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The enigma of Martin Wight

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Michael Nicholson
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Extract

Among the school of scholars of international relations, neatly called by Roy Jones the ‘English School’, the work of Martin Wight is placed in particularly high esteem. More perhaps than anyone else, he is regarded as the scholar who did international relations as it ought to be done. I suppose no one would assert that this form is exclusive and needed no complement. The need for the discussion of economic factors in international relations for example would presumably not be denied, nor that such a discussion might not need other methods. What I take to be asserted, however, is that the sort of problem which Wight faced is central to international relations (and given the generality of some of these problems, for some issues, at least, this would not be widely denied) but more importantly that the way he tackled them is the right way.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 1981 , pp. 15 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1981

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References

1. Systems of States (Leicester, 1977)Google Scholar; Power Politics (Leicester, 1978)Google Scholar.

2. It is clear from the way his friends have written about him, that the respect for Martin Wight was not for his intellectual achievements alone but for personal qualities which perhaps transcended these. I hope that these intellectual disagreements, however strong, are not interpreted as personal attacks causing hurt where none is intended.

3. Power Politics, op. cit. p. 160.

4. ‘Christian Pacificism’, Theology, xxxiii (1936)Google Scholar.

5. viz. ‘Why is there no International Theory? ’, ‘The Balance of Power’, ‘Western Values in International Relations’, Diplomatic Investigations, Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin (eds.), (London, 1966), pp. 17–34Google Scholar; 89–131; 149–75.

6. The British Journal of International Studies, v (1979), pp. 6–14Google Scholar.

7. Wight and Butterfield,op. cit.

8. Systems of States, op. cit. p. 11.

9. Ibid. p. 11.

10. Power Politics, op. cit. p. 137.

11. Reason of States, Donelan, Michael (ed.), (London, 1970), pp. 206–213Google Scholar.

12. A very few criticize them seriously: see Ions, Edmund, Anti-Behaviouralism (London, 1978)Google Scholar, and Reynolds, Charles, Theory and Explanation in International Politics (London, 1973)Google Scholar; a few even use them seriously: see Reynolds, P. A., An Introduction to International Relations (London, 1980).Google Scholar