¹ H. Bull, ‘The Case for a Classical Approach’, p. 27 in Knorr, K. and Rosenau, J. N. (eds.), Contending Approaches to International Politics Princeton, (1969)Google Scholar.

² See Brown, C., International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches Hemel Hempstead, (1992)Google Scholar and ‘Sorry Comfort: The Case against International Theory’, in Pfetsch, F. (ed.), International Relations and Pan–Europe: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Findings Hamburg, (1993)Google Scholar.

³ This article previews a larger project on International Order and World Community. Another preview is ‘International Political Theory and the Idea of World Community’, in Booth, K. and Smith, S. (eds.), International Political Theory Today Cambridge, (1995)Google Scholar. Apart from sources listed below, the ideas expressed here have been influenced by the work of a number of authors: Mayall, J., Nationalism and International Society Cambridge, (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Jackson, ‘International Society and the Ethics of Statecraft’, in Booth and Smith (eds.), International Political Theory; James, A., ‘System or Society’, Review of International Studies, 19 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Griffiths, M., Realism, Idealism and International Politics: A Reinterpretation London, (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and chapters by Thomas Pogge, Charles Beitz and Murray Forsyth in Brown, C. (ed.), Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives London, (1994)Google Scholar.

⁴ The best introduction to this is (still) Wallerstein, I., The Modern World System, vol. 1 (New York, 1974)Google Scholar.

⁵ The classic reference here, of course, is Waltz, K., Theory of International Politics Reading, MA, (1979)Google Scholar; see also the papers collected in Keohane, R. O. (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics New York, (1986)Google Scholar and, for a recent extension of the root idea, Buzan, B., Jones, C. and Little, R., The Logic of Anarchy (New York 1993)Google Scholar.

⁶ This last point is entailed by Waltz's view that, once established, balances of power can be managed—in much the same way that competition can be managed amongst oligopolists, i.e. without this implying any underlying desire to cooperate. It is, of course, open to question whether Waltz's argument is genuinely structuralist, whether, for example, his structure actually constitutes its component parts, but this is a side issue in this context.

⁷ See the discussion in Brown, ‘International Political Theory and the Idea of World Community’.

⁸ Modern cosmopolitans such as Henry Shue, Charles R. Beitz and Thomas Pogge seem to have rather given up on ‘institutional’ cosmopolitanism, concentrating instead on ‘moral’ cosmopolitanism—see e.g. the papers by Pogge and Beitz in Brown (ed.), Political Restructuring. Whether this is wise is debatable, since any moral commitment to cosmopolitan values must surely eventually be given institutional form if it is to affect actual state, or individual, conduct. On the other hand, the unwillingness of modern cosmopolitans to go down the world government route is also understandable. Perhaps the answer here is to reexamine what is meant by a ‘state’; Martin Shaw goes down this route, arguing that ‘weak global state institutions’ already exist—see, Shaw, M., Global Society and International Relations Cambridge, (1994), pp. 173ffGoogle Scholar.

⁹ This latter point pertains in particular to the sort of cooperation that might emerge in a Balance of Power system as described by Kenneth Waltz—see note 7; in the terms employed here, such cooperation would not be normatively grounded.

¹⁰ This does not preclude reference by theorists of international society to non–state actors, such as individuals, any more than the state–centricity of traditional international law prevents that discourse from recognizing that in certain circumstances entities other than states can possess international legal personality.

¹¹ For example, this point is exemplified by Bull's comment that ‘A purely fortuitous balance of power we may imagine to be simply a moment of deadlock in a struggle to the death between two contending powers…’, Bull, H., The Anarchical Society London, (1977), p. 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² ‘Second–best’ is a rather ugly formulation, but not without precedent; as I am reminded by a referee, one of Manning's sub–headings is ‘The Second Best of Six Possible Worlds’—although in his view the ‘best’ that we should work towards is ‘a greater degree of order through more effectively functioning inter–governmental arrangements’, i.e. a better international society rather than a world community. This means he is not a ‘second–bester’ in the sense that the term is used here. Manning, C. A. W., The Nature of International Society reissued, London, (1975), p. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Although these two conceptions are attributed here to different individuals, it has to be acknowledged that they are, in the last resort, theoretical constructs; it need not be a matter for concern that the thought of any actual thinker of substance contains elements of both positions.

¹⁴ Edmund Burke, especially in the Letters on a Regicide Peace, is probably the best source for these positions; see Vincent, R. J., ‘Edmund Burke and the Theory of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 10 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ Princeton, 1983.

¹⁶ Oxford, 1975.

¹⁷ It might be argued that Nardin takes rather less from Oakeshott than he thinks he does; it is by no means clear that Oakeshott's idea of a civil association can be wrenched from its context in the way that Nardin wishes. However, there is no reason to pursue this thought in this context.

¹⁸ Nardin, Law, p. 6.

¹⁹ Nardin, Law, p. 19.

²⁰ This is, of course, procedural justice—impartial rules, impartially applied—rather than social or distributive justice.

²¹ See Brown, C., ‘Ethics of Co–existence: The International Theory of Terry Nardin’, Review of International Studies, 14 (1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² In terms of Martin Wight's three–fold classification, Kantian thought is clearly not compatible with the idea of an international society; see Wight, M., International Theory, ed. Wight, G. and Porter, B. (London, 1991)Google Scholar. But Wight's use of Kant is problematic; see Hurrell, A., ‘Kant and the Kantian Paradigm in International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 16 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an argument that Kant was more of a statist than the tradition allows—which is compatible with the view argued here.

²³ ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’, in Reiss, H. J. (ed.) Kant's Political Writings Cambridge, (1970)Google Scholar.

²⁴ Michael Doyle's useful term; see Doyle, M., ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs’, Parts I & II, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (1983)Google Scholar.

²⁵ See pp. 103ff of Reiss, Kant's Political Writings.

²⁶ Reiss, Kant's Political Writings. Emphasis in original.

²⁷ In Brown, International Relations Theory, it is argued that Kant put considerable emphasis on the practical objections to a world republic—laws losing force at a distance and so on. The change of tack here is partly the result of discussion with Pierre Laberge of Ottawa University whose paper ‘Kant and the Constitution of International Society’ (unpublished—presented to Ethikon Conference on the Constitution of International Society, California, Jan. 1994)Google Scholar argues the thesis presented in the main body of the present paper.

²⁸ Wight's personal convictions are discussed in Hedley Bull's biographical writings on Wight, in particular ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies 2 (1976)Google Scholar.

²⁹ Wight, M., Power Politics Leicester, (1978), p. 293Google Scholar. The particular reference to Europe is interesting and will be returned to below. The fact that this reference comes at the end of Power Politics, usually thought of as the work of Wight least oriented towards notions of international society, most ‘system’ oriented, is of some significance.

³⁰ See, especially, Nardin, Law, chapter 12.

³¹ See Brown, C., ‘“Really–Existing Liberalism” and International Order’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 21 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² The papers collected in Bull, H. and Watson, A. (eds.), The Expansion of International Society Oxford, (1984)Google Scholar address exactly this issue, and it is clear that no assumption of the universal applicability of European customs can be made.

³³ See Rawls, J., Political Liberalism New York, (1993)Google Scholar for the original formulation. In a recent Amnesty International Lecture, ‘The Law of Peoples’, in Shute, S. and Hurley, S. (eds.), On Human Rights New York, (1993)Google Scholar, Rawls extends the ‘political not metaphysical’ formula to relations between internally, but differently, just societies. J. Charvet in ‘The Idea of an International Ethical Order’ (Seminar in International Political Theory, LSE, November 1992) also examines this position.

³⁴ See e.g. Brown ‘Ethics of Co–existence’ for an illustration of this habit. Just as seventeenth–century English writers on toleration usually had a clause somewhere in the text excluding Roman Catholics from the benefits of this virtue, so Islamic thinkers could be forgiven for imagining that current Western writers on tolerance have similar reservations directed at them.

³⁵ Clearly what follows can do no more than skate over the surface of this topic. For more sustained analysis (often against the position outlined here) see e.g. Donnelly, J., The Concept of Human Rights London, (1985)Google Scholar; Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice Ithaca NY, (1989)Google Scholar; and International Human Rights Boulder CO, (1993)Google Scholar; Renteln, A. D., International Human Rights London, (1990Google Scholar); Shue, H., Basic Rights Princeton NJ, (1980)Google Scholar; Vincent, R. J.Human Rights and International Relations Cambridge, (1986)Google Scholar; and, of particular interest, the essays in Shute, S. and Hurley, S. (ed.) On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993 New York, (1993)Google Scholar.

³⁶ Frost, M., Towards a Normative Theory of International Relations Cambridge, (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ This seems to be the implication of the discussion on pp. 239 ff.

³⁸ Thus, while the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran always maintained the fiction that it was not actually holding American diplomats as hostages in 1979–81—the hostage–takers were said to be ‘students’—it has not taken the same distancing stance with respect to the death threats made against Salman Rushdie, much less ‘domestic’ acts violating international human rights conventions such as the persecution of the Bahai religious movement. The point is that since they regard themselves as representatives of the Good, the Iranian Government do not consider themselves to be bound by the same rules as those who represent Evil, whatever the authoritative practices of international society have to say about the matter.

³⁹ See Nardin, Law, chapter 5.

⁴⁰ For example, in Spain, Scandinavia and the Low Countries.

⁴¹ M. Forsyth, ‘Federalism and Confederalism’, in Brown (ed.), Political Restructuring.

⁴² Chatham NJ, 1993.

⁴³ The Real World Order, p. 12.