Why anarchy still matters for International Relations: On theories and things
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088217713764 |
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088217713764
Journal of International Political Theory
2017, Vol. 13(3) 341 –359
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1755088217713764
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipt
Why anarchy still matters for
International Relations: On
theories and things
Silviya Lechner
King’s College London, UK
Abstract
The category of anarchy is conventionally associated with the emergence of an
autonomous discipline of International Relations (IR). Recently, Donnelly has argued that
anarchy has never been central to IR (hierarchy is more weighty). His criticism targets not
just concepts of anarchy but theories of anarchy and thereby expresses an anti-theory
ethos tacitly accepted in the discipline. As a form of conceptual atomism, this ethos is
hostile to structuralist and normative theories. This article aims to reinstate theoretical
holism against conceptual atomism and to defend the enduring relevance of theories of
international anarchy for IR. This is done by revisiting two classic, structuralist accounts
of international anarchy articulated in Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics
(scientific structuralism) and Hedley Bull’s Anarchical Society (normative structuralism).
It will be shown that both represent coherent theoretical ‘wholes’ which reveal a more
complex relationship between anarchy and hierarchy than supposed by critics and which
recognise the important connection between the structure of international anarchy
(whose key players are states) and the value of freedom. The conclusion examines the
prospects of normative theories of international anarchy and ‘anarchical’ freedom in a
globalising world where state agency is being challenged.
Keywords
Anarchy–hierarchy, Hedley Bull, international anarchy, Kenneth Waltz, theoretical
holism, value of freedom
Introduction
The category of anarchy has been conventionally associated with the emergence of an
autonomous discipline of International Relations (IR) (Schmidt, 1998). Unlike social and
Corresponding author:
Silviya Lechner, Department of War Studies, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
Email: silviya.lechner@kcl.ac.uk
713764IPT0010.1177/1755088217713764Journal of International Political TheoryLechner
research-article2017
Article
342 Journal of International Political Theory 13(3)
political theory, IR theory studies social systems that are anarchical in nature. And while in
general social theory the term anarchy stands for disorder, in IR it has two parallel mean-
ings: (1) an interaction domain among units not governed by a common superior such as
world government (Baldwin, 1993b: 14; Milner, 1991: 69–70), or (2) a horizontal order
between formal equals to be distinguished from a hierarchical order between subordinate
and superordinate units (Bull, 2002 [1977]: 17; Lake, 2001: 130; Waltz, 1979: 114–116).
Recently, the conventional primacy of anarchy as central to IR has been challenged by Jack
Donnelly (2015). Except for a period after 1979, when Kenneth Waltz published Theory of
International Politics inaugurating a structural realist theory of anarchy in IR, Donnelly
argues, anarchy has not been formative for IR discourse – if anything, hierarchy is more
weighty (see also Hobson, 2014; Lake, 2001, 2009). Notably, this criticism targets not
concepts of anarchy but theories of anarchy such as Waltz’s. It is symptomatic of a wider
ethos tacitly accepted in the IR discipline: it may be termed the ethos of anti-theory.
This article pursues a twofold task. First, to disclose the defects of the anti-theory
ethos, a form of conceptual atomism which is hostile to structuralist and normative theo-
ries.1 The proposed alternative is theoretical holism (Dreyfus, 1980; Duhem, 1991 [1906];
Quine, 1951; Quine and Ullian, 1970). On a holist view, theory is a framework: a concep-
tual whole which constitutes the meaning of a set of interrelated concepts and determines
their relation, as a set, to the world.2 Building on the insights of theoretical holism, the
second task is to defend the continuing relevance of theories of international anarchy for
IR, and specifically, of structuralist theories. In what follows they are represented by
Waltz’s structural realism (Waltz, 1979) and Bull’s theory of the anarchical society (Bull,
1966a, 1966b, 2002 [1977]) in lieu of their landmark status among American, and, respec-
tively, European scholars of IR. Critics usually treat Waltz’s structural realism, a scientific
theory also known as neorealism, as a paradigm of international anarchy. But Bull’s
account of international anarchy – a species of normative structuralism – is equally para-
digmatic once we move from science to normative analysis.
The IR reader is likely to be familiar with English School theorising (an overview is
Buzan, 2014) where Bull was a towering figure, and structural realism and kindred
approaches such as neoliberal institutionalism (Baldwin, 1993a; Keohane, 1986; Powell,
1994). One basic problem that remains underexplored in these literatures is theoretical
holism. It is important to take it seriously given the rise of theory scepticism in the field
(Wight et al., 2013). And yet, the problem has not received attention in the recent anar-
chy-versus-hierarchy IR debate (Donnelly, 2006, 2009, 2015; Hobson, 2014; Hobson
and Sharman, 2005; Lake, 2001, 2009; Mattern and Zarakol, 2016). The aim here is not
to review this extensive body of literatures but to make a critical contribution to it by
emphasising the role of holism and second-order, philosophical considerations. Such an
undertaking seeks to render explicit the underlying premises of theories of international
anarchy.3 Concretely, my central thesis is that although Waltz and Bull disagree over the
priority of science and normativity, they share a holist commitment to theory as a set of
concepts (including ‘anarchy’) organised into a coherent whole. What is more, both theo-
rise an object that is holist in character – an international system whose structure is
anarchical and whose key players are states.
The exposition is developed in five parts. The first introduces theoretical holism. It
suggests that theory is a holist construct and that the object it investigates can be a ‘whole’
To continue reading
Request your trial