The Concept of International Society

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Therefore, Chapter 4 chiefly concentrates on clarifying four footings of the English School, the ‘international society,’ the ‘great power management,’ the

‘balance of power,’ and the ‘sphere of influence.’ With the four footings and the existence of East Asia, a non-Western region, this thesis aim to set the groundwork later by an empirical approach of the English School in East Asia of the foundation of a transitional international order in the concept of the great powers and its approaches on infrastructural development from aid and investment. Nonetheless, there are manifold gaps among the practice of the English School and the insight of East Asia.

Thus, Chapter 4 is focusing on three main questions: what is an ‘international society,’ what are the purposes for great powers in international society, and what is the ‘balance of power’ and ‘sphere of influence’ for a contemporary ‘international society’?

3.2. The Concept of International Society

Of Bull’s notion from the classic English School, ‘international society’ exists once “a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, forms a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions”

(Bull, 2012, p. 13).To reassure, an international society is not meant to be a utopian society among states. Even, according to Andrew Linklater, an international society remains “not to be equated with a harmonious order.” Instead, the society is

considered as a “tolerable order [that] is better than a realist would predict ‘but less than the cosmopolitan desires’” (Dunne, 2016, p. 115) . Thus, a society of states is a path for states to survive mutually to be away from anarchy. For that, several scholars have used the English School approach to understand the international order clearer as

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perspective. With the social and normative foundation of the society of states, this leads the order “limits on behavior, the management of conflict, and the preservation of wider social goals” (Buzan & Goh, 2020).

However, with the basic concepts of ‘international society,’ there must be some notions of differences between ‘international society’ and ‘international system.’ Each term is notably similar to each other with having a group of states, but the significant differences between them are the determinations of the group and the membership requirements to be part of the group. According to Benjamin Miller, of an anarchic nature of the international system, anarchy “encourages conflicts and constrains cooperation,” but this entirely does not indicate that the international system is ‘totally chaotic and without order.’ Relatively, of an international system, it is of an absence of government, an absence of law or rules. For that, of our ongoing international system, there is no whole central government that could be able to control all of the states, but instead, to sustain peace and stability, the states have a society of states that fundamentally maintains some kind of rules in the state system.

Kenneth Waltz has even stated that states are ongoing a “socialization” where states accept the “so-called rules of state behavior” (Miller, 1995; Waltz, 1979, pp. 127-128).Here, ‘international society’ is distinctly different from the term ‘international system’ socially between states. Part of the term, ‘society,’ is the one significant point that differs the international system from international society. ‘Society’ is considered

“composed of real, cognizant human beings” where the society of the ‘people,’ or even of states, have patterned interactions with each other in reality (Barry Jones, 1998, p. 232).

To vary Bull’s concept of international society and ‘international system,’ Bull grasps that an international system would exist “when two or more states have

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sufficient contact between them and have sufficient impact on one another’s decision to cause them to behave…as parts of a whole” (Bull, 2012, pp. 9-10; Linklater, 2013, p. 94). An additional vital juncture between the two aspects is that in an international system states could be part of an international society, but not all states in the same international system could possibly be part of the same international society as others. For explanation, it hinges on whether the states are recognized of its membership and acknowledgment by the states of that international society. One example, from Bull’s understanding, is of China and Japan during the nineteenth and early twentieth century when the two states were part of the European-controlled international system but were not solely recognized as part of the European-led international society (Bull, 2012, p. 13). Thus, there is a distinction between

international society and international system, but however- there is also a spectrum of the kinds of international societies, that differs much on how the societies could survive and behave amongst one another.

Figure 3.1: The Spectrum of International Societies

Sources: (Little, 2007, p. 145; Little, 2009, p. 83)

Though we have slightly indicated the basic concept of an ‘international society,’ it is moreover to consider the four forms of an international society in the spectrum of international societies (see Figure 4.1). Clarifying the different forms of international society must be envision on the society of states of its characteristics of space, time, and substantially the “institutional arrangement [of]… the maintenance of

Power Political

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[international] order” (Dunne, 2016, p. 115). Nonetheless, the two major forms of international society would be a pluralist international society (coexistence

international society) from the left of spectrum and a solidarist international society (cooperation international society) from the opposing spectrum. First, from the left spectrum of international society, a pluralist international society is largely manifested as part of the ‘conservative view’ of international society. Pluralism, in the aspect of international society, is classified as the society of states with a “relatively low degree of shared norms, rules and institutions among the states, where the focus of society is on creating a framework for orderly coexistence and competition” (Buzan & Yongjin, 2014, p. 234). At this stage, the pluralist international society pursues to maintain its rules and norms and carry out a “structure of coexistence built on the mutual

recognition of states as independent and legally equal members of society…and on freedom to promote their own ends subject to minimal constraints” (Dunne, 2016, p.

116).

In contrast of a pluralist international society, a solidarist international society is placed not of the intention of coexistence and competition but rather of the

“cooperation over a wider range of issues, whether in pursuit of joint gains or realization of shared values or even structural convergence among a group of states”

(Buzan & Yongjin, 2014, pp. 235-236).Simply from Bull’s perspective, there is a fundamental variance between the two main forms of international society, and that is, of which he describes between the two, one is considered a “potential solidarity”

while the one have become “solidarity.” In other words, the fundamental

transformation from one to another is whether an international society is “sufficient to enable enforcement of the law against the law-breakers” or not capable to do that. Are the states of an international society capable enough to preserve the trust and

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responsibility amongst each other? Bull continues to state, an international society among the states that are not demonstrating the behavior of a solidarist international society would be “capable of agreeing only for the certain minimum purpose which fall short of that of the enforcement of the law.” Thus, it hangs on the states’

“respective empirical judgments about the world” (Linklater & Suganami, 2006, p.

60).Here, the English School scholars envisage that an international society that is from the pluralist spectrum could eventually progress to the solidarist spectrum of an international society.

Thus, with first key question, what is an ‘international society,’ there must be an analysis to see the appearance of an international society and then able to deem what ‘form’ of international society that the society of states is. So, for that, simply, Stern depicts an existence of an international society by:

(1) separate and autonomous political units such as empires, city-states, principalities, feudal fiefdoms, sovereign states or nations; (2) significant

interactions, co-operative and conflicting, between them which to an extent condition their behaviors; and (3) the existence of a dominant culture that shapes the norms, codes of behavior and institutions that exist between the political units.

(Stern, 1995, pg. 46)

With that, Stern’s perception marginally differs from Bull’s conceptions of an international society. Simply, there are three core foundations of an international society that would nonetheless be similar of the conceptions: the sovereignty of states, the states’ interactions with each other, and the presence of mutual norms and rules.

As such, they would be likewise of how the society of states balance amongst one another by the international society’s five central primary institutions: balance of power, diplomacy, great power management, international law, and war. However, for this thesis, two of the primary institutions, great power management and balance of

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power, are the midpoints of the purpose to understand the transitional order for