This new edition of Hedley Bull's most systematic and fundamental work marks the 35th anniversary of its original publication. The book includes a substantial new foreword by Andrew Hurrell examining the continuing relevance of The Anarchical Society to developments in theory and in the structures and practices of world politics.

First published in 1977, Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society is one of the classic texts in International Relations. This volume revisits Bull's work, providing new readings of the text, developing new criticisms and exploring its relevance to a wide range of contemporary issues in world politics.

This book examines the ongoing power transition and its ramifications for world order from an international society perspective. In that perspective, the outcome of big changes in the distribution of power is a matter of socialization rather than structural determination or the resilience of the so-called Liberal world order. Consequently, the key question of this book is how the ongoing power transition affects, and is affected by, the social institutions of world order including sovereignty, the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, trade, humanitarian intervention, national self-determination, and environmental stewardship. The guiding theoretical assumption of the book is that power transition stimulates fundamental institutional change rather than major conflict or a breakdown of international order, while international organizations are key arenas for the realization and negotiation of such changes, not the victims of hegemonic retreat. The argument is pursued in sections on rising and declining powers (Anglo-America, Russia, China and the EU, among others), consequences for the fundamental social institutions and changes in international organizations, globally and regionally. In combination, the chapters reveal the contours of the coming world order.

Following Bull's structure, it considers key concepts, major institutions and alternative approaches to order, and reasserts the enduring insight of Bull's work, whilst responding to major developments in the theory and practice in international relations.

This book takes up one of the key theoretical challenges in the English School’s conceptual framework, namely the nature of the institutions of international society. It theorizes their nature through an analysis of the relationship of primary and secondary levels of institutional formation, so far largely ignored in English School theorizing, and provides case studies to illuminate the theory. Hitherto, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organizations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materializations of primary institutions. Building on legal and constructivist arguments about the constitutive character of institutions, it demonstrates how primary institutions frame secondary organizations and regimes, but also how secondary institutions construct agencies with capacities that impinge upon and can change primary institutions. Based on legal and constructivist ideas, it develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions as shared understandings enmeshed in observable historical processes of constitution, reproduction and regulation.

Edward Keene argues that the conventional idea of an 'anarchical society' of equal and independent sovereign states is an inadequate description of order in modern world politics. International political and legal order has always been dedicated to two distinct goals: to try to promote the toleration of different ways of life, while advocating the adoption of one specific way, that it labels 'civilization'. The nineteenth-century solution to this contradiction was to restrict the promotion of civilization to the world beyond Europe. That discriminatory way of thinking has now broken down, with the result that a single, global order is supposed to apply to everyone, but opinion is still very much divided as to what the ultimate purpose of this global order should be, and how its political and legal structure should be organised.

The Anarchical Society is one of the masterworks of political science and the classic text on the nature of order in world politics. Originally published in 1977, it continues to define and shape the discipline of international relations. This edition has been updated with a new, interpretive foreword by Andrew Hurrell.

This new edition of Hedley Bull's most systematic and fundamental work marks the 35th anniversary of its original publication. The book includes a substantial new foreword by Andrew Hurrell examining the continuing relevance of The Anarchical Society to developments in theory and in the structures and practices of world politics.

This major reference work comprises 80 articles representing the most influential theoretical writings by international relations scholars. Introduced by an essay from Stephen Chan and Cerwyn Moore, the four thematically organized volumes cover the major traditions of international relations (IR) theory: Volume 1 examines realist theory in IR and includes classic realist statements as well as recent theoretical critiques and debates that have helped set the parameters of this approach. Volume 2 traces the development of pluralist approaches to IR from the historical emergence of liberalism through to contemporary work on globalization, human rights and ethics. Volume 3 covers the various structuralist approaches stemming from the thinking of Marx and Gramsci as well as more recent work on the structures of global civil society and international political economy. Volume 4 focuses on the range of reflexive approaches to international relations that include constructivism, feminism, postmodernism and critical geopolitics. Together, the four volumes provide an unparalleled resource providing both broad coverage of the subject, historical depth and contemporary relevance.