relation to one another—equally, hierarchically or on some other basis. The institution of sovereignty is, in essence, one historical way of distributing legitimate power, in this case to formally equal, territorially demarcated sovereign states. This essential characteristic of the institution is neglected by the English School. Its theorists have much to say about legitimacy in international society, but they focus on legitimate membership—which polities are granted sovereign rights—and legitimate conduct: how states should rightly behave (Buzan 2004, 167; Clark 2005, 25; Dunne 2003, 310). They have little to say, however, about how the institution of sovereignty distributes legitimate power in the first place, creating the order of sovereign states in which polities can be admitted as members and in which their conduct can be regulated. To fully comprehend international change, this aspect of sovereignty needs foregrounding, a move made most famously by John Ruggie (Ruggie 1983, 1993). Once this is done, the institution of sovereignty and the order it constitutes can be located historically, allowing, first, comparisons with other historical configurations of political authority and, second, analyses of transitions between different configurations. The English School is known, of course, for its historical sensibility and leading figures have written extensively on non-sovereign orders of the past (Buzan and Little 2000; Watson 2009; Wight 1977). This is not done, however, through the lens of the organization of political authority, which I recommend here. Indeed, the axes of comparison vary widely and are often opaque. Wight explores historical ‘systems of states’, which he limits to groups of interacting independent states, explicitly excluding medieval Europe and what he terms ‘suzerain states-systems’, like China for most of its history (1977, 23–29). Watson, by contrast, focuses on a wider range of historical ‘systems’, which he argues exist any time ‘a number of diverse communities of people, or political entities, are sufficiently involved with one another for us to describe them as forming a system of some kind […]’ (Author’s emphasis, 2009, 10). Added to this inconsistency, the English School’s engagement with past historical orders has at times been characterized by barely veiled Eurocentric chauvinism, in which the European society of sovereign states is taken as an empirical and/or moral benchmark. Wight, for example, sees systems of states in world history when they bear characteristics similar to European international society, rather than establish a more neutral framework of comparison. Robert Jackson,

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who has little empirical engagement with non-Western orders, nonetheless makes extravagant claims for the moral superiority of the Westphalian society of states, proclaiming it ‘the most articulate institutional arrangement that humans have yet come up with’ to facilitate coexistence in a world of value pluralism (2000, 181). The second revision is to see the institution of sovereignty as creating a ‘recognition order’. As we have seen, social recognition is integral to the English School’s understanding of this institution. Its theorists see the mutual recognition of sovereignty as essential to the existence of an international society. The historical ‘expansion’ of that society was all about the recognition—or non-recognition—of non-European polities. Yet the English School’s understanding of recognition and its social effects is undertheorized. Recognition is a basic human need. If, as constructivists tell us, an actor’s social identity informs her interests, and a social identity is a ‘set of meanings that an actor attributes to itself while taking into account the perspective of others ’ (Wendt 1992, 385), then social recognition is fundamental to human agency, to self-understanding and esteem as well the capacity to act. Recognition theorists identify different forms of recognition, of which ‘legal recognition’ of one’s membership of a community, with socially sanctioned entitlements or rights, is arguably the most consequential politically (Honneth 1995, 122). Such recognition occurs (a) at the micro level, affecting the membership and rights of individuals, (b) at the macro level, determining the inclusion and exclusion of groups, peoples, and polities and (c) at both levels simultaneously, with individuals granted or denied recognition because they belong to privileged or excluded groups. By ordaining that political authority ought to be distributed into territorially defined, constitutionally independent and formally equal units, the institution of sovereignty establishes a recognition order, as it forces the question of which polities should be deemed such units, with all of the rights that accompany sovereign recognition. Four crucially important things follow from this. First, that the politics of recognition—the inscription and policing of boundaries between the included and excluded and the challenging of these practices by the latter—has always accompanied the institution of sovereignty. Second, although this institution is often cast as equalitarian, because of the formal equality enjoyed by sovereign units, it also generates hierarchies, between the ordained and the marginalized. Third, these hierarchies have produced profound social grievances and persistent forms of contestation, resulting from alienation, marginalization and stigmatization (in addition

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to material exploitation) (Zarakol 2011). Finally, these grievances and contestations have been among the most important drivers of international change, forcing the dismantling of empires and the globalization of the society of states and qualifying sovereignty with international human rights norms (Reus-Smit 2013a). The final revision is to treat sovereignty as a dependent value, one that gains its justificatory power from its association with other existential values. Normally, it is treated as a primary, self-standing value—a normative trump card. It is presented as the Grundnorm of international society, upon which all other rules, norms and practices are built. And political leaders invoke sovereignty as though it is the ultimate defense, a value that cannot, and should not, be compromised by other, lesser values. Even when theorists of the English School relate sovereignty to other values, as Jackson relates Westphalian sovereignty to value pluralism (2000, 156–184), the latter is seen as a unique and desirable consequence of the former. I argue in The Moral Purpose of the State, however, that sovereignty is not just an enabling value, it is a dependent value (1999, 27–30). A key insight of communicative action theory is that, when actors assert values or principles, they need to provide reasons. Commonly, they appeal to ‘values higher than those they wish to justify, by proving that the latter are but an interpretation of the higher values, or that they can be related to these higher values without logical contradiction’ (Heller 1987, 239). Historically, sovereignty, as an organizing principle and a right claimed by individual states, has been justified on the grounds that it serves certain moral purposes: the cultivation of bios politikos (political life) in Ancient Greece, civic glory in Renaissance Italy, a divinely ordained social order in Absolutist Europe, and the protection of individual rights and the self-determination of the nation in the modern era (Reus-Smit 1999, 7). Because of sovereignty’s justificatory dependence on other such values, I reject the idea that it stands as the sole constitutional norm of international society, arguing instead that sovereignty forms part of that society’s constitutional structure, a structure that binds sovereignty to deep, hegemonic norms about the moral purpose of the state (1999, 30–33). This argument applies not only to societies of sovereign states: all historical ways of organizing political authority on a large scale—be they sovereignty, imperial, suzerain, heteronomous or some combination thereof—have had constitutional structures that tie organizing principles to higher order values (see, with regard to the

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Chinese international order, Zhang and Buzan 2012, 11). The value dependence of sovereignty, as well as other organizing principles, is more than a theoretical nicety or neat empirical observation. As I explain below, it is crucial to understanding international contestation and change.

Dimensions and Drivers of Change Any assessment of the resilience of the institution of sovereignty must establish first what are the key dimensions of change. Robert Gilpin famously distinguishes between ‘systems’ change, which is ‘change in the nature of the actors or diverse entities that compose an international system’ (sovereign states, empires, etc.), ‘systemic’ change, or ‘change in the form of control or governance of an international system’ (hegemony, for example), and ‘interaction’ change, which is change ‘in the form of regular interactions or processes among entities in an ongoing international system’ (such as the rise of multilateralism or shifts in economic relations) (1981, 40–41). While it is easy to see how sovereignty might be implicated in each of these kinds of change, this typology needs modification to fully capture changes in this key institution. To begin with, the category of systems change needs disaggregating. Gilpin is referring to what I term configurative change, or change in the units of political authority, from empires to sovereign states, for example. But change in the ‘nature’ of actors also occurs when their animating moral purposes shift, leading to changes in their institutional structures, as occurred in nineteenth-century Europe as constitutional democracy replaced Absolutist monarchy as the dominant form of political legitimacy. I term this purposive change (1999, 164). In addition to this distinction between forms of systems change, the category of systemic change also needs refinement. For Gilpin, this form of change, which concerns shifting patterns of control within a system, is principally about variations in the balance of power between units, most importantly the rise and fall of dominant states (1981, 42–43). From the perspective advanced here, a key revision is required. If the focus is on how political authority is organized, and the institution of sovereignty produces one such organization, then it is not the balance of material capabilities that concerns us (as the institution of sovereignty always coexists with unequal material power), but rather it is how differential rights and responsibilities are distributed, overlaying the formal configuration of sovereign units. This distribution, which affects the meaning, scope,

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and ultimately the veracity of sovereign authority occurs at four levels. It occurs when special rights and responsibilities are allocated to certain states, such as hegemons or great powers (Bukovansky et al. 2012). It also happens when legitimate powers are allocated to international organizations, like the European Union and the United Nations (Avant et al. 2010). It takes place as well when private actors, such as multinational corporations, are invested with legal rights, especially against states (Buthe and Mattli 2011). And, lastly, it occurs when there is recognition of individuals’ civil and political rights, which alters the scope of sovereign authority (Donnelly 2002; Reus-Smit 2013b; Risse et al. 2013; Simmons 2009). The final modification concerns interaction change. For Gilpin, this was the kind of change associated with shifting economic relations, for example, which often entail new international rules and practices. He himself has little to say about such change, arguing that it is already well addressed by other IR scholars (1981, 44). Since he wrote, however, understandings of interaction change have advanced significantly. Scholars now focus on shifts in ‘interaction capacity’, defined as ‘the physical and organizational capability of a system to move ideas, goods, peoples, money and armed force across the system’ (Buzan and Lawson 2015, 69). As will be shown below, a key consideration concerns how changes in communications technologies, embedded in particular social relations, affect the politics of legitimacy and the organization of political authority, with potential implications for the institution of sovereignty (Deibert 1997, 2020). What then are the principal drivers of these configurative, purposive, systemic and interactional changes in the organization of political authority? Historically, four stand out. The first is shifts in material environments, which I take to include both brute material conditions, such as global temperatures and transmissible diseases, and socio-material phenomena, including human ecology, technology, and relations of production and force (Ruggie 1993, 152). The second is revolutions in intersubjective ideas, the lenses through which actors make sense of themselves, their social universes and their material contexts. These include everything from shared values and causal beliefs to cosmologies (Allan 2019) and world views (Katzenstein 2021). The third is struggles for recognition, where actors seek acknowledgment and incorporation within a community of rights-bearing agents, often requiring them to redefine prevailing conceptions of legitimate agency and terms of

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social recognition (Honneth 1995). The final driver is functional imperatives, the challenges peoples and polities must meet to produce and sustain their preferred social and biological existences. These include physical and ontological security, economic well-being, environmental sustainability, and, most importantly, the productive containment and harnessing of social power to realize collective ends. In what follows, I treat these drivers as analytically distinct, but the boundaries between them are blurred. Intersubjective ideas, for example, inform and license socio-material phenomena like relations of production, they define the terms of social recognition, and they give meaning to security, economic well-being and environmental sustainability. If we look at the configurative, purposive, systemic and interactional changes that wrought today’s institution of sovereignty, all four of the above drivers have been at work. Two great configurative transformations have occurred in the past four centuries: the shift in Europe from the medieval heteronomous order to the post-Westphalian sovereignimperial order, and the change from the latter to today’s global system of sovereign states (which has itself seen struggles over the meaning of sovereignty, like those surrounding the Responsibility to Protect or the idea of pooled sovereignty in the EU). Both of these configurative transformations were driven by changing material conditions (the rise of early-modern capitalism and later the industrial revolution), revolutions in ideas (from the rediscovery of single point perspective in art to the advent of modern individualism), struggles for recognition (first, for reforming Christian confessions and then, individual rights and colonial self-determination) and functional imperatives (especially the control of violence). The last major purposive transformation—the nineteenth century shift in the terms of political legitimacy from the divine right of monarchs to popular sovereignty—was also a product of industrial change, the rise of political, economic and moral individualism, demands for ever greater political representation, and the functional demands of political stability and economic governance. With systemic change—or change in distribution of rights and responsibilities within an international system—functional imperatives have been the principal drivers. As Ruggie explains, as soon as territorial sovereignty was institutionalized, states were faced with the problem of how to address challenges that were not amenable to territorial solutions, compelling them to ‘unbundle territoriality’ by creating authoritative international regimes and organizations (1993, 164–165). Of course,

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material conditions, new ideas and the politics of recognition have also been implicated in systemic change. Functional imperatives are often the product of changing material conditions (like climate change, for example), and ideational frames invariably affect the institutional solutions that states adopt to meet functional demands. Key interactional changes affecting the institution of sovereignty have also been driven by material, ideational, recognitional and functional factors. Print technology famously heightened interaction capacity across territorial domains, cultivating, among other things, conceptions of national identity and sovereignty (Anderson 1991). At the same time, shared ideas about civilizational hierarchies informed and licensed imperial interactions between peoples imagined to be civilized, barbarian, and savage (Adas 1989), effectively confining the institution of sovereignty—and the interactional realm of the society of states—to Europe and its former settler colonies. In the twentieth century, struggles for recognition dismantled these imperial patterns of interaction and the functional imperatives of late capitalism overlayed the new global systems of states with new webs of transnational interaction. Across all of these dimensions of change in the institution of sovereignty—whether the drivers were material, ideational, recognitional or functional—patterns and dynamics of contestation have been crucial. This is evident in two key areas. The configurative transformations from the medieval heteronomous order to the post-Westphalian sovereignimperial order, and then to today’s global system of sovereign states, involved the successive collapse of empires into sovereign states, a process that always involved struggles, commonly by materially weak actors, for sovereign recognition and self-determination. Moreover, as I have shown elsewhere, these struggles were often centrally concerned with the recognition of individual rights. In this respect, political struggles often worked to produce both configurative and systemic changes—or changes in the distribution of political rights—simultaneously (Reus-Smit 2013a).

The Fate of Sovereignty Today Vigorous debate surrounds the future of today’s ‘liberal’ international order. It is widely agreed, however, that an elementary feature of this order is sovereignty, or ‘Westphalian sovereignty’ more specifically. For John Ikenberry, such sovereignty provides the foundations of the liberal order, the structural context in which the United States, as a hegemonic

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authority, fostered the development of a complex architecture of multilateral institutions and legal regimes to advance collective security, economic interdependence and human rights: first among advanced liberal democracies, and later across the globe (2011, 2020). Critics challenge the dating of today’s order (Reus-Smit 2013b), its ‘liberalness’ (Barnett 2019), the privileging of US agency (Helleiner 2014; Lorca 2014), the neglect of liberal imperialism (Morefield 2005, 2014) and claims of the order’s resilience (Flockhart 2020; Mearsheimer 2019), but few deny that it has been—or became with decolonization—an order of sovereign states. A key question, therefore, in debates about the future of the current order is how robust the institution of sovereignty is. This final section draws on the arguments advanced above about the historical dimensions and drivers of change to address this issue. The most fundamental changes we might see in the institution of sovereignty are configurative: changes in what are the principal units of political authority and how they stand in relation to one another. Today’s sovereign order is itself the product of such changes, first away from medieval heteronomy in Europe, and later away from the institution of empire. For decades, scholars have anticipated a new wave of configurative change, heralding everything from a ‘new medievalism’ (Friedrichs 2001) to the persistence of—or return to—empire (Hardt and Negri 2000). One must distinguish, however, between, on the one hand, the proliferation of non-state forms of public and private authority (from the UN and EU to multinational corporations) and, on the other, the erosion of the institution of sovereignty, understood as the constitutional norm that legally equal, territorial sovereign states are the international order’s principal units of political authority. One of the paradoxes of contemporary world politics is that while the former is an undeniable reality there is little evidence of the latter: the ‘unbundling of territoriality’ and the normative robustness of sovereignty coexist. This robustness is evident in the ongoing appeals to the principle of sovereignty by state leaders when justifying their domestic and international practices and in the general acceptance, within the society of states, of the normative veracity of such appeals. Interestingly, it is also evident in the arguments of those who deny that sovereignty justifies any state practices, particularly gross violations of human rights. As arguments for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) demonstrate, the strategy is not to reject sovereignty as an organizing principle, it is to delimit the scope of legitimate sovereign powers—to recast the meaning of sovereignty. Beyond this

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discursive resilience of sovereignty, political movements for configurative change are conspicuous by their absence. Such movements, particularly in the form of struggles for recognition, have been critical drivers of past systemic reconfigurations of political authority, evident in the emergence of nascent sovereign states in Europe and later in nineteenthand twentieth-century decolonization. Yet, today they are nowhere to be seen. There are secessionist movements across the globe, but they want sovereignty for themselves, not to replace it with a different form of political organization. Similarly, many states have movements for indigenous sovereignty, but this commonly means some form of self-determination within a constitutionally sovereign state, not the rejection of sovereignty as a systemic norm. If configurative change is little evident today, this is not the case for purposive change: change in the rationalizing ends that warrant sovereign authority. In the nineteenth century, a radical shift occurred in such purposes, as the long-held view that monarchs had a divine right to sovereign authority so they could preserve a hierarchical social order ordained by God gave way to ideas of popular sovereignty, where state power was legitimate only if it protected the rights—and reflected the will—of the people. No such transition is occurring now, but within the modern idea of the moral purpose of the state lies a critical ambiguity, one that now fuels heightened political contestation. The notion that sovereignty derives from the people, and is meant to serve their interests and rights, is open to wide interpretation. At the extremes, two historical readings stand out. The first is individualist: it sees the people as a designated group of rights-bearing individuals. Not only does sovereign authority rest on the consent of said individuals, but it is also limited by that consent. Moreover, on this view, constitutional mechanisms are required to secure individuals’ rights against the tyranny of the majority. In sum, this individualist interpretation of the modern moral purpose of the state attaches primacy to individual rights, prescribes limited government and bounds the power of the collectivity. The second, markedly different reading is communal. It also sees sovereignty as flowing from the people, and political authority as serving and protecting the people’s interests and rights. But on this interpretation, the ‘people’ has a collective identity—and communal character and integrity—above and beyond the individuals it comprises. Individuals are still considered rights-bearers—enfranchised members of the demos, in particular—but they have few, if any, constitutional rights against the

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will of the majority. The individualist reading of the modern state’s moral purpose might be termed Lockian, or more correctly Millian, whereas the communal understanding echoes Rousseau’s prioritizing of the ‘general will’. Today, they are manifest in tensions between what is termed ‘constitutional liberalism’ and ‘illiberal democracy’: the former privileging and protecting individual rights against the authority of the state and will of the majority, the latter granting members of the demos minimal ‘political liberties’ but denying them ‘civil liberties’ against the majority (Zakaria 1997, 23–24).1 The contestation between these conceptions of the modern state’s moral purpose lies at the heart of contemporary struggles over political legitimacy. They are not, of course, the only such struggles: contests between secular and religious understandings of state legitimacy are also features of the early twenty-first-century global political landscape. Yet, the tension between the individualist and communal versions of the modern justification for sovereign authority is not only particularly pronounced today, but it also gnaws away at the modern state’s rationale from the inside, pitting one conception of popular sovereignty against another. Arguably, it has been the individualist version that has had the greatest structuring effects on modern international society. As I have shown elsewhere, as major Western states constitutionalized in the second half of the nineteenth century, the principle that legitimate law is authored by its subjects (or their representatives) filtered into international relations, informing the fundamental institutions of positive international law and multilateralism (1999, 131–134). Similarly, struggles for individual rights helped propel the epochal transition from the early-twentieth-century world of empires to the post-1970s universal system of sovereign states, while also driving the codification of international human rights norms that circumscribe the scope of legitimate sovereign authority (Reus-Smit 2013a, 151–192). As these changes unfolded, the very nature of the sovereign individual was redefined, with heavily racialized and gendered conceptions of who was entitled to recognition as a morally worthy, fully rational rights-bearer giving way to more universal forms of individual recognition. These understandings are now under significant challenge, in part by unabashed authoritarianism, which 1 These contending understandings of modern sovereignty are, of course, ideal types, and between them exist conceptions that approximate neither extreme, such as the various forms of social democracy which seek to balance individual rights and collective values.

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justifies centralized power with appeals to order, economic prosperity or religious integrity, but most notably by more communal conceptions of the modern state’s moral purpose itself. Right-wing nationalist governments across the Western core of the liberal international order repeatedly disavow liberalism and its emphasis on individual rights and seek to reconstruct their states, and the international order in which they are embedded, to serve their culturally defined nations and their traditional communal values. As Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, told an audience in Romania, the ‘Hungarian nation is not the simple sum of individuals, but a community that needs to be organized, strengthened and developed, and in this sense, the new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state’ (2014, 79). What about systemic change? Is the distribution of differential rights and responsibilities within today’s formally sovereign order affecting the meaning, scope and veracity of sovereign authority? Here it is worth reiterating an important insight of early constructivist theory, that sovereignty is a practically constituted institution: its meaning and behavioral characteristics are not fixed or universal—they have varied over time with the understandings and practices of historically located actors (Biersteker and Weber 1996; Thomson 1994; Weber 1995). In short, sovereignty is a protean institution, with considerable elasticity. To what extent, then, is the distribution—or redistribution—of unequal rights and responsibilities testing the limits of this flexibility? An obvious stress point concerns the allocation of special rights and responsibilities to great powers, in particular the assertion and recognition of hegemonic authority. While the competition between China and the United States is facilitated by a shift in the distribution of material capabilities, it is best understood, Ikenberry argues, as struggle for authority: what is contested is ‘America’s role and the hegemonic bargains that surround it’ (2011, xii). Nowhere is this contestation more pronounced than in East Asia, where, as Evelyn Goh observes, a struggle is occurring over the region’s ‘social structure’: ‘its membership, composition and collective understandings about position and status, rights and responsibilities’ (2013, 21). While there are clear tensions between hegemonic authority and sovereignty, Bukovansky et al. have shown how the granting of special rights and responsibilities can in fact be essential to addressing functional challenges under conditions of sovereign equality (2012). As well as this struggle over authority, there is the issue of the granting of rights and responsibilities to international institutions, a trend that

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accelerated over much of the post-1945 period. Here, the evidence points to a reversal, where sovereign states and social movements on the left and right are questioning—if not actively challenging—the legitimacy of international organizations like the EU and the UN, while resisting the negotiation of new multilateral instruments even where global cooperation is sorely needed (Zurn 2021). Meanwhile, a struggle is underway over the special rights and responsibilities of private actors, particularly multilateral corporations. On the one hand, key multilateral trade and investment treaties, like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), have granted these actors new rights to sue national governments for breaches of contract. At the same time, however, there are transnational campaigns for new global treaties that codify such actors’ environmental and human rights responsibilities, moving beyond recently instituted voluntary codes (Ruggie 2013). Finally, a key feature of the post-1945 institution of sovereignty is how international human rights norms have come to delimit legitimate state power. While Jack Donnelly’s observation that cardinal human rights norms are ‘principles that are widely accepted as authoritative within the society of states’ (2002, 38) remains true, the gap between principle and practice appears to be widening, as is evident in the widespread curtailment of democratic freedoms, the reversal of LGBTQ rights in many parts of the world, the failure to respect the rights of refugees, and the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. Interactional change has long been considered a potent challenge to the institution of sovereignty. Arguments in the 1970s that transnationalism undermined state-centric approaches to international relations were ultimately about such change (Keohane and Nye 1972), as were arguments in the 1990s that globalization spelled the end of sovereignty (Camilleri and Falk 1992). For some, recent trends in interactional change are working in sovereignty’s favor. Economically, globalization has been reversing since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, newly empowered right-wing nationalists in many countries are running anti-globalization— and globalism—agendas, and the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted human movements and supply chains and bolstered state power, if not authority. Yet, the story of interactional change is more complicated than this, and the institution of sovereignty may be facing some of its toughest challenges. Recall that sovereignty is a constitutional principle about how political authority ought to be organized, into politically centralized, territorially

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demarcated, formally equal political units. Like all ways of configuring legitimate power, this organization of political authority depends on communication: on the articulation, dissemination and mobilization of ideas about the location, scope and moral bases of rightful power. One aspect of globalization is having a significant bearing on such communication: the dramatic rise in global digital social media. This revolution in interaction capacity is deeply affecting national, international and transnational debates about sovereign authority. Most importantly, the communications revolution is accentuating other dimensions of change that affect sovereignty. It is heightening, for example, the purposive contestation between individualist and communal conceptions of the modern state’s moral purpose, evident in the contest between the rights-based ideas of the global Black Lives Matter movement and the culturalist and racialist values espoused by transnationally networked white nationalists. Relatedly, global social media is implicated in processes of systemic change, affecting, in particular, debates between globalists and anti-globalists over the ‘unbundling of territoriality’, the investing of political authority in international institutions, and organizations to address functional challenges.

Conclusion If sovereignty is the foundational institution of global international society—the organizing principle at the heart of its constitutional structure—then that institution is now in crisis. This is not a configurative crisis, however, in which sovereignty is threatened by rival, politically mobilized ideas and principles for organizing global political authority. In this sense, sovereignty stands unassailed, unlike heteronomy, empire and suzerainty in the past. Today’s crisis, by contrast, lies at the intersection of purposive, systemic and interactional change. Most fundamentally, sovereignty is afflicted with a crisis of meaning—a crisis of its underlying moral purposes. Modern international society has long seen struggles between authoritarian and democratic conceptions of such purposes, but today modern expressions of such struggles are exacerbated by a conflict between rival democratic visions: one individualist, the other communal. This has profound implications for how political authority is organized within particular states (depending how this context plays out), but also for how affected states—largely, though not exclusively, in the West—approach the distribution of political authority within international

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society more broadly. As the differences between the Trump and Biden administrations attest, it will affect how willing states are to ‘unbundle territoriality’ to address shared functional challenges. This crisis of moral purpose coincides with significant systemic changes affecting the distribution of authority globally. The decline of American hegemony and the rapid emergence of a more multipolar order are fueling destabilizing struggles over distribution of special rights and responsibilities of great powers, especially between China and the United States. This is compounding the faltering authority of international institutions and organizations, at a time when functional imperatives—from meeting new security challenges to governing health and the environment—requires new investment in such bodies. Finally, while traditional forms and dynamics of globalization may be retreating, new forms are exacerbating the above challenges to sovereignty. Crucial here is the revolution in digital media communication, which is having a profound impact on national, international and transnational debates about sovereignty and the broader global organization of political authority. The upshot of all of this is that modern (global) international society is being threatened not by the demise of sovereignty but by heightened contestation over the institution’s meaning and behavioral implications.

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CHAPTER 7

The Balance of Power and the Independence of Nations Morten Skumsrud Andersen

In 1814, Britain made a promise that if the state of Genoa supported the allies against Napoleon, its lost independence would be restored. Yet, after the war, British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh broke this promise and mandated Genoa to be incorporated in the Kingdom of Sardinia to strengthen the security of Italy (Nicholson 1961, 185–7). Castlereagh considered some nations too weak to be allowed to participate in the European society of states (Kissinger 1957, 38). Should independence be restored to them, they ‘would be merely nominal and alike inconsistent with the security for the country itself, or for Europe’. These states should simply cease to exist: This was ‘most conducive to the general interest’ as ‘there is evidently no other mode of accomplishing the great and beneficial object of re-establishing […] the safety and repose of Europe on a solid and permanent basis’ (Webster 1921, 391). To Genoa’s dismay, Britain placed it in this category. Castlereagh, justifying his decision, said that ‘it is impossible not to perceive a great moral change

M. S. Andersen (B) Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_7

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coming on in Europe, and that the principles of freedom are in full operation […] we have new constitutions launched […] it is better to retard than accelerate the operation of this most hazardous principle which is abroad’ (in Webster 1921, 181). That certain states have no real sovereignty, and that they can be used by great powers to stem the tides of liberal ideologies, is not wholly dissimilar to Russia’s present narrative on Ukraine. For Russia, Ukraine cannot be considered as fully sovereign and needs to be restrained to counter foreign and ‘hazardous principles’. The world of some balance of power realists also seems quite reminiscent of that of the Congress era: Great powerhood trumps formal independence and law. Hedley Bull called it a paradox: whilst the ‘balance of power is an essential condition […] of international law’, preserving the balance of power often involves the violation of international law. The balance of power has ‘undoubtedly tended to operate in favour of the great powers and at the expense of the small. Frequently, the balance of power among the great powers has been preserved through partition and absorption of the small’ (Bull 2002, 103–4). Is there an inherent tension between the institutions of the balance of power and sovereignty? Do comparisons across time and space such as these hold water? Can we assume, as many implicitly do, that the balance of power is a universal mechanism, as valid today as during the Congress period? I say no and claim that this has broader implications for how we approach and study the institutions of global international society. If we consult the historical empirics, we find that the balance of power concept was not used to legitimize the absorption of states during the Congress period. On the contrary, from the moment Castlereagh sanctioned Genoa’s annexation, political actors increasingly deployed the balance of power concept to protect state independence against great powers. And paradoxically, the links established between a multiplicity of independent states and the balance of power would prepare the ground for our current orthodox uses of the concept as a mechanism triggered by an anarchical states system. The balance of power has many different meanings. This has prompted scholars to search for its core properties and a settled definition. But whilst there is agreement that the balance of power is and does something important, there still is no agreement as to what such a balance is. My main claim is that the balance of power is resilient because no

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one agrees what it really is. This instability and potential for contestation makes the balance of power useful for a variety of purposes, and that is precisely why it has become an institution of international society. We should stop worrying about how the balance of power is defined, because conceptual ambiguity is not an analytical deficiency, but a necessary ingredient for concepts to be useful in making sense of events (Toye 2013, 71; 77). Histories of conceptual change can help us understand the adaptability, prevalence and resilience of the primary institutions of the English School. I will proceed in the following manner: I first briefly introduce Hedley Bull’s thinking about the balance of power as an institution, before arguing that there are alternative ways of doing conceptual analysis that focus more on the effects of their use and diffusion than on their scholarly, analytical utility. As all English School institutions are also concepts, by focusing on conceptual usage and change we can include assumptions about the persistent contestation surrounding primary institutions from the start, without compromising a systematic analysis of the normative structures of international societies. Following this is an illustration of the benefits of this approach. I go into some detail concerning the debates—primarily British—during and after the Congress of Vienna, where the concept of the balance of power was increasingly used to protect state independence against great power interventions. The local context was British attempts to counter the Congress system, but the changing meaning of the balance of power had unintended consequences. I end with what this repositioning of the balance of power means for the English School and what it can tell us about present crises of international society.

Hedley Bull’s Balance of Power In classical English School scholarship, the balance of power is one of the institutions that may produce or uphold the normative structures of an international society. For Hedley Bull, the balance of power does not promote peace but the stability of the international order. International order, Bull writes, is ‘a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary goals of the society of states, or international society’. International society, in turn, is a group of states that ‘conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another and

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share in the workings of common institutions ’ (Bull 2002, 8, emphases added). As opposed to the neorealist Kenneth Waltz, Bull does not seem to argue that the balance of power emerges automatically through the sum of self-interested state actions, in a kind of invisible-hand logic. Rather, Bull argues, stability emerges because states realize that a balance of power will give them freedom to manoeuver. It is a desirable goal for states, consciously working to achieve it. This, in turn, means that states must be committed to the balance of power as a normative principle. For such normative principles to be upheld, there must be some sort of communal agreement. The conclusion, then, is that the balance of power is an institution of international society. Even if Bull was mainly concerned with stability, not change, he worried that as the homogeneity of international society was withering away, the balance of power might not be resilient and stand up to the task. Reading between the lines, therefore, contestation remains a key theme. Bull worried that a ‘revolt against the West’ would undermine the cultural homogeneity necessary for the institutions of international society to operate. During the Congress period also, to paraphrase Bull, the great powers were worried about a ‘revolt against Western monarchical power’. And today, we are again worried about the ‘revolt against the West’ undermining international order, now in the context of the decline of democracies, autocracies on the rise, nationalist protectionism, the global reach of China, and Russia as an increasingly desperate shrinking powerhouse. Can the balance of power as an institution yet again survive the contest?

The Shifting Meanings of the Balance During Russia’s war in Ukraine, the balance of power concept has been deployed by political leaders and commentators in various ways: the Estonian Foreign Minister pronounced that with a changing security situation, ‘the power balance has changed as well’,1 so Russia’s war is causing a ‘balance of power shift’ in Europe.2 Some take the balance to mean the 1 https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-estonian-foreign-minister-evamaria-liimets-after-their-meeting/. 2 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine-has-forever-changed-europe%E2%80% 99s-balance-power-201498.

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‘strategic nuclear balance’,3 whilst others talk about the balance of power within the EU.4 It is argued that Russia’s war impacts also the global balance,5 and NATO’s new Strategic Concept will address this ‘shifting global balance of power’.6 Russia, on its side, initially argued that if its demands were not met it would need to ‘ensure a strategic balance’,7 and now argues that NATO has damaged the balance of power and that Russia needs to ‘rebalance’ further by strengthening its northern borders as Sweden and Finland join NATO.8 In the academic camp, some have argued that the war can be explained by a political failure to recognize perennial balance of power dynamics, whilst others emphasize the importance of state sovereignty and independence over any balance of power arguments, particularly as Russia considers smaller powers as without real sovereignty. These varying uses of the balance of power by political leaders and academics alike are no anomaly. Hedley Bull notes the ‘vagueness and shifting meaning’ of the balance of power, being ‘notorious for the numerous meanings that may be attached to it, the tendency of those who use it to shift from one to another and the uncritical reverence which statements about it are liable to command’ (Bull 2002, 105). Yet it is a mistake to dismiss it, writes Bull, as ‘its very currency is an indication of the importance of the ideas it is intended to convey. We cannot do without the term “balance of power”’. Whilst true, I would dispute Bull’s conclusion that the remedy is necessarily ‘to define it carefully and use it consistently’ (Bull 2002, 105). To see why, let us revisit Bull’s own definitions of the balance of power. He distinguishes between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ balances of power. That is, one can perceive a balance of power between two actors to exist, when this does not reflect the ‘true’ position as ‘revealed by subsequent events’. 3 https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/04/11/putin-s-war-against-ukraine-and-bal ance-of-power-in-europe-pub-86832. 4 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61386058. 5 https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20220331-russia-s-invasion-of-

ukraine-and-the-global-balance-of-power-changing-dynamics. 6 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_194326.htm. 7 https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/01/07/blinken-warns-russia-

ahead-of-talks-on-ukraine/. 8 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-would-have-rebalance-if-fin land-sweden-join-nato-2022-04-07/.

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Maintaining a balance of power involves both elements, Bull argues. There must be a military balance, but also a belief that such a balance exists. But these beliefs can ‘quickly be shown to be false’ (Bull 2002, 100). This implies that actors have used the balance of power concept to describe or explain a situation but may have been wrong about it. But as Bull himself acknowledges, the balance of power concept is difficult to pin down and has changed over time. The question then becomes, wrong relative to what? By introducing the possibility that also actors in the past might have ‘misunderstood’ the meaning of the balance of power, we risk an anachronism whereby a contemporary analytically fashioned version of the balance of power can be projected back in time as a standard to judge whether actors were right or wrong in invoking the concept. More relevant than attempts at universal definitions is the actors’ own understanding of their situation and the reasons why actors invoked the balance of power in such ‘wrong’ or exaggerated ways. Taking these actors’ words seriously would not imply that they knew any better than us what the concept really is—politicians and diplomats seize on the available, dominant concepts and use them for their purposes. But it does mean that there is little reason to think that the balance of power concept as used in the IR discipline corresponds to the balance of power as it has been used across time and space by actors ‘thrown’ into the world and facing practical problems. Yet this is precisely the assumption that is often implicitly made in much of the literature. Bull, and indeed many others, were searching for a stable definition of the balance of power in the context of a cold war, nuclear deterrence and instability in Europe. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this volume, Bull was above all concerned with a logic of maintenance within the international system, not principally with change. Yet, if we want to investigate change and contestation within the institutions of international society, we need different tools.

Resilience and Contestation: The Balance of Power and Conceptual Change The English School is well-known for its interest in historical international relations. One challenge for the English School is that if we use history to identify institutions, and they then freeze up analytically, we risk disregarding the myriad of empirical data on deployment and usage

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for a wide variety of purposes beyond functional institutions. I ‘destabilize’ Bull’s analytical account of the balance of power by focusing on how that concept has been deployed and used by historical actors in their time. But I will also try to put it back together again, by showing the stakes and benefits of histories of conceptual change for the English School and for the study of international order. This focus can help us answer key questions posed in this volume: What contestations exist? How have the institutions of international society changed, and with what effects? And how can we explain the resilience of these institutions? As noted, no one agrees what the balance of power really means, but it remains a key concept of IR and has a long pedigree. Some, like Bull, insist on carefully and consistently refining the concept. Others seek to expand the concept by including notions like ‘soft balancing’, whilst yet others question the explanatory value of the concept altogether. By contrast, I argue that histories of conceptual change can help us understand the adaptability, prevalence and resilience of the primary institutions of the English School. I see concepts as being commonly established and relatively stable rhetorical resources that historical actors can seize and use to make sense of relevant occurrences and events in their historical context (Jackson 2006). What is common is not shared ideas or agreements about meaning, but a set of concepts to be used as public resources in arguments and to formulate positions. Concepts are ways of looking at problems to generate arguments (Toye 2013). All concepts are historically variable, and they are what philosophers call ‘essentially contested’ (Gallie 1955), which means there is no one-to-one relationship between the concept and what the concept refers to (Neumann 2019). Concepts can therefore be used for various purposes and given multiple meanings—different arguments and legitimation strategies can be constructed from the same concept. For instance, classical liberal concepts have underwritten both imperialism and antiimperialism, whilst ‘humanitarian intervention’ has been used to legitimize both UN actions and Russia’s wars. Contestation is therefore part and parcel of conceptual development. It is through contestation that concepts change or are reappropriated for new purposes. As noted in Paikin’s Chapter 3, contestation is not necessarily a threat to order, because the stability of an order may rely precisely on adaptation and renewal triggered by such contestation. The meaning of ‘the balance of power’ is also constantly contested, adapted and renewed across time and place, to allow for its efficient use and to remain ‘fit for purpose’

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(Korosteleva and Flockhart 2020). The history of the balance of power is indeed a history of changing uses of the concept for a variety of conflicting purposes. This is crucial: these different uses—how the concept has been invoked and contested during debates—is what explains change, not the evolution of the concept ‘in itself’. As suggested in both Chapters 2 and 4, following the ‘relational turn’ (Somers 1994; Emirbayer 1997; Jackson and Nexon 1999), international society is not composed of ‘things’ with stable properties, but of dynamic entanglements of processes and relations. This goes also for the balance of power. If we assume that the balance of power is an entity, a thing, and we then search through history to identify what different politicians and authors had to say about this thing, we are making the mistake of trying to identify or reconstruct a theory that was not present at the time (Skinner 2002). Neither is the balance of power moving throughout time impacting international politics in a law-like manner. Change does not happen because the balance of power ‘itself’ is a mysterious agent of change, ‘making intermittent entries into the mundane world from the idealism’s heavenly spheres’ (Armitage 2012, 499). Rather, change happens through the acts of deploying the concept in concrete policy debates and contentions that are empirically traceable. This is also the key to explain its resilience. How is it that these concepts and institutions have proven to be so enduring over time? The balance of power concept has been resilient because it is so useful (Andersen and Wohlforth 2021)— concepts like the balance of power are only loosely shared, and therefore highly adaptable. What makes the concept important for international politics is therefore not its universal explanatory power, but the diverging ways in which this loosely shared concept has been deployed, contested and adapted to make things happen by a wide variety of actors in centuries past. By focusing exclusively on the balance of power as an analytical tool for us, we risk overlooking the consequences that arise from how the balance of power concept is deployed by them—by policymakers and political actors. We need to take these usages of concepts seriously and ask, what can actors achieve by using these concepts in their political projects, and what intended and unintended effects do conceptual change have on the fabric of international order? As for the primary institutions of the English School, not only do they fill out the contents of international society analytically, they are also concepts in the above sense: concepts that academics share with their

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objects of investigation (‘war’, ‘great power’, ‘law’, ‘diplomacy’, ‘balance of power’, etc.). This is also reflected in what many definitions of institutions have in common: They are intersubjectively constructed ‘rules of the game’ of a society (see Hodgson 2006). But as Bull acknowledged, the institutions of international society, although shared, are tricky to define and pin down. Institutions and their social ‘rules’ are therefore not shared in the sense that their meaning is clear and obvious to all. Rather, as concepts, they are only loosely shared in that different projects can be legitimized with the same institution: The existence of institutions like ‘war’, ‘international law’, ‘sovereignty’ or the ‘balance of power’ also makes them potentially powerful rhetorical tools for legitimating a range of policies and visions of international order. Consequently, to the extent that these institutions are not only analytical constructs but also concepts in use by political actors and academics alike, the dynamics of conceptual change and contestation are relevant to explore institutions. In sum, to explore the dynamics of contestation and resilience in conceptual change and their implication for the institutions of international society, this chapter posits three fundamental assumptions that are different from how conceptual analysis is normally conducted in IR: • An institution of international society is not one thing—not purely a stable, analytical device, nor a coherent norm, set of clear rules, or universal mechanism. Institutions have also been rhetorical tools to legitimize policy and to get things done in international politics; • Because institutions are also loosely shared concepts and difficult to pin down, the nature and implications of these institutions are constantly contested; • This contestation, and the many contradictory meanings that can be given to institutions, is why they are useful, why they may change, and precisely the reason why they may also be so resilient. Based on these assumptions, I will explore the debates surrounding the Congress of Vienna which centred on the balance of power.

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The Congress of Vienna and Its Aftermath For Bull, the most elementary form of the balance of power is between two actors trying to avoid the preponderance of one. In a next step, the goal could expand to preserving a balance in the international system. In the last step, the balance of power becomes a conscious, common goal of the system. As Bull notes, the balance of power seen as a common project amongst a group of states emerged in the early eighteenth century during the fight against Louis XIV. Yet, as I show below, this notion of the balance of power as the common interest of European states increasingly came under attack. To use Bull’s terminology, I will explore a moment of change in the regression of the balance of power concept away from a common goal, towards gaining a meaning more in line with the ‘elementary’ balance of power which we recognize from realist theories of anarchy. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, balance of power rhetoric came to legitimize the primacy of the state and the existence of great powers. The balance of power was not much invoked during the Congress of Vienna, however. Whilst the balance of power had previously been the expression of the common ‘public interest’ of Europe, during the Congress the public interest was rather seen as being the equilibrium of Europe, to be managed by an exclusive group of ‘great powers’. Balance of power or equilibrium? This seemingly small, semantic difference had large consequences: The problem was now not whether powers deemed too strong should be allowed to exist, as had been the case, but whether powers deemed to be too weak should. The threat did not come from within the system as a balancing problem, but the lack of equilibrium was a threat to the system. In an important reversal, then, the main problem was not the opposition to hegemony, but how to get rid of ‘national passions’ and the states now seen as useless, destabilizing and lacking proper internal governance. However, as the Congress system ended, the balance of power concept returned—but in a radically different way: not to defend the public interest and avoid hegemony, but to protect individual state independence and the multiplicity of individual states. The balance of power and what we notionally may call liberal principles were linked, whilst the balance of power and the traditional common interest of a European society were de-linked. Whilst the balance of power has been involved in constructing

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orders, it has indeed also been part of unravelling them—in this case, the European Congress system. Let us first return to the case of Genoa. Sacrificing Genoa No other Congress decision so infuriated the British Whigs as the Tory Prime Minister Castlereagh’s abandonment of Genoa (Jarrett 2014, 136). In 1815, both the Commons and the Lords heatedly debated this transfer of Genoa at the hands of Britain. How did politicians at the time use the balance of power concept in practice? The context was an argument that the ‘unfortunate Genoese had not only been delivered over, like droves of cattle,9 to the king of Sardinia, but they had been so delivered over by England; England had been the instrument of this oppression’ (Hansard 1815, col. 930). The balance of power had for a long time been hailed as the core principle of British foreign policy, and as a means not only to protect England’s interest, but also that of the European society of states. Now, however, it was argued that the incorporation of Genoa could not possibly be justified by a balance of power. The Whig politician Sir James Macintosh led the charge against Castlereagh. He argued that the treatment of Genoa was ‘not the policy of the preservers or restorers of the European commonwealth. It is not the principle of the balance of power’, which should instead be ‘a system which provides for the security of all states, by balancing the force and opposing the interests of great states’ (Hansard 1815, col. 924). Instructively, he argued that ‘the independence of nations is the end: the balance of power is only the means. To destroy independent nations in order to strengthen the balance of power, is the most extravagant sacrifice of the end to the means’ (ibid., emphasis added). The independence of nations was what the balance of power was meant to promote—not the ‘liberties of Europe’, ‘the European commonwealth’, the ‘public interest’ or any other formulation that had been routinely deployed in preceding centuries. When Castlereagh argued that some states were incapable of existence, Mackintosh continued, he was avowing ‘that he is returned in triumph from the destruction of that system of the balance of power of 9 This rural metaphor was recurrent in arguments for the independence of states, and against the policies of the Congress. See Hemstad (2014).

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which indeed great empires were the guardians, but of which the perfect action was indicated by the security of feebler commonwealths’ (ibid.). The interventions of the great powers had been made ‘into the sole title of dominion and universal tenure of sovereignty. Vienna […] made the treaty of Westphalia appear no more than an adjustment of parish boundaries’ (ibid., col. 900). The new order imposed after Vienna overrode ‘the ancient system of national independence and balanced power which gradually raised the nations of Europe to the first rank of the human race’ (ibid., col. 901; see also Hampsher-Monk 2005, 99). The real balance of power, the argument implied, had always been concerned with the protection of state independence; and ‘under this system, no great violation of national independence had occurred, from the first civilization of the European states, till the partition of Poland’ (Hansard 1815, col. 924). Mackintosh went on, and is now worth quoting in full: the paramount principle, the moving power, without which all such machinery would be perfectly inert, is national spirit. To sacrifice a people actuated by this spirit, to overrule that repugnance to the yoke of a neighbour, which is one of the chief bulwarks of nations, is in the effect, and much more in the example, to erect a pretended balance of power by the destruction of that spirit, and of those sentiments, which alone render that balance effectual for its only useful purpose – the protection of independence. The Congress of Vienna seems, indeed, to have adopted every part of the French system, except that they have transferred the dictatorship of Europe from an individual to a triumvirate (ibid.: col. 925, emphasis added).

As a stark contrast to contemporary uses of the concept, the balance of power is here presented as a true alternative to what we would now call ‘international anarchy’, where power differentials are what matter and the weak suffer what they must. Europe’s interest, rather than a common systemic project, is here seen as based on ‘national spirit’, in contrast to a Congress presented as the equivalent of a dictatorship of the great powers. This debate showcases one of the main conflicts of the first part of the century—between the European Commonwealth and a public interest guaranteed by the great powers on the one hand, and the concern for the independence of states and, increasingly, their national aspirations, on the other. This conflict dominated the Congress system and the debates in the wake of its demise. Yet, this parliamentary debate over Genoa was

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the first, and perhaps only, sustained public debate during the Congress period in which the balance of power concept played a central role. Despite this one debate in 1815, the balance of power concept did not return as a commonplace amongst élites and public officials until the death of Castlereagh and the beginning demise of the Congress system,10 when Mackintosh, and this time in concert with Castlereagh’s successor George Canning, once again breathed life into the concept. Actors took up that classical concept to argue against interventions conducted in the name of the Congress equilibrium. The Balance Strikes Back The balance of power as a concept was not much invoked during the Congress period. The above is one rare example where, in the uproar against Genoa, the balance of power was used against the government and for protecting state independence. However, the balance of power returned as a widespread concept in precisely this version. What we see after the Congress period are politicians seeking to rehabilitate the balance of power in a new context. They incorporated a critique of the classical balance of power concept into a new, liberal way of arguing with the concept. The ‘passions of nations’ so feared by the Congress was not used to argue against the balance of power but was incorporated within it. It was now less about protecting something, like the public interest, and more about dampening disruptive dynamics between nations in the European body (see Kleinschmidt 2000, 158– 9)—balance of power arguments now worked when they could mediate between conflicting national passions and national positions. Now, the balance of power did not express a common European interest but participated in its demise. After Napoleon, the Congress powers had restored King Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne. The reactionary monarch refused to adopt the Spanish Constitution of 1812, one of the most liberal of its time, and in 1820 faced a rebellion in favour of a constitutional monarchy. In October 1822, alarmed by these events, the European five great powers (Russia,

10 Whilst the end of the Congress system is often taken to be the 1826 Protocol of St. Petersburg, the 1822 Congress of Verona marked a British break with the allies and, as seen below, a shift in its rhetoric towards the Congress system.

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Austria, Prussia, France and the United Kingdom) convened in Verona in northern Italy. Only a month earlier, the death of Castlereagh had opened the Foreign Office to the Tory George Canning. Canning’s policy was to avoid too close cooperation with other European powers. He informed the Congress that, ‘come what may’, Britain would never support any intervention in Spanish internal affairs (Nicolson 1961, 275) and would take no part in the discussions at Verona (Bullen 1979, 63). Canning saw the whole Congress system as a ‘very questionable policy’ and the alliance as superfluous after the defeat of France. He promoted the liberty of nations to make their own choices without the interference of the ‘despotic’ continental states (Jarrett 2014, 318). The question for the Congress was how to mediate between Russia’s assertiveness and Britain’s anti-interventionist policy (ibid., 326). In the end, at Verona, the four other allies went ahead without Britain (ibid., 336), eventually authorizing France to intervene in the conflict to end Spain’s liberal experiment and restore the Antiguo Régimen of Ferdinand. On 7 April 1823, French soldiers crossed into Spain, and helped the Spanish Royalists restore Ferdinand VII as absolute monarch. Canning was furious. He objected to foreign interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country, but also to the evidently reasserted dynastic policies between Spain and France—a less than welcome historical trend. The British public also protested this intervention, and it became one of the most contentious events of international politics of the day (ibid., 340). The position of England, Canning later observed, was now ‘one of neutrality, not only between contending nations, but between contending principles; and it was by neutrality alone that we could maintain that balance […] essential to the peace and safety of the world’ (Wright N.d., 88). Making use of the new meaning that was imbued to the balance of power, as the principle on which the fight for independence and non-interference was based, Britain could now return to its classical and unique (and indeed powerful) role as ‘balancer’ on the continent—a role that had been impossible for it to maintain in the ‘just equilibrium’ guaranteed by a great power concert. However, the balance of power was not taken for granted as before, and discursive work was needed to re-establish it. Parliamentary debates in 1823 revolved around the issue of whether Britain should intervene on the side of Spain to protect national independence. Even if Canning had hinted at a British intervention, in debates in Parliament he argued

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against such intervention. The balance of power concept had now been reintroduced and used to justify both policy positions. Mackintosh complained of Britain’s conduct in Verona: Why had Britain not conducted the negotiations in adherence to ‘the independence of nations’ and ‘strictly maintaining the balance of power in Europe’? He could find no reference to the balance of power in the negotiations, as if the ministers ‘had been afraid to alarm the delicate sensibilities of prince Metternich’ by the bare mention of the balance of power. The negotiations, he assumed sarcastically, must have been so friendly that ‘we did not wish to disturb them […] by any impertinent anxiety concerning the balance of power’. As if self-evident, Mackintosh again linked the balance of power to the protection of the independence of nations, a balance of power that had ‘been lost sight of’ and ‘seemed entirely forgotten’ (Hansard 1823, col. 1405–6). This indicates how the balance of power had fallen out of use, but also how the authority of the concept remained, whilst the contents were being redefined. To argue the justness of his own actions, Canning in turn challenged the uses of the balance of power by his interlocutors. They misrepresented the balance of power, he argued. The balance of power is no longer the same thing as before. Mackintosh had referred to what Britain had done ‘in former times’, Canning continued, but ‘nothing could be more inconclusive than these general references to history, in which all the peculiar circumstances of the case were not brought into consideration’ (ibid., col. 1415–7). In 1823, there was unanimous agreement that a French intervention should be opposed, but the debate in which the balance of power returned concerned the issue of British intervention on the side of Spain, to support the independence of nations and the balance of power against the continental allies and France. For those encouraging such an intervention, supporting Spain and national independence implied an intervention in the name of the balance of power. The project of France and the continental great powers implied an intervention in the name of the Congress equilibrium. Canning, in his defence, questioned the timeless wisdom of the balance of power. In all arguments, however, more than protecting a common, European public interest, or the systemic interests of princes, the balance of power now served to mediate between nations and national positions. ‘Nation’ had come to signify the people as potentially standing against the rulers, with an identity of its own.

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The balance of power concept that had been the hallmark of British policy re-emerged as a pertinent resource for unifying the various arguments and concerns that arose after the Congress broke down. Actors used the ambiguity of the concept to gain support for their preferred course of action. A resurgent balance of power concept—with new content but retaining the authority of the past—was effective and useful for British politicians and their political projects opposing the Concert powers and avoiding British interventions. Grabbing hold of and invoking the balance of power concept might have been a convenient, strategic decision. Yet, creative uses of concepts are what trigger change. Throughout these debates concerning Genoa and later international interventions, the connections between the concept of the balance of power and national independence grew stronger. Europe was atomized and states individuated. The rhetorical work undertaken here involved separating what was previously linked: individual state interests and the public interest. Increasingly, now the main political contenders were less a part of a common European élite, or a transnational court aristocracy of centrally placed actors, and became more ‘foreigners’ to one another. Instead of a European, natural community of which the balance of power was one product, or precondition, there were many natural, national communities and the balance of power mediated between them. That the balance of power settled to defend state independence in this way was, for instance, a necessary condition for Hegel to use the balance of power concept to sharpen the contrast between the state as idea and the practical realm of politics. The balance of power became political, as opposed to the natural idea of the state. What we see being played out here is the beginnings of the impersonal state replacing the balance of power as a first principle of international politics. The balance of power was increasingly used to legitimate and protect the coexistence of atomistic states, rather than any notion of an international society. Paradoxically, arguing about order led to disorder— the balance of power was now not constructing an international order, but unravelling it. By presenting these snippets from the long and winding historical road that the concept of the balance of power has travelled, I have aimed to show two things. First, the dominant meaning of the balance of power has been both variable and contested throughout history, as recognized by Canning himself. Second, and more specifically, it shows that the meaning of the balance of power concept changed from being an expression of

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a common public interest—of an international society—to a management principle between independent states. Political actors’ uses of the concept were inching closer to the orthodox balance of power as regularly presented in our IR intro courses: as an expression of international anarchy. This was not because the balance of power concept ‘itself’ had mysterious causal powers that triggered change, but because politicians in their context grabbed hold and made use of the concept as a resource for their political projects. This, I have aimed to show, can be traced empirically. This is a key point for the English School study of institutions: It matters how people have been talking about and used these institutions in the past.

Conclusions The balance of power is once again gaining traction. Today, it underwrites academic arguments that NATO expansion into Russia’s ‘sphere of interest’ is to blame for the war in Ukraine, as it increased Western power at Russia’s expense. The West ignored the lessons of the balance of power by emphasizing the right of independent states to choose their own alliances. When you are a smaller country next to Russia, as the likes of John Mearsheimer argue, you must defer. The West has violated ‘balance of power politics 101’, as the latter should mandate the US to focus on China as a revisionist challenger to US hegemony whilst reconciling with Russia (Chotiner 2022). Balance of power realists will probably tell you that although quite bleak, this is the reality of international politics now as it was centuries ago. For his part, Hedley Bull also writes that. from the point of view of a weak state sacrificed to it, the balance of power must appear as a brutal principle. But its function in the preservation of international order is not for this reason less central. It is part of the logic of the principle of balance of power that the needs of the dominant balance must take precedence over those of the subordinate balances. (1977, 104)

Contrary to Bull, others focus on the value of sovereignty and independence above any balance of power dynamics. These arguments emphasize Russia’s violation of international law and the UN Charter and the historical mission of stabilizing Central and Eastern European countries after the end of the Cold War. Throughout history, Russia has swung back and forth between an eastward/inward and westward orientation under

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the influence of mainly domestic developments. Russia was part of the European Congress system and counted as a key member of international society. Now it is not. It seems like the institutions of sovereignty and international law have suppressed the balance of power as states come to the defence of Ukrainian sovereignty. But such academic uses of the balance of power do not reveal to us any universal meaning of the concept. What the academic debates over the virtues of the balance of power do reveal in our present situation, however, is the postcolonial roots of these arguments. Today, international society is global. But just as in the past, when states outside of the European system could not partake in the balance of power because they were seen to lack the capacity for reasoning and calculation to abide by its ‘rules’, the agency of Ukraine and Eastern European states are now ignored by analysts deploying contemporary balance of power theory. Ukraine and Eastern Europe in general is a buffer zone that already comes partially determined by the more powerful or ‘responsible’ actors (Mälksoo 2022). The offensive realist’s world likens that of the Congress, where some states are less sovereign than others and their agency more bound, whilst the offensive realist’s uses of the balance of power are paradoxically at odds with how policymakers used the concept in that very same period. The commonsensical meaning of the balance of power 200 years ago could have been used in a fierce defence of Ukrainian independence against Russian incorporation and dominance. Therefore, there is no inherent incompatibility between the institutions of balance of power and sovereignty. The ‘conversion rate’ between sovereignty and the balance of power has changed. Genoa’s independence was ignored by the Congress because it was an insignificant state, whilst its independence was defended by means of the balance of power concept. Today, Ukraine’s independence is ignored by Russia, not because it is considered a periphery, but because it is considered a historical part of the Russian core. Even as the meanings and uses of the balance of power change over time, the concept remains an institution of international society: we see the persistence and continuity of the balance of power as a loosely shared concept. One implication of the arguments above is that we should not only look to analytical IR theory to assess the resilience and relevance of the balance of power as an institution. When taking political actors’ rhetoric seriously, we do see that the balance of power is now increasingly deployed as a description of a situation, whilst the balance of power

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as prescription in its offensive-realist version is not prevalent amongst political actors. And precisely this could be our object of analysis: We have the option to see beyond claims that this is a universal mechanism, stable across millennia, and focus instead on the empirical manifestation of it, conceptual stability and change, historical legacies, and what the institution of the balance of power is used for in international politics. We cannot assess the current shape of international society only by seeing it through the analytical lens of the balance of power—we should also assess it by considering the degree to which institutions remain part of the routine vocabulary of international politics. Institutions will always be in tension, but they remain our infrastructure for thinking about international society and tools to make sense of events in context. Despite its long focus on functionalist maintenance, the English School’s engagement with both political and historical practice and hermeneutics makes it well suited to reposition the study of the balance of power as a both malleable and resilient resource for the conduct of international relations. In this sense, ‘rebooting’ approaches to global international society could also involve investigating the conceptual stabilities and changes that are contributing to the construction and unravelling of international orders—both historically and contemporarily. Following my own instructions above, then, the main indication of the resilience of the balance of power would be the many different and contradictory ways the concept is used today—that is, its central role in debates and controversies. However, whether we will witness, as in the Congress era, a major reshuffling of the meaning of the balance of power, is not up to us academics alone to decide.

Bibliography Andersen, Morten Skumsrud and William C. Wohlforth. 2021. “Balance of power. A key concept in historical perspective”, in Benjamin de Carvalho, Julia Costa Lopez, Halvard Leira (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations. London: Rotuledge. Armitage, David. 2012. “What’s the Big Idea? Intellectual History and the Longue Durée”, History of European Ideas, 38: 493–507. Bull, Hedley. 2002[1977]. The Anarchical Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

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Bullen, Roger. 1979. “The Great Powers and the Iberian Peninsula, 1815–48”, pp. 54–78 in Sked, Alan (ed.) Europe’s Balance of Power 1815–1848. London: Macmillan. Chotiner, Isaac 2022. “Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine”, The New Yorker, March 1, https://www.newyorker.com/news/qand-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine. Emirbayer, Mustafa. 1997. “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology”, American Journal of Sociology, 103(2): 281–317. Gallie, W.B. 1955. “Essentially Contested Concepts”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56: 167–198. Hansard, Thomas Curson. 1815. The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Vol. XXX. London: Longman. Hansard, Thomas Curson. 1823. The Parliamentary Debates. New Series. Vol. VIII. London: T.C. Hansard. Hampsher-Monk, Iain. 2005. “Edmund Burke’s Changing Justification for Intervention”, The Historical Journal, 48(1): 65–100. Hemstad, Ruth (ed). 2014. Like a Herd of Cattle. Parliamentary and Public Debates Regarding the Cession of Norway, 1813–1814. Oslo: Dreyers Forlag. Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 2006. “What Are Institutions?”, Journal of Economic Issues, 40(1): 1–25. Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. 2006. “The Present as History”, pp. 490–500 in Robert E. Goodin and Charles Tilly (eds.) The Oxford Handbook on Contextual Political Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus and Daniel Nexon. 1999. “Relations before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics”, European Journal of International Relations 5(3): 291–332. Jarrett, Mark. 2014. The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy. War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon. London: I.B. Tauris. Kissinger, Henry A. 1957. A World Restored. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kleinschmidt, Harald. 2000. The Nemesis of Power. London: Reaktion Books. Korosteleva, Elena and Trine Flockhart (eds.) 2020. Resilience in EU and International Institutions. London: Routledge. Mälksoo, Maria. 2022. “The Postcolonial Moment in Russia’s War Against Ukraine”, Journal of Genocide Research, Published online: 11 May 2022. Neumann, Iver. 2019. Concepts of International Relations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Nicolson, Harold. 1961[1946]. The Congress of Vienna. A Study in Allied Unity: 1812–1822. London: Methuen & Co. Skinner, Quentin. 2002. Visions of Politics. Vol 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Somers, Margaret R. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach”, Theory and Society, 23(5): 605–649.

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Toye, Richard. 2013. Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Webster, Charles K. 1921. British Diplomacy 1813–1815. London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd. Wright, Thomas. N.d. History of the Reigns of George IV. and William IV. London: Jones & Company.

CHAPTER 8

Change, Contestation and Resilience in Great Power Management Jorge M. Lasmar

Within the English School (ES), the study of great power management (henceforth GPM) is closely related to that of a general balance of power (Lasmar 2015). In fact, Bull considers the general balance of power1 one of the key normative components of the primary institution of great power management (Bull 1977, 97–121). This norm has traditionally been understood as an institutionalized pattern of behaviour in which states (mainly great powers) counterbalance each other in order to avoid the rise of a hegemon capable of dominating the international system alone (Little 2007, 4). Since one of the main functional requisites of great power management is to constrain conflict amongst the great powers (Bull 1977, 201), the norm of a general balance of power is traditionally seen as being one of its most fundamental components. The balance of 1 According to Bull, ‘we must distinguish the general balance of power that is the absence of a preponderant power in the international system as a whole, from a local or particular balance of power, in one area or segment of the system’ (Bull 1977).

J. M. Lasmar (B) PUC Minas, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_8

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power is seen as having a fundamental character because it ‘provide[s] the conditions under which the system of states can endure’ (Bull 1977, 201). This point is key to understand the close connection between great power management and resilience, as the very goal/function of great power management is that of the continuity—and thus also the resilience—of a certain order in the face of an ever-changing environment. When the great powers institutionalize norms promoting a contrived balance of power, it reveals their desire to maintain and preserve the status quo of international society at any given time. This approach ‘reflect[s] the existence of a collective commitment to the survival of such a society’ (Little 2007, 135). In other words, safeguarding a balance of power reflects a self-conscious effort to preserve the order and identities existent within a certain international society. In turn, international society itself is constructed and shaped by the existence of such norms. Hence, GPM, by its very nature, implies that great powers seek to manage the ever-present change and contestation that takes place within international society to preserve the status quo. It is therefore inherently associated with a form of resilience. Put differently, it is a historically constructed normative structure that intrinsically has both a system-wide reach and an enduring nature, making resilience one of its key attributes. At the same time, great powers are continuously changing their grand strategies and how they operationalize them, always responding and adapting to both contestation and an ever-evolving international environment. More recent ES literature on GPM departs from this discussion and has been increasingly looking into how global order has been shaped by resilient Western-centric institutions (Acharya and Buzan 2010; Buzan and Acharya 2022; Reus-Smit and Dunne 2017). There is also a shift in focus to better understand how contestation relates to GPM, including from the point of view of the untold narratives overridden by Western historical dominance (Buzan and Acharya 2022), as well as how GPM is adapting to a more global, complex, diverse and multi-levelled order (Flockhart 2016). As such, resilience, change and contestation can all be seen as fundamental components of GPM. This is precisely why this chapter will focus on how contestation has been bringing about normative changes to GPM and impacting its resilience. Normative change cannot, by definition, be a random or ordinary event as it signals that a given transformation was socially recognized and institutionalized, which is especially important when studying contestation. At the same time, the very fact that a normative change is

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incorporated into a primary institution of international society confirms that the change was both significant and meaningful in helping to explain how contestation can lead to normative transformations that impact the structure of international society as a whole. Accordingly, to understand how change, contestation and resilience relate to each other and thereby identify their interplay within the institution of GPM, this chapter will first briefly reflect on the resilience of primary institutions and how contestation, change and resilience relate to one another. The chapter then will briefly peruse the historical resilience of GPM, first during the expansion of European international society and then during the Cold War. Having established this theoretical and historical overview, this chapter then will discuss how post-Cold War GPM is contested but, even as such, likely to become more resilient in a multi-order world. In order to understand this complex trend and thereby identify the relationship between change, contestation, resilience and GPM, the analysis will explore four significant moments of GPM contestation following the end of the Cold War: (1) the ending of the Cold War, (2) the Global War on Terror (GWoT), (3) post-GWoT and, finally, (4) Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine.

Change, Contestation and Resilience in Primary Institutions Resilience, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is ‘an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change’. Thus, as argued by Koresteleva and Petrova and Flockhart in this volume, the idea of resilience is closely linked to that of change. It links continuity with change, though ‘continuity’ does not necessarily mean that things stay the same. Rather, it implies a process of ‘recovering or adjusting’ in the face of a new reality. So, what exactly is the resilience of a primary institution? How does it relate to change and contestation? To begin answering these questions, it is necessary to remember that norms and institutions work as symbolic systems that mediate different motivations and delineate patterns of behaviour (Kawaguchi 2003; Searle 1996). These patterns, in turn, construct and become part of an actor’s perception(s) of reality and thus constitutive of their very identity. Since social reality itself is everchanging, institutional norms are bound to transform as institutions tend to adapt their norms in order to preserve their functional objectives. The

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resilience of a primary institution is linked to its capacity to preserve its goals in the face of changes while at the same time maintaining or increasing its capacity to mediate social reality.2 Specifically, the impact of change on a primary institution’s resilience can be determined by probing whether changes in its norms, rules and values have increased or decreased its capacity to mediate social reality. In other words, as Flockhart states in Chapter 2, to fully understand resilience in primary institutions, one needs to adopt a framework that considers the alignment (or misalignment) between power, principles and practice and how they each align to the society’s conception of the ‘good life’. A decrease in a primary institution’s resilience occurs when, in the process of attempting to incorporate new social or material facts or ideas, normative changes and/or contestation results in the construction of norms that are even more detached from the actual expectation of actors. In this scenario, the resulting institutional change is not necessarily followed by a development in the institution’s goals and functions, leading to the cognitive weakening of the institution. The resulting change, in this case, becomes a superficial attempt to connect institutional practices with social reality and the expectations of its members. In its most extreme form, this process can lead to a loss in the institution’s authority, a shallower internalization of its norms and values or even a shrinkage of its cognitive borders (i.e. a loss of members). One example of this process would be the post-Cold War era, in which the United States and Russia couldn’t agree on the rules of the game, gradually leading Russia to question and contest the prevailing order, reducing the number of states involved in collaborative great power management. Although such processes do not necessarily lead the institution towards obsolescence, the continuous loss of resilience can trigger a degenerative process that may eventually culminate in the decline of the primary institution in question. On the other hand, when contestation brings about normative change that is accompanied by an expansion in the institution’s goals and/or scope, it can lead to the deeper internalization of its norms and values by actors in international society, hence increasing the primary institution’s resilience. It can also cause an institution to expand its cognitive borders 2 Mediation is a mean to ‘establish relationships and connections between different entities by processing, through the use of a symbol system, the signs that represents those entities (including their meanings)’ (Kawaguchi 2003).

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by offering new elements of identity (norms and especially values) that may attract actors who did not previously share this identity, as was the case with Prussia and Russia in modern history. Such an expansion in an institution’s goals and functions can engender a progressive process leading to further consolidation (deeper internalization, thicker values and rules, broader acceptance, etc.) of the primary institution in question. Various factors, both quantitative and qualitative, can contribute to such a consolidation and increase in resilience. Quantitatively, the resilience may be manifested by a growth in a primary institution’s membership, an increase in the values that it represents, a widening of its reach or even a broadening of its functions/goals. Qualitatively, resilience can manifest either from a deeper internalization of the norms and values of a primary institution and/or through an expansion in the number of actors that identify themselves with the values and norms (i.e. the cognitive borders) of this institution. In other words, this is both a measurable and observable phenomenon. It is important to note, however, that an increase in resilience generally occurs through a cumulative process and not in an abrupt manner.

Great Power Management and Resilience During the Expansion of European International Society During the consolidation of the European international society, the institution of great power management operated in accordance with shared balance of power norms and values that sought not only to avoid the supremacy of a single hegemon, but which also sought to protect, perpetuate and expand Western values and institutions. Hence, GPM included shared support for the institutions of imperialism and colonialism—essentially because it was the original great powers of the nineteenth century that came together to institutionalize them. In this process, although the history of the expansion of international society met serious contestation, and even resistance, on the part of non-Western political units, the fact is that world politics—and consequently great power management— have since been dominated by a small group of mostly Western powers (Buzan and Acharya 2022). Hence, during this period, GPM overrode non-Western contestations and framed the existing contestation within its overarching normative architecture.

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The forceful expansion of the European model over African, American and Asian political structures and the consequent design of international treaties regulating how European great powers should manage their colonies during the Concert of Europe illustrate how the Western instruments of GPM became dominant. Thus, when contestation of the norms of GPM did occur in international society, it mostly took the form of questioning the relative position occupied by a state within the existing (Western) balance of power. Consequently, although institutions such as slavery, imperialism and colonialism became increasingly contested, the fundamental norms and characteristics of European great power management remained somewhat unchallenged within international society. It also means that the very resilience of the institution of great power management was directly linked to the superimposition and longevity of this worldview and its associated values. This is why Wight goes as far as to state that ‘[t]he Concert of Europe was in origin and essence a common agreement on the principle of balance of power’ (Wight 1966, 154). As Little highlights, Bull also sees great power management as a self-conscious desire on part of the great powers to preserve (European) international society. This collective great power management is exactly the feature that distinguishes the European balance of power from balances of power in other contexts (Wight 1966; Butterfield 1966; Little 2007).

Great Power Management and Resilience During the Cold War Along similar lines, during the Cold War, the international environment of GPM was informed by an understanding that constructed the world as materially and socially bipolar. At the same time, the existence of two bitterly opposed nuclear superpowers and their interaction heavily shaped international society’s norms, rules and values and deeply affected how states socialized. In this process, the macro-securitization of the Cold War material and ideological bipolarity subsumed, encased or at the very least muted most of the existing contestation to international order. Even the dynamics of decolonization were shaped and subsumed into this macro-securitization. In fact, one could argue that even seemingly revolutionary fora, such as the Non-Aligned Movement that was ostensibly against aligning with or against any power bloc, were often a response to

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the macro-securitization and ideological bipolarity of the Cold War and hence, from the very onset, subsumed by its dynamics. Thus, a shared understanding on how the superpowers should manage international society consolidated and, in turn, constructed a social structure of enemies that propelled the behaviour of both superpowers (and their allies) and shaped their identities and that of international society (Buzan 2004a). The policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD), the politically motivated use of veto powers in the United Nations Security Council or the many military interventions by both sides of the conflict dyad are all clear examples of how the social structure of enemies not only informed the operationalization of great power management but was, in turn, influenced by it. Interactions between the two superpowers were predominantly motivated by calculus and/or coercion and constructed within a social structure of enemies (Buzan 2004a). Secondary institutions were also shaped accordingly. Hence, during this period, the institution of GPM created norms and procedures that mediated relations amongst states by concretely codifying agreed patterns of interaction and creating mechanisms of social control that both reflected—at the same time as constructing—the rival/enmity social structure. Herein lies an interesting point regarding the resilience of this institution. These two bitterly opposed foes certainly symbolized two rival sets of values: capitalism and socialism. Both seemed to contest and contradict each other. Nevertheless, as repeatedly pointed out by realists (Mearsheimer 2001; Zakaria 1992), these dissimilar values did not translate into a widely divergent operationalization of their respective great power management practices. Despite all the rivalry between the two superpowers, convergence, continuity and resilience—rather than uncontrolled contestation—marked the game of great power management during the Cold War.

Great Power Management in the post-Cold War Era The end of the Cold War engendered deep changes in the social and material structure of interstate relations, prompting deep changes in the

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long-established norm of a general balance of power.3 It opened space for the reinsertion of competing alternate understandings, concepts and worldviews into international society. With those, new centres of authority contested on multiple fronts, the old norms and values of GPM and their capacity to mediate the new social reality. Thus, after the Cold War, GPM underwent a deep crisis of meaning, and not just because of the uncontested end of material bipolarity and the consequent demise of the social structure of enemies as the key guiding principle of interaction amongst great powers (Lasmar 2015). Instead, the old norms and values of GPM have also been facing ongoing and increasing pressure for change that is driven by the contrasting and competing views of a plethora of both state and non-state actors that are claiming a bigger or an alternative say in what should be the structure of international order. The pressure for change in GPM is thus further compounded by these once peripheral actors—both state and non-state—who, in the post-Cold War period, have found new means and capabilities to engage in valid, civil and nonviolent contestation as well as in violent or uncivil4 contestation, thus fundamentally impacting the shape of international security challenges (Buzan 2004a). The end of the Cold War brought about significant transformational changes in international society that impacted the norms of GPM. However, these changes in the power structure were not followed by a complete re-formulation and organization of the states’ understandings about norms of GPM. Hence, we are still in the midst of what is an ongoing period of normative contestation, change, rearrangement and

3 Specific rules of the balance of power as applied by states have greatly varied over time. However, the general norm of a balance of power, understood as institutionalized patterns of behaviour in which states (mainly great powers) counterbalance each other in order to avoid the rise of a hegemon capable of dominating the international system alone, has persisted over time. 4 The term ‘uncivil’ here is used to allude to the larger discussion around civil and uncivil societies and actors. Buzan defines uncivil society as the ‘dark side of the non-state world represented by the various kinds of organized extremists and criminals’ BUZAN, B. 2004. “Civil” and “Uncivil” in World Society. In: GUZZINI, S. & JUNG, D. (eds.) Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research. London: Routledge. For an in-depth discussion of this concept, its importance and impact for the global international society and usefulness to English School thinking, see ibid., ACHARYA, A. & BUZAN, B. 2019. The making of Global International Relations: Origins and evolution of IR at its centenary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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uncertainty. This reflects a case of non-linear change in a primary institution of international society. This is because at least some of the changes that are being constructed are also directly related to broader social and material changes that had occurred by the end of the Cold War but whose social meaning has not yet fully consolidated and/or been institutionalized in interstate society, as they are still widely contested. Consequently, the role of contestation as a driver for normative change and its relationship with the resilience of GPM can only be fully understood if it is studied as being embedded in both an incomplete normative structure and an ongoing (broader) cycle of change and contestation rather than as a radical revolution in international society. The First Moment of Contestation: GPM and the Ending of the Cold War The first significant moment of contestation and change in GPM occurred with the end of the Cold War and the critical transformational change that the social reality of interstate society underwent with its termination. While primary institutions tend to be both resistant to change and possess normative resources for accommodating a certain amount of contestation and change (Kawaguchi 2003; Mayall 1990; Lasmar et al. 2015), the demise of a superpower represented a drastic transformation in the international environment and one that could not simply be absorbed by the mere re-interpretation and application of existing norms of great power management. Additionally, the opening of the international agenda and the growing importance of regional and non-state actors brought increasing diversity and complexity to international society. Inevitably, this diversity caused contestation which in turn became a strong driver for significant change in great power management and deeply impacted the existing ‘structure of shared knowledge’ about the balance of power (Wendt 1995, 80). The transformational power wrought by the changes and contestations outlined above was so significant that it created a misalignment between the old norms and functions of the primary institution on the one hand and the new social reality that emerged on the other. This misalignment between social reality and old norms impacted unevenly the primary institutions of international society, and in this process, it diminished the capacity of great power management to mediate reality. This is because there was a significant degree of normative tension between

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the social structure in formation and the values and norms of GPM existent during the Cold War, creating an acute ‘normative sensitivity’ in the primary institution. This normative sensitivity denotes that GPM became especially prone to normative changes. As a result, the high degree of functional and normative tension between the norms of a primary institution formed during the Cold War and the post-Cold War social structure reflected that the institutions’ norms and values were misaligned with the new social reality, putting them under pressure to adapt. Yet at the same time, new norms were—and continue to be—constructed as states in international society interact and attempt to adapt to the new social reality. Since the end of the Cold War, states have been trying to make sense of the new social reality and also engaging in a series of unfinished efforts to attempt to shape and introduce into interstate society a new normative structure of great power management. Prior to the Global War on Terror (GWoT), these attempts, in most part, were aimed at institutionalizing a new structure of great power management that would be informed by notions of liberal democracy, democratic peace, economic liberalization and human rights, and which would also be compatible with what was essentially a consolidating social structure of friends/rivals that was increasingly embedded in such liberal ideals. Some authors, for instance, see the United States’ ‘hard work to win the UN’s support for the 1990– 1 Gulf War’ as an example of precisely such an attempt (Colás and Saull 2006, 38). It was believed at the time that the US efforts to guarantee a collective acceptance of the intervention represented not only the emergence of a ‘new world order’ and an important step in redefining the US role in interstate society, but also demonstrated the formation of new norms regarding great power cooperation and collective security (Cox 2005, 132). In other words, while the United States did not abandon traditional GPM, it did attempt to frame it in a more liberal-capitalist frame. It was this reframing that was contested by other great powers, especially illiberal ones such as Russia and China, leading to some degree of great power rivalry that existed in parallel with GPM. Another example of an attempt to institutionalize changes in the overall structure of GIS came in the 1990 Paris Charter, which paved the way for the creation of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The Charter claimed to come ‘at a time of profound change and historical expectations’, heralding a ‘new era of democracy, peace and unity’ guided by ‘human rights, democracy and the rule of law’,

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hence liberating Europe ‘from the legacy of the past’ (1990, 1). Similar attempts to institutionalize a new structure of great power management can also be seen in the new humanitarian claims advanced throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in documents such as ‘An Agenda for Peace’ (and the subsequent ‘Supplement for An Agenda for Peace’, both from 1992) and the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (2001). According to Wheeler and Bellamy, these documents illustrate that ‘there was a significant shift of attitudes’ regarding humanitarian issues during the 1990s ‘especially within liberal democratic states, which led the way in pressing new humanitarian claims in international society’ (Wheeler and Bellamy 2005, 556). These shifts of attitudes are relevant for GPM as they demonstrate how the primary institution of war also gradually continued to narrow the socially acceptable uses of war to become increasingly compatible with what was essentially a post-Cold War transition to a liberal democratic and capitalist world order. Even initiatives ostensibly addressing other concerns, such as the 1992 ‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’ or organized and institutionalized contestations from the Global South such as those of G20 and BRICS reflected the post-Cold War ambition to move towards a social structure informed by principles of cooperation, liberal peace and multilateralism. These efforts sought to adapt the existing international norms with what was essentially a post-Cold War transition to a capitalist world order. The transformation in social reality and the consequent misalignment of this new social reality with the pre-existing debates and normative content of great power management contributed towards a growing contestation of a Western-centric order thus initiating what came to be an implicit phase of re-socialization amongst states in the post-Cold War period. This resocialization sought to address and correct the misalignment that had emerged with the demise of the bipolar world order. As a result, with the end of the Cold War, the GPM debate shifted in large part from avoiding the possibility of a general war amongst great powers towards one that was increasingly about making the institution compatible with what was essentially a transition to a GIS seemingly based on liberal democratic norms and capitalism.

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The Second Moment of Contestation: GPM and the GWoT The processes outlined above were largely swept away by the Global War on Terror. In this second moment, one can map three ‘sources’ of contestation that together resulted in important changes in GPM. The first was the violent contestation of international order by Al Qaeda and its nebula. The group’s actions and discourse—and to some degree the great powers’ own response and framing of the threat (Singh 2010)—contested the very basis of international liberal order. This is relevant because this contestation originated outside interstate society but became relevant enough to be framed as threat to the very foundations of international society. This framing led to changes in great power management to include non-state threats as well as to incorporate mechanisms within GPM to respond to such threats. The second, more subtle, source of contestation came from the United States itself. This is because at one level—that of the social structure formed between states and transnational terrorist groups—the policies and actions put into place under the GWoT conveyed a very clear and direct message about its objective: to defeat transnational terrorism. However, at the interstate level, these GWoT-related practices figure as a subtle contestation that took the form of a ‘bargaining bid’ in the process of organizing the social meaning of polarity and great power management amongst states. The practices and policies under the GWoT thus underlined the United States’ identity as a superpower and demonstrated how it was prepared to act as such. Consequently, the GWoT served as a mechanism to communicate this understanding to interstate society. In this context, what made such communication persuasive to many states was the commitment created by the policies and securitization discourse of the GWoT that together served to dramatically raise the political costs of behaving in any other way. The GWoT projected and communicated the intentions and roles devised by the sole superpower to other states in GIS. The militarized and unilateralist operationalization of the GWoT clearly communicated that there was a de facto disparity in the powers and role of a superpower, the great powers, the regional powers and the remaining states in international society. It also informed interstate society that while the superpower was prepared to enforce multilateral norms and institutions upon other states, it was more than willing to reject them in its turn whenever it deemed it necessary to do so. The GWoT also clearly

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demonstrated that the sole superpower was both willing and able to act towards the calculation/coercion (rather than belief; see Wendt 1999 and Buzan 2004b) end of the spectrum as and when it saw fit. Acts such as the unauthorized military intervention in Iraq under the banner of the GWoT—when there was absolutely no evidence of a connection between al Qaeda and the government of Saddam Hussein—lead one to conclude that these were addressed more towards the states of international society rather than towards terrorist organizations. The intervention served to inform interstate society that the superpower would shift from a position of leadership towards more aggressive and unilateralist behaviour to secure its own interests as and when the need arose. The same can be said, for instance, in the case of the contrasting post-9/11 counter-terrorism cultures in Europe and the United States: The US chose to frame the GWoT under the military rubric of counter-terrorism in sharp contrast to the traditional police rubric that has been historically adopted by the other great powers (Rees and Aldrich 2005). The option of adopting military actions against transnational threats reaffirmed the capacity of the sole superpower to act on a global scale. This was especially significant when considering that traditional police actions tend to be more geographically constrained by jurisdictions and state-centric rules. Additionally, while part of the GWoT discourse was certainly one of deterrence (i.e. to discourage any potential terrorist attacks by the threat/fear of retaliation), its proactive military operationalization makes clear that it was also an active policy intended to affirm and communicate specific values, identities and roles. Thus, amidst the long-standing record of US unilateral actions—and within an environment of imperfect consolidation, contestation and re-socialization of great power management norms—the GWoT emerged as an attempt to bid for a specific normative design of great power management. In fact, according to Dunne, ‘[A] key characteristic of the post-9/11 order is the absence of effective countervailing institutions against the hyperpower: a situation exacerbated by the fact that maintaining such an imbalance has become a goal of US grand strategy’ (2003, 315). Thus, the GWoT may be seen as a contestation bid by the superpower to overcome the opposition of other states and also to seek an exemption from following the norms and rules of primary institutions of international society. Consequently, the GWoT exerted a symbolic and psychological impact over international society by attempts at institutionalizing such behaviour, thus further raising the threshold of what is acceptable superpower conduct within an interstate

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social structure of rivals/friends. These actions then also constructed a harsher understanding of unipolarity in an interstate society of friends and rivals. However, other states became a third source of contestation within the GWoT as they significantly questioned US actions. More importantly, this third source of contestation appeared sufficient to reshape the GWoT in 2006 not just to appear less unilateral but also attempt to improve both transatlantic relations and the image of American leadership around the world. Paradoxically, this change could be understood as producing resilience as it led to less full-blown resistance to the implementation of the American vision of GPM. Even as the vigorous contestation discourses voiced by various states tended to be merely rhetorical, the lack of hard balancing or any further concerted opposition to the GWoT combined with the widespread acceptance of the liberal social structure of friends/rivals indicated that there was an ongoing organization of new identities and behaviours. These new identities and behaviours were informed by a steeper differentiation between the superpower, great powers and other states. In fact, the policies and practices of states in this period reflected the de facto acceptance of a more complex hierarchical chain of identities within the institution of great power management. In this new normative arrangement, the GWoT tried to affirm that there was no space to doubt that the superpower, great powers, regional powers and other states had markedly different roles and responsibilities within interstate society. As such, against the backdrop of the crisis of meaning outlined above, the events triggered by the 9/11 attacks presented great power management with a series of problems that could not really be addressed by the existing norms of great power management (balance of power, traditional war amongst great powers, etc.); neither could the uncivil non-state perpetrators be addressed within the consolidating post-Cold War social structure of friends/rivals. Thus, the GWoT highlighted the emergence of a new environment where globalization facilitated interstate cooperation and paved the way towards new vulnerabilities and threats. Such threats were created by the states’ perceptions that transnational processes increasingly impact international society (as does their contestation), as well as by the subsequent implementation of state policies that were specifically designed to respond to these very processes. In addition, the development of social and material technologies served to enhance the awareness that states are increasingly more vulnerable to

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a series of interlinked threats and crises. The states’ vulnerability to these threats and crises is in large part due to the eminently state-centric character of both the normative and operational processes of the institutions of interstate society. States are therefore normatively ill-equipped to deal with processes of transnational violence, but the increased complexity and reach of transnational processes and the politics designed to respond to them also served to inject a greater degree of uncertainty and contestation into international politics. The Third Moment of Contestation: GPM Post-GWoT and the Advent of Global International Society As the macro-securitization of the GWoT waned, these processes transitioned into a third moment of contestation pressuring for new changes in GPM and challenging its normative resilience. The re-emergence of both state and non-state actors as alternative ‘centres of wealth, power and cultural authority’ (Buzan and Acharya 2022) adds to the unfolding events and contributes to even further contestation of the prevailing Western-centric norms of GPM. In fact, as Buzan and Acharya note, ‘[T]he period of Western dominance is now coming to an end, and the fabric of the winner’s story of IR is wearing thin not only around the edges but in the middle’ (Buzan and Acharya 2022). Put differently, US hegemony is not just being challenged in the global periphery but also being disputed at its core due to rival interpretations of fundamental institutions. This is a very important point as the newfound diversity of values and worldviews directly questions how GPM is managed, while also pushing for changes in the institution to incorporate contestation and diversity as elements of GPM. At the very least, there seems to be a growing perception that contestation, by rising alternative centres of authority, can cause a shift in the balance of power. As Buzan and Acharya observe: In many places, that new wealth and power, and recovered cultural authority, are already significant enough to pose military, economic, legal, social, and political challenges to the West. In addition, they are widely linked to a still strongly felt postcolonial resentment. (Buzan and Acharya 2022)

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Consequently, by framing contestation as a threat, this perception has the potential to become a significant driver for structural change. A clear example of how GPM is shifting towards an understanding of diversity and contestation as a threat is NATO’s shifting focus to view China as a ‘global security challenge’ which was explicitly stated in the report ‘NATO 2030: United for a New Era’ (NATO 2020). Undoubtedly, one can argue that it is China’s material rise and the consequent possible shift in the global balance of power that is seen as the threat. However, it is China’s contestation of the so-called liberal international order and the fact that it presents another competing view of international order that introduces new pressures for change in GPM. In fact, in a communiqué issued by the heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels on 14 June 2021, they outline that ‘China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security’. China’s non-Western view of GPM and how its instruments should be applied contest some of the normative foundations the institution is built upon, even if in many aspects it supports elements of the existing international order. One example is the concept of the ‘use and incorporation of power through language’ (huayuquan). This is a complex concept that is difficult to translate, but it starts from the idea that competition between great powers does not only occur at the military, economic and political levels, but also focuses on soft-power aspects such as social systems, values, ideas and ideologies and culture (Rolland, 2020). In this way, the dominance of Western discourses and narratives can largely be felt in the production, definition and control of values, agenda, content, norms and international standards present in international organizations. According to the idea of hyayuquan, ‘the reason for the dominance of Western discourse is not ‘its truth’, but the absolute political, economic, cultural, military, diplomatic power that supports it’ (Rolland 2020, 11). Thus, China contests some of the current, US-backed interpretations of GPM as it understands that there is a deficit between the reach of China’s narrative, concepts, ways of understanding and the current normative architecture of both primary and secondary institutions. For China, contesting—and eventually overcoming—this disparity, especially in international organizations of an economic and technological nature, should be an essential part of an updated form of great power management.

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Another example of Chinese contestation is the Chinese understanding of warfare which connects non-warfare engagements with those of war. This understanding can be seen in the so-called three warfares strategy, which is very influential in Chinese strategic thinking (Lee 2014). According to this view, current military thinking should emphasize the unconventional aspects of warfare, in particular psychological warfare, public opinion warfare and legal warfare (i.e. lawfare) (Lee 2014). The perspective of the ‘three warfares’ was greatly influenced by the work ‘Unrestricted Warfare’, in which Liang and Xiangsui (1999) argued that war should no longer be restricted to the battlefield. The fusion of military strategic concepts with civilian sectors blurs the distinction between war and peace and pressures GPM to incorporate norms and processes of global governance into its processes. An additional Chinese strategic concept illustrates this point well: that of ‘militarycivilian fusion’. Military-civilian integration has been a component of Chinese policy since Mao Zedong but has explicitly become a national military strategy under President Xi Jinping (Soufan 2020). This strategy involves the transfer of knowledge and technologies, including dual-use technologies, with the private sector and academia in key areas such as artificial intelligence, aerospace technology, satellites, robotics, quantum computing, semiconductors, automation systems and advanced nuclear technologies. This sharing of resources and knowledge aims to advance the capabilities of civilian sectors to develop Chinese economic, military and technological power which corresponds to its strategic plans to develop cutting-edge armed forces by 2049 (Soufan 2020). One of the consequences of contesting the clear boundaries between war and peace is the need for a more selective GPM capable of engaging in a game of adaptive geopolitics in which the competition amongst powers also takes place in common domains through contesting systems, supply chains, communication networks, information flows and even global investment. In other words, rather than contesting GPM at a general global bloc level, China proposes a new type of GPM—one that is grounded in multi-centric systems and flows. Thus, the very contestation of the traditional GPM by China might be key to increasing GPM’s resilience. This is because the resilience of GPM will be closely related to its ability to change to incorporate both elements of global governance as well as to deal with an increasing differentiation within international society. This would be a significant transformation of GPM as great powers would manage a

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global international society (in)formed by co-existing different international orders, including the liberal international order along with other competing or emerging international orders (Flockhart, 2016). At the same time, I argue that there would be a significant increase in resilience as the institution of GPM would expand its cognitive borders offering new elements of identity and increasing its capacity to mediate reality. The pressure for GPM to expand its processes, incorporate instruments of global governance and deal with increasing differentiation has been further compounded by the recent Covid-19 crisis as it hastened security processes and dynamics that were already in place concerning the transformation of global international society (Buzan 2020). There is an increasing perception that global risk is expanding to include multiple, diffused and unprecedented threats, each generating a greater number of unknowns and disruptions in the system (Lasmar and Santa Rita 2020; Lasmar 2021). The risk environment of these new global crises also reveals vulnerabilities that can be discreetly exploited in hybrid warfare engagements to adversely impact rivals and cause systemic disruptions capable of undermining trust in social and governmental institutions— all without the employment of conventional military force. Thus, both second-tier powers and uncivil non-state actors attain the capacity to contest the international order through selective disruptive and strike capabilities which should be considered within GPM practices. This new risk environment further blurs the civil-military nexus and impacts the GPM process even more. Thus, key functional requisites, practices and norms of GPM have been increasingly contested. Western states are beginning to recognize that these threats and uncivil processes cannot be permanently defeated but that their effects need to be managed. Within this scenario, the perception that the management of these threats within a more complex and diverse social reality, in addition to the management of traditional interstate violence, is a crucial part of the role of great powers is one that is increasingly gaining ground. The Fourth Moment of Contestation: GPM and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can be seen as a fourth moment of contestation. To understand fully how this invasion impacts the institution of GPM, one must address the increasingly narrowing acceptance of territorial wars of aggression since the end of the Cold War. The progressive

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growth of a global international society has unquestionably brought about steady changes in the how GPM has been operationalized. At the core of these normative changes lies the gradual transformation in the collective representations of violence. As the liberal order came to be consolidated in international society, states increasingly narrowed the socially accepted uses of territorial wars or war of aggression—as the reaction of the Security Council to the Iraqi military invasion of Kuwait in 1990 illustrates. In short, while the operationalization of war amongst great powers after the Cold War has become progressively less constrained by the balance of power per se, it has been increasingly more constrained by the degree to which it is accepted by interstate society as a whole. In other words, legitimacy (i.e. complying with the legitimate uses of war) has become— at least nominally—ever more significant as a constraint for the use of war in the post-Cold War period (Freedman 1998, 39). In this context, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine came as a shock to the Western world and was interpreted as a direct contestation to the Western liberal order and its instruments of GPM. The invasion can therefore be understood as a violent contestation of the liberal order as Russia attempts to revert the role of military force and warfare within GPM to more traditional forms. While both the institutionalization of liberal values and the consolidation of a social structure of friends/rivals have continued after the Cold War, the invasion of Ukraine has emerged as a determinant factor working against the tendency of narrowing the accepted uses of interstate war. There is hardly any doubt that the behaviour of Russia reasserted the traditional primacy of military actions and brings warfare back to the top of GPM’s agenda. The invasion, thus, clearly signalled that Russia still believes in the capacity of war to mediate extant power patterns and its explicit use of military violence to do so, which in turn impacts the normative shaping of current GPM and interstate society’s shared representations of violence. However, it is important to note that Russia’s contestation does not question some elements of the existing international order and is more about a reversion than a transformation. Russia’s narrative of the invasion does attempt to portray its use of military violence as legitimate and consistent with international society’s GPM rules. That said, although this could be seen as an attempt to revive traditional GPM, it could come at a great cost if Western states choose to frame Russia and Vladimir Putin as a pariah. This raises the interesting scenario whereby just because some states may attempt to buttress the resilience of an institution, it does not necessarily mean that the attempt

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will be successful. This is because even when transformations occur in the behaviour, expectation, values or consciousness of individual key actors, shared norms and values change only if such transformations are expressed or accepted outwardly by enough other actors. Thus, and most crucially, shifts in the shared values and norms of GPM will occur only if there is a general acceptance of the new interpretation or application of given values and norms. In other words, Russia’s attempts to revive traditional GPM will only be successful if there is a wider acceptance of this attempt by other individual key actors. Also, there are implicit contestations embedded in how states responded to the invasion. The prompt widespread condemnation of the war left clear that most states do not share the understanding that wars of aggression are legitimate and consistent with international society’s norms. But most interestingly, Europe, the United States and their allies’ decision to respond to the invasion through financial and trade sanctions rather than through military violence confers a new symbolic meaning upon GPM. This decision reinforces that not only specific forms and uses of global governance tools are becoming instruments of GPM but also their use is being framed as socially compliant, necessary to counter interstate violence and essential to enforce law and order in interstate society while at the same time rejecting the use of military violence to do so. The major impact of the sanctions is not that of the technical innovations or the scale in its use. Rather, its most important aspect is probably that these sanctions allow GPM to employ tools carefully crafted to be both socially acceptable and compatible with a liberal order. It is important to note that this novel symbolic meaning is mostly conferred upon newly framed processes rather than upon the traditional processes of this institution. Therefore, the institutional function of GPM remains the same but incorporates new processes and means as a way to increase its resilience. The broader reaction to the invasion also exposes that we, in fact, live in a more fragmented, multi-ordered world (Flockhart 2016; Acharya and Buzan 2010). It also suggests that GPM is under pressure to change and align to this new reality if it is to increase its resilience. Even the reluctance by China, India and various other states to condemn the invasion of Ukraine can be seen as a form of contestation. These states are careful not to question the broader power principles of the existing world order, but their practices—and sometimes even their discourses as seen in the case of the agreement drawn up by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics—lay out how they think GPM should

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develop while also contesting some GPM norms. One example concerns how sanctions have been progressively implemented as a tool of GPM in the last few years. Thus, the Western response to the events in Ukraine may also unintentionally accelerate the construction and strengthening of alternative systems and centres of authority pushing for new norms of GPM more aligned with a multi-order world.

Conclusion Even though the primary institution of great power management continues to be about how great powers manage peace and security issues in international society, new norms and understandings had to be created in the wake of the Cold War to account for shifts brought about by both the end of bipolarity and the increasing differentiation that ensued in international society. Thus, the concerns of the great power management debate changed, as the social context of security issues shifted dramatically, and new alternative centres of authority wrought an increasing contestation of the Western international order. These contestations, in turn, have become drivers for the questioning and consolidation of new norms and understandings of GPM. Thus, the post-Cold War normative understanding of great power management seems to be undergoing deep changes, representing a transformation of the old structure of shared knowledge resulting from a growing misalignment between competing and contesting expectations, understandings and worldviews about the security structure of global international society. It seems safe to say that these new collective institutional norms and values are still being (re)shaped through the conflicts and negotiations of individual interests that emerge during the interaction amongst great powers and contesting centres of authority—both state and non-state. Although the various and diverse interests and world views do not precisely coincide—there is contestation after all—the meaning of great power management is still constructed through consolidated patterns of behaviour: through the consolidation of direct interactions between all parties concerned. In this sense, there is a certain agreement that there is a need for great power management to incorporate processes and mechanisms capable of dealing—both collectively and against each other—with an increasing array of transnational violence, hybrid threats, non-state identities, as well as account for a new more differentiated, complex and pluralist social structure.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the American and European opposition through sanctions, as well as China’s friendly alignment with Russia while attempting to construct alternative centres of authority, all highlight that the existing order and norms of GPM are not fully shared by all. The combined impact of these different contestations on some of the GPM norms suggests that the primary institution itself is undergoing a strong pressure to change its normative architecture. Not only are the shared understandings about GPM being re-negotiated by the current interaction, contestation and practices of states, but the direction of change and its exact meaning for the institution’s resilience remain unclear. Consequently, given that the invasion of Ukraine marks a crucial change in a great power’s behaviour and also opens space for further contestation, it represents a critical turning point in this ongoing process of consolidating new representations of GPM after the Cold War. Lastly, as Buzan and Acharya aptly put it, ‘[C]apitalism won the Cold War, not liberal democracy’ (Buzan and Acharya 2022). In short, the post-Cold War period provides perhaps an unprecedented space for diversity in global international society that an unrelenting focus on liberal democracy misses. The global international society is therefore not homogeneous but rather a colourful patchwork of heterogeneous cultural and ideological contexts. This diversity is healthy. Primary institutions can accommodate simultaneous, multiple normative solutions for mediating the same social fact (Lasmar et al. 2015; Kawaguchi 2003) without losing their normative identity. Hence, although this chapter has argued that violent forms of contestation have been seen as threats by some states and have thus become drivers for change in GPM, it is important to note that—as the editors of this book emphasize—non-violent contestation and a diversity of ideas, identities and culture are also essential components for achieving resilient primary institutions.

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Butterfield, H. 1966. “The Balance of Power.” In: Butterfield, H. & Wight, M. (eds.) Diplomatic investigations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Buzan, B. 2004a. “Civil” and “Uncivil” in world Society. In: Guzzini, S. & Jung, D. (eds.) Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research. London: Routledge. Buzan, B. 2004b. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Buzan, B. 2020. “The Transformation of Global International Society and the Security Agenda: Interview with Professor Barry Buzan.” Security & Defence Quarterly, 30, 7–12. Buzan, B. & Acharya, A. 2022. Re-Imaging International Relations: World Orders in the Thought and Practice of Indian, Chinese, and Islamic Civilizations. Cambridge University Press. Colás, A. & Saull, R. (eds.) 2006. The War on Terror and the American ‘Empire’ After the Cold War New York: Routledge. Cox, M. 2005. From the Cold War to the War on Terror. In: Baylis, J. & Smith, S. (eds.) The Globalization of World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dunne, T. 2003. “Society and Hierarchy in International Relations.” International Relations, 17, 303–320. Flockhart, T. 2016. “The coming multi-order world.” Contemporary Security Policy, 37, 3–30. Freedman, L. 1998. “The Changing Forms of Military Conflict.” Survival, 40, 39–56. Kawaguchi, K. H. 2003. A Social Theory of International Law: International Relations as a Complex System, Boston, Martinius Nijhoff Publishers. Lasmar, J. 2021. “The New Global Risk Environment and the Increasingly Complex Civil-Military Nexus: New Rules, Vulnerabilities and Roles.” In: Stiftung, K. A. (ed.) Does No War Mean Peace? International Security Strategies in a New Geopolitical World Order—Policy Papers. Rio de Janeiro: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Available at https://cebri.org/media/ documentos/arquivos/XVIIIForte-KAS-CEBRI-UE-ausenc.pdf. Lasmar, J. & Santa Rita, L. C. A. 2020. “Coronavirus, Global Risk and The New International Crisis Management Model.” Conjuntura Internacional, 17 (2), 47–61. Available at http://periodicos.pucminas.br/index.php/conjun tura/article/view/23625/17965. Lasmar, J. M. 2015. “A legislação brasileira de combate e prevenção do terrorismo quatorze anos após 11 de Setembro: Limites, falhas e reflexões para o futuro.” Revista de Sociologia e Política, 23, 47–70. Lasmar, J. M., Zahreddine, D. & Lage, D. A. G. 2015. “Understanding regional and global diffusion in international law: The case for a non-monolithic approach to institutions.” Global Discourse, 5, 470–496.

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CHAPTER 9

War—Still an Institution of International Society? Amelie Theussen

War has always been included as one of the primary institutions of international society in English School thinking.1 While this might seem counterintuitive at first sight—war after all involves opposing goals by the adversaries in question and the practices associated with war cause substantial death and destruction—the management of violence is a key function for any political order (see e.g. Fukuyama 2014, 583; Kalyvas et al. 2008, 1). Managing violence in a political order means making the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate forms of violence, which is necessary to achieve one of Bull’s elementary goals (Bull 1977, 4–6), namely to provide security from (unnecessary) violence. War and the international order are closely intertwined: war can serve both to maintain and to destroy order. Kalyvas et al. put it succinctly: ‘violence is employed both by those who wish to upend an existing order 1 An institution was famously defined by Bull as a particular ‘set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’ (Bull 1977, 71).

A. Theussen (B) Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_9

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and by those who want to sustain it’ (Kalyvas et al. 2008, 1). As Bull argues, ‘[w]ar and the threat of war are not the only determinants of the shape of the international system; but they are so basic that even the terms we use to describe the system—great powers and small powers, alliances and spheres of influence, balances of power and hegemony—are scarcely intelligible except in the relation to war and the threat of war’ (1977, 181). As evidenced by history, war is disorder, threatening the destruction of international society into world wars; but war is also an instrument of policy, in line with a Clausewitzian understanding, serving international society to enforce its rules and maintain the balance of power. In the latter function, war as an institution of international society can for example take the form of agreed limits on the use of force, or an acceptance that using war can be a legitimate way to reach certain specific goals. War has thus always been characterized by a tension between its nature as a threat to the order and an instrument to maintain said order. This tension is reflected in today’s international order, where the right to go to war is highly limited and the means, methods and actors in war are subject to substantial restrictions—but nevertheless war is not completely abolished. The goal of this chapter is to understand whether war still serves as an institution of global international society (GIS) in the twenty-first century. It uses the three key concepts of this book—change, contestation and resilience—to assess how war has developed and what this means for its effect on international order. War has been subject to fundamental changes in purpose, actors, means and methods since the end of the Cold War. Notwithstanding the war in Ukraine, inter-state war has become rare, while the use of organized violence by a variety of non-state actors or combinations of non-state and state actors has increased (Mann 2018). Most wars in the twenty-first century are not fought by state actors resembling each other; instead, disparate groupings, such as combinations of state and a broad variety of non-state actors, fight with armed violence that does not resemble the (often ideal–typical) idea of inter-state warfare of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, considering the ongoing great power competition between the United States and China, as well as Russia’s pursuit of great power status and the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, major inter-state war might well return in the nottoo-distant future—its demise should certainly not be taken for granted. The contestations of war that result from these changes, however, do not only occur between adversaries but also between allies, as the subsequent sections of this chapter will show.

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This chapter starts with the question of what war is and whether war in the past in fact served as a resilient institution of international society. It then investigates how war and its role for international order have changed over the course of the last decades. It zooms in on three diverging tendencies: the outlawing of war as a legitimate political tool, leading to its obsolescence; the de-institutionalization of war through a variety of new and traditional actors, means and methods of war; and the re-institutionalization of war for the maintenance of order in accordance with norms and rules. This chapter unpacks the contestations surrounding war and its underlying principles in the contemporary VUCA [volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous] world (Burrows and Gnad 2018). While the changes and contestations investigated in this chapter diminish the function of war as an institution of international society, it also allows for a critical discussion of the function of war in GIS today. This serves as an entrance point to the final section, which looks to the future. It asks whether war in the twenty-first century is—or indeed even can be—‘fit for purpose’ as an institution of GIS. As Searle points out ‘each use of the institution is a renewed expression of the commitment of the users to the institution’ (Searle 1995, 57). The problem with war is that, due to its inherent internal tension, this might either serve to stabilize international order or destroy it. Currently, it seems that the use of war is mostly doing the latter, but as this chapter will argue the tension can yet be balanced again.

War in the Past: A Resilient Institution of International Society? Three fundamental questions stand out at the beginning of an investigation into whether war has been—and can be—a resilient institution in contemporary international society. First, what is war? Second, what is an international society? Or maybe more precisely, who makes up an international society? And third, what makes an institution resilient? While the latter two of these questions are also addressed in other parts of this volume, these questions are interconnected and answering them is crucial for the remainder of the argument in this chapter. For Bull, war is ‘organized violence carried on [sic] by political units against each other’ (1977, 178). He then goes on to distinguish war in the loose sense, where the violence is carried out by any kind of political unit, from war in the strict sense which only can be waged by states.

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Only the latter is seen as legitimate in the international system, because of states’ monopoly of violence. This stems from another distinction, namely that of public versus private war. The former describes war waged by appropriate state authority, while the latter lacked such authority and was thus restricted and prohibited. Bull also distinguishes between war in the material sense and war in the legal sense. The former refers to the existence of actual hostilities, the use of armed force; whereas the latter only applies if certain legal criteria have been fulfilled, such as a declaration of war or in the space of time between the end of actual hostilities and the entry into force of a peace treaty. And finally, he argues one should distinguish ‘war as a rational, intelligent or purposive activity, from war which is blind, impulsive or habitual’ (Bull 1977, 180). While these distinctions are clear—and appear in variations elsewhere (for example Dinstein 2011, 9–10)—it is less clear from Bull’s writings how these distinctions matter for the question of whether and when war serves as an institution of international society. It is important to note that what Bull refers to as war in the legal sense has changed somewhat. In fact, the word ‘war’ does not appear in any of the legal norms regulating the use of armed force. During the drafting process of the Geneva Conventions, the decision was made to refer to ‘armed conflict’ instead of ‘war’. War could be taken to refer only to armed violence between states, much like Bull’s understanding of war in the strict sense or Oppenheim’s classic definition of the war as ‘contention between two or more states’ (1906, 56). Or it could be seen to require an official declaration of war, or some other recognition of the state of war, allowing states to avoid their obligations by arguing that a state of war did not exist and thus they were not bound by the rules and norms related to it (Ferraro and Cameron 2016, 73ff). Nevertheless, in public discourse the terms are often used interchangeably. Turning to the second question, and again using Bull’s view as a starting point, mere interaction in the form of war does not constitute an international society between the actors involved. For said war to take place within a society in Bull’s understanding, there needs to be ‘a sense of common interests or values’ and common ‘rules which lay down how the interaction should proceed’ (1977, 14). For war to be a fundamental institution, this would require conventions and rules regulating the use of force, as well as an overarching shared goal of peace. This goal of peace for Bull means that the absence of war is the normal state of affairs between

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states, ‘to be breached only in special circumstance and according to principles that are generally accepted’ (1977, 17). He subordinates the goal of peace to the preservation of the state system; thus, it can be necessary and ‘right’ to wage war for the preservation of international order and for the survival and sovereignty of states. There are, then, certain acceptable—or perhaps ‘just’—reasons to go to war, and certain limits to what is permissible in the ensuing war. Bull also considers that war can be regarded as positive when it is fought ‘in order to bring about just change’ (1977, 183), even though he agrees that this raises a number of difficult questions. In his analysis of war as an institution of international society, Bull addresses the decreasing utility of inter-state war and a growing perception that war can no longer fulfil a positive role but instead needs to be restricted and limited in its destructive effect. This is due particularly to the advent of nuclear weapons, mutually assured destruction and deterrence. He also notes the rise of what he calls ‘war waged by political units other than states’ that challenges the state monopoly of violence and lies outside of the rules and principles that bind states (Bull 1977, 192). The question that one can ask is whether war ever was properly an institution of international society? From Bull’s description above, it seems only its stylized inter-state version had a positive role to play for international society, contributing to the maintenance or restoration of order, or the achievement of justice. Could it be that only war in the strict sense has ever truly been an institution, in the sense that it serves to uphold common goals, while the other types of war have always served to undermine order? Some prominent scholars disagree even with this limited view of only interstate war serving as an institution of international society. Mayall states that the ‘attempt to remove war from the arsenal of foreign policy instruments was originally a reflection of the liberal democratic revulsion against the doctrines of power politics that were held responsible for the First World War and Fascist expansionism’ (2000a, 71). War came to be seen as the breakdown of international society, not its functioning (Mayall 2000b, 19). Buzan notes that war became increasingly problematic as an institution, not because of nuclear weapons as Bull points out, but because it became ‘increasingly incompatible with solidarist projects such as big science or the institutionalization of the market’ (Buzan 2004, 196). In this vein, a cooperative society pursuing particular solidarist project(s) could abolish war completely (ibid., 193).

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Holsti (2004) argues that war’s role has decayed as it became increasingly seen as destructive to order, causing the breakdown of international society and not ensuring its survival. For him, war is a procedural institution, where the difference between foundational and procedural institutions lies in the fact that the latter can disappear without impacting the former. Yet, Holsti in fact paints a rather complicated picture of the role of war for international order. He identifies three contradicting processes over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first century: ‘the obsolescence of war’ where war has disappeared as a possible course of action in certain regions of the world, for example in the EU; ‘the re-institutionalization of war’ through patterned actions of distinction, precision, and monitoring and rebuilding activities; and war’s ‘continued de-institutionalization’ in those cases of armed conflict where there is no regard for the laws of war and little pattern or justification to the use of armed force (Holsti 2004, 299). Whether one agrees with his assessment of war as a procedural institution—as Buzan argues, ‘there are compelling arguments that both [war and trade] have major effects on the constitution and behavior of states’ (Buzan 2004, 180; see also Tilly 1990)—Holsti makes a point that is still valid today: war plays a complicated role for international order, and whether it serves as an institution to stabilize and uphold order or as a catalyst for disorder depends on the type of armed violence, the actors employing it, as well as its purpose. Put in Buzan’s terms, the important distinction is whether the change is one in or of international society’s institutions (2004, 182). Has war changed but nevertheless retained its ordering function? Or has war changed so dramatically that it no longer serves as an institution of international society altogether? The idea of resilience will help to assess whether the changing character of war is a sign of ‘vigour and adaptation’ or one ‘of decline’ of its nature as an institution (Buzan 2004, 182). Resilience in this volume is understood as an agent-based practice of self-governance, adapting to a changing environment to ‘remain fit for purpose’ (Korosteleva and Flockhart 2021). This refers to an entity’s ability to retain its functionality—in that it continues to fulfil its purpose—despite changes occurring to the environment, taking into account reflections about the continued validity and relevance of its purpose. This includes at least two dimensions: on the one hand, an entity’s ability to suffer from disturbances and still return to its earlier state; and, on the other hand, the entity’s ability to adapt to absorb the effects of disturbances while maintaining its function (Ruhl 2011). This

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is confirmed by Bourbeau, who understands resilience as the ‘process of patterned adjustments adopted in the face of endogenous or exogenous shocks, to maintain, to marginally modify, or to transform a referent object’ (2018, 3). For this chapter, this means that war does not have to take on the same form as it did in previous periods. Since adaptation can occur to retain functionality and purpose, it is possible for the institution of war to change in response to endogenous and exogenous changes. War will be resilient as an institution if these adjustments are patterned and it continues to fulfil its purpose.

Change and Contestation: The ‘Expansion’ and ‘Globalization’ of War? This section uses Holsti’s three contrasting dynamics of war’s obsolescence, de-institutionalization and re-institutionalization to analyze the change and contestation of war as an institution of international society over the last three decades, in order to identify whether war is going through said patterned adjustments as evidence for its resilience as an institution of international society. The Outlawing of War and Its Obsolescence As part of the expansion of international society, where the international norms designed first and foremost by Western states have expanded their reach across the globe, war has become increasingly outlawed as an instrument of politics contributing to its obsolescence. Already in the aftermath of the First World War, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 attempted to eliminate war as an instrument of policy in international relations, only to be shattered on the battlefields of the Second World War. In the shadow of the horrors of two world wars, the international society of states agreed upon the principle of peaceful relations among them in the creation of the United Nations. War was no longer a legally permissible way for states to right wrongs done to them. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter contains a prohibition on the threat and use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. There are only two exceptions: armed force may be used in self-defence to an armed attack (Article 51); or if authorized by the Security Council to preserve or reestablish international peace and security, should peaceful measures have failed to do so (Articles 39 and 42). Already here a first problem becomes visible: the

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composition of the UN Security Council, the body tasked with authorizing the use of force, has remained unchanged since 1971, when the permanent seat previously occupied by the Republic of China (Taiwan) was taken by the People’s Republic of China. The body is often criticized for not reflecting the geopolitical realities of the international order today (CFR Staff 2021). Additionally, the competition between the world’s largest powers, the United States, China, and Russia—all three permanent members of the Security Council with veto power—has resulted in a blocked Security Council. This has left the Council unable to fulfil its core function to preserve or reestablish international peace and security in many recent conflicts, such as Syria and Ukraine (von Einsiedel et al. 2015). But the outlawing of war did not stop here. Also, certain means and methods of war were outlawed, in particular those causing ‘superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering’ (Additional Protocol I 1977, Article 35). The more states became members of the United Nations, the more these norms outlawing war spread; not just because an ever-growing number of states signed the UN Charter, but also because the Geneva Conventions gained more signatories and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions expanded the regulation of conduct in war. Additional international conventions were drafted and signed into law regulating specific means and methods of warfare, including but not limited to certain conventional weapons, anti-personnel landmines, laser, biological and chemical weapons and poison. Some of these rules date back to the nineteenth century (the Hague Declaration from 1899 and the origins of some of the rules later included in the Geneva Conventions), but some were added much more recently, for example the Convention on Cluster Munitions signed in 2008 (108 signatories) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons signed in 2017 (86 signatories). It is important to note that many of these rules—but not all of them, as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons clearly illustrates—also exist in customary law, and thus are binding on all states (with the exception of those states with persistent objector status), not just those who are signatories of the conventions. While this process of outlawing war has not eliminated war in its entirety from the international stage, it has made it obsolete as a legitimate tool for upholding international order except for the two narrow exceptions mentioned above: self-defence and Security Council authorization. Whether this narrowing of war happened because of the horrors of

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two world wars or the solidarist liberal economic project which Buzan focuses on, or both, the consequence is that arguing for or against the use of armed force with legal arguments has become the main way to assess the use of force’s legitimacy. In today’s rules-based global order, ‘there exists a perception that the legality of engaging in combat also establishes its morality, and vice versa; and that both legality and morality define the utility of force—regardless of the desired political outcome’ (Smith 2007, 386). A notable exception to this rule was the Independent International Commission’s conclusion on the NATO air campaign in Kosovo, declaring it as ‘illegal but legitimate’ (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 2000, 4). However, the amount of attention this conclusion and specific formulation received shows that these two notions are generally held to go hand in hand. To come back to Bull’s view on war introduced in the first section above, the UN Charter and international humanitarian law embody the common interests and rules regulating and limiting war as an institution of international society. The outlawing of war, together with the advent of nuclear weapons, has resulted in a sharp decline in inter-state warfare as the shared interests and rules expanded to become global. With states around the globe becoming UN members, war lost its usefulness as an instrument of policy as it no longer legitimately could be used as such. As Fazal argues, ‘[a]s the laws of war have grown in strength and number since the midtwentieth century, states have ceased engaging in formal interstate war; they have all but stopped issuing declarations of war and concluding peace treaties’ (Fazal 2018, 2). As the laws of war become more and more restrictive, states refrain from referring to their conflicts as wars, instead referring to counterterrorism, counterinsurgency or protection of civilians, or sowing doubt about involvement through secrecy, indirect engagement or the removal of identifying markers on unforms and equipment. It seems the extent of the outlawing of war has become so restrictive for states, they ‘increasingly seek to create ambiguity as to the applicability of these new laws of war […] to their wars’ (Fazal 2018, 2). In a way, it seems that war has changed—or rather the actors employing it have adapted it to sidestep the existing, common rules regulating it as an institution. While the existence of a strict legal framework outlawing most wars seems to show that war maintains its function as an institution of global society—the two exceptions allowed precisely to maintain the international order—this change rather indicates a decline in the institution in that its commonly agreed-upon rules are circumvented.

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Russia is a good example: the annexation of Crimea in 2014 followed the script described by Fazal above, whereas the recent Russian aggression against Ukraine shows that even the illusion of war’s obsolescence might not last much longer. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of the above-mentioned rules prohibiting the use of armed force in international relations, and it shows that at least Russia considers war a legitimate—if not legal—policy tool to address its grievances and change the international balance of power to its advantage (or, alternatively, at least to prevent the balance of power from shifting to its detriment). Thus far, international law has been upheld in the strong reactions of other states, even hitherto neutral ones such as Switzerland, to the illegal invasion, but the war in Ukraine clearly shows the limits of any argument about war being obsolete. Already before the war in Ukraine, the argument about the obsolescence of inter-state war was geographically limited. Much literature discusses so-called ‘zones of peace’ (Singer and Wildavsky 1993) or ‘security communities’ (Adler and Barnett 1998; Deutsch et al. 1968), often among liberal democracies, that according to ‘democratic peace’ theory are extremely unlikely to go to war with each other (Russett 1993). Yet, non-democratic states can also be part of such a zone of peace (see e.g. Kacowicz 1995), characterized by a satisfaction with the (territorial) status quo and the peaceful resolution of disputes. To analyze the exact extent of such zones of peace currently in existence would go beyond the scope of this chapter, but the point remains that these are considered to be geographically limited and not global. It seems there is a tendency to discount examples of inter-state war since the end of the Cold War, such as the two Gulf Wars, the wars in Yugoslavia, the war in Afghanistan, the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. And this list does not cover the plentiful intrastate, internationalized and proxy wars involving non-state actors that also have been fought in the same period. Thus, while the outlawing of war as a tool of international relations results from the UN Charter, its obsolescence on a global scale must be questioned. The De-Institutionalization of War Traditional war lost its function not only because of its outlawing as a tool in international relations, but also because of the military supremacy of the US. When it makes little sense to take on a superior conventional

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military power head on, state and non-state competitors select asymmetric, unconventional strategies and means of conflict to take on the United States and its allies to exploit other vulnerabilities (Theussen and Jakobsen 2021). This, however, more so drives the de-institutionalization of war than its obsolescence. The de-institutionalization of war is not only driven by adversaries to the United States and its allies, however. The way the United States has used armed force over the last two decades has also contributed to its de-institutionalization: the United States decided to act without clear UN Security Council authorization in Iraq, as did NATO in Kosovo. The United States has also put forward an extremely wide and highly debated interpretation of the scope of Article 51 after the 9/11 terror attacks. Washington’s interpretation expands the right to self-defence beyond the recognized right to pre-emptive self-defence—where a clear, concrete, tangible and imminent threat exists—to one of preventive selfdefence, giving a much longer time horizon to and less specific evidence of the potential attack (Deeks 2015). These interpretations undermine the consensus on the rules regulating the use of force in international relations and allow other states to justify their actions in violation of these rules with reference to US actions. It allows adversaries to get creative in both the exploitation of the legal framework, often referred to as lawfare,2 and in the interpretation of the law to fit certain contexts to make the connection between legality and legitimacy explained above. Globalization has further contributed to war’s de-institutionalization. In restricting states’ possible courses of action and empowering a wide variety of non-state actors, globalization contributes to an erosion of sovereignty both from above—in the form of international organizations—and from below through privatization, regional movements and transnational connections (Kaldor 2012). The consequence, again, is that there are few inter-state wars happening, but a lot of asymmetric uses of armed violence. As already mentioned above, these asymmetric means and methods of warfare avoid confronting more militarily powerful states head on, instead exploiting states’ weaknesses. Traditional examples of asymmetric armed violence are insurgencies and guerilla wars, but also drones or cyber-attacks constitute an asymmetric use of force. While these asymmetric forms of conflict are often held to be used by an inferior

2 See for example Dunlap Jr. (2008, 2009).

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opponent, they are difficult to win for the superior power, and destabilize international order (Arreguín-Toft 2005; Mack 1975). On the example of terrorism, Kassab notes that counterterrorism interventions drain the resources of states and thus allow for changes in the distribution of power and consequently international order (Kassab 2019). These asymmetric forms of war also contribute to the erosion of US hegemony. Asymmetric war cannot be fought within the limits of the agreed rules and norms of war. First, fighting by the rules would put the adversary of a militarily superior power at a disadvantage—which is the first and main reason why they select asymmetric strategies. Often, the laws of war require a certain reciprocity between the warring parties, and they require a degree of organization, command, control, and especially accountability and distinction between civilians and those participating in the conflict. Most of this can be circumvented in asymmetric warfare. Additionally, as Kaldor notes, these asymmetric ‘new wars’ often constitute mutual enterprises, where ‘both sides need the other in order to carry on the enterprise of war and therefore war tends to be long and inconclusive’ (Kaldor 2013, 13). This means, at least in these wars, that there no longer is a shared overall goal of peace as Bull saw. And the sense of common interests, values and rules that he sees as essential for an institution of international society is also not given—in fact, asymmetric warfare purposefully exploits interests, values and rules of the conventionally superior adversary to gain the (military) advantage. Technological development also contributes to the perception that what is happening is a de-institutionalization of war. The inclusion of cyberspace as a domain of warfare, the development of drones, and the arms race in the fields of autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence (AI) all come with their set of normative challenges that can be summarized into three areas: first, when and where they are used, raising questions of whether it is possible to separate war from peace; second, who operates them, causing a blurring between the categories of civilian and combatant, and human and machine, raising questions of responsibility, legal participation in the war, and whether the operators in turn can be legally targeted; and third, there are problems of targeting, with dual purpose technologies making the distinction between military targets (legal) and civilian targets (illegal) increasingly difficult. Is it possible to train an AI in the rules of humanitarian law, if international humanitarian law is based on a weighing of the fundamental principles of military necessity and humanity against each other? (Theussen 2021).

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Already Bull notes the inability of international society to accommodate new forms of organized violence and new actors and cautions that ‘international society will not be able to afford to allow these new forms of war to lie permanently beyond the compass of its rules’ (Bull 1977, 193). Yet this is exactly what is happening. The international society of states has yet to find agreement on a common set of rules addressing terrorism, grey zone conflict, cyber conflict, drone warfare and other forms of asymmetric conflict. This globalization of war away from its Western origins and traditional, conventional means and methods of warfare means that there is an increasing mismatch between the interpretations put forward by a variety of actors of the existing legal framework, as well as between the forms of organized armed violence currently in use and those for which there already exist agreed-upon rules. The Re-Institutionalization of War Aside from Russia’s return to a position where war is seen as a political tool to reach one’s strategic objectives, even though this is in clear contrast to the agreed-upon rules regulating war, there are other elements that point towards a re-institutionalization of war. Over the course of the last two decades, sovereignty was reinterpreted in the form of the emerging norm of a Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P allows for international intervention, following UN Security Council authorization, should a government prove unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from four defined mass atrocities: genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or crimes against humanity (United Nations General Assembly 2005). This allows—in fact, even demands—the use of armed force in defence of human rights (Thakur 2015). As Kennedy points out, ‘[f]ar from being a defense of the individual against the state, human rights has become a standard part of the justification for the external use of force by the state against other states and individuals’ (Kennedy 2005, 25). This creates a new exception to the prohibition of the use of force on the bases of a common agreement on a shared interest and value within the international society of states, namely that of mass atrocity prevention. However, after being used in Libya in 2011 and strongly criticized for going too far in causing regime change, R2P has been plagued by the power dynamics in the Council addressed above. Thus, the re-institutionalization that this represents should not be overestimated.

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Yet, there are other signs of tendencies to re-institutionalize war. Certain non-state actors, in particular secessionist rebels, are interested in respecting the agreed-upon rules of war to achieve the recognition and support of the international community. These groups go to great lengths to show their adherence to the established rules of warfare (Fazal 2018). Already Buzan acknowledges that ‘[i]n some cases these shared practices and values [of the international society] may be extended to, and accepted by, non-state actors’ (Buzan 2004, 181). Thus, the fact that some non-state actors accept the rules of war points towards a persistence of a certain level of relevance of the institutions related to war—at least regarding bestowing legitimacy onto those who respect them. Technology does not necessarily have to contribute to the deinstitutionalization of war, as was argued above. It can also further its re-institutionalization, if one is to believe in the advantages of precisionguided munitions. There is a large and increasing focus on precisionguided munitions (PGMs) among industrialized, high-technological democracies of the world, above all the United States. PGMs promise a limited war, allowing precise targeting of adversaries and a substantial minimization of civilian casualties and collateral damage. They have increasingly become the weapon of choice and a critical component in military operations, precisely because they carry a promise of minimal to zero collateral damage (Hoehn 2021). Yet, while the leading democracies of the world might be concerned with fighting war humanely through PGMs, the latest war between Russia and Ukraine shows that this tendency certainly is not global. In Ukraine, Russia quickly turned away from PGMs and resorted to the use of dumb bombs, carpet bombing cities with little regard for civilian lives and collateral damage. Some assess that the country ran out of the more expensive, more time-consuming and complex materials required to produce munitions (US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl cited in Deutsche Welle 2022), while others argue that the Russian way of war simply is characterized by a much more brutal use of armed force to subdue the enemy (Fisher 2022). Nevertheless, there are also signs that Russia and China (the two main competitors of the United States for power on the international stage) have not fully abandoned all the ordering norms of international society when it comes to war. Both countries routinely refer to principles and norms of international law to justify their uses of armed force or positions during conflicts. The fact that they perceive the need to justify

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their actions with reference to existing norms and rules also points to their continued relevance—at least as a force of legitimacy. As Kuhrt (2021) shows, these countries are not really pushing forward their own interpretations of international law, but rather exploit the contradictions between existing rules, norms and principles within the Western understanding. Additionally, both Russia and China have shown interest in finding agreement on the regulation of cyber space and behaviour within it. And China has thus far resisted the urge to arm its drones and conduct drone strikes—even though the country is one of the main exporters of drone technology. It does not adopt the US approach to targeted killings through drone strikes that is widely regarded as being contrary to international law (in fact most states use their armed drones much more restrictively and more in accordance with international law, see Theussen 2021). These examples reveal attempts at a re-institutionalization of war, in the form of a confirmation of existing rules and norms for warfare and attempts at creating new ones. It remains to be seen whether this re-institutionalization takes place globally—for the global international society—or if in fact the Chinese and Russian advances are evidence of their intention to create their own alternative international orders with rules in accordance with Russian and Chinese ideas of international order, norms, rules and principles (Flockhart 2016).

Conclusion: Future War---An Institution ‘Fit for Purpose’? Where does this leave war as an institution of international society? Arguably, as this chapter shows, different forms and means of war— and the different actors fighting war—pull the argument about the resilience of war as an institution into different directions, reaffirming Bull’s observation of war having both an ordering and a disordering function. On the one hand, great power competition and state challenges to US hegemony foreshadow a return to Bull’s understanding of war as a tool to manage the balance of power on the international stage. In this sense war as an institution is resilient; it is returning as a political tool. The use of armed force has in fact been somewhat of a constant in history, where the last few decades of comparative peace—from the point of view of liberal democracies—are the exception. It could be that, as Bull suggests, war could serve once more to order relations between

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states and to defend states and citizens against illegitimate violence by non-state actors or ‘evil’ states, as for example, the Responsibility to Protect intends. The war between Russia and Ukraine, however, seems more like a bad omen for what might come. It shows that the outlawing of war and its seeming normative obsolescence may well have been a fleeting condition. It also shows that the restrictions placed on war by the international community, intended to tame the horrors of warfare in form of the wide-ranging protections awarded to civilians and prisoners of war, at best restrain democracies and those seeking legitimacy from the international community, but do little to deter authoritarian states and those seeking to challenge the status quo distribution of power in international society. Nonetheless, the strong reaction by large parts of international society condemning Russia’s actions means that there is still widespread support for these restrictions. State practice makes international law and can confirm or invalidate (legal) norms (Theussen 2021). The international opposition to the Russian violations of norms confirms the persistence of shared norms, rules and principles relating to war and is a testament to their resilience—at least thus far. On the other hand, asymmetric conflict remains a different, but connected challenge. Fighting with unconventional means, necessitated by the overwhelming military might of the United States and its allies, means that these conflicts cannot be fought easily within the rules and norms regulating war. Additionally, technological change means a further blurring of civilian and military means and targets and potentially opens new domains for warfare—such as the cyber domain, artificial intelligence or autonomous weapons—where the existing norms are potentially insufficient to regulate behaviour. What is left is the semblance that war no longer embodies a more or less coherent set of habits and practices, and it certainly does not build on common goals—if it in fact ever did. Nevertheless, ‘[w]ar is the institution for the final settlement of differences’ (Wight 1979, 112). This remains true today; and therefore, war cannot be completely dismissed as an institution of international society. How can war be directed to serve the maintenance of the order more than destroying it? Can it ever? Even wars fought to (re-)establish international order are bloody, destructive and horrendous and leave a trail of chaos and disruption. The norms, rules and principles that regulate warfare are meant to keep this destructiveness and chaos at bay. It is thus crucial that those actors interested in the resilience of the global international society invest into maintaining

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and reinforcing that normative order. An awareness of which actions serve to undermine said order is key, together with a commitment to eschew such actions—unilaterally if necessary. However, this will be more easily said than done, seeing as it is potentially dangerous and costly for states not to participate in the ongoing high-tech arms race, and not to exploit the weaknesses of international law in war in a world characterized by aggravating state competition, nuclear weapons, global terrorism and increasingly digitalized societies and militaries.

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Deutsche Welle. 2022. “Ukraine: Russia Signals Possible Shift in War Strategy— As It Happened.” DW.Com. Retrieved April 22, 2022 (https://www.dw. com/en/ukraine-russia-signals-possible-shift-in-war-strategy-as-it-happened/ a-61253453). Dinstein, Yoram. 2011. War, Aggression and Self-Defence. Fifth edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunlap Jr., Charles J. 2008. “Lawfare Today: A Perspective.” Yale Journal of International Affairs 3:146–154. Dunlap Jr., Charles J. 2009. “Lawfare: A Decisive Element of 21st-Century Conflicts?” National Defense University, Joint Force Quarterly (54):34–39. Fazal, Tanisha M. 2018. Wars of Law: Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict. Cornell University Press. Ferraro, Tristan, and Lindsey Cameron. 2016. “Article 2—Application of the Convention.” Pp. 68–125 in Commentary on the First Geneva Convention: Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fisher, Max. 2022. “Russia’s Brutality in Ukraine Has Roots in Earlier Conflicts.” The New York Times, March 18. Flockhart, Trine. 2016. “The Coming Multi-Order World.” Contemporary Security Policy 37(1):3–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2016.115 0053. Fukuyama, Francis. 2014. Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy. London: Profile Books. Hoehn, John R. 2021. “Precision-Guided Munitions: Background and Issues for Congress.” Congressional Research Service. Holsti, Kalevi J. 2004. Taming the Sovereigns: Institutional Change in International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Independent International Commission on Kosovo, ed. 2000. The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kacowicz, Arie M. 1995. “Explaining Zones of Peace: Democracies as Satisfied Powers?” Journal of Peace Research 32(3): 265–276. Kaldor, Mary. 2012. New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kaldor, Mary. 2013. “In Defence of New Wars.” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2(1):1–16. https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.at. Kalyvas, Stathis N., Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud. 2008. “Introduction: Integrating the Study of Order, Conflict, and Violence.” Pp. 1–14 in Order, Conflict, and Violence, edited by S. N. Kalyvas, I. Shapiro, and T. Masoud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kassab, Hanna Samir. 2019. Terrorist Recruitment and the International System. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.

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Kennedy, David. 2005. The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Korosteleva, Elena, and Trine Flockhart. 2021. “Introduction: Resilience in EU and International Institutions: Redefining Local Ownership in a New Global Governance Agenda.” Pp. 1–22 in Resilience in EU and International Institutions: Redefining Local Ownership in a new Global Governance Agenda edited by E. Korosteleva and T. Flockhart. London: Routledge. Kuhrt, Natasha. 2021. “Conflicting Norms of Intervention.” in War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power, edited by S. Rynning, O. Schmitt, and A. Theussen. Washington D.C. and London: Brookings and Chatham House. Mack, Andrew. 1975. “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict.” World Politics 72(2):175–200. Mann, Michael. 2018. “Have Wars and Violence Declined?” Theory and Society 47(1):37–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-018-9305-y. Mayall, James. 2000a. “Democracy and International Society.” International Affairs 76(1):61–75. Mayall, James. 2000b. World Politics: Progress and Its Limits. Cambridge: Polity. Oppenheim, Lassa. 1906. International Law: A Treatise. Volume II: War and Neutrality. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co. Ruhl, J. B. 2011. “General Design Principles for Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in Legal Systems—With Applications to Climate Change Adaptation.” North Carolina Law Review 89(5):1373–1404. Russett, Bruce. 1993. Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. London: Allen Lane. Singer, Max, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1993. The Real World Order: Zones of Peace, Zones of Turmoil. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House. Smith, Rupert. 2007. The Utility of Force. The Art of War in the Modern World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Thakur, Ramesh. 2015. “R2P’s ‘Structural’ Problems: A Response to Roland Paris.” International Peacekeeping 22(1):11–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13533312.2014.992575. Theussen, Amelie. 2021. “International Law Is Dead, Long Live International Law: The State Practice of Drone Strikes.” International Politics. https:// doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00333-0. Theussen, Amelie, and Peter Viggo Jakobsen. 2021. “In the Shadows: The Challenge of Russian and Chinese Gray Zone Conflict for the West.” in War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power, edited by S. Rynning, O. Schmitt, and A. Theussen. Washington D.C. and London: Brookings and Chatham House.

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CHAPTER 10

Old Bull, New China Shop: The Institution of Diplomacy and the Sino-American Struggle for Influence at the UN Richard Gowan

Hedley Bull had doubts about the United Nations. In a 1956 prize essay, published in 1958, he reviewed the organization’s track record since the Second World War. 1956 was a crucial year in the organization’s development, as the General Assembly dispatched the first fully-fledged UN peacekeeping force to resolve the Suez Crisis and also debated the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Bull was critical of ‘both the enthusiastic partisans of International Organization, and equally its enthusiastic detractors’ (Bull 1958, 428). The former believed that the UN has revolutionized or entirely replaced pre-existing international society. The latter thought it had had no effect on international relations at all. Bull took a middle path, arguing that international society had been ‘modified by the foreign body but at the same time moulding it to its own purposes. The United

R. Gowan (B) International Crisis Group, New York City, NY, USA

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Nations, seeking to control the international struggle, has itself become a weapon in that struggle’. This emphasis on the UN as a venue for struggle is a fascinating starting point for thinking about the idea of ‘contestation’ in international society, one of the foci of this volume. But it may come as a surprise to some readers. The English School is now generally seen as having quite a benign relationship with the UN and other multilateral institutions. The most recent edition of the Oxford Handbook of the United Nations gives Bull and his concept of an ‘anarchical society’ a friendly nod on the first page of the introduction (Weiss and Daws 2018, 3). Reviewing different theoretical approaches to the UN in the same volume, Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore argue that that the English School grasps that the UN ‘helps develops the rules, standards, laws and institutions that make orderly social life possible at the international level’ (Barnett and Finnemore 2018, 67). Yet Barnett and Finnemore also complain that English School scholars ‘provide little guidance to understanding politics within the UN itself—its agenda, it actions and, most of all, its dysfunctions’ (Barnett and Finnemore 2018, 68). This sounds like a very thin approach to the nature of ‘struggle’ at the UN, valourizing cooperation over contestation by default. And yet, the UN is a weapon for struggle—or ‘contestation’—between states, and in particular two powerful countries: the US and China. This is a very different sort of struggle from the crises of 1956, as it generally involves diplomatic battles over norms, senior UN positions and other technical matters that may seem of little interest outside the UN system. But it is real, and a closer look at the UN tells us a good deal about how Beijing and Washington are in a contest for influence in today’s international society. This chapter is the work of a policy analyst rather than an International Relations scholar. As such, it does not pretend to any theoretical sophistication, but the next section lays out why the English School is quite congenial to those who focus on UN policy in real time. It then looks at how Sino-American competition has emerged at the UN, and how the institutions of diplomacy and great power management have meant that this struggle is a ‘bounded game’ (one played within clear limits and recognizable rules) to date. It then cites some cases where the US and China have gone beyond the bounds of their usual contest for influence, notably where the US raises China’s own human rights record in UN forums. It concludes by asking whether the contest for leadership at the

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UN can continue on a relatively predictable and stable track, or whether it may eventually become more brutal. For the time being, however, this small case study of great power politics shows how the English School framework can help scholars and analysts parse real politics.

The English School and the United Nations Barnett and Finnemore are perhaps a little unfair to the English School, as some of its members have developed a nuanced sense of how the UN works, in practical terms as well as at the normative level. Bull may not have been very interested in the UN as an institution, but he was very interested in what goes on at the UN: diplomacy. His vision of international relations rested, in part, on the capacity of diplomats to reduce the ineluctable political tensions present in international relations (Bull 2002, 165). In the three-quarters of a century since its foundation, the UN has emerged as one venue where states can both pursue their political interests but also mitigate their differences. A number of English School scholars have recently attempted to frame the UN, and more specifically the UN Security Council, as instantiating the English School’s commitment to diplomatic compromise as a necessary virtue in international relations: ‘Because international society is politically fragmented and international order unstable, it is better to compromise on governance objectives (such as peacekeeping) if they risk great power conflict’ (Gifkins et al. 2019, 7). This approach to UN diplomacy is useful because it reflects the realities of day-to-day horse-trading in New York, Geneva and other multilateral centres, as well as UN activities out in trouble-spots. As such, it presents a humane alternative to those ‘enthusiastic partisans of International Organization’ (often lawyers or idealists) who judge every action in the UN solely in terms of its fidelity to the UN Charter, and those enthusiastic detractors who solely see international institutions in terms of power politics. There is quite a long tradition of English School thinkers engaging with the UN as it actually exists in the world and acknowledging the imperfections of multilateralism with a certain generosity. During the Cold War, for example, Alan James combined English School theorizing with research into UN peacekeeping missions, concluding that this was ‘essentially an ad hoc activity designed to bring about stability’ (James 2003, 12). This appreciation for the contingent and improvised nature of multilateral activities tends be associated with a healthy scepticism about how far the UN can (and should) go: James cautioned against pushing

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the mandates of UN peace operations too far in the post-Cold War era. This was justified by the UN’s travails in the Balkans and Rwanda in the 1990s. A more recent explorer of UN affairs who cites Bull’s interest in the ‘routine practices’ of diplomacy as an inspiration, Geoffrey Wiseman, justifies a detailed approach to studying UN reform in terms of practice theory, with a focus on ‘the quotidian unfolding of international life [understood as] competent performances’ (Wiseman 2015, 317–9). Starting from this basis, Wiseman carefully shows how UN diplomacy— and the specific diplomatic processes around the selection of the organization’s Secretary-General—involve ‘minor changes in UN practices’ rather than grand reforms (Wiseman 2015, 316). This approach is congenial to those who cannot claim to have any great theoretical training, but who analyse policy developments at the UN on a day-to-day basis and know how human factors, diplomatic confusion and just plain luck often shape UN diplomatic processes. And yet, lurking beneath all this day-to-day UN diplomatic practice lies the fundamental point that Bull highlighted in 1956: The UN remains a venue for, and weapon in, international struggle. It is worth saying that this raw phrasing would have made more sense to those observing the UN in the 1950s and 1960s than it might today. Bull wrote in an era in which UN diplomacy was often dramatic. Both the UN Secretary-General and the British Permanent Representative were reduced to tears at different times during the Suez crisis. Diplomats and UN officials remembered the Second World War all too clearly and feared that a nuclear confrontation was close. While there have been many moments of drama at the UN in more recent decades such as the 2003 debates in the run-up to the Iraq War—and the Security Council is feverishly debating the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the time of this writing—most current UN debates are indeed distinctly ‘quotidian’ (in the sense of ‘ordinary’ or ‘every day’). The General Assembly and other bodies regularly debate resolutions on a huge range of issues that change little from year to year. Some of the issues involved are predictably contentious, such as Palestine. But most of the time diplomacy works its calming magic, and even ambassadors who berate one another in public can be good friends in private. If the UN is still a place for global ‘struggle’, this is often distinctly muted. In the case of Sino-American competition at the UN, however, the struggle is currently quite explicit.

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China, the US and the Struggle for the UN This chapter focuses on China’s contest for influence with the US at the UN for the simple reason that it has become a dominant feature of diplomatic life in the organization in recent years. Ten years ago, a chapter of this type would have paid the issue little heed. The People’s Republic of China, having only wrested the Chinese seat at the UN away from Taiwan in 1971, was generally a very cautious player in UN debates in the later Cold War and early post-Cold War eras. One 2011 study of China’s engagement in the UN system noted that the quality of diplomats representing Beijing in New York was steadily increasing, but that they still focused on the pursuit of narrowly defined national interests (Fullilove 2011, 78). It was not clear that Beijing, despite its growing global clout, had either the desire or capabilities to challenge the US as the main power in the UN system. The Obama administration, despite deteriorating relations with Beijing overall, actively lobbied China to play a greater role at the UN on issues including climate change and peacekeeping. In 2015, President Obama hosted a summit at UN headquarters in New York to raise more troops for blue helmet operations. Xi Jinping attended and pledged up to 8,000 soldiers and extra financing for the UN. As I noted at the time (having watched the event from the back rows of the conference hall) Xi won plaudits, but ‘Barack Obama may just have succeeded in coaxing Xi Jinping into taking greater responsibility for a most disorderly world’ (Gowan 2015). Yet this era of Sino-American cooperation at the UN gave way to one of explicit competition with remarkable speed. One immediate reason for this was the arrival of the Trump administration in office. President Trump and his advisers were suspicious of international institutions, hawkish towards China and—not very surprisingly given this combination—especially negative towards China’s role in UN affairs. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo laid this out most clearly in a 2018 speech in Brussels in which he lambasted ‘bad actors’ in the multilateral system including Iran, Russia and China. Of the latter, he noted: ‘We welcomed China into the liberal order, but never policed its behavior […] it knows that world opinion is powerless to stop its Orwellian human rights violations’ (Pompeo 2018). Pompeo, Trump and Trump’s second National Security Adviser John Bolton—a former ambassador to the UN and voluble critic of the institution—all repeatedly criticized China’s engagement with the UN, in part for domestic political reasons. The President ratcheted

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up his criticism of Chinese influence in international institutions to an even higher level during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, during which he accused Beijing of manipulating the World Health Organization and announced the US would quit the WHO (although the US had not in fact completed this process when Trump left office). The Chinese responded often and in kind to such criticisms. In one fairly standard response to criticism from the US and its allies over Beijing’s treatment of its Uighur population, the Chinese ambassador the UN in Geneva grumbled that the Western powers ‘should resolve their own human rights problems such as deep-rooted racial discrimination, gaps between the rich and poor, social inequity, injustice, police brutality’ (Nebehay 2021). While the Biden administration has adopted a much more positive approach to the UN and multilateralism as a whole than Trump’s team, the two powers have continued to have fractious relations in the UN system. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s pick as ambassador to the UN, told senators at her 2021 confirmation hearing that ‘China is working across the UN system to drive an authoritarian agenda that stands in opposition to the founding values of the institution—American values’ (Thomas-Greenfield 2021). There is no doubt, therefore, that China and the US are in a competition for influence at the UN, even if US policy towards the broader organization has altered over time. Given the two powers’ broader contest for primacy globally, this is not particularly surprising. What is perhaps surprising, however, is how the two sides have approached this contest for influence. Major power competition for influence in international organizations has often involved either dissatisfied powers walking out of the institutions involved—as Germany, Italy and Japan did from the League of Nations in the 1930s—or a gradual slide into diplomatic gridlock in the bodies involved. But with occasional exceptions, such as President Trump’s threat to quit the WHO, neither Washington nor Beijing has walked away from UN bodies in protest at each other’s action. And while Sino-American competition does sometimes lead to gridlock at the UN, it is still more normal for the two powers to find ways to work around one another or compromise on tricky issues. In the Security Council for example, China and the US have managed to keep cooperating on a variety of files where their interests differ—ranging from DPRK to Sudan and South Sudan—continuing to pass resolutions supporting UN sanctions, mediation and peacekeeping efforts.

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In contrast to Pompeo, Trump and Bolton, officials associated with the Biden administration have tended to argue that it is better to keep engaging with China at the UN than to isolate it. Jeffrey Feltman, a US diplomat who also served as UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs captured this view nicely in an essay for the Brookings Institution before the 2020 US election: [P]erhaps we should welcome China’s desire for increasing influence in the UN system as preferable to Beijing-designed alternatives that exclude or disadvantage the United States. Having China operate within a longestablished system under U.S. leadership gives the equivalent of home team advantage. (Feltman 2020)

Categories of Contest As this sporting analogy suggests, China and the US continue to compete against one another at the UN broadly within the pre-set rules of multilateral diplomacy. At one level, this can be read as a victory for the calming power of diplomatic engagement championed by Bull. But this should not distract from the fact that the underlying competition is real and takes a number of forms: • Contests for senior UN positions: In recent years, China has pushed to control a growing number of leadership posts at the UN. It has tended not to concentrate on obviously politically sensitive cases—such as senior posts in UN peacekeeping missions and mediation efforts—but has instead concentrated on those positions that can help advance its economic agenda, including the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) (Fung and Lam 2021). In some cases, it has had very specific reasons for pursuing these openings. The ITU, for example, sets standards on 5G technologies that matter to Chinese exporters. The Trump administration grew increasingly agitated by China taking over these jobs and in 2021 appointed an envoy specifically to corral international support for blocking such candidates. In the same year, the US succeeded in coordinating opposition to a Chinese national becoming Director of the World Intellectual Property Organization, a particular target for Beijing.

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• Contests over the future of international development, human rights and global governance: Beijing has also invested diplomatic capital (and in some cases real funding) in shaping UN development debates, with an emphasis on gaining UN support for the Belt and Road Initiative. In recent years, it has also pressed for UN bodies to acknowledge its visions of human rights and global governance in their statements and resolution. As Courtney Fung and ShingHong Lam note, ‘China also makes considerable effort to insert the key phrase representing its own vision for global governance—a ‘shared future’—into UN documents, and uses rhetorical adaptation to endow the existing vocabulary of international diplomacy with meanings developed in China itself’ (Fung and Lam 2021, 2). At times, China’s interest in such language points can distort its diplomatic priorities: In 2019, Beijing came close to vetoing a Security Council resolution renewing the mandate for the UN political assistance mission in Afghanistan because the US opposed a reference to the Belt and Road in an introductory paragraph. Western diplomats meanwhile have become hyper-alert to all Chinese efforts to insert ‘Xi Jinping thought’ into UN texts, with European diplomats reportedly keeping score of the number of times that they have managed to excise such language from drafts.1 • A contest for influence over UN peacekeeping: While China still prefers to adopt a low profile whenever possible in the Security Council (discussed further below) it has developed an interest in how UN peacekeeping missions can serve its national interests. China now deploys roughly 2,500 peacekeepers at any given time— more than the other permanent members of the Security Council combined—and is the second-largest financial contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget. It gains a number of benefits from this engagement, including rare opportunities to expose Chinese troops to real operating environments abroad, some diplomatic capital with those countries (mainly in Africa) where its personnel are present, a cover to gather intelligence on other militaries, and an opportunity to position itself as a leader amongst other countries that send troops on UN missions, which are mainly from the Global South. The US and its European allies have grown increasingly nervous 1 European diplomats confirmed this point to the author in a discussion on 3 November 2021.

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about China’s pretensions to leadership in peacekeeping, and Washington has pushed back against UN proposals to put more Chinese personnel in senior UN political positions. These are all real contests for influence and authority within the UN system. And yet it is clear that in all these cases, both China and the US are broadly playing by the rules of the UN game. Rosemary Foot has, for example, highlighted that while China has often pushed to remove human rights language from the mandates of UN peacekeeping operations, it has generally bowed to Western pressure to protect this, even as UN officials still instinctively stand by existing human rights norms (Foot 2020). And as this author has argued elsewhere, US concerns about China’s growing influence in UN peace operations needs to be set against the basic fact that these operations rely on mandates from the Security Council, where the US retains a veto: However Beijing’s approach to peacekeeping evolves, it is important to remember that it can ultimately only play a greater role in UN missions with the consent of the U.S. and the other veto powers in the Security Council. Chinese officials and generals may gain more senior posts in UN operations, but the council will define their mandates. The rules of the UN game ensure that Beijing cannot exert authority over UN operations unilaterally, meaning that it must tailor its peacekeeping policies to avoid excessive friction with the U.S. and its allies in New York. (Gowan 2020)

In this, as in other areas of UN diplomacy, China and the US appear to be playing a ‘bounded game’, that is both played on a ‘field that has limited scope [and] there are clear parameters of restraint’ (Moushey 2019). The restraints on these contests for influence at the UN include not only the Security Council vetoes in matters of peace and security, but also the rules governing other UN institutions—such as those defining the selection of leaders—and more subtle constraints such as the need for China to respect existing UN language, including potentially contentious phrases such as ‘human rights’, in attempting to promote its own positions through UN documents. China, unlike Russia, also appears to be nervous about taking actions at the UN that will cause it significant reputational damage. It has, for example, joined Russia in vetoing a number of Security Council resolutions—especially over Syria—in recent years. But it

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typically avoids casting a veto on its own, and on some occasions it differentiates itself from Moscow by abstaining on resolutions that Russia is willing to block. In December 2021, for example, the US and a majority of Council members supported a resolution on the impact of climate change on peace and security that both China and Russia viewed as too ambitious and beyond the prerogatives of the council. Russia vetoed this and India—an elected member of the Council—also voted against it. China made it clear that it disliked the resolution but abstained, perhaps because some 113 UN Member States had signed up to co-sponsor the text. Great Power Management? There also appears to be some tacit understanding between China, the US and other significant players in the UN system over how far they will push each other in sensitive diplomatic debates. The US and UK, for example, have typically been wary of pushing Beijing into a position where it would feel obliged to veto resolutions on the security situation in Myanmar, where it has significant diplomatic interests. This is in stark contrast to the same powers’ approach to dealing with Russia over Syria from 2011 onwards, as Washington and London—usually working with Paris—forced Russia to veto some 16 resolutions over the crisis in a decade. The International Crisis Group noted in 2019 that ‘the Council’s Western members want to avoid developing confrontational relations with [China] similar to those that they have with Russia’, adding that ‘while the Russians are locked in a confrontational relationship with the Western powers, China appears to be pursuing mutual accommodation’ (ICG 2019).2 This spirit of accommodation continued into 2021 after the Burmese military launched a coup. China signed off on a number of Security Council statements calling for a return to civilian rule (possibly also reflecting Beijing’s irritation with the Burmese generals for not having warned them of the takeover) while the US and UK continued to avoid pushing for a resolution that China would have to veto. A similar dynamic was also notable between China and Russia in the aftermath of the Russian assault on Ukraine in February 2022. While the US tabled a

2 The present author was a lead contributor to this ICG briefing.

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resolution deploring the attack that Moscow predictably vetoed, American diplomats liaised with their Chinese counterparts to find a form of words that Beijing was willing to abstain on rather than using its own veto. In the first months of the war, China notably abstained on resolutions deploring Russia’s actions not only in the Security Council but also in the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, which pleased the US. Framed in Hedley Bull’s terms, therefore, Sino-American relations at the UN not only demonstrate the mollifying power of diplomacy but may also be a UN-specific version of ‘great power management’ in international society, by which ‘great powers not only assume themselves, but are recognized by others, to have managerial rights and responsibilities for international order’ (Cui and Buzan 2016, 3). Some English School scholars have suggested that—following the work of David Bosco—the place of the Permanent Five (P5) members of the Security Council is a good example of the sort of great power ‘concert’ that Bull, harking back to the nineteenth century hankered after (Bosco 2014; Gilfins et al. 2019). Others see the P5 structure and rules of UN procedure as too restrictive to emulate the looser Concert of Europe system, which would need to involve a broader and more informal collection of states (TwentyFirst Century Study Group 2014). Sino-American cooperation at the UN may seem more restrictive still, as the two powers now have the combined clout to address many difficult issues on the UN agenda bilaterally— limiting the role of the remaining P5 members, to say nothing of the wider UN membership—if they so wish. Buzan and Cui note that it is possible that China and the US might form a ‘G2’, in which ‘two ideologically disparate superpowers might set up a managerial condominium’ (Cui and Buzan 2016, 11). While this may or may not be a feasible outcome of current great power tensions, the future of the G2 will not be decided at the UN. How China, the US and other members of the P5 dealt with one another the Security Council is ultimately of marginal relevance in many cases (the Burmese military ignored all Security Council statements on their coup in 2021, even though China signed on). Nonetheless the US and China at least demonstrated one feature of effective great power management identified by Buzan and Cui in their interactions over Myanmar and Ukraine: ‘Good manners’ (Cui and Buzan 2016). Manners matter at the UN, as we have noted, and when it comes to major power interactions, diplomats know how to treat each other with consideration.

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Out of Bounds: Human Rights and Chinese Sovereignty at the UN There is, however, one area on which the US and China no longer deal politely at the UN, and where they shift from a ‘bounded game’ to an unbounded contest in which ‘there are no boundaries of certainty, [and] it is nearly impossible to create parameters’ (Moushey 2019). This centres on UN discussions of the internal human rights and political situation in China. The Trump administration began to press Beijing over its widely reported appalling treatment of the Muslim Uighur population of Xinjiang in 2019, raising the issue in the Security Council and General Assembly. This was one topic where the US and its European allies could agree even in the Trump era, and Germany and the UK warmly joined these efforts. The German ambassador to the UN, Christoph Heusgen, was so stalwart on the topic that a senior Chinese diplomat publicly wished him ‘good riddance’ when Germany completed a two-year term on the Security Council in 2020 (Nichols 2020). Western diplomats say that their Chinese counterparts lose their composure when debating Xinjiang, claiming that they use menacing language and even physical harassment to persuade diplomats to sign onto statements defending Beijing’s Uighur policies.3 Marc Limon, a seasoned observer of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, has noted that the Biden administration has pressed the Uighur issue as far as possible there. The Trump administration boycotted the Council over its treatment of Israel from 2018 to 2021. Biden’s team were quick to re-engage with it in 2021. But Limon notes that this came with an anti-China twist: Instead of trying to empathise with, and respond to the interests of, a wider range of States at the Council, the US has, over the past nine months, focused almost all of its political capital on just one issue, namely, the human rights situation in China (especially Xinjiang and Hong Kong). (Limon 2021)

This inevitably elicited an angry reaction from the Chinese side: China, unsurprisingly considering its newfound strength at the Council and its growing confidence internationally, has not taken this lying down.

3 A point that diplomats have made to the author in private on a number of occasions.

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Instead, for every US-led joint statement criticising China, the People’s Republic has delivered its own attacks on the US, UK, or Canada (e.g., on racism, the slave trade, or indigenous rights); and for every US or UK side event or exhibition about Xinjiang or Hong Kong, China has organised its own, about, for example, ‘poverty alleviation and rural revitalisation in Xinjiang.’

It thus seems possible that China and the US, while maintaining diplomatic courtesies on most aspects of their contest for influence at the UN, will enter a downward diplomatic spiral in their disputes over Xinjiang. The US also has another poison pill to serve up in debate with China at the UN: the status of Taiwan in the organization. The Biden administration threw down this card in 2021 on the fiftieth anniversary of the PRC’s takeover of China’s UN seat. Beijing has gradually pushed back against Taiwan having observer status in UN bodies in recent years such as the World Health Assembly (the WHO’s governing body). In October 2021, while Beijing tried to use the anniversary of its entry into the UN for publicity purposes, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken released a statement lamenting the fact that Taiwan’s exclusion from multilateral discussions ‘undermines the important work of the UN and its related bodies’, adding that ‘we encourage all UN member states to join us in supporting Taiwan’s robust, meaningful participation throughout the UN system and international community’ (Reuters 2021). China’s reaction was furious. The main obstacle to Sino-American cohabitation at the UN may prove to be China’s internal affairs.

Conclusion What would Hedley Bull make of the current struggle between China and the US at the UN? His tragically early death in 1985 means that Bull never had the opportunity to comment on the post-Cold War UN, let alone the recent resurgence in tensions in New York and Geneva. He would have doubtless emphasized the surface differences between the nature of the ‘struggle’ at the UN in 1956 (when he was just 24) and today (when he would have been in his nineties). One must assume that, like any reasonable person, he would prefer major powers to contest for influence over minor and technical points like the control of UN agencies rather than through more direct means.

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He would also perhaps have been glad—and most likely intrigued—to see Red China and the US managing their relations through diplomatic interaction at the UN. It is arguable that China’s decision to compete with the US both through and for the control of existing multilateral institutions—rather than walking away from them altogether in the manner of Nazi Germany—is a tribute to the levelling power of diplomatic norms. But Bull—or at least the mid-twenties version of him who highlighted the role of the UN as a ‘weapon’ in international affairs in 1956—would also feel validated. The UN remains a locus and a tool in international power competition. The nature of that competition may have altered over the years, and disputes over norms and authority at the UN are a reassuringly boring mode of international competition. But the struggle between China to use the UN to shape the future of global cooperation and influence (however gradually and subliminally) is real and chimes with the young Bull’s early mordant comments on the UN. This chapter has thus offered a case study about how the institutions of diplomacy and great power management—in Bull’s terms—can still moderate contestation between major powers in certain circumstances. This is obviously not applicable to all inter-state contests. As we have noted, the US and Russia have had a much more confrontational relationship in the UN system. And while American and Chinese diplomats may show each other good manners in New York, the two powers’ militaries and diplomatic representatives often compete more openly elsewhere. But diplomacy can still mitigate competition in venues such as the UN. This is especially important because what is at stake at the UN is often not just short-term national interests (although these are involved) but also longer-term questions about who directs multilateral mechanisms and gets to define their norms. In engaging at the UN, China is not merely looking for influential positions but also attempting to engineer longer term changes in how multilateral cooperation—and by extension some of the normative and diplomatic elements of international society—operate. In this sense therefore, diplomacy is ‘struggle’, even if it is a moderated and polite form of struggle. China and the US are engaging in a contest within the political space of the UN, but their goal is also to maximize their influence over the UN (and through the UN to gain or maintain influence over various aspects of international society). This is a bounded game, at least most of the time, but still a game in which the players rack up victories and losses. If this case study has a broader purpose, it is to stimulate readers to investigate how similar diplomatic

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struggles emerge and evolve in other settings, and how far it is possible to keep these parallel contests within safe bounds. It is possible that the US and China will continue to play a ‘bounded game’ for control at the UN and this will contribute to international stability. There is equally a risk that their contests, especially over human rights and China’s sovereignty concerns, will overflow the restraining boundaries of their competition to date. That would make the functioning of the UN as a whole less certain. The outcome of current frictions is undecided. But, to borrow a slogan from another intellectual tradition, the struggle continues.

Bibliography Barnett, M. N., & Finnemore, M. (2018). “Political approaches” in Weiss, T. G., & Daws, S. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press. Bosco, D. (2014). Assessing the UN security council: A concert perspective. Global Governance, 20, 545. Bull, H. (1958). World opinion and international organization. David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies Annual Memorial Lecture, 1(9), 428–439. Bull, H. (2002). The anarchical society: A study of order in world politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Cui, S., & Buzan, B. (2016). Great power management in international society. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 9(2), 181–210. Feltman, J. (2020). China’s expanding influence at the United Nations—And how the United States should react. Global China. The Brookings Institution Foot, R. (2020). China, the UN, and human protection: Beliefs, power, image. Oxford University Press. Fullilove, M. (2011). China and the United Nations: The stakeholder spectrum. The Washington Quarterly, 34(3), 63–85. Fung, C. J., & Lam, S. H. (2021). Staffing the United Nations: China’s motivations and prospects. International Affairs, 97 (4), 1143-1163. Gifkins, J., Jarvis, S., & Ralph, J. (2019). Brexit and the UN security council: Declining British influence? International Affairs, 95(6), 1349-1368. Gowan, R. (2015). Red China’s new blue helmets. The Brookings Institution 30 September 2015. Gowan, R. (2020). China’s pragmatic approach to UN peacekeeping. The Brookings Institution 14 September 2020. International Crisis Group (ICG). (2019). The Fragmentation of UN Diplomacy. ICG.

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James, A. (2003). My encounter with peacekeeping: Recollections of an academic. International Peacekeeping, 10(4), 12-23. Limon, M. (2021). Superpower rivalry ‘captures’ the Human Rights Council. Universal Rights Group 20 October 2021 Moushey, W. (2019). Bounded vs. unbounded games. wilsmoushey.com 19 June 2019 Nebehay, S (2021). China rejects growing criticism at U.N. rights forum. Reuters 24 February 2021 Nichols, M. (2020). ‘Good riddance,’ China says as Germany leaves U.N. Security Council. Reuters 22 December 2021 Pompeo, M. (2018). Remarks by Secretary Pompeo at the German Marshall Fund, GMFUS 4 December 2018. Reuters. (2021). Blinken urges all U.N. member states to support Taiwan participation. Reuters 26 October 2021. The 21st Century Concert Study Group. (2014). A Twenty-First Century Concert of Powers—Promoting Great Power Multilateralism for the PostTransatlantic Era. Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). Thomas-Greenfield, L. (2021). Senate Confirmation Hearing Opening Statement, U.S. Senate 27 January 2021. Weiss, T. G., & Daws, S. (Eds.). (2018). The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press. Wiseman, G. (2015). Diplomatic practices at the United Nations. Cooperation and Conflict, 50(3), 316–333.

CHAPTER 11

Cum Haereticis Fides Non Servanda: International Law’s Resilience in a Pluralistic World? Vincent Charles Keating and Amelie Theussen

International law is one of the defining features of international society (Wilson 2009, 167) because, alongside diplomacy, it is the foundation for rules-based cooperation—both are seen as ‘“authoritative practices” that enable states with different goals, values, and objectives to coexist and cooperate’ (Reus-Smit 2009, 70). Instead of states finding themselves in a wholly adversarial international environment where the dominant principle is ‘with heretics, promises cannot be kept,’ as the title suggests, international law provides the framework through which states collectively pursue some level of order and justice. The English School’s emphasis on international law likely accounts for why it is always featured in

V. C. Keating (B) University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark A. Theussen Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark

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debates over which institutions should be included in the framework of contemporary international society (Schouenborg 2014, 82). Given the centrality of international law in most scholars’ understanding of contemporary international society, one might expect it to be a relatively resilient institution. International law codifies the norms and rules around which international society organizes itself, not only securing the ways in which the elementary goals of social life will be understood (Bull 1977, 4–5), but also providing the rules through which states can engage in wider practices of legitimacy around rightful membership and rightful conduct (Clark 2007b, 25–9). However, the severity of the consequences should this not be the case, or become not the case, in the face of international change and contestation, makes an inquiry into its resilience necessary. The goal of this chapter is therefore to understand how international law is coming under pressure from the contemporary international political environment via the central concepts of this book: change, contestation, and resilience. In doing so, it focuses on one of the central tensions of contemporary political life: an increase in global disputes over what constitutes the good life among the member states. It argues, on the one hand, that the institution of international law will likely remain resilient despite contemporary changes in power and ideology. Members of international society always have the opportunity to adapt to these changes, renegotiating the prevailing set of rules to reflect the ongoing change and contestation they experience. Thus, while specific laws may change, the institution of international law remains resilient as the means through which disputes are negotiated and settled, acting to pattern change within certain bounds. In short, international law, as an institution of global international society, is resilient if it continues to provide the frame of reference for the contestation of individual legal rules. To demonstrate this, this chapter shows how the institution of international law remained resilient despite different forms of contestation after the last global shift in ideological power, at the end of the Cold War, first with liberal attempts to reinforce human rights by reforming conceptions of sovereignty with the Responsibility to Protect, and second with illiberal attempts to weaken human rights through debates over the permissibility of torture. While these two illustrations show that international law can remain resilient despite pressure from global shifts in ideological power, there is still danger in our current age. The key question is this: Will the increasing

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diversity in the understandings of the good life we find today—which increasingly reflect more conservative, traditional and authoritarian ideals after decades of liberal advances—result in a more diverse system in the same way that the success of liberalism 30 years ago generated a more uniform system? Or, as the title of this chapter reflects, it is possible that differing ideological camps will increasingly see the international legal system—or each other—as heretical, therein rejecting international law’s normative legitimacy or making it irrelevant because of radical divergences in the interpretation of international law? If so, we could reach a point where the institution of international law loses its resilience and fails to smooth a transition to a new tolerable consensus over the basic rules of engagement between members of international society. To answer these questions, this chapter takes on the following structure. First, it will review the central features of the English School’s understanding of the institution of international law and how we can understand such an institution to be resilient. Second, it will consider how the institution of international law maintained its resilience through the most recent period of contestation and change in international society, after the end of the Cold War. Here, international law was not only resilient in the sense of patterning the change of both liberal and illiberal norm entrepreneurs but was also resilient in being the mechanism through which these debates occurred. Lastly, it will consider the challenges to the resilience of the institution in our contemporary international society, where we are seeing a shift away from the liberal solidarism that has shaped the post-Cold War era.

Resilience, International Law, and the English School Martin Wight developed the idea that there are three traditions of international obligation, each corresponding to a central value, namely, ‘Rationalist, pacta sunt servanda, realist, rebus sic stantibus , revolutionist, cum haereticis fides non servanda’ (Wight 1991, 239).1 Of the three, the rationalist tradition focuses on the central role of international law in

1 Pacta sunt servanda—agreements must be kept; rebus sic stantibus—things thus standing (allowing change in contracts due to changed circumstances).

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international society, standing between the realist tradition, which understands the international system as a struggle of all against all, and the revolutionist tradition, which either emphasizes the role of non-state actors in a world society (Clark 2007a) or seeks a post-state system (Devlen et al. 2005, 182; Knudsen 2000, 196–8). The development of international law was facilitated by the expansion of the state system, as bilateral or trilateral relations became general relations among many states (Wight 1977, 24–5). This necessitated a shift in focus from individual agreements between independent sovereign states to the creation of common rules of conduct to solve the coordination and collaboration problems that came from coexistence under anarchy (ReusSmit 1997, 557; Jackson 1990, 36). These common rules were accepted as reasonably binding among the members, at least in part because they gave guidance about expectations of appropriate conduct, instilling some measure of lawful and ordered coexistence, reducing unpredictability (Manning 1975; Wilson 2009, 168). According to the rationalist tradition, the acceptance of these international legal rules among the members of international society plays a large role in order-making, since they ensure a continuity in diplomatic representation and delegitimize the previously widespread practices of intervention, annexation, and military coercion (James 1992, 390). This has led some scholars to differentiate international law from other institutions, calling it a ‘fundamental institution’ (Reus-Smit 1997, 557; Holsti 2009, 138). Others have argued that international law is not only central, but foundationally constitutive of the community that is an international society (Buzan 1993, 328), that ‘in its most basic and essential form, international society is a legal construction’ (Buzan 1993, 346).2 The extent to which international law is entrenched in the behavior of states is reasonably high. Despite occasional high-profile breaches, international law is widely respected within our contemporary international society. As Hans Morgenthau, a classical realist, famously noted, reacting to skeptics of international law, ‘[D]uring the four hundred years of 2 It is therefore not surprising that those who seek to deny the existence of an international society will often begin by denying the efficacy of international law. See Knudsen TB (2019) Fundamental Institutions and International Organizations: Theorizing Continuity and Change. In: Knudsen TB and Navari C (eds) International Organization in the Anarchical Society. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave macmillan, pp. 23–50. Also see Jones RE (1981) The English School of International Relations: A Case for Closure. Review of International Studies 7(1): 1–13.

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its existence international law has in most instances been scrupulously observed […] to deny that international law exists at all as a system of binding rules flies in the face of all the evidence’ (Morgenthau 1978, 281). Over time, states have increasingly seen their long-term interests aligned with their participation in the international legal system. The more powerful these principles became vis-à-vis the more immediate interests of states, the less any state might temporarily decide to act against certain legal principles. But if we are to answer the question of whether the institution of international law is resilient amid ongoing change and contestation among the members of international society, we first need to develop what we mean by resilience. As outlined in the chapter on resilience in this volume, several definitions speak to the ability of an agent to bounce back from stresses or shocks, restoring some previous condition (European Commission 2012, 5; Aldrich 2012, 5), even if it requires significant change (Hall and Lamont 2013, 13). However, many of these definitions have embedded status-quo biases or are normatively positioned to promote certain ethical perspectives, particularly forms of liberalism, which are somewhat antithetical to English School thinking (Hurrell 2007, 2–4). This chapter therefore understands resilience as the ‘process of patterned adjustments adopted in the face of endogenous or exogenous shocks, to maintain, to marginally modify, or to transform a referent object’ (Bourbeau 2018, 3). This is falls in line with the definition of resilience as outlined in the introductory chapter, based on the understanding that entities often must do more than just bounce back, but instead move forward to ‘remain fit for purpose’ via mechanisms of self-governance (Korosteleva and Flockhart 2020; Flockhart 2020). The benefit of this definition of resilience is that, in its focus on patterned adjustments, it easily incorporates the central normative value within the English School, namely, that of international order. At the same time, it avoids a status-quo bias in its reference to potential modification or transformation. Because English School scholars tend to view order through a historical lens, the rules and institutions of any international society are understood to be ever-changing, affected and underpinned by shifting historical principles of legitimacy (Clark 2007b, 7). When and where an international society exists, its order-making properties mean that change is patterned despite political or social shocks. Transformation still occurs, but within set bounds that act to constrain the individual and collective agency of the members. In other words, coming back to the definition of

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resilience we have presented, when an institution as a reference object is resilient, we should be able to observe patterned adjustments when shocks occur. But when we say that the institution of international law is or is not resilient, what relationship does this resilience have to the individual laws that comprise the body of international law? Here, we are not (necessarily) interested in the resilience of any particular law to change and contestation, and in making this move, this study diverges from some existing scholarship that focuses on ‘what measures are required to make the international legal order more resilient against violations and subversion’ (Sari 2020, 859). From this perspective, resilience is solely judged through the ways in which current laws are either violated or not violated, respected or used instrumentally. The problem we have with this perspective is that, in focusing on resilience against violations and subversion, this scholarship reifies a status quo, which presupposes that there is some type of equilibrium that can, and should, be bounced back to (Bourbeau 2018, 10; Clark 2020, 560–4), ignoring the dynamic and responsive way that international law, like all English School institutions, could move with ideological and political change and therein be resilient. It furthermore implicitly makes resilience both good and something to be promoted (Bourbeau 2018, 9), even when there is no a priori reason to think that resilience is a desirable feature in all cases (Bourbeau 2018, 10). To provide an understanding of resilience that meets our standards, instead of focusing on resilience solely in terms of the respect for or violation of particular laws, this chapter operationalizes the resilience of the institution of international law with respect to its ability to structure the practices of legitimacy within an international society (Clark 2007b, 3). In other words, the institution of international law can be said to be resilient to the extent that, amid change and contestation, it continues to structure the pursuit of ‘what can reasonably be accepted […] as a tolerable consensus on which to take action’ (Clark 2007b, 3) among the members of international society. While particular laws might be contested, they do not exist independently of the larger body of international law, which must be appealed to in order to justify any change. This means that when the institution of international law is resilient, change and contestation is not completely arbitrary and unpredictable, but patterned by a both a common language of discourse and mutually held expectations of rightful conduct structured by the entire body of international law.

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This definition ensures that our analysis is never about a particular crisis in international law and how the institution might bounce back, but how we can observe patterned adjustments through ‘repeated interactions between individuals and their surroundings […] situated within particular socio-historical contexts and carried out in a medium-long term perspective’ (Bourbeau 2018, 14). International law is therefore not simply a set of rules to be respected or disrespected by members of international society, but a set of ‘sociologically embedded transnational cultural practices in which claims and counterclaims can be articulated and debated and from which norms can emerge that can have at least some determinacy and argumentative purchase’ (Hurrell 2014, 148). This, however, does not mean that we can ignore the plight of individual laws. While to some extent independent, in that international laws can come and go without affecting the resilience of international law as an institution—and to a large extent this would be both a normal and expected process—the nature of some forms of contestation might undermine international law itself. Indeed, the resilience of international law comes from its being seen as the ‘rightful source of authority,’ either on deontological or consequentialist grounds, and/or because it reflects ‘proper ends and standards’ (Beetham and Lord 1998, 3). But if the latter, it is possible that political or social changes in the system mean that the existing set of laws become oppressive or unacceptable to a major actor, who then might consider following a more ‘revolutionary’ course of action (Hoffmann 1978, 37–8), depending on the perceived incoherence between the legal regime and their own ideals, and the value they place in the institution of international law as a rightful source of authority. These potential threats to the resilience of international law often arise (though not exclusively) during shifts in global ideological power. But even here scholars have argued that international law can have a conditioning effect, such that the rules, even if created originally after the preferences of the strong states, can then limit the actions of these very same states (Klamberg 2015, 75; Keating 2013). From this perspective, powerful states cannot induce normative change automatically; they are still constrained by the pre-existing norms and law through which they must construct a legitimate argument to justify their behavior (Morris 2004, 281; Bellamy 2004, 25; Sandholtz 2008, 109). While international law is still fundamentally political in that it is not independent from the conflicting interests of states, and therefore it is unsurprising that states will continually seek to interpret the obligations

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put forward by international law in a favorable light to these interests, our contemporary legal system is not built on subjugation and requires some consent of all the parties involved. We can thus see the resilience of international law to underlying changes in power and subsequent ideological contestation because there are limits to what can be reasonably justified within the broader legal framework. Disputes and disagreements tend to be highly structured by legal terms and thinking, which must be used to justify any action to other members (Hurrell 1993, 60–1) by arguing ‘within the bound established by past instances’ (Sandholtz 2008, 106). In addition to precedent, a disputed law does not exist independently, but within a web of relations to other international law, which must be used to frame the appeal and make a challenge successful. We can see how these traits have allowed the institution of international law to remain resilient despite change and contestation if we examine how this occurred during the last great period of ideological change that came after the end of the Cold War. Amid a rapid increase in liberal solidarist thought, international law not only tempered more radical impulses from some of the members of international society, patterning the change that they desired, but remained firmly entrenched as the means through which the debate over proper action was conducted.

Change and Contestation After the Cold War With the fall of communism, liberal ideas began to spread rapidly into international law, pushed in large part by powerful states championing these values. Solidarism grew as a position within the English School to reflect this change, arguing that there were now sufficient political solidarities in international society ‘to make effective a relatively demanding system of international law’ (Linklater and Suganami 2006, 65) that could pass legitimate judgments on the use of force, support a system of human rights, and possess a means to enforce these rules (Linklater and Suganami 2006, 66; Hurrell 2014, 149; Williams 2005, 25; Clark 2001, 247). The place of the individual within international law could change, raising their ethical priority in relations to states (Linklater and Suganami 2006, 64–5; Reus-Smit 2004, 92). Solidarists also recognized an increased range of actors within the process of deliberation of international law, including individuals, transnational advocacy groups, and other non-state actors (Hurrell 2014, 149; Klamberg 2015, 54).

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It should be noted that the liberal democratic values found in postCold war solidarism did not come out of the ether. Some scholars argued that these ideas were already present as a coherent package in the post1945 international order, and simply became more ‘deeply entrenched and more extensive in their ambit’ (Clark 2001, 250) after the end of the Cold War.3 But in this process, there was increasing receptivity to the idea that human rights should be an entrenched part of international law, leading the rules protecting them to be transformed from ‘high-minded sloganizing’ to increasingly detailed and intrusive operational rules that infringed on the sovereignty of states (Hurrell 2001, 491), with the anticipation that law-abiding states would play a more active role in upholding these rights. The success of solidarist thought consequently brought a high level of contestation within international law. The institution of international law, however, remained resilient throughout this period of change and contestation. We can see this in two illustrations, the first being the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect as an example of liberal contestation, and the decision by the United States to question openly the prohibition over the use of torture during the War on Terror as an example of illiberal contestation. We have chosen these two illustrations because they reflect ideologically different positions, demonstrating the normative neutrality of the resilience of international law in the face of state pressure. In both cases, the resilience of international law in the face of change and contestation created patterned responses that ensured that even while minor change might occur, as in the case of the Responsibility to Protect, it occurred within specific bounds structured by the state’s need to justify themselves within and through the wider body of international law. The Responsibility to Protect The first illustration involves the introduction of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), reflecting one of the most significant strands of solidarist thought, namely the potential for humanitarian intervention to be accepted within international society (Wheeler 2002). This advocacy 3 They also reflected a reasonably deep strand of liberalism within international law itself, in that it is authored by those it is subject to by representatives and equally binding to all. See Reus-Smit C (1997) The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions. International Organization 51(4): 555–89.

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combined many solidarist ideas, including the priority of human rights, a view of international law as enforceable law, and a greater ability among the members of international society to reach a consensus over the use of force where grave breaches of law occurred. However, its introduction also came with a high degree of contestation. The problem of humanitarian intervention, shortly put, was that ‘the very foundation of the nation-state system—its diplomatic procedures, treaties, international laws, wars, and all other institutions that provide for communication and interaction among states—rests on the mutual recognition among government leaders that they each represent a specific society within an exclusive jurisdictional domain’ (Barkin and Cronin 1994, 110). Given the place of sovereignty as one of the basic elements of international society, the initial debate over humanitarian intervention revolved around whether certain humanitarian claims would constitute an exception to the rule of sovereignty and non-intervention (Bellamy 2002, 478). In other words, could individual cases of justice be privileged over interstate order (Wheeler 1992, 471)? There had been long-standing concerns that any doctrine of humanitarian intervention could be open for abuse, where humanitarian reasons would mask the self-interest of the intervening state(s), particularly because it is difficult to come to a general usable definition of humanitarian intervention (Franck and Rodley 1973, 305). Even if problems of material self-interest could be avoided, particular states might still set themselves up as the arbiters of international justice and become a menace to international order (Wheeler 1992, 476). But under the momentum of ‘never again,’ NGOs, the United Nations and some members of international society pressed ahead to legitimize humanitarian intervention. This resulted in a 2001 report entitled The Responsibility to Protect (Kersavage 2014), which attempted to accommodate the new ideologically liberal demands by rethinking the principle of state sovereignty, underpinning it with a logic of responsibility. This included the potential authorization of international military action to protect victims of grave abuses in other sovereign states, the adoption of specific just cause thresholds that Security Council members would have to use in the public justification of their decisions, the potential for the General Assembly or a regional organization to take the decision to intervene if the Security Council failed to act, and a restriction on the use of the Security Council veto where vital interests were not at stake (Brunnée and Toope 2006, 124; Bellamy 2006, 153).

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Given the radical nature of this proposal with respect to fundamental institutions of international society, even amid a decade of the global growth of liberal ideals, there was significant contestation. For example, some members of the P5 objected to any idea that military force could be legitimate without explicit Security Council authorization (Bellamy 2006, 151–2; Morris 2013, 1270), reinforcing its central role in contemporary international law and contrasting it with a potentially overactive General Assembly that might harm principles of sovereignty. Some states such as India argued that the existing legal framework allowed for sufficient action, and that the problem was not one of international rules, but of international will, while the Group of 77 argued that the report should be revised to re-emphasize the traditional principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity (Bellamy 2006, 152). While this political opposition is unsurprising unto itself, particularly given the potentially radical nature of the proposal, there could have been any number of reasons why members of international society might object to the introduction of this principle. However, the debate was highly ordered by international law, with justifications centering almost exclusively on existing principles. The Canadian government, which led the diplomatic efforts supporting R2P, did not simply call for radical change, but also structured its appeals via established principles within international law. For instance, it argued that the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect would result in further constraints to the use of force, echoing one of the foundational principles of international law. It furthermore argued for a more traditional role for the Security Council in the process of determining when intervention should occur, downplaying the suggestion that the P5 should limit themselves in their use of the veto. A later Canadian government paper additionally argued that intervention should only take place if it would not undermine the stability of international order, and completely avoided discussing the possibility of non-authorized intervention, such as what happened in Kosovo (Bellamy 2006, 154), which was potentially disruptive to existing international law. The result was that, in contrast to the potentially radical effects of the recommendations in the original report, the UN General Assembly only ‘loosely adopted’ R2P in 2005 (Kersavage 2014, 24), leading some proponents to call it ‘R2P lite’ (Bellamy 2008, 615) and others to complain that ‘none of the key recommendations in the report were taken up’ (Wheeler 2005, 96). But there was still some change. The final agreement shifted the emphasis to the responsibility of individual

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states to protect their own populations. The role of international society was first to encourage and help states exercise this responsibility and use appropriate non-violent means to aid, intervention only becoming an option if national authorities manifestly fail in their protection mandate within a small list of international crimes. No criteria for intervention were adopted; instead, there was a call to consider the implications of this doctrine ‘bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law,’ likely a reference to the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention (Brunnée and Toope 2006, 126–7). The Secretary General in 2008 then put forward ‘a broad, integrated, flexible, and non-sequential application of R2P,’ emphasizing the first two pillars and framing pillar three as also involving a ‘reasoned, calibrated and timely response’ including potential pacific measures until Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, potentially in collaboration with regional actors until Chapter 8 (Morris 2013, 1271). So while R2P was adopted, and initially presented a challenge to some fundamental laws and principles including the institution of sovereignty and the role of the United Nations Security Council as the primary legitimate body to decide on the use of force, the institution of international law was resilient in the face of contestation. Some change did occur, but it did so through a process through which the principles of international law were used to justify potential changes for both advocates and detractors of R2P. International society did not fall apart over this highly divisive issue of rightful conduct. Instead, members used international law to come to a new tolerable consensus. The resilience of international law as a moderating force can also be seen in practice when one considers the further development of the R2P norm with the intervention in Libya in 2011. As the first intervention with a clear reference to R2P, it was at first heralded as ‘a textbook case of the […] norm working exactly as it was supposed to’ (Evans 2011, 40). However, heavy contestation quickly arose when NATO’s actions led to regime change, arguably constituting a major overstretch of the R2P mandate. Support for the R2P norm from crucial non-Western states in the Security Council—Russia, China, India, and Brazil—whose acquiescence had allowed the Libya resolution to pass, eroded, turning into harsh criticism and skepticism about what was deemed to be ‘military overreach’ (Evans 2011, 41)—a reaction based on the potential misuse of the doctrine to violate sovereignty without proper cause.

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A few years later, at the height of the civil war in Syria, no agreement could be reached for an intervention under the framework of R2P. Yet, even in this case, the principles of international law were used to justify the positions of both the critics and advocates: the former referring to principles of sovereignty and non-intervention and the latter arguing with reference to human rights law, fundamental freedoms and humanitarian principles, such as the illegality of targeting civilian under international humanitarian law.4 While there is no doubt that the international politics of the Responsibility to Protect will continue to be marked by disputes generated by both inaction and overreaction, as we have seen since its inception, international law has thus far remained resilient in providing the frame of reference for the arguments on both sides and structuring any change that occurs. Torture in the War on Terror The second illustration involves attempts by the United States to change the prohibition against torture after the terrorist attacks on 9/11.5 The case of the United States challenging the permissibility of torture is important for the resilience of the institution of international law for two reasons. First, the United States wanted to change the interpretation of one of the more highly legalized norms in international society (Dunne 2007, 270). Torture is jus cogens , or a law from which no derogation is permitted for any reason, an understanding that is supported by many major human rights treaties, including the Torture Convention which was signed and ratified by two separate Republican administrations (Hawkins 2004, 794–6).6 Second, the United States was a clear hegemonic power, and as Colin Gray put it at the time, ‘[W]hen the United States wishes to 4 For an example of such arguments, see United Nations Security Council (2011) S/PV.6627 United Nations Security Council, Sixty-sixth year, 6627th meeting. Available at: http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Golan%20Heights%20S%20PV%206627.pdf. 5 For a detailed analysis of the attempts by the United States to justify torture, see Keating VC (2014) US Human Rights Conduct and International Legitimacy: The Constrained Hegemony of George W. Bush. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 6 This is particularly impressive given that the United States traditionally rejected treaties that infringed on its sovereignty. In the case of torture, the United States not only agreed to universal jurisdiction, but openly advocated for universal jurisdiction on the basis that torture was ‘an offence of special international concern.’ Hawkins D (2004)

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act it is literally unstoppable by any combination of polities and institutions’ (Gray 2002, 233). It is thus a useful illustration to study whether the institution of international law can remain resilient in the face of a clear hegemon who wishes to alter a fundamental legal principle. Despite these factors, the institution of international law remained resilient in a similar manner to the contestation over R2P, not only in terms of being the means through which the debate over torture was conducted between the United States and other members of international society, but also in how the law itself remained resilient in the face of this pressure.7 With respect to the first point, the Bush administration, despite being the hegemonic power, did not simply justify their actions in any way, but actively engaged in justifying their decisions through international law. Even while justifying the new category of ‘unlawful enemy combatants,’ in a 2003 memo, the United States argued that while it had ratified the Convention against Torture, it did so with ‘a variety of reservations and understandings,’ (US Department of Defense 2003, 4), particularly that ‘the United States has maintained consistently that the covenant does not apply outside the United States or its special maritime and territorial jurisdiction, and that it does not apply to operations of the military during an international armed conflict’ (US Department of Defense 2003, 6). In making the argument for their changed preferences, Washington directly appealed to existing understandings of international law to justify its idea of territorial exclusivity. The United States also used appeals to international law to define the prisoner treatment standards. While Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld argued that those held at Guantanamo Bay did not have the status of prisoners of war, they were still ‘for the most part’ being treated ‘in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Convention’ (2002). Even in the creation of and advocacy for the new category of unlawful enemy combatant, there was a need to relate this new category to the existing international legal framework. This was far from an

Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms. International Studies Quarterly 48(4): 779–804. 7 It should be noted that the effects of this resilience were not only felt by the United States, but also by partner states who helped to facilitate torture, see Keating VC (2016) The Anti-Torture Norm and Cooperation in the CIA Black Site Programme. The International Journal of Human Rights 20(7): 935–955.

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isolated incident. From 2002 until 2006, United States officials continually engaged in public discourse that attempted to justify their actions as being legal within the framework of international law (Keating 2014, 64–8). While other members of international society tended to express their outrage through ethical arguments against the use of torture (Keating 2014, 69–77), international organizations engaged the United States in their understanding of international law head on, flatly rejecting the legal interpretation put forward by the Bush administration (Keating 2014, 77–8). Under this pressure from states and international organizations alike, the Bush administration eventually halted both its activities that were seen to be torturous, in addition to their public justification of its acceptability. Despite the material power of the United States at the time, the fundamental laws over torture proved to be resilient in the face of major potential reformation. Furthermore, international law proved to be resilient itself by being the central forum through which the practices of legitimacy to reach a tolerable consensus were enacted—in this case, to reach a consensus of status-quo ante.

Conclusion: The Future of International Law’s Resilience We have shown that international law succeeded in being resilient despite the massive shift in the ideological balance of power globally at the end of the Cold War. This resilience is furthermore not ideologically biased— international law was resilient in the face of both liberal and illiberal challenges. However, as we sit on the cusp of a potentially new transformation in the ideological balance of power, what factors might make us worry that this resilience will not continue? The experience after the end of the Cold War might not necessarily be similar to the current global ideological power shift, which expands ideological diversity in a more conservative direction. Much of the debate over this process has come in the guise of anxiety over the future of the (often inconsistently defined) liberal international order, particularly whether rising non-liberal states such as China and Russia will continue to support or even participate in it (Ikenberry 2018; Duncombe and Dunne 2018; Clunan 2018; de Graaff et al. 2020). But this growth in support for conservative ideologies is also present in the former core liberal states, often in the shape of nationalist and explicitly anti-globalist populism

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(Mead 2017), fueled by the growing links between these groups and the rising illiberal states (Keating and Schmitt 2021; Keating and Kaczmarska 2019). But the question we ask here is slightly different. The fate of the liberal international order is not necessarily connected with the resilience of the institution of international law. As we previously explained, it is expected that international law will change over time, and this might also involve dismantling some of the liberal laws and institutions currently in existence—in a manner not dissimilar to the debates that framed the period of increasing solidarism. One potential outcome could be a more fragmented international society, with less solidarity among the states and an aversion to entrenching values that might undermine the orderly coexistence of states. States agree on a minimum of things to preserve this order, such as sovereignty and non-intervention (Bull 1966, 63), but otherwise there would be a ‘relatively low degree of shared norms, rules, and institutions’ (Bain 2021, 95). In other words, states attempt to ‘cordon off areas of policy as being beyond the reach of international humanitarian law’ (Neumann 2001, 505). It is thus important to distinguish between the idea of the persistence of an international rules-based liberal order, and the persistence of international law as an institution of international order. It is easily imaginable that international law can serve as an institution of an international rules-based order that encompasses more conservative values, reflecting the global ideological shift in power. But the question is whether liberal states will be willing to change their policies in a more conservative direction (Lind and William 2019). Alternatively, will they attempt to sustain the existing system, even as it has less and less support from the growing power of illiberal states? This is not a historically unique situation. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed a set of rules and norms based on socialist international law that would be binding among socialist states, founded on the concept of proletarian internationalism (Hazard 1971, 145). This was then set in a hierarchical relationship with international legal principles (Holsti 2009, 140), which, being only a superstructure of law and an expression of the will of the ruling class, were assumed to be temporary and would simply wither away after the eventual victory of international socialism. This divergence, however, was bounded, as there was still agreement on the existence of international law as a system, and treaty obligations were taken seriously, even if some Marxists objected that international courts could not determine its content and resolve disputes (Higgins 1995, 11).

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This precedent could serve as an illustration of the problems to come. If the liberal states fail to adjust to the changing balance of ideological power and attempt to entrench liberal gains in international law, it might create incentives for illiberal states to go their own way and create law among themselves. If these new rules fail to overlap with existing law, it could weaken the resilience of the institution of international law. It will not provide, to the same extent, the common and legitimate basis for the resolution of disputes to promote patterned change. Instead, we could face a situation where international law begins to fragment as, instead of using international law as the means to come to a tolerable consensus, states instead see the other legal regime—if not each other—as heretical to their preferred international legal regime. But despite this potential threat to international law’s resilience, international law is far from dead as a contemporary institution of international order. It is notable that illiberal states like Russia and China still publicly affirm international law (2016), suggesting that the fundamental structuring function of international law could be maintained despite the increase in ideological competition. Indeed, the institution of international law has demonstrated its resilience many times over, and even though change and contestation are inevitable and even accentuated by these global shifts in ideological power, as former International Court of Justice judge James Crawford put it, ‘international law is flexible enough to accommodate dissenters’ (Crawford 2018, 22). This is because, as he explains: [I]nternational law is a sedimentary formation […] states can withdraw from some of its layers of sediment more easily than others. Of course, sediment in time turns to rock […] So too with international law. At its base is a solid set of principles, norms and institutions: the fundamentals of the post-War global legal structure. It would be difficult for any state to effect a wholesale withdrawal from this solid base. It has survived the worst of the Cold War and many other international crises. We can have faith in those foundational layers. (Crawford 2018, 21)

Thus, as long as change and contestation happen within the framework of international law’s foundational principles, it will remain resilient as an institution of international order, even though that order might move away from what often is referred to as a rules-based international liberal order. Our cases clearly show that it is not only illiberal states’ actions

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that matter for the future resilience of international law. In fact, liberal democracies should consider the wider effects of any (re)interpretations of existing international law aimed at further entrenching liberal values if it makes these laws unacceptable to illiberal states. In the current situation, where US hegemony is declining and increasingly challenged by other states, above all China and Russia, these actions could erode global agreement on fundamental legal principles and contribute to the potential fragmentation of international law and its demise as an institution of global international society.

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CHAPTER 12

The Market in Global International Society: A Dialectic of Contestation and Resilience Barry Buzan and Robert Falkner

The English School’s (ES) engagement with international political economy, and therefore the market, has been thin and inadequate (Buzan 2005). This leaves a question as to whether the market should count as a primary institution of global international society (GIS). In what follows, we assume that it does, but have space only to provide some of the supporting evidence.1 Given that the market is a solidarist institution, the ES’s relative neglect of it matters a lot, because it skews the understanding of GIS more towards pluralism than should be the case. The analytical framework draws on Falkner and Buzan (2019), taking an empirical approach to assessing the emergence and consolidation of primary institutions in four dimensions: • The emergence of the idea as a norm and set of practices; 1 For the full case see Barry Buzan and Robert Falkner, The Market and Global International Society (forthcoming).

B. Buzan (B) · R. Falkner London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_12

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• The creation of secondary institutions around the norm and practices; • The adaptation of states to the norm and practices in terms of their own institutions, behaviours and identities; and • The interplay of the norm and practices with the other primary institutions of GIS. This chapter first looks briefly at the core idea of the market as a norm and a set of practices comprising a primary institution. It then unfolds the dramatic story of how and why this institution has, since its first founding in the nineteenth century, generated a powerful dialectic of contestation and resilience. Unusually for a primary institution, it has repeatedly waxed and waned in its strength and influence within GIS. Finally, it looks at the prospects for the market as a primary institution in the light of both its historical pattern, and the conjuncture of conditions and circumstances currently in play in GIS.

The Market as a Primary Institution The market is a modern idea crystallizing only in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Before that, marketplaces, trade and the idea that supply and demand affected price were practices stretching back deep into antiquity. The market refers to the idea and practice of an economic system of exchange in which independent economic agents interact on the basis of the principles of supply and demand and in a largely self-regulating way. It is the opposite of a command or planned economy, which is based on the authoritative allocation of goods and services laid down within a hierarchical political system. Some ES thinkers such as Wight and Holsti (Buzan 2004, 174) have suggested trade as the economic institution. This was appropriate in premodern times, when trade was often governed by non-market principles, especially the taking or granting of monopoly rights by ruling elites. But from the nineteenth century, something much bigger than mere trade was afoot, despite the campaign for ‘free trade’ being a leading feature of economic liberalism. From a Marxian perspective, industrial capitalism becomes the key institution, defining a political-economic system with free enterprise, private property and free markets at its core. There is thus considerable overlap between the market economy and capitalism, and both terms are

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often used interchangeably. However, we side with Gilpin (1987, 15– 24), who argues that the market is more basic than capitalism, and with Strange (1988, 63), who privileges the market as the concept that best differentiates from the state. In what follows, we understand ‘the market’, or what others have called ‘market ideology’ (Watson 2018, 96–118) or ‘market fundamentalism’ (Oreskes and Conway 2014, 38–49), as a primary institution. For those promoting and accepting it, the market was a political ideology: using the supposed efficiency of the market not only as a coordination system for the transactions of buyers and sellers and as a guiding logic for innovation and investment, but also for the promotion and protection of individual liberty—a system of governance that regulates human interactions in society (Lindblom 2001, 4). Market ideology drew on the legitimacy of modern economics as science to insulate politicians, bankers and businesses from responsibility for making decisions that affect the distribution of wealth and welfare. It was, and is, used ‘in an attempt to naturalize market institutions and therefore close off the space for discussing non-market distributional settlements’ (Watson 2018, 96). It is in this ideational form that the market fits most closely with other primary institutions of GIS such as nationalism, environmental stewardship, the balance of power, sovereignty and territoriality. This understanding of the market emerged as a global political force in Europe only during the nineteenth century. It is worth noting that this story could be told the other way around, with economic nationalism and state planning serving as the baseline. This perspective would view economic transactions as embedded in, and governed by, systems of political control. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mercantilism asserted the primacy of the state and national power—not economic efficiency—in the governance of commerce. While later versions of mercantilism conceded some ground to the market principle and liberal economics (Harlen 1999), the twentieth century witnessed the growth of more radical versions of state-controlled economies: the command economies of the Soviet bloc, authoritarian mixed economies in fascist Germany, Italy and Japan, state-led developmental states in the Third World, and Chinese variants of ‘market socialism’ or ‘state capitalism’. Liberal market economies also underwent a resurgence of mercantilist thinking at various points, most recently with the post-2016 retreat into ‘America First’ of the US under Trump. From this perspective, the periodic triumphs of market ideology would

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be viewed as temporary failures or breakdowns of the primary institution of the planned economy or mercantilism.

The Market in GIS: Change and Contestation We structure this historical sketch in terms of five time periods that define the main advances and retreats of the market as a primary institution of GIS: • The ‘golden age’ emergence of the market, nineteenth century to 1914; • War and the retreat of the market, 1914–1945; • The Bretton Woods compromise, 1945–1973; • The neoliberal resurgence of the market, 1973–2007; • Crisis and retreat? 2008–present. In stark form, this periodization suggests a pattern of change that is unusually extreme for a primary institution: flourish, collapse, compromise, flourish, collapse?… compromise? The ongoing contestation between the market and state planning are central to understanding both the change in and the resilience of the institution. The ‘Golden Age’: Nineteenth Century to 1914 The long nineteenth century (up to 1914) was the initial ‘golden age’ of the market, when it first becomes an institution of GIS. It did so alongside another new institution, nationalism (Mayall 1990) and two others that became more consolidated: the balance of power and great power management. The nineteenth century saw the overthrow of the longstanding mercantilist/dynastic system of political economy in Europe (Frieden 2006, 1). In Britain, this process ran from Adam Smith’s (1776) The Wealth of Nations , which laid the intellectual ground for the market’s ascendancy, to the revocation of the Corn Laws in 1846 that committed the country to free trade. From that point, the commanding wealth and power of Britain as the first industrial power set the example for the rest. Between 1870 and the First World War, economic globalization was triumphant. The gold standard, free trade, global investment and finance, and a relatively open regime for mass migration that amounted

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in practice to free movement of labour, all became dominant practices. The gold standard created something approximating a single currency amongst those adopting the policy, even though it lacked a formal legal foundation in international treaties or intergovernmental organizations (D’Artista 2009, 635). It hugely simplified and encouraged trade and foreign investment (Frieden 2006, 5–7), especially in what were then developing countries like the US, the white settler colonies and Latin America. The second half of the nineteenth century also saw the invention of the limited liability company and its move to global scale operations in the form of the modern multinational corporation (MNC), which became a major source of foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology transfer. Stavrianos (1990, 95–6) equates the significance of this development to that of the modern state. When the system was working well, it benefited most levels of society in industrialized countries, though less so in the peripheral economies of the Global South (Frieden 2006, 122). But the unmediated operation of the market under liberal economic orthodoxy meant that adverse trade balances, or the effects of fluctuations in the price of gold, had to be paid for in unemployment, reduced wages and recessions (Eichengreen 2019, 27–9). Contestation arose from those who had to pay the price: the bulk of the citizens within countries, and internationally, those countries struggling to advance their own industrialization. This first economic globalization required extending to international society something like the same ideational, legal and institutional processes and structures that had made national markets coherent: removing local tolls, tariffs and inspections, and providing the necessary collective goods and institutions to facilitate trade and investment. In the absence of global government, the only way of creating and sustaining a global market was if states agreed to coordinate their economic policies and create the necessary international rules, regimes and organizations. This project got rolling during the nineteenth century, sometimes accomplished by agreement (mostly in the case of other Western states), and more often by coercion (especially in Africa and Asia). But as industrialization spread, trade competition increased, and Germany, the US, Japan and others used tariffs to protect their infant industries from British competition. Unlike the thorough-going opposition to capitalism and the market of Marx-inspired socialism, what these late-industrializing states wanted was to be able to get into the game on equal terms, and to disentangle the general principle of free trade

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from the particular interests of Britain, which they saw as both its principal advocate and main beneficiary (Frieden 2006, 63–7; Breslin 2011, 1331–5). Marxist opposition to liberalism and the market developed as a radical counterpoint to the emergence of the market as a norm. Socialism undertook to address the fundamental contradiction in liberalism between democracy and individualism, on the one hand, and the logic of the market and private ownership of the means of production, on the other. It built itself on the rising political potential, both electoral and revolutionary, of the industrial proletariat and its alienation from the exploitative horrors of nineteenth-century liberal capitalism (Polanyi 1957, 163–77; Hobsbawm 1962, 285–306). The consequences of this turn towards market ideology, combined with the massive increase in the wealth and power of the leading industrial states, are well known. The globalization of economic liberalism was practised within a colonial structure in which a large, but weak and underdeveloped, periphery had little ability to resist the impositions of a small, but powerful, modernizing and largely Western, core (Hobsbawm 1987, 13–33, 56–83; Buzan and Lawson 2015). For the first time, industrialism unleashed a wealth of Western products that could be sold to Asia, reversing the balance of trade. It created the first iteration of the modern, vertical, core-periphery global economy differentiated between suppliers of primary resources (‘developing’ countries) and suppliers of industrial products (‘developed’ countries), with the former being locked into a system of unequal terms of exchange (Abernathy 2000, 81–103; Darwin 2007, 237–45, 330–8). The majority of the world didn’t operate under the market norm except at the wrong end of a very uneven playing field, with imperial states both creating and constantly interfering in the world market (Sassoon 2019, 417). Despite generating significant reactions against free trade (infant industry protection), the gold standard (labour movements, socialism) and migration (exclusion legislation)—especially during the four decades before 1914—market ideology drove a degree of globalization not seen again until the 1990s (Frieden et al. 2012, 5). Opposition to market ideology was too weak to undermine it. Workers mainly did not have the vote, colonies had little voice, and late industrializers were more opposed to the particular practices, rather than the principle, of the market.

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War and the Retreat of the Market: 1914–1945 Between 1914 and 1945, the institution of the market suffered reversals sufficient to put its resilience into question. The global market was not eliminated as a guiding idea during this period, but the idea was increasingly on the defensive in many parts of the core where forms of mercantilist economic nationalism, sometimes extreme, became dominant, and the global practices of market ideology in terms of trade, finance, foreign investment and labour were very sharply curtailed. The First World War shut down almost all aspects of golden-age economic globalization. The major economies attempted during the 1920s to revive pre-war free trade and the gold standard, but after a brief boom, this quickly failed (Frieden 2006, 133–47). Britain was too weak to provide international leadership, while the US was strong enough economically but prevented from doing so by its domestic politics (Frieden 2006, 129–33; Eichengreen 2019, 41–2). Monetary instability (inflation and exchange rate variability) after the war compared alarmingly with the long ‘golden age’ stability before it. Policy coordination amongst the leading financial powers was too weak to overcome serious divergences in economic policy (Eichengreen 2019, 42–78). The Great Depression of the 1930s, sparked—but not caused—by the stock market crash in the US in 1929, led to a profound shift in the relationship between the state and the market in the world’s leading economies. A combination of global economic imbalances resulting from the convulsions of the First World War and the prevalence of liberal economic orthodoxy turned asset bubble bursts in the late 1920s into a trigger for a worldwide recession, leading to mass unemployment and a sharp fall in international trade (Temin 1989; Eichengreen 1992). Operating within the cognitive limits of the gold standard, many governments failed to adapt appropriately to the new conditions, instead abandoning adherence to international monetary stability and free trade in search of a national economic cure (Morrison 2016). During the 1930s, barriers to trade, FDI and migration went up as governments grappled with the social and political consequences of the economic crisis (Jones 2005, 27–31, 81–4). Different currency blocs and economic spheres emerged (Abernathy 2000, 104–32; Jansen and Osterhammel 2017, 54– 63; Eichengreen 2019, 42–6). While Italy, Germany and Japan sought to expand their imperial spheres sufficiently to support their own industrial economies, Britain, France and the Soviet Union sought to hang on to

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the empires they already had. This turn was reinforced by the anticipation of war and the spread of rearmament programmes. Military mobilization was a useful way of both increasing demand in the economy and addressing the high unemployment caused by the depression. By the end of the 1930s, the resurgence of the state in governing the economy and preparing for war had crowded out pro-market sentiment. As Appleby (2010, chapter 9) notes, there was not only a loss of the optimism that fuels investment and consumption, but also in many quarters a loss of faith in capitalism and the market themselves. This profound challenge led to an unprecedented expansion of state intervention and the breakdown of the global market. In the US, Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ led to a flurry of new laws and institutions that allowed the state to fund large-scale public infrastructure investments, set agricultural prices and shield domestic producers from foreign competition (Patel 2016). Other parts of the world also adopted state intervention, welfarism and protectionism to varying degrees. During this period, both communism (as embedded in the Soviet Union) and state capitalism (the fascist states, as well as periphery countries pursuing import substitution industrialization once they were cut off from world trade and investment) emerged as substantial challengers to the global market. Both the left and right took inspiration from the war mobilizations of economies from 1914 to 1918 (Purseigle 2014). In its various forms, economic nationalism did well enough to pose a real ideological threat to market ideology (Frieden 2006, 205–29). Even during this nadir, however, when the global practice of market ideology was almost extinguished, the idea of a return to global market ideology remained resilient in the Anglosphere and shaped discussion of the postwar world order. The conferences and secondary institutions around the market set up during the interwar years failed to revive the pre-1914 economic system (Eichengreen 2019, 56–8, 81–5), but they did constitute a bridge between the near absence of market-supporting intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) before 1914, and the rich provision of them after 1945 (Clavin 2013). Even where belief in market ideology remained alive, it was clear that the old model would have to change if the market was to have any chance of reviving from its near-death experience.

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The Bretton Woods Compromise: 1945–1973 The fate of the market as a primary institution of GIS in the period following the Second World War was partly shaped by the lessons drawn from the interwar experience. The international lesson was that ‘if goods can’t cross borders, soldiers will’, (Gardner 1969, 7–10), which usefully linked the market to existing great power responsibilities for security. The domestic lesson was about the political unworkability of inflicting the unmediated adjustment costs of the gold standard and free trade onto the general population, at least in democracies. But the market was also central to the contestation of the new Cold War between the US, where market ideology had remained resilient, and the Soviet Union, which continued to oppose it. It was also shaped significantly by the difficulties and opportunities that states faced in postwar recovery and reconstruction. As Frieden et al. (2012, 6–7) argue, the lessons learned from the experience of the global economy during the late nineteenth century and the interwar years were both domestic and international: the supposed self-equilibrating character of international markets was a fiction; managing a global economy required cooperation amongst the great powers; and such international cooperation required public support within the democratic states. The Bretton Woods compromise can thus be understood partly as an attempt to improve the resilience of the market by addressing its adverse effects, and partly as a major modification of the institution of great power management by adding the global economy to the responsibilities of great powers (Cui and Buzan 2016). The main idea in both Britain and the US was to use intergovernmental organizations to reopen trade and allow a managed capitalism that would sustain the new Keynesian social compact of social democracy and the welfare state (Frieden 2006, 253–71). Bretton Woods was an attempt to have as much of the benefit of free trade as possible, while at the same time restricting destabilizing financial flows and protecting states and societies from both socially disruptive adjustment costs and an unacceptable weakening of state capabilities (Helleiner 1995, 149– 55). One of the key mechanisms to enable this gradual market revival was to enshrine the new principles of multilateral economic cooperation in secondary institutions: the IMF and the World Bank (1944), which provided international lending and monetary policy oversight, and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT 1948), which established

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reciprocity and non-discrimination as core principles for trade liberalization (Ashworth 1975, 273–9; Best 2006, 135; O’Brian and Williams 2016, 112–20). Together with regional organizations (e.g. the Organization for European Economic Co-operation—OEEC), this system successfully mediated the recovery of Europe and Japan from the devastation of the war. It saw a sustained boom in production, supported social stability and revived world trade. Ruggie (1982, 385–99, 1994) coined the term ‘embedded liberalism’ to capture this new agreement about the social purpose of the market. But the Bretton Woods system contained unsustainable flaws that eventually undermined its resilience. With the dollar effectively on the gold standard, the Bretton Woods system required the US to be willing to shoulder the burden of defending the dollar-gold link. By the 1960s, however, domestic priorities began to take over, calling into question America’s continued support for Bretton Woods. Successive US administrations were unwilling to pay for the Vietnam war and Johnson’s Great Society programme with increased taxation (Beeson and Bell 2017, 291). As the US developed a growing trade deficit from 1971 onwards— Europeans and Japanese economies not only recovered but became very successful exporters—Washington came under growing pressure to devalue its currency and thereby break the link to gold. In August 1971, the Nixon administration took the dollar off gold, allowing the currency to drop in subsequent months. After failed attempts to repair Bretton Woods, a further devaluation of the dollar in 1973 sealed the fate of the international monetary system (Frieden 2006, 339–42). A combination of governments’ unwillingness to prioritize international monetary stability, in the US but also in Europe, and the growing pressure of currency speculation that had returned since the 1960s brought the Bretton Woods monetary order to its knees (Strange 1991, 35–6). Bretton Woods was heavily embroiled in the Cold War, which was in good part a contestation about the market. The Soviet Union led a bloc, quickly joined by China, that espoused an extreme form of command economy and economic nationalism and was vehemently opposed to market ideology. In between them and the West were the growing ranks of decolonized Third World states, highly resentful of the exploitation they had suffered as colonies, and often minded to expropriate foreign capital and pursue economic nationalist paths of development (Jones 2005, 67–74). They added a North–South contestation to the East– West one over the market as an institution of GIS. Much of the Global

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South pursued import-substituting industrialization (ISI) policies and the G77 campaigned for a New International Economic Order, which sought a break with international market principles to promote price stabilization and economic development. The Cold War thus forced the US to confront the development needs of the Third World, generating another entanglement between free trade and security (Calleo and Rowland 1973; Latham 1995; Eichengreen 2019, 124–26). The Soviet Bloc and China were credible challengers to liberal market capitalism in the Third World, and the US used its foreign aid both to deter communist expansion and promote the market as the only plausible pathway to development (Westad 2007, 27–32). With the Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s, Mao’s China emerged as another ideological and practical challenger on development strategy to both the US and the Soviet Union (Westad 2007, 158–69). The postwar international economy was thus deeply fractured along ideological lines, pitting pro-market Western forces against communist central planning in the Soviet bloc and statist developmentalism in much of the Third World. The partial recovery of the market under Bretton Woods was only an institution within the Western world, but that world still represented the bulk of the global economy, and the most dynamic areas of growth. Despite its early successes, the Bretton Woods structure was inherently flawed and unsustainable (Eichengreen 2019, 86–8, 124– 26; Beeson and Bell 2017, 289–92). It produced stability in monetary relations partly because it restricted speculative financial flows but crumbled as the return of financial liberalization exposed major economies’ unwillingness to support a fixed exchange rate system. Because of its exceptional wealth and power after the war, the US was able to make the system work, but the inadequate adjustment mechanisms in the system, and the constraints of US domestic and foreign policies, eventually exposed the design flaw. The stimulative effects of both reconstruction and the expansion of trade meant rising wages in the core. The political position of labour was additionally reinforced by strong unions and the significant role of socialist parties in political life, especially in Europe. The Global Neoliberal Resurgence of the Market: 1973–2007 The period from 1973 to 2007 witnessed a revival of something like the full-blooded market ideology of the last decades of the nineteenth century. The so-called neoliberal revolution had its intellectual roots in

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the free marketeers’ reaction against the expansion of state intervention during the New Deal and Bretton Woods (Patel 2016, 297–8; Slobodian 2018). Following the 1970s stagflation crisis, which revealed the shortcomings of Keynesian demand-side economic steering, neoliberal ideas rose to prominence in Western economic policymaking, starting with the US under Reagan and the UK under Thatcher (Cockett 1995). The market quickly gained totemic status from the 1980s as the cure for the failings of statist bureaucracy and planning and as the guarantor of freedom and individual choice. With China’s turn to the market (but not democracy) from the 1980s, plus the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communist central planning in 1991, it seemed for a moment as if liberal market thinking and democracy had scored a decisive victory in the ideological battle between individualism and collectivism (Fukuyama 1992). The question was whether the market could now finally be enthroned as an enduring fundamental norm of GIS. The initial outlook for the neoliberal revolution was promising. The troubled 1970s were followed by the ‘great moderation’ from the 1980s through to 2007, with inflation tamed, more economic cooperation amongst the developed states, and more developing countries and former communist states joining the global market economy. After Bretton Woods, global finance rose to dominate the global economy, bringing with it large-scale currency speculation (Strange 1998; Sinclair 2014) and threatening the welfare state across a wide swathe of international society (Milanovic 2019, 51, 154–59). The defection of China from Marxist economics, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the conspicuous success of the Asian Tigers that had taken the path of export-oriented industrialization (EOI) all paved the way for a second golden age of the market as an institution of GIS as much of the Global South opened its economies. Those countries that followed the EOI model were now able to take advantage of both global markets and cheap and abundant capital (Frieden 2006, 414–17, 420–31). China in particular managed to establish itself as the world’s manufacturing hub and became a magnet for Western FDI. Slowly but steadily, the ‘great convergence’ (Baldwin 2016) got underway as developing countries (especially in Asia) embarked on sustained catch-up growth. This second rise of the market did not come about through uncoordinated unilateral action, as had the first in the nineteenth century. It was orchestrated, and at times enforced, by the World Bank and IMF, which began to use conditionality to promote market-oriented reforms,

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and from 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well. The debt crises triggered by financial liberalization strengthened their hand and made structural adjustment programmes the price that debtor countries had to pay to receive loans (Frieden 2006, 373–79; O’Brian and Williams 2016, 230–31). The leading powers also expanded their coordination efforts, starting with the G7 in 1975 and expanding it to the G20 in 1999 following the 1997–1998 financial crisis in East Asia. This shift marked a significant widening of global economic management (Drezner 2014; Temin and Vines 2013, 248–50). Global capitalism triumphed in the neoliberal era, but its structural imbalances created a constant threat of crisis. One axis of contestation was between those countries building up big trade surpluses, such as Japan, China, Germany and some of the oil exporters, and those like the US and Britain who built up corresponding deficits. Another axis was between those who recklessly took on unsustainable debt levels to fund domestic investment and spending and those who recklessly lent to them (Frieden et al. 2012, 9–18). Mexico’s default on its sovereign debt in 1982 triggered widespread financial turbulence across Latin America. It was followed by a whole string of financial crises in both core and periphery countries (Frieden 2006, 386–92; Eichengreen 2019, 181–99). Global financial markets seemed unable to prevent excessive state borrowing. If anything, herd behaviour in global finance created a ‘dynamically unstable’ constraint—‘very weak during good times, very strong during bad’ (Walter and Sen 2008, 152; Agenor 1999; Chwieroth 2007). The 2008 global financial crisis demonstrated that the North was not exempt from this problem, leading to the biggest recession the world had experienced since the Great Depression (Tooze 2018). A third axis of confrontation was caused by the globalization of production, which had deindustrializing effects in the developed states, with industries such as steel and shipbuilding largely going abroad in search of cheaper labour (Frieden 2006, 417–20). Even before the economic meltdown in 2008, an anti-globalization movement was gathering strength in many developed countries (Skidelsky 2018, 371–74). This was fundamentally opposed to neoliberalism’s attempt to remove the economy from the political sphere. It was concerned about the damage to the global environment from an economic system that did not factor environmental externalities into its calculation of costs. It was alienated by the rising inequality within states and their vulnerability to both regulatory and state capture by wealthy elites (Blyth 2002, 271–85). It was

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increasingly worried about the erosion of cultural distinctiveness and national identity by the migration of both jobs and industries. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, global capitalism thus once again faced something like the same dilemma as in the nineteenth century: how to maximize the benefits of an open, global, market economy, while managing the sometimes-severe costs that such arrangements placed on citizens and society. Crisis (and Retreat?): 2008-Present In 2007–2008, a massive financial crisis, as in 1929 emanating from the US and then spreading to Europe and beyond, once again exposed the hazards of financial liberalization. Until then, only poorly governed emerging or developing countries were considered to be at risk of such a dramatic financial meltdown. That a sudden downturn in the US subprime mortgage market could bring down the entire financial system in the most advanced capitalist economy and cause a global credit crunch seemed unlikely. At one level, the financial crisis laid bare society’s failure to understand and deal with speculative bubbles (Shiller 2012). Its root causes can also be found in regulatory failure: the inability to control murky financial instruments and transnational networks that ended up concentrating, rather than diversifying, financial risk (Blinder 2013). More fundamentally, the crisis called into question the very market revolution that had paved the way for the financialization of the economy (Chwieroth and Walter 2019). Although financial liberalization made vast amounts of capital available for development, the financial sector came to impose ever greater systemic risk on the ‘real economy’ of production, trade and work. And as the post-crisis responses demonstrated, most states had little choice but save the banking system with multibillion-dollar bailouts, but without addressing the over-financialization of the global economy (Beeson and Bell 2017, 285–86, 292–97). Only massive government interventions in the US, the UK and elsewhere, including resort to huge quantitative easing and sustained low interest rates, prevented the complete collapse of the economy (Chinn and Frieden 2011, 120–45), yet again debunking the idea that markets were efficient, autonomous and the solution to most problems of public policy (Tooze 2018).

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Since 2008, the system has been in turmoil, with rising tensions over trade, investment, financial liberalization and migration—and a consequent hard questioning of the market ideology and a revival of economic nationalism. The turbulence and contestation remain unresolved and appear to have been deepened by the COVID-19 crisis, which put into stark perspective the cost of pursuing economic efficiency without caring about the resilience necessary to deal with unexpected crises. As Frieden et al. (2012, 31–47) argue, in all of the major players in the economic crisis, domestic political priorities have dominated commitments to international cooperation, and those domestic politics—especially in the West—have been driven by rising hostility to economic globalization (Burgoon et al. 2017). The crisis strengthened the turn, already apparent in the 1990s, of a lot of public opinion against globalization, which became seen as the cause of job losses, falling wages, growing inequality and immigration (Chinn and Frieden 2011, 154–57, 171–74). This drift towards increasing economic nationalism and the winding down of economic globalization was given a sharp push by the wide-ranging and quite deep sanctions imposed by the West on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is easy to imagine, though too early to tell at the time of writing, that these measures will accelerate the global fragmentation of finance, production and trade. The growing backlash against globalization has also affected other aspects of the international economic order, undermining the domestic support that free trade and investment flows had hitherto enjoyed. Even though global economic institutions initially played important roles in managing the economic crisis (Drezner 2012; Pauly 2017, 187–93), the 2016 US election brought a president into the White House who openly endorsed protectionism and happily entered into a trade war with China (Davis and Wei 2020). Under President Trump, the US was willing to exploit its central position in international financial networks to gain leverage over its strategic rivals. Trump proves Susan Strange’s (1988, 28) long-ago insight that the US had not lost its structural power in the global economy; it continues to enjoy the benefits of ‘weaponised interdependence’ (Farrell and Newman 2019). But structural power is self-destroying if exploited too obviously and too often. Leading emerging powers, most notably China, have challenged the present structure of secondary institutions and the inbuilt advantage it gives to the West. They saw these IGOs as unrepresentative of the new distributions of

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wealth, power and cultural authority and began to set up their own institutions, both as competitors and as bargaining chips in a long struggle to reconfigure the distribution of status and power in the management of the global economy (O’Brian and Williams 2016, 307–10; Acharya and Buzan 2019, 283–4). During the neoliberal period, market ideology rode on a wave of belief, backed by elements of calculation and coercion. The economic crisis from 2008, and the continued success of China’s statist economic model, delivered some very hard blows to that belief. There was justified concern that the financial sector might not survive another crisis, and while there was no obvious alternative to the existing international financial order, there remained a great deal of hostility to it. Since persistent trade imbalances underlay the build-up of unsustainable debt and the erosion of domestic social stability, belief in free trade also took a heavy hit. This gave political space to economic nationalists, though global access to resources and markets was still widely acknowledged as necessary to prosperity. Labour migration regained its politically sensitive character with the large flows of refugees fleeing wars and the political violence that surged during the second decade of the twenty-first century. Unlike during the interwar years, there were no systematic challenges to the market like those from communism, fascism or state-led developmentalism. Capitalism may have become the de facto mode of the global economy, but this did not lead to harmony. Indeed, the opening up of a range of varieties of capitalism created real problems of just how much scope there was for an integrated global market economy. Nothing illustrated this better than the growing tensions between the US and China caused by the different nature of their political economies and the entanglement of those differences both in security issues and in ‘unfair’ practices in production, trade, finance and labour. The global economy had neither a clear guiding principle nor an obvious alternative.

Outlook and Conclusions The guiding question for this chapter on the market is: How has this fundamental institution been affected by ongoing change and contestation, and what adaptive measures need to be undertaken for it to remain resilient in the changed circumstances of the twenty-first century? The discussion above has addressed ongoing change and contestation. The question of how to keep the market fit for purpose is, however, much

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more problematic. Some part of the current contestation is about how to fix the market in relation to production, trade, finance and labour, but some is about whether to downgrade and constrain—if not abandon—the market as a guiding principle as economic nationalism makes a comeback. There can be no doubt that for most of the past 170 years, the market qualifies as a primary institution of GIS. As Beeson and Bell (2017) argue, it has had deep and wide-ranging impacts on GIS. The historical account of this chapter has shown that at its best, the market can lower the incentives for war and imperialism and generate rapid growth that lifts all boats—though lifting some much faster than others. At its worst, the market can generate huge global crises that impoverish many and incentivize imperialism, entrench high levels of inequality within and between states, expose major vulnerabilities arising from high levels of interdependence that are not robust in a crisis, and provide a battleground over the control and abuse of the rules and institutions necessary to govern the global economy. Only during the thirty years of 1914–1945 was the market in serious abeyance. Ever since, the market has been in the ascendancy, playing an important role even in state capitalist systems. But as flagged above, this story could also be told with the planned economy as the centrepiece: economic nationalist and command-economy alternatives are always waiting in the wings. Even when strong, the market was not always a universal principle, as most obviously during the Cold War. Historically speaking, the fortunes of the market link closely to those of the Anglosphere, which has been its principal promoter. To remain a vibrant international norm, it needs to prove itself to be universally beneficial and capable of adaptation to new global challenges. In the decades before the First World War, market ideology was, like most other primary institutions at the time, resident in the core but applied globally to a periphery which was under varying degrees of colonial subordination. From 1914–1945, and during wartime, it was almost eliminated from the core but remained alive as an aspiration in the Anglosphere. Under Bretton Woods, it had a restricted reintroduction within the Western sphere, keeping a lid on finance, and with the Second World and much of the Third, on mercantilist opposition. From the 1980s to 2007, market ideology was once again in the driver’s seat, this time on a global scale. Since then, crisis and confusion have returned, with market ideology severely contested and deeply wounded in principle. That said, neither the practice nor the ideology of the market is anywhere near dead: the shadows of the previous four phases all loom large over the

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future. While the global financial crisis weakened the orthodoxy of financial liberalization and globalization, it did not offer any clear way forward that had not been tried and failed before. Untrammelled market ideology delivers spectacular results in some places but seems too turbulent and too inequitable to be sustainable for more than a few decades. The market fundamentalism/state regulation pendulum has not stopped swinging. The market is certainly unusual for a primary institution of GIS in having its opposite (command economy/state intervention) as a constant companion and alternative. This almost certainly explains its other unusual feature, which is the way that since the nineteenth century it has fluctuated back and forth from being a powerful structuring influence on GIS to being marginalized and widely opposed. That pattern is no surprise to economic historians, but in ES perspective it comes as a bit of a shock, as the historical patterns of primary institutions are not generally so strongly up and down. The ES has adopted a fairly linear model in which institutions such as sovereignty, nationalism, colonialism, international law, environmentalism and others rise, evolve with their times, and sometimes become obsolete (Holsti 2004; Buzan 2004, 2014; Falkner 2021). This pattern fits nearly all of the primary institutions under discussion within the ES. There is some fluctuation in other primary institutions such as the balance of power and war (Holsti 2004, 146–50; Jones 2006; Ralph 2010; Buzan 2014, 150–3), but in the case of the market, the cycle is extreme enough to look like fluctuations between periods of robust strength and periods of near extinction. This dialectical pattern between market and statist control raises hard questions about how to interpret the current weakening of the market in GIS. Is it simply a decline from relatively strong to relatively weak, or is it a second ‘death’ experience like that of the 1930s? Is Milanovic (2019, 185–7, 207–18) correct to argue that there is no alternative to capitalism, only a choice between liberal and authoritarian versions of it that may themselves be merging? Frieden et al. (2012) seem correct in their immediate prediction of declining political and popular support for economic globalization accompanied by a rise of economic nationalism in both the developed states and the emerging economies. Yet while there is no obvious place to go next in squaring market ideology with society, neither are there any major challenger ideologies about how to structure the global political economy. All of the major powers are now capitalist in some form, which embeds the market in a very significant way. The market still seems to be the most efficient way to pursue wealth and power

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quickly. The idea that the market serves economic efficiency and innovation remains strong. This suggests that as the market’s dialectic between contestation and resilience has unfolded, this institution has moved from the ‘expansion’ model of GIS to the ‘globalization’ one. During the colonial era up to 1945, the market was a core institution imposed on the periphery by controlling outside powers for their own benefit. During the Bretton Woods period, the market was largely confined to the West, but used in the Cold War in ‘expansion’ mode in the rivalry with the communist bloc about development models. From the 1980s, the market moved more into ‘globalization’ mode, the landmark here being China’s independent turn to it under Deng Xiaoping. Thereafter, its adoption by large parts of the Global South was as much or more about independent responses to the successes of the Asian Tigers as it was about imposition from the core. Post-2008, what to do about the market is a global problem. In the longer run, however, the market looks seriously threatened. International production and trade are under pressure from the unwinding of global value chains for both political and economic reasons. Global finance might be threatened both by the seemingly inevitable instability its liberalization introduces into the global economy and by the socially and politically unacceptable levels of inequality it generates. The global labour market is threatened both by strong political resistance to migration on cultural—and in some cases racial—grounds and by mass automation of jobs at many levels. There are also big—and still open—questions about the impact on market economies of ever more sophisticated AIs combining clever algorithms, huge data processing capacity and vast pools of big data. Will they concentrate ever more wealth and information in the hands of a small number of private firms, exacerbating the inequality problem in various big ways? Could this necessitate and facilitate a shift to a political economy based on universal basic income rather than wages? Could AIs even reverse the longstanding inability of command economies to compete with market ones by providing them with information and management tools vastly greater than anything previously available? Market ideology is additionally challenged by the way in which its laissez-faire attitude towards regulations and externalities, and its commitment to economic growth, contradict the rising urgency of dealing with climate change, mass extinctions and global diseases. There are potential

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ways in which the market can adapt and respond to environmental challenges, but not in anything like the stripped-down neoliberal form that dominated its most recent outing as a strong primary institution of GIS. Looking forward, we might, therefore, conclude that while immediate trends point mainly to a relative weakening of the market as a primary institution, medium- and longer-term ones point to a turn in the dialectic in which market ideology never recovers its dominant position in the global economy.

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CHAPTER 13

Conclusions Richard Ned Lebow

Like films, sit coms, and automobile designs, the English School very much reflects the assumptions, values, and expectations of its era. As contributors to this volume note, it was a product of the Cold War, but also of a time when order, especially at the international level, was considered a uniquely Western product. The world has changed dramatically since 1977 when Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society first saw the light of day. International relations theory has struggled to keep up with these changes, and mainstream realist and liberal approaches are still deeply rooted in Western conceptions of order. As Ay¸se Zarakol (2017) has convincingly demonstrated, international relations theory ignored IR in the East or portrayed it in terms of cultural—if not racial—stereotypes. The authors of this volume recognize these problems, but also the ways in which the English School offered a novel—and at the time, a relatively progressive—take on international relations. They aim to highlight and build on these features, but also on their recognition of the research program’s limitations, to make it more germane to the current era. This book is part of an ongoing effort toward this end; its authors generously

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2_13

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acknowledge the contributions made by other scholars and seek to extend them. To a large degree they are successful. The chapters address three challenges identified by the editors: the need to recognize the existence and possibly positive role of contestation, reconceptualize the primary institutions in global international society in light of this contestation, and think about the ways in which order should be theorized and attained in a culturally and political diverse international society. They do not flinch at asking if a paradigm of international order rooted in the notion of a culturally homogeneous Eurocentric core is obsolete or still offers useful insights. In looking for answers they are willing to benefit from research in other paradigms and research traditions in the hope of enriching their own. The IR discipline suffers from an exaggerated focus on states and socalled structures (e.g., polarity, balance of power, markets), with many schools still downplaying the role of non-state actors, domestic politics and processes, subjective understandings, and agency in general. At the international level, realists and liberals have generally equated order with the Western liberal-capitalist institutions backed up by American military might. Rooted in their teleology, liberals have long assumed that capitalism’s triumph is inevitable because they regard it as the only rational response to modernity. Early English School theorists also equated order with its Western form and—like liberals—ignored the diversity within the West and in the broader world. In contrast to neorealists, who characterized international relations a system, Bull and Wight, to their credit, put at least as much emphasis on society. Their successors, including contributors to this volume, find this distinction worthy of further investigation, especially given the complexities of an era in which international society has arguably become stronger yet more diverse. Western society—the theorized pillar of the international order—has also become more fractured with the resurgence of illiberal forms of nationalism and dysfunctional democratic domestic institutions. Any study of the relationship between society and system, and domestic politics and international order must, of necessity, put more emphasis on bottom-up vs. top-down political processes. Here too, this volume responds to the needs of the moment. Some conclusions of edited books restate the arguments of the contributors. These are already summarized in the introduction. Instead, I will reflect on key themes of the volume. These are contestation, institutions,

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resilience, and new ways of conceiving order. I refer to individual chapters where appropriate. I offer a definition of resilience that draws on the discussions of the contributors. I conclude with an assessment of contemporary resilience and explore pathways toward restricting (global) international society in ways that could make it more robust.

Contestation and Change Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society is a study of order in world politics. It asks what order is, where it comes from, and how it is maintained. Bull finds the source of order in the values of Western society. The editors to this volume note that he recognized that the global expansion of Western economic and political power in the form of colonialism, and then the postwar independence of these territories and peoples, would nevertheless lead to challenges to the Western conception of ‘the good life’ and the kind of order associated with it. Trine Flockhart reminds us that because Bull equated stability and order, and attributed both to well-functioning, legitimate international institutions, he was deeply worried that contestation would undermine order. It took some time for those drawn to the English School to address contestation and confront the seeming paradox it posed for order: Digging in in defense of the status quo would seriously weaken it in the long run but allowing challenges and radical changes could undermine it without putting something else robust in its place. Bull’s approach mirrored that of the leading Western powers, who for the most part opted for their first strategy. Their efforts to preserve the status quo arguably made it more vulnerable. Wars against national liberation fronts in Algeria and Vietnam; efforts to isolate the People’s Republic of China; subversion and military intervention against left-wing regimes in the Middle East, Far East, and the Caribbean and Latin America; the Washington Consensus; and, more recently, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; the so-called war on terror; and military and political balancing against China have at best bought time for the Western-sponsored order. Arguably, globalization—pushed by Western governments and liberal theorists as beneficial to everyone—is in part responsible for the high level of political disenchantment of Western peoples and the growing support of some for anti-democratic, anti-international political parties and movements. IR theorists mirror their comparative politics colleagues in trying to make sense of the seeming fragility of order. Zachary Paikin and other

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contributors find the English School’s emphasis on society as a source of systemic order a useful starting point for their analysis. They differ from Bull in not regarding contestation as a negative force that must be contained, but as a necessary and often positive process essential to a healthy and dynamic society (Reus-Smit and Dunne 2017, 36). Contestation can produce visible differences concerning values, norms, and institutions, as well as their applicability or appropriate role in specific problems or situations—it is the link between society and the institutions that instantiate the order to which it gives rise. Aristotle’s ideal society was a homonoia, which means literally of one mind. It was a city in which everyone shared the same values and goals. Taking his cue from the ancient Greek philosopher, Bull argues (1977, 13) that members of a robust society are ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values’, conceive of themselves as ‘bound by a common set of rules’, and ‘share in the working of common institutions’. This is, of course, an ideal, but highlights the political truth that any social aggregation can only function based on some degree of consensus about ends and means. The deep political divisions in Western democracies reflect varying degrees of the breakdown of such a consensus. The long-standing shortage of consensus in global society makes it that much thinner and more contentious. This lack of consensus is most recently demonstrated in the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Western nations, or at least their leaders, drew closer together, but most countries in Latin America, South Asia, and China, refused to condemn Russia. Some were more critical of NATO than of Russia, and others, like China, sought to be ‘even-handed’. Resistance to, and even suppression of, contestation is generally associated with regimes that feel threatened (Lebow and Norman 2022). Rightly or wrongly, their leaders fear that public protest will quickly lead to their unraveling. Sometimes they are correct, as were the leaders of the former German Democratic Republic. On other occasions, suppression only ends up making them more vulnerable. Institutions based on what their leaders believe to be established religious or political truths also resist contestation, which they regard as heresy. This has been true of the Roman Catholic Church and all communist regimes. Most social scientists recognize the value of protest, although they reveal a preference for limited protests focused on specific goals. This is most pronounced among those who follow economics in valuing equilibria and even making them central to their theories. Equilibrium

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promotes a conservative political bias as too much—or too radical— protest is seen to threaten stability. In comparative politics, the so-called Weimar lesson, that mass mobilization can only threaten democratic orders, is a pertinent case in point (Breiner 2022). Many defenders of the Western liberal order arguably reveal the same bias; they regarded radical change in the form of left-wing regimes, and before that, anti-colonial movements, as existential threats. Equilibrium is a feature of some physical and biological systems, but not of the social world, where it is a theoretical fiction (Lebow 2018, 67– 74). The most stable orders are those that evolve through a process of gradual change. By contrast, those that appear to maintain their equilibria are among the most vulnerable to major upheavals. Rather, the analogy here is to geological fault lines. Those that have frequent small slips allow pressures to release in contrast to those that do not. They will remain stable much longer but then give rise to major earthquakes. Focus on equilibrium, moreover, makes it more difficult to explain change, thus reducing scholarly interest in the phenomenon. The Machiavellian tradition stands in sharp contrast to equilibrium theory. Social scientists in this tradition regard order as fluid, as something that evolves in response to changing conditions and requirements. They emphasize the need for governments to develop responsiveness in the form of openness to change. Hans Morgenthau and classical realists are very much in this tradition (Lebow 2003). So, too, is someone like Karl Deutsch, who argued that successful government depends as much on responsiveness as capabilities (Deutsch 1964). By introducing the concept of resilience, contributors to this volume are attempting to relocate the English School in the Machiavellian tradition. The great Florentine theorist rejected stability and the status quo as goals, considering them damaging to the longer-term survival of political orders. The Roman republic, he insisted, endured as long as it did because it was unstable. Its tensions, especially those between aristocrats and plebs, had positive effects because they prompted evolving, negotiated changes to the structure of governance (Machiavelli 1997, book 1, chs. 2 and 4). Change in orders can be gradual and incremental or rapid and dramatic. It can be a return or strengthening of existing institutions or a shift in their character, functioning, or relative importance. It is sometimes hard to distinguish between these kinds of changes. Consider the possibility of a shift in election procedures in the US from the electoral

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college, where states are given votes, to the direct election of the president. It could be described as a radical change, and indeed, would require a constitutional amendment. However, it could also be characterized as a return to the long-standing principle of one ‘man’ one vote and a reform that prevents a minority from imposing its views on a majority. Christian Reus-Smit’s chapter offers a nice example of this problem in international relations. He described sovereignty as the most elementary of international institutions as it is the one on which so many others rest. States have always upheld the principle of sovereignty while actively compromising it in practice. Reus-Smit suggests that these violations have transformed our understanding of the concept. In part, this evolution is driven by the tension between the demands of order and those of justice. Sovereignty validates hierarchies that are considered just by some and unjust by others. Reus-Smit also expresses the standard English School view that people precede states—the notion that sovereignty derives from the people and is accordingly meant to serve their interests and rights. But just how is a matter of interpretation and contestation. Two principal formulations are the individualist and communal. The former frames people and states as rights-bearing actors. Sovereignty rests on their consent and must be limited by it. The latter also regards sovereignty as flowing from the people, but the ‘people’ are believed to have a collective identity above and beyond that of individuals. The contestation between these conceptions of the modern state’s moral purpose lies at the heart of contemporary struggles over political legitimacy. Historically, the individualist version has had the greatest effects on the framing of sovereignty and the structure of modern international society. But there is growing support for communal understandings among politically diverse groupings, and it is reshaping the practice and understanding of sovereignty. Vincent Charles Keating and Amelie Theussen tell a similar story about international law in their chapter. It is a defining feature of international society because it creates authoritative practices that enable states with different goals, values, and objectives to coexist and cooperate. Keating and Theussen contend that international law has survived different forms of contestation during and after the Cold War. Most recently, it has witnessed liberal efforts to reinforce human rights with the Responsibility to Protect and illiberal attempts to weaken human rights through debates over the permissibility of torture. International law has encroached on traditional understandings of sovereignty and has therefore produced a

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backlash. Liberal states are under pressure to move in a more conservative direction—and also in a more radical one—by those who want a more pluralist international society. Either way, it is an open question whether international law will continue to provide the same basis for dispute resolution. International law could fragment, with each state choosing which laws and rules to uphold. Such fragmentation would reflect divergent interests, but more importantly, divergent values and understandings of what makes for a good life. The several examples cited in the paragraphs above illustrate the difficulties of conceptualizing change. Electoral reform in the US would have to be a negotiated one, based on a widespread consensus, because it requires votes for change by national or state legislatures. The presentday shift in sovereignty is unilateral, the result of independent behavior by multiple actors. Both kinds of changes restore or maintain a principle, but in the course of doing so change its meaning. They can be read as incremental change or as transformations—and indeed are by different constituencies. The example of international law offers another variant of this theme. Those who support liberal international law regard its development as a series of hard-won steps that strengthen law, generally at the expense of sovereignty. Most international lawyers and supporters of these changes see these steps as part of an ongoing transformation in which the rights of individuals and groups gain some priority in some domains over those of states. Opponents describe their own efforts as restoration of the status quo. But Keating and Theussen tell a more complicated story because critics of international law, like Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin, and supporters of torture are advancing their own radical agenda of collective over individual rights. Each of these examples highlights struggles over the meaning and purpose of key domestic or international institutions. They are not neutral pillars of order but, as the English School has long recognized, enforcers of its norms and rules—and thus propagators of certain principles of justice and their associated practices, hierarchies, and reward structures. They must also be seen as pressure points, as contributors to this volume recognize, for challenging and changing the status quo. I would add that, almost invariably, demands for change are justified in the name of some imagined prior status quo. As scholars are committed to principles of justice, separating analysis from advocacy is not an easy task.

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Institutions In classical English School theory, the key institutions are sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, the balance of power, great power management, and war. International organizations and law were also recognized. These institutions are envisaged as the pillars of international society. Morten Skumsrud Andersen focuses on the balance of power. Bull conceived of it as the principal mechanism that the great powers used to manage conflicts and thereby preserve the system, member states, and values of international society (Bull 1977, 66–74, 201; Butterfield and Wight 1966, 89–131; 1976, 105–12; Little 2007, 135). Bull (1977, 103– 4) also recognized its paradoxical character, because to uphold the balance of power one sometimes had to violate international law. Andersen argues that the balance of power is resilient because it has multiple meanings that allow it to be used in diverse ways. Jorge Lasmar focuses on the role of the balance of power to preserve the status quo of international society. This has become more difficult as the small number of great powers who perform this task have met increasing opposition from non-Western states. Western powers are under increasing pressure more generally to share their role in global management of political and economic issues. The Ukraine invasion is further evidence that Western liberal values are not universally shared, and that war has re-emerged as a means of restoring or challenging the status quo. Tonny Brems Knudsen suggests that the balance of power is still needed but may be less relevant to non-state threats like transnational violence. He also notes that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s de facto alignment with Russia, and the efforts of both to construct alternative political orders indicate a possible breakdown of the commitment to preserve the existing system and its values. The balance of power should be regarded as a double-edged sword. It has the potential to maintain both international society and the system of states that function in it. When effective, as it was for much of the nineteenth century, it can function to preserve the status quo, but also to change it. It allowed the incorporation of new actors and shifts in the relative status of states, limited the number and scope of wars, and redistributed territory by peaceful means. It only functioned effectively when there was a commitment among the great powers to preserve the general peace. When international society broke down, and at least some great powers increasingly sought unilateral and expansionist goals that were unacceptable to others, the balance of power no longer preserved

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order. Rather than mute tensions, finesse disputes, and encourage diplomatic accommodations, it divided the European continent into blocs. The effort of each to deter the other ratcheted up tensions, accelerated arms races, and encouraged worst-case analysis of the other side’s motives. It became a cause of war, not a source of peace. A strong argument can be made that attempts at balancing by the superpowers during the Cold War were more a cause of conflict than of restraint (Lebow and Stein 1994). The Janus-faced nature of the balance of power is true of all international institutions. Amelie Theussen’s chapter can be read in support of this proposition. Bull recognized war as a political tool that could play a positive role when it ordered relations between states and defended states and citizens against illegitimate violence by aggressive states. Theussen worries that the war between Russia and Ukraine is a bad omen for international society. It reveals that the taboo on wars of conquest and laws of war protecting civilians may have broken down. International opposition to Russia has the potential in the longer term to strengthen shared norms, rules, and principles, but it is nevertheless troubling that one-quarter of members of the UN General Assembly refused to condemn the Russian invasion. The chapter of Barry Buzan and Richard Falkner addresses the market, an important international institution largely ignored by the English School. They contend that since the nineteenth century the market has been repeatedly contested, with its opponents pushing for statist control. It has nevertheless consistently demonstrated its resilience. In the longer run, however, the market looks seriously threatened for political and economic reasons that they enumerate. The principal political concern is that technological and economic developments will concentrate ever more wealth and information in the hands of a small number of private firms. Inequalities of this kind are increasingly unacceptable and the source of disenchantment with the Western liberal order. The market thus reveals a similar tension to the balance of power and war: When any of these institutions is unconstrained by core values of international society and the commitment to them by major actors, they function—or have the potential to function—in counterproductive ways. In some instances, this is the result of powerful actors stepping outside of the rule packages that govern their status. In others, as perhaps in the case of the market, it is also a product of incremental changes in multiple domains that have unintended system-level effects.

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Institutions can undermine order in two different ways. When successful, in the sense of rewarding those who set them up, they can do so by exploiting others, invariably the less well-off and less powerful. Much of the critique of the liberal Western order is based on this premise. Institutions can also be victims of their own success. The market might be described this way. Its effects were not envisaged and now arguably constitute a threat to the established political order. Such a development invites an immanent critique.

Resilience These examples and the contestations they foreground reveal some of the ambiguities associated with the concept of resilience. In their introductory chapter, Trine Flockhart and Zachary Paikin ask ‘what it means for (global) international society and its institutions to be resilient and how resilience can be achieved and maintained’. They reframe it as ‘an agent-based practice of self-governance to reflect a forever changing environment and to continuously adapt to that environment to remain “fit for purpose”’. In her chapter, Flockhart invokes Max Weber’s concept of the ideal types. She theorizes three constitutive components of resilience, all of them allowing change or serving as the vehicles for it. They are power, wielded by a hegemon in support of a shared vision of the ‘good life’. Next are principles embodied in narratives that derive from a shared identity and find expression in norms, rules, and values that define appropriate behavior. They, in turn, must be instantiated in a range of formal and informal institutions that optimize the prospects for realizing the vision of the good life. In practice, these components are never fully aligned. Misalignments arise from contestation of the core values, failing legitimacy of the power patterns, or dysfunctional practices. To achieve and maintain resilience, agents must constantly monitor their environment and act to reduce tensions among the three components of order. In a follow-on chapter entirely devoted to resilience, Elena Korosteleva and Irina Petrova emphasize the extent to which change and adaptation can be local in origin. They argue that resilient orders accept contestation as a regular and natural process. Their principal actors are open to new ideas and understand order as ‘a relational process of self-organization and self-governance in which communities from the “local” to the “global” level respond to turbulence to stay “fit-for-purpose”’. Flockhart, Paikin, and Korosteleva and Petrova address strategies for achieving resilience but

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do not really tell what it is. There is also a tension in their formulations between ‘bouncing back’—that is, returning to a state something like the status quo after a challenge—and transformation, meaning a significant move away from it through incremental steps and accommodations that promote the ‘good life’. As they realize, the ‘good life’ is a highly contested concept and it is not clear whose conception is relevant to their project or to resilience more generally. Let me take a crack at defining resilience, as opposed to describing possible pathways toward it. I begin by rejecting equilibrium or anything like it as not only inappropriate but as a barrier to resilience. Attempts to maintain any kind of order by preventing change—even if something like this is possible—are almost certain to make it fragile in the longer term. To be robust, orders must adapt. Some of the most ‘stable’ political systems—measured in terms of their longevity and absence of major violence—are those that have changed the most over the years, as has Britain from the Georgian era to the present day. The institutions governing the country are more or less the same—the Supreme Court aside—but the political culture, expectations about government, the distribution of power across classes, the demography of the country, and many of its key social and political values would be unrecognizable to Georgians or Victorians. The same institutions (e.g., justices of the peace, Parliament, the bureaucracy) no longer function the same way, and in some cases, they perform different functions. By contrast, the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic [DDR] no longer exist; they were unable to adjust to evolving economic and political conditions. By 1989, communist rule may have been sufficiently fragile that there was no realistic strategy that could have saved these regimes and countries (Brown 2009; Breslauer 2021). Viewed in this light, the contributors are absolutely right in conceptualizing resilience as the ability to adapt to change. Real resilience is the ability to change or transform institutions and practices to maintain support and legitimacy among a wide range of actors and constituencies. In this connection, we need to reframe the concept of stability. We must disassociate it from equilibrium and the status quo and identify it rather with change. Stable orders change over time, by largely peaceful means, but sometimes dramatically and not infrequently in response to threats of violence. We all need to exercise care about associating resilience with any particular ends or means. Aristotle thought we should all be motivated by

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the concept of the good life, so there is a long tradition to think of political regimes and orders as means to this end and subservient to it. There is, however, rarely any consensus of what constitutes the good life, but rather multiple conceptions in competition with one another with varying degrees of support and compatibility. In pre-modern times, rulers could impose their preferences as to religions, values, and practices, but this is now only an option for the most authoritarian of regimes. More democratic ones must show responsiveness to their citizens and either remain neutral when it comes to fundamental value conflicts or do their best to effect compromises that reconcile people to the political system. These compromises, I have consistently argued, are messy things, the product of constantly shifting accommodations that rarely satisfy anybody but could be acceptable to almost everybody. They are never logically defensible because they are based on political rather than philosophical logic (Lebow 2003). This is even more evident in regional and international societies, where there is greater diversity, more fragmented power and authority, and much less solidarity—and in the latter’s absence, less willingness to compromise. Several contributors have noted the hierarchical nature of orders and that the primary purpose of institutions is to make these hierarchies visible and enforceable. All principles of justice rest on the concepts of fairness or equality (Lebow 2018, 75–90). The former promises rewards to those who contribute the most to families, groups, organizations, or political orders. The latter requires an equal distribution of whatever is valued. Successful orders have tried, to varying degrees, to incorporate both principles and finesse trade-offs between them. One of the defining features of the modern age is the increasing appeal of equality over fairness as a principle of justice (Lebow 2018, 75–90). This is apparent in every corner of the globe: Equality has increasingly become the dominant principle of successful domestic political orders. International society is the last major holdout to this change, but it, too, is having to make numerous concessions. In the postwar era, this began with the Charter of the United Nations. The Security Council, based on the principle of fairness, gave the great powers special privileges in return for their responsibility for maintaining the peace. The General Assembly is based on the principle of equality—one state, one vote. The Security Council also has rotating non-permanent members to introduce a veneer of equality and is now under pressure to increase its membership to recognize North vs. South and Western vs. non-Western equality (Lebow 2016, 191–4).

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A fundamental tension exists in all orders of any size by virtue of their hierarchy: Some actors receive more rewards than others. This distribution is invariably justified with reference to the principle of fairness. There are two problems here. The first, already noted, is that fairness is declining in appeal relative to equality. The second is that there is always a large gap between principle and practice. Hierarchies come with rule packages. In those based on fairness, actors at the apex are expected to provide substantive advantages—economic and security in international relations—in return for their special privileges, honor, and the right to lead. When those at the top violate their rule packages—and do so, moreover, at the expense of those toward the base of the hierarchy’s pyramid—dissatisfaction is likely to become pronounced. The great powers are routinely seen to do this by much of the developing world. Many people in the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia feel not only cheated, but humiliated (Badie 2014; Zarakol 2010). Humiliation gives rise to anger—if not fury—and a desire to lash out against the perceived oppressor. Those who benefit from the status quo offer justifications to account for discrepancies between theory and practice. In the West, such discourses have a long history; they begin with the Garden of Eden story in the Pentateuch and Hesiod’s Work and Days. The most recent entry is neoliberalism, which seeks to justify domestic and international economic inequalities. Globalization has, not surprisingly, produced a strong backlash. When people reject a principle of justice—or a discourse intended to legitimate it—they become correspondingly alienated. These are the fundamental reasons why the liberal Western order has become anathema to so many, including now a significant number of people in the West (Lebow and Zhang 2022, ch. 6). So how should we think of order and stability? I believe there is no simple or elegant answer to this question. Order is a paradoxical phenomenon. Those orders least open to pressure from below and most resistant to change often appear superficially robust, although they may be fragile. This may be why nobody predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union or the German Democratic Republic until their demise was well under way. By contrast, more open orders give the appearance of instability, but some of them may be quite robust. Resistance to contestation and change—and openness to both—can result in stability or fragility depending on the circumstances. Resilience is accordingly something that can only be determined in retrospect. Not surprisingly, predictions by

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political actors and analysts of the robustness or fragility of political orders are notoriously inaccurate (Lebow and Norman 2022).

What Can Be Done? All orders at risk are marked by a breakdown in solidarity. This is often attributable to elite violation of rule packages and how it makes ordinary people more aware of the contradictions between everyday practice and the principles of justice on which their orders allegedly rest. Consistent elite violations encourage others to follow suit and violate norms, rules, and laws in the pursuit of short-term self-interests. Communal solidarity is quickly undermined, exacerbating existing conflicts and creating new ones. In the longer term, order and solidarity are threatened when foundational principles of justice, or formulations of them, lose their relative appeal or legitimacy. When both processes occur and are reinforcing, orders of all kinds become increasingly fragile. Many, if not most, of the critiques of the American-sponsored postwar order accuse the self-proclaimed hegemon of consistently violating its rule package. Instead of providing security and economic stability for others, it is a major cause of their insecurity. The US has exploited its privileged economic position in narrowly selfish ways that endangers the well-being of others. It has gone from being a lender of the last resort to the borrower of the first resort. It has fostered—and sometimes imposed via the so-called Washington Consensus—a liberal economic regime that benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. Its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq led it to be seen by many as a chief threat to the peace of the world. A BBC World Service poll dated 3 July 2017 revealed increasingly negative views of the US among several NATO allies in comparison with a poll three years earlier. In the UK, they were up from 42 to 64%, in Spain (44 to 67%), in France (41 to 56%), and in Turkey (36 to 64%) (BBC 2017). By September 2020, views of the US reached an all-time low across 13 countries, with only 34% having confidence in the country or its president (BBC 2020). Hegemony and hierarchies are rooted in the principle of fairness. As noted, this principle assumes that those who contribute the most to society should be disproportionately rewarded. This unequal distribution is justified on the basis of the security, well-being, and other benefits that the privileged elite allegedly provides for the less fortunate. There is a trade-off here based on the expectation that relative inequality is

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acceptable when it promotes greater absolute well-being and more satisfaction for all. In ancient Greece and Ming China, fairness resulted in orders in which the hegemons received honor from others in return for providing security and material rewards. The powerful gained status but were constrained by elaborate rule packages that prohibited their exploitation of their greater relative power and required them to earn the respect of others by catering to their interest. Powerful and weak alike gained from such orders and recognized their benefits. In Greece, there were frequent wars, but they were short-lived, for limited aims, and conducted according to a stringent set of rules. In Ming China, there were no wars among the participants in the system. The current order, whether we describe it as the US-dominated liberal order or as a kind of minimal great power condominium, satisfies only one condition of a fairness-based order. It provides special privileges to the powerful and does so at expense of weaker parties. The US, its Western European allies, Russia and China claim privileges on the basis of fairness but abuse their power in blatant ways. Globalization has facilitated economic growth almost everywhere, but it has also increased inequality everywhere. In many places, people are more focused on the latter than the former and believe that its benefits increasingly flow in one direction. It is hardly surprising that this dissatisfaction is directed toward the US. As Bertrand Badie (2014, 68) observes, the world’s most powerful nation is the natural target for the disenfranchised, disgruntled, and humiliated. Many American liberals claim that the US lives up to the expectations of a fairness-based order. They further contend that by providing security and the conditions for successful development, the Western order has enabled the kind of absolute improvement in security and material well-being that justifies American privileges and rewards. There are undoubtedly countries and regions where this argument resonates (e.g., some parts of Europe, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan) but many more where it does not. This shift in preference for equality over fairness began in the West and was an underlying cause of political change. Almost everywhere, monarchies and aristocracies gave way to democracies. Not all of these democracies survived, but it is fair to say that everywhere in the West— and now in much of the rest of the world—democracy is perceived as the only legitimate form of government. Application of the principle of

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equality to regional and international relations was a more recent development. Fairness predominated and still does to a large degree even though equality in principle has increasingly become the norm. What is to be done? Any stable international order must be more equal in its distribution of rewards; rely as much on bottom-up as top-down governance; give a wider range of actors strong incentives to support and participate; and significantly reduce the degree of alienation, humiliation, and anger felt by many non-Western peoples. There is, of course, also dissatisfaction in the greater West. Many Russians feel alienated and marginalized, as do, to a lesser degree, peoples of eastern and southern Europe. Many of the reforms currently mooted in the IR literature do not address these needs or do so only in part. International political economists have advanced proposals for, among other things, corporate social responsibility and stakeholder capitalism, state capitalism, using climate change as a lever for reform and redistribution, as well as a variety of technical and redistributive measures (Kessell 2011; Piketty 2015). Even some successful capitalists now fashionably argue for reform and sustainable investment (Dalio 2019; Silver 2019). Most of these proposed fixes are technical and do not really offer the kinds of political changes that would address the problem of order. There are many voices urging a more fundamental rethinking about the nature of order and how it might be reformed or restructured. Amitav Acharya argues that the US and its Western allies ‘must give up exclusive privileges’ in return for ‘the trust and cooperation’ of the rest of the world (Acharya 2018, xi). He envisages what he calls a ‘multiplex’ world. It would consist of what remains of the American liberal order plus other emergent orders. In the world he imagines, standing and influence are not based on the number of powers or their relative power, but rather on the relationships among them. These may be bilateral or multilateral and embedded in institutions and their norms. Order will be hierarchical, but the relative standing of states will reflect their influence more than their power. There would be no hegemon in Acharya’s envisaged order but an increase in the number of actors who matter. Other features of the multiplex world include a global shift in economic power from ‘the West to the Rest’, regional powers like China and India playing a more assertive role, new forms of globalization, and a less ‘US-centric’ world in every respect. Regions and regionalism will play a more important role in governance (Stuenkel 2016). This would result in a ‘patchwork of institutions’

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and different and partly overlapping layers of order not under American control nor necessarily responsive to American initiative. The resulting political and economic arrangements and multi-level and multi-regional governance would allow for greater pluralism in values, approaches to development, and even understandings of modernity (Acharya, 132–61). Acharya’s proposals are implicitly rooted in a bottom-up understanding of order. Local actors, by no means all of the major regional powers, are expected to take on new functions and play active roles in regional orders that emerge whether by negotiation or as emergent properties (Acharya, 99–131). Yet he gives no indication of how this state of affairs might be achieved and provides no reasons why it would prove to be a more stable and consensual order. Trine Flockhart (2016) has also theorized a new world order. She roots her project in Hedley Bull’s concept of order advanced in his tome The Anarchical Society (1977). Bull’s book reflects a narrow Cold War mentality and a limited and parochial Western understanding of order. Flockhart recognizes these limitations and seeks to update Bull—and the English School more generally—by theorizing the concept of order as a means toward the ‘good life’. She foregrounds the need for change and recognition that all orders must evolve to respond to and satisfy the needs of those they allegedly serve. As part of this evolution, Flockhart emphasizes the importance of relations within as well as between different ordering domains, which she argues are continuously negotiated in a decentralized and non-hierarchical way. Flockhart makes another critical move in framing ‘global international society’ and the ‘international system’ as ‘just different instances of ordering domains’. Until now, she argues, they have been closely aligned, intertwined, or overlapping, but society and system are increasingly contested and fragmented. She thinks it essential to study these interactions because they are, in her view, the best markers of order and the best way of tracking changes in its robustness. Flockhart identifies several orders beyond the liberal American or Western one. These include a Russian-led Eurasian order, the Chinese-led Belt and Road order, and a nascent Islamic-led Sharia order. She theorizes other possible orders with regional foundations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The nature of international politics will depend on the number and character of international orders; the degree to which their patterns of power, principles, and practice replicate and diverge from the current liberal Western order;

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their degree of integration into existing international institutions; their patterns of decision-making; and their interpretations of sovereignty. Bertrand Badie (2014) offers perhaps the most negative assessment of global order. He nevertheless suggests that hostility and violence might be muted if Washington made serious efforts to redress the humiliation felt by middle range powers and to include them in global decision-making. More generally, the West must recognize and respect political, economic, and cultural diversity and must do what it can to address the material and status needs of non-Western populations and states. It must make its governing institutions truly multilateral and more legitimate in the eyes of those who now feel humiliated. However, he sees little incentive—international or domestic—for American leaders to move in this direction (Badie 2014, 229–34). Of equal importance, Badie believes that Western analysts and leaders are focused on the wrong source of disorder. In today’s world, he argues, order is more shaped and more threatened by social dynamics than it is by political outputs. By social dynamics, he means all the policies and real or perceived slights that contribute the widespread sense of humiliation among elites and peoples in the Global South. This is why the gap between the imagined order and the real one is getting larger and larger and will continue to do so until this understanding is realized and acted on (Badie 2020). Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore (2001), like representatives of the English School, believe that any successful international order must ultimately rest on common values and preferences. Hendrik Spruyt (2020), in his study of historical orders in the Middle East, Southeast, and East Asia, finds that collective beliefs were critical to such orders. They paradoxically allowed for greater heterogeneity than is possible in the modern state system (also see Zarakol 2022). We should note that these historical orders were regional and largely excluded political units and peoples with radically different beliefs and forms of political organization. The historical record does not bode well for present-day efforts to construct a legitimate order in our deeply divided world, all the more so because regions can no longer live in relative isolation from one another. There must be some order at the global level in which states and regions feel comfortable about participating. These circumstances and several critiques of existing orders, most notably of the American-led one, indicate the hazards of top-down orders that are imposed rather than negotiated. The liberal order is, of course, both imposed and negotiated. Washington consulted with its major

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trading partners but more or less dictated its preferred terms on issues of importance. It subsequently sought, with much mixed success, to draw other states into the liberal order or impose it on those it deemed powerless to resist. China’s nascent order is also a mix of both, with perhaps quite a visible hand of coercion at the outset. Do bottom-up orders offer more promise? To the extent that they are truly emergent orders based on cooperation and shared cultural values, they are more likely to achieve legitimacy. However, there is no reason to think that regional orders, organized around or by regional powers, would be any less coercive than their top-down counterparts. In present circumstances, there seems no way of organizing order without some degree of coercion. Our goal then should be to minimize it as far as possible. Perhaps the best way to achieve this end is to structure orders in which the incentives to use violence and other forms of coercion decline for greater and lesser powers alike. Such an arrangement would combine bottom-up with top-down orders, regional with international, involve extensive negotiation at all levels, and rely more on carrots than sticks. Whatever arrangements come into place would attempt to address the security, material, and status needs of those who are currently most deprived, but also speak to the needs of regional and great powers that feel undervalued. Lebow and Zhang (2022) describe variants of such orders and pathways to them. Progress of this kind would entail a number of bilateral as well as multilateral agreements put in place after the widest possible consultation. Above all, it requires a shift in thinking in many of the world’s capitals. This is essential but, alas, the most difficult task of all. It is most needed in the US and China because presumably they would have to take leading roles in this process. I am advocating a multilateral process, but not the kind of multilateralism traditionally envisaged by liberals. Many liberals believe that the current American-dominated order might be preserved if the US were to adhere to its rule package and return to the practice of multilateralism. Multilateralism was long considered part-and-parcel of the liberal order; John Ruggie (1992), among others, described it as constitutive of that order. John Ikenberry (2011, 101), perhaps the most prominent liberal supporter of the existing order, maintains that Washington could secure more influence on a range of issues in return for once again embedding its governance in institutions, making it more difficult to exercise its power arbitrarily and at their expense. However, multilateralism in itself is not a solution unless it involves other, less powerful actors in

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a meaningful way so that they have an important say in shaping order and its institutions. Multilateralism can even prove retrograde if it allows Western powers to collaborate more effectively against the rest, as so many Washington-sponsored international institutions do. Similar voices have been raised in China. In an April 2021 speech, President Xi Jinping (2021) affirmed that the world needs to ‘uphold true multilateralism’ and make the global governance system fairer and more equitable by following the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits. In a veiled criticism of the US, he said that we must not let the rules set by one or a few countries be imposed on others or allow unilateralism pursued by certain countries to set the pace for the whole world. What the world needs today is justice, not hegemony. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and with a greater sense of responsibility. The question for China, however, is the extent to which its actions can match its words. Chinese policy announcements are often normatively appealing, as is this one, but they are not always translated into action. There is no obvious way to convince leaders to recognize that national interests can only be pursued satisfactorily within a community whose members feel some degree of solidarity. The most realistic way to build this recognition is through small steps of successful cooperation that help build community and shared identities. It is a long-term process, but one that is worth embarking upon given the current disorder and its threats to everyone’s security and well-being.

Bibliography Amitav, Acharya (2018) The End of American World Order, 2nd ed. London: Verso. Badie, Bertrand (2014) Les Temps des Humiliés : Pathologie des relations internationals. Paris: Odile Jacob. Badie, Bertrand (2020) Inter-socialités: La fin d’un monde géopolitique. Paris: CNRS Éditions. Barnett, Michael and Martha Finnemore (2001) Rules for the World: International Organizations is Global Politics, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. BBC World Service, Media Centre (2017) “Sharp Drop in World Views of US, UK: Global Poll for BBC World Service,” 4 July, https://www.statista. com/statistics/246420/major-foreign-holders-of-us-treasury-debt/ (accessed 13 May 2022).

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BBC World Service, Media Centre (2020) “Global Perception of US Falls to Two-Decade Low,” 15 September, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-uscanada-54169732 (accessed 13 May 2022). Breiner, Peter (2022) “End of Democracy or Recurrent Conflict: Minimalist Democracy, Legitimacy Crisis, and Political Equality,” in Lebow and Norman, Robust and Fragility of Political Orders, ch. 3. Breslauer, George (2021) The Rise and the Demise of World Communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, Archie (2009) The Rise and Fall of Communism. Bodley Head, London. Bull, Hedley (1977) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Butterfield, Herbert and Martin Wight (1966) Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Dalio, Ray (2019) Principles of Navigating Big Debt Crises. Westport, CT: Bridgewater. Deutsch, Karl W. (1964) Nerves of Government. New York: Free Press. Flockhart, Trine (2016) “The Coming Multi- Order World,” Contemporary Security Policy 37, no. 1, 3-30. Ikenberry, G. John (2011) The Liberal Leviathan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kessell, Elton (2011) “Competition in the US Free Market Economy,” World Affairs 15, no. 4, 52-67. Lebow, Richard Ned (2003) The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests, and Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned (2016) National Identities and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned (2018) The Rise and Fall of Political Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned and Feng Zhang (2022) Justice and International Order: East and West. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned and Janice Gross Stein (1994) We All Lost the Cold War. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned and Ludvig Norman, eds. (2022) The Robustness and Fragility of Political Orders: Leader Assessments, Responses, and Consequences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Little, Richard (2007) The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Machiavelli, Niccolò (1997) Discourses on Livy, trans. Julia C. Bondanella and Peter Bondanella Oxford: Oxford University Press. Piketty, Thomas (2015) The Economics of Inequality, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Reus-Smith, Christian and Timothy Dunne, eds. (2017) The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ruggie, John (1992) “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” International Organization 46, no. 3, 561-598. Silver, Caleb (2019) “The Next 20 Years, According to Ray Dalio,” Investopedia, 16 October, https://www.investopedia.com/ray-dalio-on-the-futureof-the-global-economy-markets-and-technology-4773303 (accessed 12 May 2022). Spruyt, Hendrik (2020) The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stuenkel, Oliver (2016) Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking Global Order. London: Polity. Xi, Jinping (2021) “Pulling Together Through Adversity and Toward a Shared Future for All,” keynote speech at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, 20 April 20, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t18 70296.shtml (accessed 12 May 2022). Zarakol, Ay¸se (2010) After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zarakol, Ay¸se (2017) Hierarchies in World Politics. Caridge: Cambridge University Press. Zarakol, Ay¸se (2022) Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Index

A Absolutist Europe, 111, 117 Acharya, Amitav, 276, 277 adaptation, 2, 3, 5, 12, 13 Afghanistan, 188 Africa, 99 agaciro, 72 agency, 3, 4, 12, 13 agentic communities of practice, 31 agent motivations, 24 agent practice, 24 Algeria, 263 algorithms, 255 alliances, 80 Al Qaeda, 93, 166 America First, 239 American-sponsored postwar order, 274 American values, 204 An Agenda for Peace, 165 The Anarchical Society, 2, 4, 8 Ancient Greece, 111, 117 Anglosphere, 244, 253 annexation, 134

annexation of Crimea, 188 anti-globalization movement, 249 anti-imperialism, 139 appropriate behavior, 33 Arab Spring, 72 Aristotle, 264, 271 armed force, 182, 184, 185, 187–189, 191–193 Armenia, 188 arms race, 190, 195 ‘the around’, 32–34 artificial intelligence (AI), 190 ASEAN, 90 Asian Development Bank, 54 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, 54 Asian Tigers, 248, 255 asymmetric warfare, 190 Austria, 146 autonomous weapons, 190, 194 auxiliary framework of international society, 79 Azerbaijan, 188

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 T. Flockhart and Z. Paikin (eds.), Rebooting Global International Society, Governance, Security and Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11393-2

283

284

INDEX

B balance of power, 10, 14 balancing, 88, 89, 98 barbarian, 121 basic institutions, 80 BBC World Service, 274 behavioral change, 24 Beijing Winter Olympics, 174 Belarus, 60 Belt and Road Initiative, 54, 206 Biden administration, 204, 205, 210, 211 big data, 255 big science, 183 Black Lives Matter, 127 Blinken, Tony, 211 Bolton, John, 203 bottom-up order, 261 bounded international orders, 14 bounded rationality, 64 Bretton Woods, 240, 245–248, 253, 255 Bretton Woods system, 246 BRICS, 165 Britain, 240, 242, 243, 245, 249 British Committee on the Theory of International Politics, 4 Brookings Institution, 205 buen vivir, 71 buffer zone, 150 Bull, Hedley, 2–14, 22 Bush administration, 228, 229 Butterfield, Herbert, 4 butterfly effect, 27 Buzan, Barry, 27, 30, 33

C Canada, 211 Canadian government, 225 Canning, George, 145, 146 capacity-building, 63

capitalism, 238, 239, 241, 244, 247, 249, 250, 252, 254 Caribbean, 263, 273 Castlereagh, 133, 134, 143, 145, 146 causality, 25 causation, 60 centre-periphery relations, 5 change, 2–5, 8–13, 15 chemical weapons, 186 China, 44, 51, 53, 54, 80, 96–98 civilians, 187, 190, 194 civilized, 121 civil rights, 93 clans, 7 Clausewitzian, 180 climate, 8, 15 climate change, 92, 95 co-adaptation, 25 co-constitutive, 25 cognitive consistency, 24 Cold War, 5, 11 collapsing orders, 26 collateral damage, 192 collective security, 80, 122 collectivism, 248 colonial period, 5 command economies, 239, 255 communicative action theory, 117 community, 60–62, 68–72 complex adaptive systems, 25 complex global governance, 49 complex global life, 66, 67 complexity, 2, 3, 9 complexity-thinking, 25, 68, 73, 74 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), 126 concepts, 134, 135, 139–142, 148–150 conceptual change, 135, 139–141 Concert of Europe system, 209 conditionality, 248

INDEX

the conference systems, 80 configurative change, 118, 122, 123 Congo, 99 Congress, 134–136, 142–148, 150, 151 Congress of Verona, 145 Congress system, 135, 142–146, 150 consensus, 9 conservative values, 230 constitutionalism, 82 constitutional structure, 117, 127 constructivism, 23, 25, 30 contestation, 2–6, 12, 13 contestation from the center, 80 contestation from the periphery, 80, 94 Convention against Torture, 228 Convention on Cluster Munitions, 186 cooperation, 10, 15, 43, 51, 53 core-periphery, 242 the Corn Laws, 240 cosmopolitans, 113 Côte d’Ivoire, 99 counterterrorism interventions, 190 Covid-19, 15, 172 crimes against humanity, 191 crisis, 24, 26, 35 critical junctures, 91 cultural difference, 9 cultural distinctiveness, 250 cultural diversity, 8, 9 cultural homogeneity, 9 cultural validity, 46, 47, 50 culture, 7, 13 cum haereticis fides non servanda, 217 currency speculation, 246, 248 cyber space, 193

D deadly practice, 22, 24

285

debt crises, 249 decolonization, 49, 109, 113, 122, 123 de-institutionalization, 184, 185, 188–190, 192 democracy, 85, 97 democratic domestic institutions, 3 democratic norms, 53 demography, 25 derivative institutions, 84 Deutsch, Karl, 265 devaluation of the dollar, 246 dimensions of differentiation, 7 diplomacy, 10, 14 disorder, 27–29 ‘diversity regimes’, 48 DPRK, 204 drivers of change, 80 drones, 189–191, 193 Dunne, T., 42, 43, 45, 48, 52, 55 Duval, R.D., 30 dynamics of change, 11 dynastic order, 49 dysfunctional practices, 23, 34

E economic agents, 238 economic globalization, 240, 241, 243, 251, 254 economic interdependence, 122 economic nationalism, 239, 243, 244, 246, 251, 253, 254 economy, 238, 240, 242, 244–256 elementary goals, 179 elementary goals of social life, 6 embedded liberalism, 246 emergent change, 22 emergent properties, 25 emotions, 3 empire, 111, 113, 122 empowerment, 63

286

INDEX

end of history, 50 English School (ES), 1–4, 6, 7, 15 environmental stewardship, 85, 89, 92, 239 equality, 113, 116, 125 equality of peoples, 85 Eritrea, 188 esteem, 116 Ethiopia, 188 ethnic cleansing, 191 Eurasian Economic Union, 54 Eurasian space, 60 Eurocentric, 8, 9, 115 Eurocentric core, 262 European imperialism, 113, 114 European Union (EU), 98, 119 European Union’s Global Security Strategy, 63 events, 22, 32 evolution, 25 evolutionary contestation, 93 expansion narrative, 29 The Expansion of International Society, 6, 22, 28, 29 export-oriented industrialization (EOI), 248

F Falkner, Robert, 237 finance, 240, 243, 248, 249, 251–253, 255 financial crisis, 80, 96, 97, 249, 250, 254 financial liberalization, 247, 249–251, 254 financial risk, 250 Finland, 137 First World War, 183, 185 ‘fit for purpose’, 4 5G technologies, 205 Flockhart, T., 42, 44, 47, 52, 54

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 205 foreign direct investment (FDI), 241 foreign investment, 241, 243 foundational institutions, 83 France, 146, 147 free movement of labour, 241 free trade, 53, 54, 238 functional differentiation, 7 fundamental institutional change, 79, 80, 84, 87–89, 91, 94, 96, 97 fundamental institutions, 2, 8, 10–14

G G7, 249 G20, 165, 249 Gambia, 99 General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), 245 Geneva Conventions, 182, 186 genocide, 191 Georgia, 54 German Democratic Republic, 264, 271, 273 Gilpin, Robert, 22, 118, 119 global credit crunch, 250 global international society (GIS), 1–3, 5–10, 12–14 globalization, 5, 8 globalization of production, 249 globalization of war, 191 global level, 3 global political system, 8 ‘global society’, 45 Global South, 98 Global War on Terror (GWoT), 157, 164, 166–169 the gold standard, 240, 241 ‘good governance’, 64 good life, 6 governance, 2

INDEX

governance of commerce, 239 governance of diversity, 48 governmentality, 62, 64 the great depression, 243 the ‘great moderation’, 248 great power management (GPM), 14, 155–157, 159–166, 168–176 great powers, 44, 51, 54 Greece, 275 Grotian, 9 Grotian tradition, 9 Grotius, Hugo, 113 Group of 77, 225 Grundnorm, 117 Guantanamo Bay, 93, 228 guarantees, 80

H habits, 11 habitual practice, 12 Hague Declaration, 186 Hegel, 148 hegemonia, 44 hegemonic power, 45 hegemony, 1, 10 heteronomy, 111, 122, 127 historical institutionalism, 80, 86, 90, 93 historical IR, 133 Hobbesian, 9 holistic approach, 32 Holsti, Kalevi, 23, 27, 29, 30 homonoia, 264 Hong Kong, 211 humanitarian intervention, 89, 91, 94, 95, 98, 99 human rights, 49, 51 Human Rights Council, 209, 210 Hurrell, A., 47, 49, 52 hybrid threats, 175 hybrid warfare, 92

287

I ‘ideal-type’, 34 ideational structures, 24 identity(ies), 23, 24, 30, 33 ideological bipolarity, 160, 161 ideology, 7 Ikenberry, G.J., 51–53 illiberal, 3 ‘illiberal democracy’, 124 illiberal state, 125 the IMF, 245 imperialism, 53 independence, 133–135, 137, 142–150 Independent International Commission on Kosovo, 187 India, 51 indigenous sovereignty, 110, 123 individualism, 242, 248 industrial capitalism, 238 industrial revolution, 120 inflation, 243, 248 infrastructure investments, 244 institutions, 1–8, 10, 12–15 integration, 9 intentional action, 12 interaction capacity, 119 interaction change, 119 interests, 8, 11 International Court of Justice judge James Crawford, 231 The International Crisis Group, 208 international law, 9, 10, 14 international level, 3 international monetary system, 246 international order, 1, 5, 8, 12, 14 international organization, 79, 80, 82–84, 86, 87, 89–92, 94, 97, 99, 100 international political economy, 237 international society, 1–3, 5–12, 14 ‘international system’, 6, 7, 9

288

INDEX

International Telecommunications Union (ITU), 205 interstate war, 173 interwar years, 244, 245, 252 invasion of Kuwait, 173 investment, 239–241, 244, 249, 251 Iran, 203 Iraq, 93 Iraq War, 202 Israel, 210 ‘issue-specific’ institutions, 110, 111

J James, Alan, 79, 86 Japan, 113 Johnson’s Great Society, 246 jus cogens , 227 justice, 26

K Kantian universalism, 9 Kavalski, E., 60, 61, 65–67 Kellogg-Briand Pact, 185 Keohane, Robert, 84, 86 key institutions of international society, 79 Keynesian demand-side economic steering, 248 Kingdom of Sardinia, 133 King Ferdinand VII, 145 Knudsen, Tonny Brems, 80 Korosteleva, E.A., 61, 62, 64, 68, 69, 71 Kosovo, 187, 189 Krasner, Stephen, 86 Kyiv, 72

L Lassa Oppenheim, 113 lawfare, 189

League of Nations, 83 Lebow, R.N., 44, 45, 54 legality, 46 legal warfare (i.e. lawfare), 171 legitimacy, 12 ‘legitimacy gap’, 46 LGBTQ rights, 126 liberal capitalism, 242 liberal contestation, 223 liberal economics, 239, 241, 243 liberal fundamentalism, 52 liberal internationalism, 51–53 liberalism, 9, 217, 219 liberal solidarism, 49 liberal values, 173 Libya, 54 life, truth and property, 32 limited liability company, 241 the local, 60–62, 64, 66–74 logic of structuration, 11 logics of appropriateness, 80, 90–95, 99, 100 Louis XIV, 142

M Machiavellian tradition, 265 Maidan, 72 Mali, 99 management of violence, 179 Manning, Charles, 86 market, 14, 237–250, 252–256 ‘market fundamentalism’, 239 ‘market ideology’, 239, 242–247, 251–256 mass migration, 240 ‘master’ institutions, 111 Mearsheimer, John, 149 mercantilism, 239, 240 mesh, 32 meta-stability, 24, 26, 30, 35 metatheoretical coherence, 29

INDEX

289

Metternich, 147 Mexico’s default on its sovereign debt, 249 the Middle East, 263, 273, 278 military intervention, 91, 93, 98 modes of production, 25 morality, 46 Morgenthau, Hans, 218, 219 multi-billion-dollar bailouts, 250 multilateralism, 44, 52, 165 multinational corporation (MNC), 241 ‘multi-order world’, 47 multiplex, 65, 67 multipolar, 88, 99 multipolar order, 128 mutually assured destruction (MAD), 161 mutually constituted, 23 Myanmar, 208, 209

Nixon administration, 246 Non-Aligned Movement, 160 non-authorized intervention, 225 non-intervention, 49 non-linear dynamics, 25 non-market principles, 238 non-sovereign orders, 115 non-state actors, 180, 188, 189, 192, 194 non-Western, 6 normative, 5, 9, 13 normative change, 9 normative contestation, 41, 44, 48, 50, 51 norms, 8, 11–13 North Atlantic Council, 170 Northedge, F.S., 86 North-South contestation, 246 nuclear, 26

N Napoleon, 133, 145 narrative, 29, 33 nationalism, 3, 10, 14 nationalist protectionism, 136 national self-determination, 14 NATO, 14, 15, 137, 149 NATO expansion, 54 NATO’s new Strategic Concept, 137 Navari, Cornelia, 30, 31, 91 neoliberal revolution, 247, 248 ‘neoliberal subject’, 63 neutrality, 80 ‘new institutionalism’, 86, 90, 93 New International Economic Order, 247 ‘new medievalism’, 122 9/11, 189 1997–98 financial crisis in East Asia, 249

O Obama administration, 203 Obama, Barack, 203 offensive realist’s, 150 old institutionalism, 86 ontological security, 24 Orbán, Viktor, 125 order, 1–4, 6–14 ordered coexistence, 218 ordering, 86, 88 ordering domain(s), 3, 7, 12 ordering practices, 2, 7 order transformation, 23, 35 Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), 246 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 164 organized violence, 180, 181, 191 Ottoman Empire, 113

290

INDEX

P P5 structure, 209 pacta sunt servanda, 217 Paikin, Z., 43, 45, 47, 50 pandemic governance, 109 Paris Charter, 164 peaceful change, 23 peacekeeping, 199, 201, 203–207 ‘pendulum’ model, 42 People’s Republic of China, 203 Petrova, I., 61, 62, 64, 68, 69, 71 planned economy, 238, 240, 253 pluralist coexistence, 49 pluralist international society, 48 plurality, 25 pluriverse, 71 political authority, 109–119, 122, 123, 126–128 political order, 179 politics of legitimate agency, 110 polycentric, 8 Pompeo, Michael, 203 pooled sovereignty, 120 popular sovereignty, 120, 123, 124 populist movements, 53 populist politics, 3 post-Cold War order, 35 post-GWoT, 157 power, 33–35 power patterns, 34 powershifts, 25 power transition, 80, 91, 95–99 practitioners, 90 precision-guided munitions (PGMs), 192 President Trump, 203, 204 President Xi Jinping, 171 primary institutions, 10–13 principle of equality, 14 principle of fairness, 272–274 principle of non-intervention, 14 principles, 13, 14

private property, 238 procedural institutions, 83 proletarian internationalism, 230 Protocol of St. Petersburg, 145 Prussia, 146 pseudo institutions, 10, 27, 30 psychological warfare, 171 public opinion warfare, 171 purposive change, 118, 123 Putin, Vladimir, 54, 60

R R2P norm, 226 racism, 211 radicalism, 51 randomness, 25 rational choice institutionalism, 80, 91, 95 rationalist, 217, 218 Reagan, 248 realism, 9 realist, 217, 218 rebooting, 151 rebus sic stantibus , 217 ‘recognition order’, 110, 116 reformation, 29 refugee crisis, 109 regimes, 11 re-institutionalization, 181, 184, 185, 191–193 relationality, 25, 34 relational mesh, 66 religion, 7 Renaissance Italy, 111, 117 renewal, 4, 5, 12, 13 resilience, 2, 4–6, 8, 9, 12, 13 resilience-thinking, 62, 73 ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), 94, 95, 98 Reus-Smit, C., 26–29, 42, 43, 45–48, 52, 55

INDEX

revolt against the West, 9 revolutionary contestation, 92 revolutionary powers, 53 revolutionist, 217, 218 rights-bearing individuals, 123 right-wing populism, 25 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 165 rivalry, 88, 89 robustness, 122 ‘rogue hegemon’, 41 Roman Catholic Church, 264 Romania, 125 Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’, 244 Ruggie, John, 115 rules, 5, 10–13 rules-based international order, 12 ‘rules-based order’, 50, 51 Rumsfeld, Donald, 228 Russia, 44, 53, 54 Russia-Georgia war, 188 Russian invasion of Ukraine, 23, 35 Russian way of war, 192 Rwanda, 71

S sanctions, 94 savage, 121 science, 25 secondary institutions, 11, 12 ‘security communities’, 188 segmentary, 7 self-governance, 4, 13, 61, 66, 68, 69, 72, 270 self-organization, 61, 62, 68, 71, 72, 74 Silk Road, 54 Sino-American competition, 200, 202, 204 Sino-American cooperation, 203, 209 Sino-American rivalry, 14

291

Sino-Soviet split, 247 Sir James Macintosh, 143 slavery, 160 the slave trade, 211 Smith, Adam, 240 social, 5–7, 12, 13 social change, 28 ‘social contract’, 43 social distinctiveness , 7, 8 social facts, 85 social identity, 116 socialization, 23 social reality, 157, 158, 162–165, 172 social structure, 24 sociological institutionalism, 80, 90, 91, 93, 94 solidarism, 49, 217, 222, 223, 230 solidarity, 43, 49 Southeast Asia, 90 South Korea, 275 South Sudan, 204 sovereign, 6, 7, 9 sovereign states, 111–115, 118, 121–124, 126 sovereignty, 10, 14 Soviet invasion of Hungary, 199 Soviet Union, 98 Spanish Constitution, 145 Spanish Royalists, 146 speculative bubbles, 250 stability, 12 stagflation crisis, 248 stakeholder capitalism, 276 state-controlled economies, 239 state of Genoa, 133 states, 3, 5–10 status of Taiwan, 211 status quo of international society, 156 stigmatization, 116 strategic nuclear balance, 137 stratificatory, 7

292

INDEX

structuration, 11 structuration theory, 86 structures, 3 Sudan, 204 Suez crisis, 199, 202 superpowers, 160, 161 supply and demand, 238 Susan Strange’s, 251 suzerainty, 111, 127 Sweden, 137 Switzerland, 188 Syria, 54 ‘systemic’ change, 118 systemic politics, 43, 44 system of states, 43 ‘systems’ change, 118

T targeted killings, 193 tariffs, 241 taxonomic theorizing, 26 technical change, 23 technology, 25, 192, 193 territoriality, 10, 14 Thatcher, 248 theorizing, 22, 26, 27, 29–31 ‘theory about norms’, 43 theory of change, 26, 28, 29, 35 Third World, 239, 246, 247 Thomas-Greenfield, Linda, 204 threat of war, 180 three traditions, 217 ‘three warfares’, 171 Tilly, Charles, 25 tolls, 241 torture, 216, 223, 227–229 Torture Convention, 227 trade, 238, 240–247, 249–253, 255 trade liberalization, 246 trade sanctions, 174 transformation, 2, 5

transhistorical, 29 transnational actors, 6 transnational advocacy groups, 222 transnationalism, 48, 109, 126 transnational movements, 8 transnational networks, 250 treaty of Westphalia, 144 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 186 tripartite typology of international institutions, 111

U Uighur population, 204, 210 Ukraine, 6 Ukrainian sovereignty, 150 UN Charter, 53 UN diplomacy, 201, 202, 207 unequal terms of exchange, 242 UN General Assembly, 98 unhealthy contestation, 47 unintended consequences, 27, 32 unipolarity, 5 United Nations (UN), 14, 51 United States (US), 121 universality, 13, 43 ‘unknown unknowns’, 67 unpredictability, 25 UN Security Council, 44, 53 UN World Summit, 94 US hegemony, 98 US subprime mortgage, 250

V values, 5–7, 11, 12 Vienna, 135, 141, 142, 144 Vietnam war, 246 violent change, 23 VUCA-world, 3

INDEX

W Waltz, Kenneth, 136 war, 14 war crimes, 191 warfare, 172, 173 War on Terror, 223, 227 the Washington Consensus, 263 Watson, Adam, 5 The Wealth of Nations , 240 ‘weaponised interdependence’, 251 Wendt, A., 23, 29, 30 Western, 1, 3, 6 Western hegemony, 44, 50, 51, 53, 54 Westphalian order, 49 Wiener, A., 42, 44–48, 50 Wight, Martin, 4, 79–83, 87, 217, 218 World Bank, 245, 248 World Health Assembly, 211 World Health Organization (WHO), 204, 211

293

World Intellectual Property Organization, 205 world order, 88, 95, 96, 99, 100 world society, 9 World Trade Organization (WTO), 249 World War II, 50, 51 X Xiaoping, Deng, 255 Xinjiang, 210, 211 Y Yalta, 44 Yugoslavia, 188 Z Zedong, Mao, 171 Zizek, 65 ‘zones of peace’, 188 Zürn, M., 43, 45, 52