Despite the paucity of works that consider the influence of John Anderson on his student of international relations, Hedley Bull, the explication of Anderson’s central ideas certainly takes us some way towards understanding many aspects of Bull’s thought, particularly those that diverged most sharply from his more commonly acknowledged mentor, Martin Wight. Although similarities in Bull and Anderson’s characters may be nothing more than a coincidence, it would be less plausible to suggest that Bull’s emphasis on criticism as the basis of academic scholarship was not derived from a teacher who advocated this view so forcefully. Indeed, the centrality of the Socratic style to Bull’s approach to both teaching and research, along with his penchant for somewhat brutal acts of demolition, render him an Andersonian of the highest order.

More significantly however, evident in both the teachings of Anderson and the works of Bull, is an inherent tension between conflict as a permanent feature of human society, and the mechanisms societies employ to mitigate its effects. In particular, both writers’ discussions of social institutions constitute uneasy attempts to reconcile the apparently contradictory facts of human conflict and cooperation. Indeed, this tension apparent in Bull’s works has been the subject of significant debate in contemporary international relations scholarship. Scholars have long debated the real extent of Bull’s supposed ‘realism’, some seeking to reconcile his understanding of realism with his views on international society, whilst others have argued that he can more accurately be characterised as a rationalist, albeit an unself-conscious one. However, two aspects of Anderson’s thought help to elucidate Bull’s position. The first is derived from the empiricism of philosophical realism and is simply the view that whatever can be observed is as real as anything else that can be observed. Thus, the facts of conflict and cooperation in international relations are as real as each other. This would seem to suggest that there is no real need to reconcile these two contradictory observations. However, the second aspect of Anderson’s thought that is of use here follows from the first and, adding the Heraclitean principles discussed above, maintains that institutions and cooperative social movements must be viewed in terms of the conflict they are designed to mitigate. Critically, such institutions are not normatively oriented but positively constructed to reflect actual, as opposed to desired, areas of agreement.

However, although Bull shared with Anderson a sceptical view of solidarism, religion and notions of common morality, he also deviated significantly from Anderson in this area. Indeed, for Bull, ethics remained central to the study of international relations, and became increasingly so as his career progressed. Perhaps this can be interpreted as a move away from Anderson as Bull’s proximity to the influence of his teaching subsided, or perhaps it simply represents one of those shifts that active minds make over time. Either way, what is clear is that in many of his most forcefully defended ideas on religion and society, and in his critical style, Hedley Bull was of the same mould as his earliest mentor, the Socratic controversialist, John Anderson.