Understanding world politics
Adam Watson
The Aberystwyth Papers (OUP £5.50) It is a pity that this collection of lectures and essays on the study of international affairs, by some of the most distinguished names in the business, should appear under such an uninviting title. In fact it is the most significant contribution to our understanding of what may be called international theory to appear in this country since Diplomatic Investigations in 1966. In that memorable collection, also with an inept title, Martin Wight asked, "Why is there no International Theory?" The Aberystwyth Papers, which consists of the commemorative lectures for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chair of International Relations at that University, shows what a wash of thought and impressive theorising has eddied round the subject: especially in the United States, but also in Western Europe and Australia.
What the thinkers and theorisers are groping for, and increasingly the politicians and practitioners too, is a working comprehensive theory of international relations: one that will enable us to predict With reasonable probability the effects of our actions. Newton did it with mathematical accuracy for the solar system. Keynes's General Theory did it remarkably well for a free economy. Can the study of international relations tell us how to manage them better and more predictably than we do? The importance of the question is obvious. The theoretical answers have so far been unsatisfactory.
The non-totalitarian approaches to this problem divide into three. The 'idealist' doctrines that dominated thought after the first world war looked for a new international order which discarded secret diplomacy, alliances and a balance of power in favour of a League of peaceloving states who would band together to restrain a lone 'aggressor.' In answer to the obvious inadequacies of this theory and its failure in practice, the ' realists ' drew on older traditions like the balance of power, the national interest, and the need for adjustment and restraint. In Europe this approach remains the most influential, and dominates the Aberystwyth Papers. But there are also a number of ' social-scientific ' theories and interpretations, which have developed mainly in the United States from dissatisfaction with the subjective and didactic tone of both the earlier schools. This school is marked by a hankering for objectivity and measurement, and a distrust of wisdom literature.' In Hedley Bull's famous phrase, it prefers algebra to prose.
The Aberystwyth collection is divided into two parts, entitled the Study, and Aspects, of International Politics. The general reader who wants to get a feel of the subject will be well advised to begin with the Australian Professor Hedley Bull's 'Theory of International Politics,' which will give him the length and breadth of it, and Sir Herbert Butterfield's 'Morality and an International Order' which will give him the depth of it. (Both men were incidentally also major contributors to Diplomatic Investigations.) Bull has a gift for comprehensive survey: he expounds the theories so aptly that the reader is left with the impression that he has read the literature himself. Butterfield is perhaps our profoundest living international historian. His concern is with the moral purposes involved in maintaining a balance of power that spans rival ideologies, preventing any one state from
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