Author: Nassef Manabilang Adiong

Nassef is the founder of Co-IRIS (International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort), PHISO (Philippine International Studies Organization), DSRN (Decolonial Studies Research Network), and BRLN (Bangsamoro Research and Legal Network). He works on interdisciplinary research between Islam and International Relations and explores the Bangsamoro society as he heads the Policy Research and Legal Services (PRLS) of the Bangsamoro Parliament. Visit https://nassef.info/ for more details.

Essays on English School of International Relations: Michael Donelan (6 of 7)

I will assess the five different views bestowed by Michael Donelan on the nature of international politics. According to him there are five views or elements that comprises the nature of international politics, these are natural law, realism, rationalism, fideism and historicism.[i] There are two concepts related to the natural law tradition: (1) common morality (reflection on the sense of humanity) and (2) common good (the individual prioritization of both moral virtues and what is good unto himself and to others). He opined that both common morality and common good are essentially built to human beings which actually a staunch distinction from non-human beings. These two ideals provide guidelines of reason and are universal in nature for it aspires good for all which can be done in different levels (be they national or multinational levels). He argued that common morality and common good were both given with regards to natural law tradition. If both were naturally given, are they subject to change? Are there any consequences that common morality and common good can be alter if human beings themselves cannot attain commonalities in moral virtues and goodness of values. What are the permutations of natural law to divine law since I understood that the author is a devout catholic? Who authorizes or speaks for morality and law?
     His idea on realism is similar with the common and general understanding of realism. That state is driven by power which pursues peculiar national interest in an anarchical world or in a self-help system. Security depends upon other state’s recognition and action. They exist with the consideration that other states also exist. The idea of common morality and common good is null and void. Only in the domestic realm of state such morality and law exists and are provided by domestic authorities as well, i.e., executive and judiciary branch of the government. Realism gave little attention or regards morality, ethics and especially common good insignificant or unimportant in the conduct of state affairs. For them reason of state alone can present an encompassing description in viewing the predicament of international politics. And since real politik (struggle for power) is the name of the game, states do not trust one another. However, we should also consider the taxonomy of power and how it greatly affected the realist’s thesis. Power can be presented in different forms: power of language, mind, discourse, physical or material (economic and/or military), and ideas and ideologies. But I think we all have common understanding that when we talk about realist conception of power we are concern with high politics such as political prominence and military capabilities.
     Rationalism for Donelan starts with three concepts: (1) self, which means I exists (in my conscious mind), (2) freedom and (3) equality. These concepts set out the foundation of human society. It is the belief that when you think you exist and that you recognizes other’s existence then both of you exist freely, and when you think all of us exist freely, and then we will think that all of us are equal. The simplicity of their correlations is outrageous, it doesn’t mean that when you believed you exists it inevitably leads you to believe other’s exists or else you may ask whether the pleasantries of life lead me to believe that I exists. How about the unpleasant situation that others experienced, will they be also (immediately) believe that they exists and recognizes the existences of other so we are both free and equal? Equality comes into many textures whether women and men, men and gays, black and white, Europeans and Asians are equal and with similar perceptions as to how they see themselves.  In this view, commonalities do not come from and built in all human beings; instead, it comes from observation, examination, and reason of human being. In taking consideration of the idea of the good of all, this is to say that the function of international politics is to make every individual compatible with the achievement of common good. According to Donelan, there are four principles of society of states which were patterned from the foundations of human society: (1) the belief that each state is free, (2) all states are equal, (3) agreements should be kept or pacta sunt servanda, and (4) justice should be done, hitherto with its implementation that three laws are provided – possessions should be respected, any transfer of possessions should be done by consent and not by accession, and promises made should be fulfilled. In this argument it entails that private life is more important than public life, which I think resonates that private international law has more weight than public international law (if we will take it into the state-level).
     In Dr. Yurdusev lecture, he oriented us that Michael Donelan was a devout catholic so it follows that his line of thinking is influenced by strong affiliations to the dogmas of Catholic Church. He included fideism as the fourth element in looking and viewing the nature of international politics. This is the belief that faith supersedes reason or faith is independent from reason and that it provides more basis in arriving at particular truths. In short, faith and reason are both hostile or in contradictory with each other. How can this idea be an element or view in international politics and in what method will suffice international milieu? Donelan argued that morality and law should be based on faith alone, but if scholars interpret it on the basis of reason then selfishness prevails. Furthermore, the so-called universal community of believers is regulated by law revealed by divine providence and the authority, of course, comes from the church, in which Donelan regarded the church as the only entrusted institution for such great authority. But how can this argument applicable to international politics when most, if not all, are composed of states adhering to secularism, the idea that all of the activities and duties in politics and governance must be under the authority of the government while religious and spiritual activities is to church only. The community of believers is even under the authority of the government and to which foreign policy is undertaken, which shapes how they (members of the government) act and play their role in the international community.
     The last element is that international politics must be viewed historically. This is again one of the major features of the British School of International Relations – historicism in their epistemological pluralism. Donelan argued that reality is something historical. But I contend if we can say that reality of the present is an extension of the reality of the past? What is the ‘something’ that reality is historical? Is this base on certain scenarios depicting historical accounts to form reality? In addition, reason, morality, interests and etc for him were historically conceived juxtaposed to an occurrence of life which continuously flows and probably might change. If reason, morality, interests and other notions which make-up the international politics were historically conceived then it follows that the changing component of these notions were not constant. I can accept that historicism is one way of conceiving these notions but there are also other plausible factors conceiving these matters. We can take on the empiricism and other methodologies applicability.
     In sum, the five views or elements on the nature of international politics are somehow overlapping, tension arises on some notions like ideas on morality and law in describing and explaining under the context of each element, and compounded by escalating confusions on part of Donelan’s understanding of the complex phenomena of the nature of international politics.
[i] See Michael Donelan, “Elelments of International Political Theory,” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

Essays on English School of International Relations: Adam Watson (5 of 7)

In this essay I would like to discuss the idea of Adam Watson on the practice of hegemony[i], though this was not discussed in the class I think it is imperative that we should also consider the changing or development of the mind of the author. The discussion here will focus on Watson’s lecture notes given at the CSD Encounter with Adam Watson, University of Wistminster (5 June 2002). The lecture was entitled, “International Relations & the Practice of Hegemony.”[ii] In his lecture he presented two interpretations of the word hegemony, that are, in terms of distribution of power (military force, and technical and financial strengths) in a system, the other one is the dominance of a particular idea or set of assumptions such as (in his words) economic liberalism and globalization. But for him, hegemony is a “material condition that enables one great power or group of powers, or the great powers in a system acting collectively, to bring such great pressures and inducements to bear that most other states lose some of their freedom of action de facto, though not  de jure.”
     His definition is very timely if we will apply it with how collective efforts of states try to subvert, force or constrain a suspected state to behave in a certain way that is advantageous to them. Take for example the US and the coalition of the willings on the war on terror or the sanctions and embargo imposed by major powers, by the UN Security Council or by the US allies to Iran. But there is a loosely description in his conception of hegemony, this is how hegemon A able to persuade other hegemons B, C, and D (if we will talk about world in terms of its territorial influence, region or hemisphere) to behave in a way that their interests are the same with the interest of hegemon A? So the loss of some of the state’s freedom of action can also be both de facto (concerning by principle) and de jure (concerning by law) because a hegemon try to institutionalize the consent enterprise she got from other hegemons.
     My idea about hegemon is that a state will be considered hegemon if she has an immense wealth (material like technological and financial forces) and dominant ideological strength that affect and influence the foreign policies of other state in one region, not only external relations also domestic relations within a state. China is the hegemon in Asia (East, Central and Southeast), India is the hegemon in South Asia, Brazil is the hegemon in South America and South Africa is the hegemon in Africa. Contending issues arises on who are the hegemons in the Middle East (Southwest Asia) if it’s Iran, Israel or Turkey and also in Europe whether United Kingdom, France or Germany. United States was the hegemon after the disintegration of the USSR, but her hegemony in the world is being contested as well because of the global financial crises (2007 to present) and failed wars in Afghanistan (2001 to present) and in Iraq (2003 to present).
     For Watson, the idea of hegemony needs a thorough and rigorous and systematical study of the impact of non-governmental actors on the international system. By this he meant the arising power of non-state actors in the realm of international system. He argued that there is a pendulum of hegemonial spectrum; at the end of the pendulum ideas like sovereignty, anti-hegemonial coalitions, balance of power, juridical equality of states, non-intervention, splendid isolation and the Republican party’s aim of aloofness in the US today come from the multiple independences end of the spectrum while at the other end, ideas like management of the international system, privileges and responsibilities of great powers and rich nations, concert of Europe, intervention, standards of civilization, human rights and women’s rights, donor and recipient states, strings to aid, derogations of sovereignty, and limits to independence come from the hegemony-suzerainty area of the spectrum. These are the element of ideas that two area of spectrum are in contrast with: (1) multiple independences end of the spectrum and (2) hegemony-suzerainty area of the spectrum.
     In addition, there are three tendencies in the policies of great powers help shape the international system: (1) national interest or imperialism, (2) Prudence which he means minimizing risks to the state itself and also to the international society in which it operates, e.g., seeking agreements and acquiescence, and (3) moral responsibility. These three policy-tendencies do not only help shape the international system but it also maintains and preserves stability of the current status-quo.
     In Watson words, the non-governmental actors or what he calls transnational organizations can influence or try to influence the situation in countries they are attached with. He categorized transnational NGOs into three motives of images: (1) economic motives and interests because transnational business can bring pressures and inducements, (2) the moral causes: these are special interest groups range from religious and ideological bodies through all sorts of well-intentioned concerns, as he puts it. (3) He described this as the smallest group of all; this is the organized transnational NGOs with philanthropic enterprises which operate not on the basis of earning profits but for (believe it or not) ethical reasons. All of these groups have one aim and that is to change the internal affairs of weaker or less democratic states.
     Consequently, Watson idea on hegemony is a great attempt to re-interpret or redefine the word hegemony beyond the borders of its state-centric definition and connotation. Adding transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as one of the forms of hegemony gives a deeper understanding on the roles they play in the contemporary world politics or of the international system. However, one thing should also be dealt with intensive research is the aftermath of clashes between state imposing its hegemony in the world affairs and transnational NGOs impact on its ‘try and error’ method on modifying internal politics or situations in the state. To what extent can the hegemonial status of transnational NGOs lasts in the state with a status also of being a hegemon? Conflict between state’s hegemonial operations to transnational NGO’s hegemonial operations is the recommended subject-area that other scholars might try to look into or by Watson himself (to advance his scholarship on understanding the phenomenon of hegemony in the international system).

[i] See Adam Watson, Hegemony and History, (New York: Routledge, 2006).
[ii] Accessed here, 22 November 2009.

Essays on English School of International Relations: Hedley Bull (4 of 7)

I will answer one of the posited questions stated in the course outline, this is “to what extent does Bull’s conception of international society comply with the contemporary international relations?” The question gives me an impression of (un)certain putative degree or level about the compliance of Bull’s international society to the current milieu of international relations. We should first analyze what is the definition of international society for Hedley Bull[i]. He defined it “when a group of states conscious of certain common interests and common values, 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 working of common institutions.”[ii] This is different when he meant for system of states which according to him is “formed when two or more states have sufficient contact between them, and have sufficient impact on one another’s decisions, to cause them to behave – at least in some measure – as parts of a whole.”[iii] I would also add from Dr. Yurdusev lecture that a system is when a state takes into consideration of the other state – be they existence, actions, or recognitions.
     It is difficult to decipher if Bull’s conception of international society complies or not to the contemporary (practice of) international relations or to what extent it comply because of the tensions and contradictions purported by Bull himself. Though I would contend that he is finding a middle way between realism and cosmopolitanism. Bull’s argued that there were universal goals of social life, that are, to secure life from violence, to ensure promises will be kept and to ensure that the possession of things will remain stable, these goals set the primary goals of international society. These were preservation of the system and of the society of states itself, maintaining the independence or external sovereignty of individual states, maintaining peace (or peace in the absence of war), limitation of violence, keeping of promises, and rules of property.[iv]
     If these were the goals then what are the courses or operationalizations to attain the goals of an international society? Bull did not give a direct bulleted courses or operations to attain the goals of his conception on international society instead he laid down functions of integral components of the contemporary international system. Functions of balance of power, international law, diplomacy, war and great powers were outlined in the book “The Anarchical Society.” I do not think that these functions can help me sort out if his international society complies with the contemporary international relations. Detailing the functions or even redefining the elements that composes the international society to fit to what he has conceptualized does not mean that it can be relegated as operations or courses for states to achieve an international society. Thus I would argue that these are just guidelines for states and not instructions imposed unto them. It is still within the prerogative of the state whether she will comply with the guidelines set by Hedley Bull. With this I mean that a scholar is making suggestions on what courses of actions should a state undertake, and not the other way around where a scholar is part of the government mission or an advisor like Henry Kissinger et al. This is still much debatable whether the advancement of scholarship or learning of a scholar should be utilized by the government in order to color a certain political agenda.
     Let us now analyze Bull’s definition of international society concomitant to what extent does it complies with the contemporary international relations. By this I meant the practice of international relations and not the discipline itself. He started the definition with ‘when a group of states conscious of certain common interests and common values’: my question here is how can you instill or trigger consciousness to a group of people (this also bothers me about what does he mean by a group of people – is it with common culture, language, traditions, norms and/or ethnical, racial or religious bounded) is it by following a certain identical pattern(s) of ideology(ies) or belief(s) or a lineage or pedigree of sense of belongingness to one’s own values and interests. The certainty of common interests and common values is to me an uncertain panacea. The second predicate of his definition is to ‘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 working of common institutions’; existing consciousness of certain common values and interests does not necessarily lead them to form a society which is bounded by set of rules and institutions. There will always be pressures, conflicts and clashes among a group of people in every trajectory or projection of how they see themselves and how they see (perceive) the world.
     The only thing (if I could use this term) that I can see nearer to but not epitomizes his conception of international society is the European Union (EU) while all other regional and international organizations are far or have not committed nor complied to the standard of his international society. Even inside EU we cannot avoid the fact that there are pathologies (vulnerabilities and weaknesses) and parochial interests besetting the organization. From the parochial interests of different subgroups, rationality of individual actors to the striving sectional interests groups contributed to the intrinsic complexity of the society. When the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, did this country even acknowledged a little bit or sense of Bull’s idea. If I remember it correctly, it was in the lecture of Dr. Yurdusev that he said: “Bull’s last article condemned the two great powers, the US and Russia, for their horrendous irresponsibility which escalated a chaotic world and did not care about the plight of the third world.” Furthermore, his thesis is inapplicable to Middle East which was highly and deeply penetrated region from different interests of major powers in the world since the inception of the first (alternative) Middle East state.
     You cannot even rely to the attainments of his goals for an international society when even states killed its own citizens, look what happened in Rwanda, in Bosnia (Srebrenica) and now in Darfur, Sudan. How about the distinct varied cultures of Asia, South America and Africa that don’t want to be subdued to Western values? The Palestinian, Chechen, Kurdish and Moro (Southern Philippines) problems, questions in the Basque, Kuriles, Cyprus, Kashmir, Spratly and Sabah territories and low politics issue areas, e.g., environmental challenges (climate change, global warming, deforestation, desertification and toxic wastes), energy/water crisis, rapid population ageing, refugees/internally displaced persons, transnational crimes (human trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, piracy, and small arms smuggling), food security (GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms), and weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical and radiological weapons). These are just some, if not all, burdens that the contemporary international relations encounter. So I am not shock if one day there will be World War III but hopefully all the means and ways must be done to prevent this catastrophic event.  

[i] There is one good source, a tribute to Hedley Bull about his life and ideas before he died. The book is so concise yet presents a comprehensive accounts and details of his world view and schema but of course with critical perspectives from the authors. This is the edited book of J.D.B. Miller and R.J. Vincent’s “Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
[ii] Hedley Bull, “The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics” (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977, p. 13)
[iii] ibid, p. 9.

[iv] Another online source that reviewed the book can be found here.

Essays on English School of International Relations: Martin Wight (3 of 7)

For this essay we will try to explore the idea of Martin Wight’s contribution on the theory of International Relations[i], then personal thoughts and critique will follow or it could be stated after his ideas were presented. In his essay ‘Why is there no international theory?[ii]’ was regarded as a classical piece that most of the theorist[iii] of international relations cited him as a godfather (well, there is no appropriate adjective to describe him instead I used the word that Dr. Yurdusev said in his lecture, though a different meaning was presented, i.e. Wight occupies a godfather figure in the school) in an attempt to understand and establish the conception of international theory. Such word like international theory can also be interpreted in different contextual of social sciences, hitherto sociology, political science and its subdisciplines, law and even philosophy. Social theory can be part of international theory, but international theory is more likely paralleled with political theory.
     Wight argued that the sense of international theory traditionally is “imagined as the twin of speculation about state to which the name political theory is appropriated” but he clearly elaborated that any layman (I assume those who were educated but not necessarily ordinary people that in a sense they constitute the lower class in the society, if we mean economics here – the poor and in general, those who did not finish or enter tertiary level of education) might comprehend it as to which “some conceptual system which offers a unified explanation of international phenomena.” This is not to discredit a layman’s comprehension but I don’t think every one of them can think and explain it within the borders of language and meaning that Wight described and defined.
     He is bewildered when proponents of international theory regard, somehow, Machiavelli, Kant, Rosseau et al as founding fathers when they have been understood as classical writers and philosophers of political theory. Moreover, Thucydides was even anointed (this word was taken just to exaggerate how realists want to back-up their claim that realism was part of the classical strand of history of political thought) as the founder of classical realism because of his written stories or documentation on the Peloponnesian war and the Melian dialogue between the powerful Athenians and the citizens of the small island called Melos. This premise is not that troubling nor causes bewilderment because every fields and disciplines in social sciences share a bond of interrelatedness and conceptual correlations. Like I remember, Prof. Carlos, my teacher in one of my master course in the Philippines, consider Philosophy as the mother of all sciences while Prof. Espiritu, my adviser in one of my undergraduate course, regarded History as the foot or base of all sciences. These anecdotal quotations need not be elaborated for common sense dictates that any notions, conceptions with inclusion of their ontological propositions and epistemological presuppositions and ideologies precipitate a multidisciplinary approach in social science.
     Wight asked a resounding inquiry: What international theory was there before 1914? And if there was any, is it worth rediscovering? He straightforwardly answer this question stating that “if political theory is the tradition of speculation about the state, then international theory may be supposed to be a tradition of speculation about society of states … or of the international community.” But he believed that international theory was marked by two reasons: (1) intellectual prejudice imposed by sovereign state and (2) the belief in progress. The idea of sovereignty alone contributed to the lack of empirical or historical research of international theory. When sovereignty was imposed and served as a cardinal stance among all over the world, community of people aspired, forcefully or gradually, for state and that recognition of their sanctified (sacred) sovereignty must be respected for they will also respect others. The sovereign nation-state became the dominant actor in international relations and was associated with political theory for a long time before World War I.
     Another constraining element or factor to the development of international theory is the belief of progress. He followed the idea of Toynbee by rejecting the belief on progress. For example, he referred the conceptions of nationalism and nation-states as modern reincarnation of tribalism, which in turn, resulted to the poverty of international theory. His attempt on deepening the understanding on why is there no international theory was quite lackluster for he did not present or recommend any (putative) solutions or criteria on how and what should be an international theory. However, I am not saying that this was not a form of precedence for scholars to imagine and think regarding the placement of the theory of the British School of International Relations in the field rather it served as an impetus and driving force to deepen and widen the conception of those who followed his footsteps. In trying to answer his article’s title, I think it is imperative to show how theory originated and formulated.
     We should first understand that in order to form/formulate one’s own theory we should first be concern if this has an ‘explanatory power’ in explaining a specific not a complex phenomenon; if you are debunking another theory then your explanatory power must be better. Description for me is I think the first stage in formulating a theory, how you describe and observe is the initial process for it is where you will ask, ask, and ask of many vague descriptions happening in a certain phenomenon. Then, reducing the questions into its one primal significance and salient characteristic consonance to the phenomenon. The second stage is interpretation, it is where you will find (plausible or even implausible) answers, gather all the answers you need and test all those answers for whatever methods or means you may want to use. The last stage is setting out your explanation by reinterpreting all of the plausible answers and select what you think is the most and highly feasible answer you had tested.
     If only he had answered his title by looking into the autonomous attribute of international theory then he may find (some) answers. This is one of the debacle or obstacle Kenneth Waltz encountered in writing his book the ‘Theory of International Politics’, making international politics separate, autonomous or independent from political science. He looked into, if I may adapt a scientific term, variable that will constitute an autonomous characterization. By this he meant the structure as the variable in analyzing the interactions between the units and the system and finding answers from the field of economics which Morgenthau et al paid less attention because for them it is irrelevant in the study of politics among nations and states, which will constitute Waltz explanatory power.
     This is not to discredit Wight’s essay vis-à-vis Waltz criterion for theory because what Waltz had done in his book is very positivistic which uses scientific method in determining a theory of international politics as against to one of the traditional roots of British School of International Relations which is adherence to methodological pluralism and rejection to behaviorism and Scientism.

[i] It is important to note that when I say International Relations (begins with capital letters), I refer to the discipline itself, however for small caps it is the practice of IR. Examples for the practice of international relations were diplomacy or state craft, consular, drafting treatises and other bilateral relationship on the state level.
[ii] One of the articles included in the first chapter of the Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics (1966). Slanted phrases were directly extracted from that essay and I think it is unnecessary to cite pages (over again) because those were randomly cited and used.  
[iii] Citations can be found from the works of Yale Ferguson, Richard Mansbanch, Fred Chernoff and Mark Neufeld. It is interesting that these theorists were contemporary authors in IR and yet Wight has impacted their way of thinking but I would not assume that their scholarship was greatly influenced by Wight’s writings. 

Essays on English School of International Relations: Herbert Butterfield (2 of 7)

A short background about Herbert Butterfield was lectured by Dr. Yurdusev on 2 November 2009. According to him, Butterfield was a devout Wesleyan Methodist, son of a wool sorter/bookkeeper (father) and a domestic servant (mother), and the first boy from his hometown Oxenhope, located a few miles from the Lancashire-Yorkshire border in Australia. He fulfilled his father’s dream by becoming a lay preacher at an early age of 16 and received an Oxbridge scholarship from Cambridge University.[i]
     After publishing “The Whig Interpretation of History” in 1931 at a young age, he submitted an application for the Woodrow Wilson Chair at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and was placed on the short-list alongside C.A. Macartney, Arnold Forster and E.H. Carr. The selection committee, needless to say, appointed the latter. In spite of disappointment, his stay in Cambridge gave him prominence and administrative authority by becoming Master of Peterhouse (1955-68), Vice-Chancellor (1959-61) and Regius Professor (1965-68).[ii]
     His astonishing career is without a doubt, one of the greatest Western historians in 20th century. However, can we also assume and conclude that in line with the course objective, i.e. critically examine the works of the representative scholars identified with the school, H. Butterfield had greatly contributed to the development of the British theory of International Relations?[iii]  This essay will try to answer whether or not H. Butterfield’s works immensely and significantly contributed to the development and evolution of the British theory of International Relations?
     It is emphatic to disregard the origin of the school since he is the convener of it. But it is not right to say and claim that without H. Butterfield there will be no British theory of International Relations. Not all schools of thought and theory were founded and considered product of a single man (even he is brilliant); the flourishing essentials and growth of it is a byproduct of both intellectual collectivities among group of scholars and of their shared common views.
     Based on what I have read from articles, journals, scanned chapters of books and reviews about his works, I assumed that he was more concerned with the history of historiography and how historians should write, what he termed academic or technical history. Not by generalizing, analyzing and judging historical events but by telling the story and seeking to understand the past as it understood itself.[iv] Thus he is against of “Whig historians,” who practiced staging historiographical narratives anachronistically so as to produce a ratification of the present or justification of position exposed by them.[v] 
     Butterfield’s outlook was greatly influenced by St. Augustine and the traditions of Wesleyan Methodism. He believed that Providence had almost discernibly brought good out of evil, but goodness was never a character in the story the historian had to tell. The story of history, therefore, should teach humility and self-effacement.[vi] The order on which society rested was Providential, the gift of God, which produces a world in which men can live and gradually improve their external conditions, in spite of sin. He regarded the secularization of European society as a qualified good. Convinced of the ‘inner’ nature of religious faith, he held that Christians must come to God through their free will, not through outward conformity to the structure of ecclesiastical authority.[vii]
     In his article “Official History,” he distinguished two maxims for historians: (1) that governments try to press upon the historian the key to all the drawers but one, and are very anxious to spread the belief that this single one contains no secret of importance, (2) that if the historian can only find out the thing which government does not want him to know, he will lay his hand upon something that is likely to be significant.[viii]
     It is evident enough that historicity was the methodology employed and utilized by Butterfield in the study of international relations. He argued that it is best studied through diplomatic and general history, and must remain divorced from the world of practical politics. At a conference held in January 1949, in a characteristic statement of his view, he lamented the decline of diplomatic history in universities and attacked the rise of international relations. He complained, “only advanced training in diplomatic history and international law could provide students with a proper understanding of those relations.”[ix]
     In the committee he convened which was founded by Rockefeller Foundation, the group expressed greater concern with the historical than the contemporary, with normative than scientific, with the philosophical than the methodological and with principles than policy.[x] Most of his writings in the study of international relations were focused on the principles of prudence and moral obligation in the international society of states throughout its history. The role of providence in shaping the society is much of his concerned.
     In his contributions in the “Diplomatic Investigations,” he emphasized that international order is not a thing bestowed upon by nature, but is a matter of refined thought, careful contrivance and elaborate articles. Further, the principle of the balance-of-power apparently tended to the preservation of the status quo, putting a brake on territorial changes.[xi] Consequently, he sought a restoration of the ideas of a community of states, of the balance of power, of limited war, of restatement of the value of prudence and of the dangers of moralism.[xii] 
     In sum, Butterfield views on the study of international relations laid the foundational answers on some salient points of inquiry in theorizing International Politics. These are the question of roles of ethics and morality concomitant with Wesleyan Methodistic nature of providence in the international society of states, the importance of historicity against American’s ahistorical thinking of the field and the normative value of international order as a precondition of justice in formulating the British international politics.
     However, Butterfield’s scholarship on this endeavor was somehow a short-lived one because of his administrative duties in Cambridge and passion for historiography than publishing works in the field of international relations. Thus most, if not all, of international relations’ scholars were not so keen to his works and sometimes were highly critical of his scholarship with regards to theorizing international politics.
     I would argue in answering my posited question that Herbert Butterfield has, somehow, touched on some parts that he thinks are crucial in formulating a British theory of International Relations but in its entirety on the development and evolution, little or much less were contributed. Moreover, it is not that so sophisticated or grandeur as I would had expected from him, but full of slapdash and repetitive historical accounts which are insensitive to logical postulations and explanatory power that a theory requires.

[i] Taken from the first pages of Kenneth W. Thompson’s ‘Masters of International Thought: Major Twentieth-Century Theorists and the World Crisis’ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980) and Raymond Carr’s ‘Herbert Butterfield’, The Spectator, 23 October 2004.   
[ii] See Ian Hall, ‘History, Christianity and diplomacy: Sir Herbert Butterfield and international relations’, Review of International Studies, vol. 28 (2002), 727-728.
[iii] It was argued by Prof. Yurdusev that the school will be called ‘British’ instead of the common usage ‘English’ because it was placed and established based on ‘British tradition’ where the identified scholars were British or educated from British universities.
[iv] See Joseph Sobran, ‘The Wisdom of statecraft: Sir Herbert Butterfield and the philosophy of international politics’, National Review, 6 September 1985.
[v] See Keith C. Sewell, ‘The “Herbert Butterfield Problem” and its Resolution’, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 64, no. 4 (Oct., 2003), 599.
[vi] Sobran’s article.
[vii] Hall, p. 725.
[viii] See Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr. (ed) The Politicization of Society (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1979, p. 379).
[ix] Hall, p. 728.
[x] Thompson, p. 14.
[xi] See Herbert Butterfield’s Balance of Power in H. Butterfield and Martin Wight (eds) Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1966).
[xii] Hall, p. 736.