This book takes up one of the key theoretical challenges in the English School’s conceptual framework, namely the nature of the institutions of international society. It theorizes their nature through an analysis of the relationship of primary and secondary levels of institutional formation, so far largely ignored in English School theorizing, and provides case studies to illuminate the theory. Hitherto, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organizations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materializations of primary institutions. Building on legal and constructivist arguments about the constitutive character of institutions, it demonstrates how primary institutions frame secondary organizations and regimes, but also how secondary institutions construct agencies with capacities that impinge upon and can change primary institutions. Based on legal and constructivist ideas, it develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions as shared understandings enmeshed in observable historical processes of constitution, reproduction and regulation.

The Anarchical Society is one of the masterworks of political science and the classic text on the nature of order in world politics. Originally published in 1977, it continues to define and shape the discipline of international relations. This edition has been updated with a new, interpretive foreword by Andrew Hurrell.

Following Bull's structure, it considers key concepts, major institutions and alternative approaches to order, and reasserts the enduring insight of Bull's work, whilst responding to major developments in the theory and practice in international relations.

The balance of power has been a central concept in the theory and practice of international relations for the past five hundred years. It has also played a key role in some of the most important attempts to develop a theory of international politics in the contemporary study of international relations. In this 2007 book, Richard Little establishes a framework that treats the balance of power as a metaphor, a myth and a model. He then uses this framework to reassess four major texts that use the balance of power to promote a theoretical understanding of international relations: Hans J. Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations (1948), Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society (1977), Kenneth N. Waltz's Theory of International Politics (1979) and John J. Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001). These reassessments allow the author to develop a more comprehensive model of the balance of power.

This book traces the development of the international society tradition from its origins in Grotius’ On the Law of War and Peace to its crystallization in Bull’s The Anarchical Society. It follows the idea of sociability among peoples as it was presented by Grotius and substantiated by Pufendorf, through the skepticism of Voltaire and Kant, to emerge as humanitarian warfare and human rights in the international liberal movement, ‘world society’ in the 20th century Catholic revival, and common practices and social understandings in the English School in the period of disciplinary development in international relations after the Second World War.

unlike the historical-descriptive or legalistic approaches still pervading the majority of publications on international organization, has an implicit (empirical-) theoretical orientation. As a concomitant development, Yalem notes an increasing methodological 6 sophistication among some students of international organization. However, except for some favorable comments on the evolving theory of international community formation, Yalem does not evaluate the contribution of the empirical-theory-cum methodology literature to the study of international organization. More recently, Riggs and his associates (1970) and Alger (1960-70; 1970) have taken it upon themselves to do just this. The analysis of the impact of bthavioralism on the study of the United Nations system by Robert Riggs and his associates is a rather devastating indictment. Though demonstrating a concern to present balanced and qualified conclusions from their pemsal of the relevant literature, they summarize their assessment in the following statement: Behavioral research has probably been the most disappointing in the area of its central concern, that of theory-building. The grand theories tend to be heuristic in nature, divorced from the essential data base; and the best-supported proposi tions have the natrowest theoretical significance. Despite its aims and pretensions, the approach has not yet produced a coherent set of explanatory propositions to bring order or scientific exactness to the study of international organization or any substantial segment of it (Riggs et al. , 1970: 230).

This work analyses the relationship between international order and justice in the study and practice of 20th and 21st century international relations. Particular attention is given to the topic of globalization.