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Reflections on the domestic analogy: the case of Bull, Beitz and Linklater*†

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Hidemi Suganami
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Extract

According to the late Professor Hedley Bull, the ‘domestic analogy’ is:

the argument from the experience of individual men in domestic society to the experience of states, according to which the need of individual men to stand in awe of a common power in order to live in peace is a ground for holding that states must do the same. The conditions of an orderly social life, on this view, are the same among states as they are within them: they require that the institutions of domestic society be reproduced on a universal scale.

Type
Reflections
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1986 , pp. 145 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1986

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References

1. Bull, H., ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’, (Butterfield, H. and Wight, M., eds.), Diplomatic Investigations (London: 1966), pp. 35–50Google Scholar, at p. 35.

2. According to Hobbes, ‘it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man. ’ See his Leviathan (1651), edited and abridged with an introduction by John Plamenatz (London: 1962), p. 143.

3. Beitz, C., Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: 1979), p. 179.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 69.

5. Morgenthau, H. J., Scientific Man versus Power Politics (Chicago: 1946), p. 113.Google Scholar

6. See Leviathan, the Piamenatz edition, pp. 144–45.

7. See Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, Chap. Ill, Para. 11; Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium, Bk. II, Chap, ii, s. 4; Wolff, Jus Gentium Methodo Scientifica Pertractatum, Preface; Vattel, LeDroit des Gens, Preface.

8. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: 1977).Google Scholar

9. See Lauterpacht, H., The Function of Law in the International Community (Oxford: 1933)Google Scholar, Chap. XX.

10. Jellinek, G., Allgemeine Staatslehre 3rd ed. by W. Jellinek (Berlin: 1922), p. 379.Google Scholar

11. The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919–1939 (London: 1939).Google Scholar

12. On the rejection of the domestic analogy by Manning and his followers, see my ‘The Structure of Institutionalism: An Anatomy of British Mainstream International Relations’, International Relations, vii (1983), pp. 2363–81. On Manning's insistence on the separateness of International Relations, see Fox, W. T. R., The American Study of International Relations (Columbia: 1968), p. 99.Google Scholar

13. Thus Bull, well known for his preference for a ‘classical’ approach rather than a ‘scientific’ approach in International Relations, is critical of the domestic analogy partly because ‘the attempt to understand something by means of analogies with something else is a sign of infancy in a subject’. See his ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’, p. 45.

14. See Falk, R., The Status of Law in International Society (Princeton: 1970), pp. viii–ixGoogle Scholar; A Study of Future Worlds (New York: 1975).

15. Mayall, J., ‘Functionalism and International Economic Relations’, Groom, A. J. R. and Taylor, P. (eds.), Functionalism: Theory and Practice in International Relations (London: 1975), pp. 250–277Google Scholar, at p. 254. See Mitrany, D., The Functional Theory of Politics (London: 1975), p. 106.Google Scholar

16. Beitz, op. cit., p. 128.

17. On the usual tendency among the writers on international relations to accept some version of the Hobbesian political philosophy, see my ‘The Structure of Institutionalism’, pp. 2368–70.

18. Linklater, A., Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (London: 1982), p. 193CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wright, M., ‘Central but ambiguous: states and international theory’, Review of International Studies, x (1984), pp. 233–237CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 235.

19. This point can be inferred from Bull's statement that by ‘world order’ or ‘order in the great society of all mankind’ he means ‘those patterns or dispositions of human activity that sustain the elementary or primary goals of social life among mankind as a whole’. The Anarchical Society, p. 20. By ‘the elementary or primary goals of social life’ he means ‘the common goals of all social life’, namely security against violence, observance of agreements and the stability of possession. Ibid., p. 19.

20. The label ‘neo-idealist’ is based on Wright's characterization of Linklater. See Wright, op. cit., p. 235.

21. See Bowett, D. W., Self-Defence in International Law (Manchester: 1958)Google Scholar, Chap. X.

22. See Akehurst, M., A Modern Introduction to International Law, 5th ed. (London: 1984), p. 224.Google Scholar

23. Lorimer, J., The Institutes of the Law of Nations, 2 Vols. (Edinburgh: 1884), Vol. 2, Bk. V, p. 186Google Scholar.

24. Ibid., p. 190.

25. Ibid., pp. 186–87.

26. Ibid., pp. 197–216.

27. Claude, Inis Jr., Power and International Relations (New York: 1962), p. 271.Google Scholar

28. See Carr, op. cit., Chap. 13.

29. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 5th ed. (New York: 1973), pp. 538ff.

30. See further my ‘International Law’, (J. Mayall, ed.), The Community of States (London: 1982), Chap. 4, pp. 63–72 at pp. 63–5. A succinct statement which accords with my analysis here is the following remark by Jellinek: ‘The sovereign organ within the state and the sovereign state are therefore two entirely different things’. See Jellinek, op. cit., pp. 457–58. [Author's translation]. See also H. J. Laski, ‘International Government and National Sovereignty’, Geneva Institute of International Relations, The Problems of Peace: Lectures Delivered at the Geneva Institute of International Relations at the Palais des Nations, August 1926 (London: 1927), pp. 288–312 at pp. 306–307, where ‘a member of the audience’ is reported to have criticized Laski for not understanding the distinction between ‘sovereignty of the government’ and ‘sovereignty of the state’.

31. One good example is Henry Usborne, a world state advocate, who, according to Claude, op. cit., p. 221, states: ‘war is inherent in interstate relations if those relations are based on national sovereignty’.

32. See Nardin, T., Law, Morality and the Relations of States (Princeton: 1983), pp. 119–120Google Scholar, where he criticizes Hersch Lauterpacht for confusing the two. See also Lauterpacht, op. cit., p. 432. It is important to note, however, that the error of confusing the two logically distinct issues is committed not only by some of those, like Lauterpacht, who insist that international law, in order to satisfy the definition of law, must emulate the standards of municipal law, but also by some of those who, on the contrary, insist on the uniqueness of international legal order. See, for example, Nippold, O., Die Fortbildung des Verfahrens in Volkerrechtlichen Streitigkeiten (Leipzig: 1907), pp. 148ffGoogle Scholar, where he favours international arbitration in preference to adjudication on the grounds that the latter is contrary to the nature of international law.

33. Holland, T. E., Studies in International Law (Oxford: 1898), p. 152Google Scholar. See also my ‘A note on the origin of the word “international”’, British Journal of International Studies, iv (1978), pp. 226–32.

34. Joynt, C. and Corbett, P., Theory and Reality of World Politics (London: 1978), p. 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lauterpacht, H., ‘The Grotian Tradition in International Law’, The British Year Book of International Law, xxiii (1946), pp. 1–53Google Scholar, at pp. 26–30.

35. The Anarchical Society, p. xiii.

36. Ibid., Chap. 4.

37. Ibid., Chap. 1. See also Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law (Oxford: 1961)Google Scholar, Chap. IX.

38. The Anarchical Society, p. 6.

39. I was alerted to the existence of alternative (2) by Dr. John Vincent.

40. This tripartite division of domestic analogy was suggested to me by Dr. Andrew Linklater.

41. See note 19 above.

42. Political Theory and International Relations, Part Three. Beitz's more recent position will be noted later.

43. See Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations, p. 140.

44. Ibid., pp. 12, 22, 40–1, 47, 126.

45. Ibid., p. 12.

46. Ibid., p. 47.

47. Ibid., p. 20. Wright's accusation that Linklater's argument would ‘relegate Plato and Aristotle to the category of intellectual bric-a-brac‘ (Wright, op. cit., pp. 234–35) cannot therefore be accepted.

48. The Anarchical Society, p. 125–26.

49. Ibid., pp. 59ff.

50. Beitz, ‘Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment’, The Journal of Philosophy, Ixxx (1983), pp. 591–600, at p. 595.

51. Rawls, ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’, The Journal of Philosophy, Ixxvii (1980), pp. 515–72, at p. 525.

52. Linklater, op. cit., pp. 140, 160.

53. Political Theory and International Relations, p. 173.

54. See Linklater, op. cit., Chapter 10 in particular.

55. The Anarchical Society, pp. 81–6, 97. Bull's distinction between individual or human justice' and ‘cosmopolitan or world justice’ is exemplified by an international concern for ‘human rights’ and for ‘cosmopolitan distributive justice’. The distinction seems unnecessary.

56. The Anarchical Society, pp. 8ff. One is here reminded of Hans Kelsen's Grundnorm: ‘states ought to behave as they have customarily behaved’. See Kelsen, The Principles of International Law, 2nd ed., rev. by R. W. Tucker (London: 1967), p. 564.

57. This is Bull's argument. See The Anarchical Society Chap. 4 in particular.

58. Linklater, op. cit., p. 199.

59. Political Theory and International Relations, p. 156.

60. Ibid., p. 157.

61. Accordingly, I disagree with Wright's judgement that ‘[while] Linklater presents a vision of international society modelled on domestic society, Beitz is much more cautious about drawing such parallels’. Wright, op. cit., p. 235.