International Relations Theory - English School

English School

Main article: English school of international relations theory

The 'English School' of international relations theory, also known as International Society, Liberal Realism, Rationalism or the British institutionalists, maintains that there is a 'society of states' at the international level, despite the condition of 'anarchy' (literally the lack of a ruler or world state). Despite being called the English School many of the academics from this school were neither English nor from the United Kingdom. A great deal of the work of the English School concerns the examination of traditions of past international theory, casting it, as Martin Wight did in his 1950s-era lectures at the London School of Economics, into three divisions: 1. Realist or Hobbesian (after Thomas Hobbes), 2. Rationalist (or Grotian, after Hugo Grotius), 3. Revolutionist (or Kantian, after Immanuel Kant). In broad terms, the English School itself has supported the rationalist or Grotian tradition, seeking a middle way (or via media) between the 'power politics' of realism and the 'utopianism' of revolutionism. The English School reject behavioralist approaches to international relations theory.

Read more about this topic:  International Relations Theory

Famous quotes containing the words english and/or school:

    The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
    Thomas Beecham (1879–1961)

    School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them.
    Ivan Illich (b. 1926)