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The myth of the special case in International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Roy E. Jones
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Extract

The notion of the sovereign was one response to social disorder; obsession with witchcraft was another. Neither reaction is far distant from us. Not long ago public-spirited men condemned large numbers of innocents on witchcraft charges which they, and in many cases their victims, believed to be true. What was illusory was explained by an elaborate mythology to which rulers, jurists, and academics devoted detailed study. What was not the case was exactly described in learned and reputable volumes. A modern founder of the notion of sovereignty, Bodin, was familiar to many of his contemporaries for the handbook on witchcraft that he published in 1586. Demons and spirits might be a source of disorder. Its cure, in Bodin's view, lay in the creation of a supreme centralized power.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , October 1988 , pp. 267 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1988

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References

1. See Aron, Raymond, Peace and War, a Theory of International Relations (London, 1966), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

2. See Wight, Martin, ‘Why is there no International Theory?’ in Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin (eds), Diplomatic Investigations (London, 1966), p. 33.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., p. 20.

4. See Glausewitz, Carl Von, On War (trans. M. Howar d and P. Paret) (Princeton, 1976), p. 75.Google Scholar

5. Vasquez, John A., The Power of Power Politics, A Critique (London, 1983).Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 224.

7. See Ullmann, Walter, Medieval Political Thought (Harmondsworth, 1975), ch. 6Google Scholar; and Rubinstein, Nicolai, ‘The history of the word politicus in early-modern Europe’ in Anthony Pagden, The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987).Google Scholar

8. See Locke, John, The Second Treatise of Government (Oxford, 1956), p. 48.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., p. 10.

10. By chance, the delivery of this lecture coincided with the appearance of Dr Sheila Grader's ‘The English school of international relations: evidence and evaluation’ (this Review, xiv, 1988, pp. 29–44).In this closely argued and, in parts, telling paper, Dr Grader replies to my ‘English school of international relations: a case for closure’ (this Review, vii, 1981, pp. 1–12). Unfortunately, she misperceives the thrust of my criticism, which was against a ‘school of international relations’. That it should have been in England was really neither here nor there. Unintentionally on my part, the present lecture could be read as a rebuttal of Dr Grader's paper.