FROM INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM TO INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY - STRUCTURAL REALISM AND REGIME THEORY MEET THE ENGLISH SCHOOL

The idea of international society is an essential clement in the study of international relations. International society is the core concept of the English school and has not yet been systematically integrated with American-originated structural realism and regime theory. This ar ticle brings together these three bodies of theory and shows how they complement and strengthen each other. It uses structural realism to sh ow that international society is, like balance of power, a natural pro duct of anarchic international relations and not, as some in the Engli sh school assume, only a result of exceptional historical circumstance s. This line of analysis establishes definitional criteria for interna tional society that enable a clear boundary to be drawn between intern ational systems with and without international societies. It also show s how state-based international society relates to individual-based wo rld society and supports an argument that in advanced systems, this re lationship becomes complementary, not contradictory. The resulting the oretical synthesis provides an essential historical and political-lega l foundation for regime theory, showing that international society is both the intellectual forebear and the necessary condition for the dev elopment of regimes, Connection strengthens all three bodies of theory and opens up useful channels that connect realist and liberal thinkin g. One result is that international society can be used both to concep tualize the complexities of a contemporary global international system , with its network of regimes ordered in terms of concentric circles, and to sketch out policy-relevant research agenda for understanding it .