Shape shifting: Civilizational discourse and the analysis of cross-cultural interaction in the constitution of international society
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088220905039 |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088220905039
Journal of International Political Theory
2020, Vol. 16(2) 190 –209
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088220905039
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Shape shifting: Civilizational
discourse and the analysis of
cross-cultural interaction in
the constitution of
international society
Jacinta O’Hagan
The University of Queensland, Australia
Abstract
The concept of civilization is intrinsic to the English School’s understanding of international
society. At the same time, engagement with discourses of civilization has been an important
site of contestation within the English School, with quite different narratives of the
evolution, structures and dynamics of international society being articulated. I argue that
deeper analysis of how different waves of English School scholars engage with discourses
of civilization provides a valuable pathway for mapping the evolution of English School
thought and its understanding of the structure and dynamics of international society.
Discourse analysis, a method firmly embedded in interpretivist approaches, can provide
us with a valuable approach to unravel the complexities of English School thinking about
civilization. Applying discourse analysis to these bodies of work allows us to explore nodal
points within English School debates, the layering of particular texts, and how scholars
engage with strategies of juxtapositioning and counternarrative in order to reveal how
subjects are positioned in hierarchies of authority and reveal previously subjugated voices
in their interpretations of the constitution and evolution of international society.
Keywords
Civilization, discourse analysis, English School, interpretivism
Introduction
The concept of civilization is intrinsic to the English School’s understanding of interna-
tional society. However, there is a great deal of variation across the School in interpreta-
tions of what role civilization plays in the constitution and dynamics of international
Corresponding author:
Jacinta O’Hagan, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Email: jacinta.ohagan@uq.edu.au
905039IPT0010.1177/1755088220905039Journal of International Political Theory X(X)O’Hagan
research-article2020
Article
O’Hagan 191
society. It varies across different scholars but also different waves of the School produc-
ing different understandings of the nature and dynamics of international society. In fact,
the role of civilization in the constitution of international society is a key site of contesta-
tion within the School. This medley of perspectives can seem confusing. However, I
argue that deeper analysis of how different waves of English School scholars engage
with discourses of civilization provides a valuable pathway for mapping the evolution of
English School thought and its understanding of the structure and dynamics of interna-
tional society. Discourse analysis, a method firmly embedded in interpretivist approaches,
can help us to unravel the complexities of English School thinking about civilization.
There are two potential approaches to applying discourse analysis to the English
School’s reading of international society. The first is to explore civilizational discourses
historically in the utterances of practitioners such as politicians or publicists.1 The sec-
ond is to focus on international society as an intellectual project of the English School
and examine how English School scholars engage with civilizational discourse as a heu-
ristic to explain the structures and dynamics of international society. This article adopts
the second approach. It asks, how can discourse analysis help us to better understand the
role played by concepts of civilization in English School approaches to the constitution
of international society? I identify three waves broadly representing three periods of
English School scholarship. These waves do not stand in isolation from one another: they
overlap and speak to one another with some scholars straddling waves. But they demon-
strate different modes of engagement with discourses of civilization. The first encom-
passes the work of scholars such as Hedley Bull, Martin Wight, Adam Watson and Gerrit
Gong who make important contributions to the canon of the English School in the 1970s
and 1980s. Each also demonstrated a strong interest in the roles of culture and civiliza-
tion in the constitution and expansion of international society. The second wave refers to
the generation of English School scholarship that emerged in the mid-1990s. This wave
critically scrutinized the narrative of international society represented in Bull and
Watson’s (1984) seminal work The Expansion of International Society.2 It critiqued this
as too narrowly focused on the expansion as a unidirectional process, paying insufficient
attention to the violence of inter-cultural encounters and the role civilizational discourse
played in generating international society as a hierarchical structure. The third wave of
scholarship refers to the flourishing interest in the inter-cultural and civilizational dimen-
sions of international society from the mid-2000s onward. Building on the second wave
of scholarship, this body of work analyses in more depth of the agency of non-Western
societies in the constitution of international society, and the tenacity of standards of civi-
lization in contemporary politics.3 This work is part of a renewed interest in civilizational
discourse in International Relations more broadly. To summarize, I treat the first wave of
scholarship as establishing the foundations of the English School’s engagement with
civilizational discourse, while the second and third are built on critical responses to the
first wave, the third seeking to expand the cultural purview of the second wave’s
analysis.
In the first section of the article, I reflect on interpretivism in the English School, then
consider discourse analysis as an interpretivist approach. I next reflect on how discourses
of civilization are woven into English School conceptions of international society across
the three waves, comparing and contrasting their engagement with discourses of
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