In this 2004 book, Barry Buzan offers an extensive critique and reappraisal of the English school approach to International Relations. Starting on the neglected concept of world society and bringing together the international society tradition and the Wendtian mode of constructivism, Buzan offers a new theoretical framework that can be used to address globalisation as a complex political interplay among state and non-state actors. This approach forces English school theory to confront neglected questions about both its basic concepts and assumptions, and about the constitution of society in terms of what values are shared, how and why they are shared, and by whom. Buzan highlights the idea of primary institutions as the central contribution of English school theory and shows how this both differentiates English school theory from realism and neoliberal institutionalism, and how it can be used to generate distinctive comparative and historical accounts of international society.

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From International to World Society?: English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation

Recent work on the European Union (EU) indicates an emerging consensus that the boundaries between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘international’ spheres, as well as between the ‘state’ and ‘society’, have to be crossed when conceptualizing the EU. This article starts with reviewing the controversy between neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism, arguing that it lacks some categories necessary to capture distinctive features of the EU. It then presents a framework combining insights from work on transnational politics by international relations scholars, on policy networks and Politikveflechtung (interlocking politics) by comparative policy analysis, and by historical institutionalism. Propositions are generated on the institutional and structural conditions under which network analysis is better suited than intergovernmentalism to capture the EU policy-making process. Finally, the article argues that social constructivism has to be taken more seriously in the study of the EU and that network analysis should move beyond rational choice models and incorporate theories of communicative action. More work is needed on the role of ideas and principled beliefs in the EU integration process.

Exploring the Nature of the Beast: International Relations Theory and Comparative Policy Analysis Meet the European Union

▪ Abstract Recent scholars have broadened the study of transnational relations, once limited to political economy, to include contentious international politics. This is a refreshing trend, but most of them leap directly from globalization or some other such process to transnational social movements and thence to a global civil society. In addition, they have so far failed to distinguish among movements, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and transnational networks and do not adequately specify their relations with states and international institutions. In particular, few mechanisms are proposed to link domestic actors to transnational ones and to states and international institutions. This paper argues that mass-based transnational social movements are hard to construct, are difficult to maintain, and have very different relations to states and international institutions than more routinized international NGOs or activist networks. These latter forms may be encouraged both by states and international ...

TRANSNATIONAL POLITICS: Contention and Institutions in International Politics

1. Theoretical Perspective: Social Forces and the Struggle Over European Order 2. Global Restructuring, Transnational Capitalism and Rival Projects for European Order 3. The European Roundtable: an Elite Forum of Europe's Emergent Transnational Capitalist Class 4. The Roundtable's Changing Strategic Project and the Transnational Struggle over European Order 5. Transnational Class Agency, the Rise of 'Embedded Neo-Liberalism' and the Evolving European Order References

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Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration

Liberal and critical theorists alike claim that the world political economy is becoming globalized. If they are right, leading corporations should gradually be losing their national characters and converging in their fundamental strategies and operations. Multinational corporations (MNCs) should be the harbingers of deep global integration. In fact, recent evidence shows little blurring or convergence at the cores of firms based in Germany, Japan, or the United States. In contrast to expectations now common both inside and outside academia regarding the imminent emergence of a truly global economy, this article shows that MNCs continue to diverge fairly systematically in their internal governance and long-term financing structures, in their approaches to research and development (R&D) as well as in the location of core R&D facilities, and in their overseas investment and intrafirm trading strategies. Durable national institutions and distinctive ideological traditions still seem to shape and channel crucial corporate decisions. Across the leading states of the three regions now commonly referred to as the "Triad," the foundations of corporate markets are not converging.Markets in this sense are not replacing political leadership and the necessity for negotiated adjustments among states.

National Structures and Multinational Corporate Behavior: Enduring Differences in the Age of Globalization

Introduction Neorealism has the great analytic virtues of parsimony and heuristic power. But even its most forceful proponents do not claim that it provides a complete description and analysis of international politics or foreign policy. For neorealism, states, understood as unified rational actors that embody the capabilities within a given territory, are the ontological givens. Systemic outcomes are a function of the distribution of power among states. The only analysis that neorealism can offer for the foreign policy of a specific state is based on the power capabilities of that state and the overall distribution of power in the system. Neorealism has little to say about transnational relations. For that matter it has little to say about domestic politics either. If, however, emphasis is given not to states as unified rational actors, but rather to another critical aspect of realism, the assumption of anarchy, then transnational actors must be a natural component of a sovereign state system. By definition, transnational relations could not occur in an empire; that is, a political system in which there is only one supreme political authority. All interactions in such a system must be domestic. Transnational actors can only exist in a system in which there are mutually exclusive multiple centers of political authority. If there is anarchy, if there is no supreme political authority, then transnational phenomena will almost certainly be present. Only if states were completely autarkic, or if all interactions across borders were conducted by official state functionaries, would there be no transnational actors.

Stephen D. Krasner

Papers

Bringing transnational relations back in: Power politics, institutions, and transnational relations