Although the Marxist elements of Anderson’s understanding of society did not accord well with Bull’s thought, other aspects of his teachings appear in Bull’s discussions of international society. International society, according to Bull, is defined in general terms as
a group of states, conscious of common interests and common values, [who] 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 workings of common institutions.
States form an ‘international society’, he contended
because, recognising certain common interests and perhaps some common values, they regard themselves as bound by certain rules in their dealings with one another, such as that they should respect one another’s claims to independence, that they should honour agreements into which they enter, and that they should be subject to certain limitations in exercising force against one another.[94]
It is possible to identify two particularly Andersonian elements in this understanding of international society. First, although they all appear to be normative criteria for the formation of international society, the recognition of common interests and values and so on are actually positive in orientation. That is, states do not recognise that they ought to develop common interests and values; they recognise that they do have common interests and values and form institutions accordingly. What is more, Bull maintains that states ‘should respect one another’s claims to independence’ and so on, not because it is an ideal aspiration for the future, but because these principles represent the conditions according to which international society is actually formed. In this, despite appearing on the surface to be presenting an explicitly normative understanding of international society, Bull actually came extremely close to presenting the sort of positivist conception that Anderson was in favour of.
Second, Bull’s understanding of institutions, particularly when coupled with his view that international politics is fundamentally anarchical in nature, accords well with Anderson’s discussions of social institutions. Thus, the recognition of common interests and values in Bull’s definition of international society equates to the ‘specific interests’ of which Anderson spoke, while the manner in which states work together in common institutions and share certain rules in their dealings with one another represent two ‘forms of activity’ central to Anderson’s understanding of institutions. In particular, the ‘tension’ that Stanley Hoffman notes in Bull’s thought between ‘his realism and his emphasis on the rules and institutions which dampen anarchy’[95] is reminiscent of Anderson’s discussions of society. These things aside however, it was with his discussions of pluralism in international society that Bull veered even closer to Anderson’s view.
In ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society’ Bull identified and distinguished between two approaches to the concept of international society, pluralism and solidarism. Recognising the multiple conceptions of justice that operate in international relations, pluralism is ‘a conception of international society founded upon the observation of the actual area of agreement between states and informed by a sense of the limitations within which this situation rules may be usefully be made rules of law’.[96] In the work of João Marques de Almeida, the positivist focus of this understanding of pluralism is attributed to the influence of H.L.A. Hart, although it also accords very well with the pluralist and positivist principles of Anderson’s understanding of realism.[97] Indeed, although it may also reflect the legal positivism of a ‘minimal Hartian position’, the claim that we must focus on the actual area of agreement between states, determined by observation, is distinctly Andersonian in sentiment. As we will see shortly, it is this approach to international society that Bull defended over the alternative he discussed, solidarism.
Contrary to pluralism, solidarism posits that international society is ‘a society formed by states and sovereigns’ whose position ‘is secondary to that of the universal community of mankind’. The central assumption of solidarism is ‘that of the solidarity, or potential solidarity, of most states in the world in upholding the collective will of the society of states against challenges to it’.[98] It consequently stands in direct opposition to the pluralist view that states ‘are capable of agreeing only for certain minimal purposes which fall short of the enforcement of the law’.[99] What is more, by entertaining pretensions to the ‘potential solidarity’ of states, solidarism moves away from the positivist orientation of pluralism towards a more normatively oriented focus.
It is in Bull’s criticisms of the solidarist position and defence of pluralism that his proximity to Anderson’s teachings on positivism, pluralism and empiricism is particularly apparent. Bull was critical of solidarism for two main reasons. The first was the claim that solidarism has exerted ‘an influence positively detrimental to international order … by imposing upon international society a strain that it cannot bear’. This ‘strain’ has resulted from the imposition of what is actually a false sense of solidarity of interests that, far from strengthening international society, ‘has the effect of undermining those structures of the system which might otherwise be secure’.[100] Here Bull seems to be echoing Anderson’s arguments against the supposed solidarity of human societies.[101] However, the echo becomes much louder indeed when Bull launches his further attack on solidarism’s notion of the common good in international ethics.
Bull’s second complaint with the solidarist approach to international society was derived from his well-documented moral scepticism. As O’Neill and Schwartz write, Bull’s ‘scepticism had been nurtured by … a renowned sceptic and iconoclast’, John Anderson.[102] Referring to the moral pluralism that coloured his view of international society, Stanley Hoffman has also noted that Bull was ‘painfully aware of the multiplicity of moral perspectives’[103] and, as a result, viewed with immense scepticism the assertion that any form of common morality, implied by the central concepts of the solidarist approach, can be identified in international relations. This scepticism is particularly displayed in his critique of E.B.F. Midgley’s The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations,[104] which he described as ‘dauntingly massive and impressively learned, if [an] avowedly dogmatic and profoundly reactionary attempt to rehabilitate the Thomist philosophy of natural law’.[105] Revealing his outward discomfort with the avowedly Christian elements of Midgley’s work, Bull particularly criticised his ‘reliance on Christian revelation, his statement that the fundamental principles of his work are confirmed by the authority of the Church and his view that natural law cannot effectively be upheld today except by theists’.[106] However, Bull’s most substantial criticism of Midgley’s work centered around his presentation of ‘moral issues in terms of “antinomies and paradoxes”’.[107] In particular, he argued, in accordance with Anderson and contrary to Midgley, that moral questions can only be answered ‘by reference to moral rules whose validity we assume’; that is, according to empirically verifiable argument.[108] These views on religion, morality and natural law certainly put him at odds with his fellow members of the ‘English School’, in particular, Martin Wight.
Similarly, Bull’s critical approach to notions of common morality was also displayed in his review article of Michael Walzer’s 1977 book Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. In particular, Bull argued that, at heart, Walzer’s work rested on the implicit assumption that his readers ‘share[d] a common morality with him’. This, Bull argued, led Walzer to assume that he did not need to ‘defend his basic moral principles’, but that he could simply assert them.[109] However, as Bull pointed out later in the article, this was not the case for most of Walzer’s arguments were, in his view, ‘vulnerable’ to attack from a variety of other positions.[110] Thus, while Bull praised Walzer’s ‘dismissal of relativist arguments’, he also criticised his apparent ‘subjectivity’.[111] For example, Bull maintained that Walzer’s ‘basic proposition that—as against General Sherman’s doctrine that “war is hell”—the distinction between just and unjust war is of cardinal importance, would be disputed by absolute pacificists [sic], with whose position he makes no attempt to come to grips’.[112] The assumptions implicit in Walzer’s argument did not amount simply to the endorsement of a notion of common morality in Bull’s view, but represented the further claim that Western liberal values about the morality of war and the rights and duties of individual human beings are held universally. With Anderson, Bull disputed these very premises.
Despite Anderson’s influence and the effort with which Bull criticised the solidarist approach in The Anarchical Society and ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society’, a distinct shift towards this position can be discerned in his later works. Nicholas Wheeler and Tim Dunne attempt to reconcile this move by characterising Bull as harbouring a ‘pluralism of the intellect and solidarism of the will’.[113] In particular, they argue that ‘later Bull came to express increasing disillusionment with pluralism on the grounds that it could not provide for order among states and hence order among the wider society of humankind’.[114] Evidence of this growing disillusionment first began to appear in the early 1980s and, in particular, the Hagey Lectures of 1983. Here, despite his previous arguments against the solidarist approach, Bull discussed the notion of a ‘growing cosmopolitan awareness’ in international relations.[115] Furthermore, he also began to discuss the ‘concept of a world common good’ and argued that. ‘in the absence of a supranational world authority’. the need existed ‘for particular states to seek as wide a consensus as possible, and on this basis to act as local agents of a world common good’. However, reining himself back in, Bull did concede that ‘states are notoriously self-serving in their policies, and rightly suspected when they purport to act on behalf of the international community as a whole’.[116] Similarly, the posthumously published chapter ‘The Importance of Grotius in the Study of International Relations’ also includes hints that Bull was no longer as hostile towards the solidarist approach as he had been earlier in his career.[117] However, it is difficult to determine what these apparent shifts in Bull’s thinking mean, in large part because he passed away before having the opportunity to account for them in more detail.
[94] Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, p. 13.
[95] Stanley Hoffman, ‘International Society’, in J.D.B. Miller and R.J. Vincent (eds), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp. 13–37 (24).
[96] Hedley Bull, ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society’, in H. Butterfield and M. Wight (eds), Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1966, pp. 71–72.
[97] de Almeida, ‘Challenging Realism by Returning to History: The British Committee’s Contribution to International Relations 40 Years On’, pp. 292–93.
[98] Bull, ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society’, in H. Butterfield and M. Wight (eds), Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics, p. 68.
[99] Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, p. 230.
[100] Bull, ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society’, in Butterfield and Wight (eds), Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics, p. 70.
[101] Suganami also notes the possible influence of Manning on Bull’s pluralism and critique of solidarism (Suganami, ‘C.A.W. Manning and the Study of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, pp. 91–107 (95)).
[102] O’Neill and Schwartz, Hedley Bull on Arms Control, pp. 2–3.
[103] Stanley Hoffman, ‘International Society’, in J.D.B. Miller and R.J. Vincent (eds), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations, pp. 13–37 (21).
[104] E.B.F. Midgley, The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations, Harper & Row, New York, 1975.
[105] Hedley Bull, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, vol. 5, 1979, pp. 171–81 (171).
[106] Bull, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, pp. 171–81 (181).
[107] Bull, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, pp. 171–81 (179).
[108] Bull, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, pp. 171–81 (180).
[109] Hedley Bull, ‘Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory’, World Politics, vol. 31, no. 4, 1979, pp. 588–99 (591)
[110] Bull, ‘Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory’, pp. 588–99 (597).
[111] Bull, ‘Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory’, pp. 588–99 (596).
[112] Bull, ‘Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory’, pp. 588–99 (597).
[113] Nicholas J. Wheeler and Timothy Dunne, ‘Hedley Bull’s Pluralism of the Intellect and Solidarism of the Will’, International Affairs, vol. 72, no. 1, 1996, pp. 91–107.
[114] Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Hedley Bull’s Pluralism of the Intellect and Solidarism of the Will’, p. 96.
[115] Hedley Bull in Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Hedley Bull’s Pluralism of the Intellect and Solidarism of the Will’, p. 99.
[116] Hedley Bull, Justice in International Relations, The Hagey Lectures, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, 1984, p. 14.
[117] Hedley Bull, ‘The Importance of Grotius in the Study of International Relations’, in H. Bull, B. Kingsbury and A. Roberts (eds), Hugo Grotius and International Relations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp. 65–94.