MEN AND CITIZENS IN THE THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Andrew Linklater claims that our dominant traditions of political thought have failed to pay sufficient attention to the relationship between the obligations which men have been said to acquire as men, and the obligations by which they are bound as citizens of separate states. The first part of his book explains the reasons for the existence of a tension between obligations to men and citizens within the theory and practice of the modern state. Part Two explores the changing relationship between the ideas of citizenship and humanity in theories of political community and international relations since the seventeenth century.

In a critical analysis of this changing relationship, the author concentrates particularly upon the writings of Pufen­dorf, Vattel, Kant, Hegel and Marx. Part Three aims to establish the foundations of a new political theory of inter­national relations. It locates the bases of that theory in nineteenth-century conceptions of the relationship between freedom and history. The argument concludes that the defence of a moral community more inclusive than the sovereign state is the necessary outcome of properly under­standing man's unique capacity for self-determination.

This book will be of special interest to students of political theory and international relations, and to all those concerned with the moral and philosophical problems of both domestic and international politics.

Andrew Linklater is a lecturer in political thought, inter­national politics and theories of international relations at the University of Tasmania. He was educated at the Universities of Aberdeen and Oxford and the London School of Economics.

Published by Pal grave Macmillan in association with the London School of Economics

H. M. Drucker THE POLITICAL USES OF IDEOLOGY

Graeme J. Gill PEASANTS AND GOVERNMENT IN THE RUSSIAN

REVOLUTION

Tony Hayter THE ARMY AND THE CROWD IN MID-GEORGIAN

ENGLAND

Marian Kent OIL AND EMPIRE: BRITISH POLICY AND

MESOPOTAMIAN OIL 1900-1920

L. H. Leigh (editor) ECONOMIC CRIME IN EUROPE

Andrew Linklater MEN AND CITIZENS IN THE THEORY OF

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Michael Malet NESTOR MAKHNO IN THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

C. A. W. Manning THE NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Terence H. Qualter GRAHAM WALLAS AND THE GREAT SOCIETY

David Seckler THORSTEIN VEBLEN AND THE

INSTITUTIONALISTS

Leonard Schapiro THE ORIGIN OF THE COMMUNIST AUTOCRACY

W. von Leyden HOBBES AND LOCKE

Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations

Andrew Linklater

Palgrave Macmillan

© Andrew Linklater 1982

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-32001-3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without permission

First published 1982 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD

London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives

throughout the world

ISBN 978-1-349-16694-7 ISBN 978-1-349-16692-3 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16692-3

Contents

Acknowledgements Preface

PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY

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1 The Case for International Political Theory 3 2 Men and Citizens in International Relations 17 3 Internal and External Concepts of Obligation

in the Theory of International Relations 38

PART TWO: FROM RATIONALISM TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Introduction to Part Two 59 4 Pufendorf's Theory of International Relations 62 5 Vattel's Society of States 80 6 Kantian Ethics and International Relations 97 7 The Dissolution of Rationalist International

Theory 121 8 Freedom and History in the Political Theory of

International Relations 139

PART THREE: A HIERARCHY OF FORMS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Introduction to Part Three 9 From Tribalism to Political Society

10 From Citizenship to Humanity

v

165 169 184

v1 Contents

Concluding Rema1·ks 202 Notes and References 207 Select Bibliography 222 Index 229

Acknowledgements

This book began as a doctoral thesis submitted to the University of London in 1978. In the course of writing my thesis, and subsequently redrafting it for publication, I have incurred many obligations. Firstly, I would like to record my gratitude to the Trustees of the Noel Buxton Studentship in International Relations at the London School of Economics for provision of financial support between 1974 and 1976. While a student in the Department of International Relations I had the privilege of being supervised by Michael Donelan whose encouragement, advice and example were invaluable. I would also like to thank Paul Taylor and Geoffrey Goodwin, the former for his supervision in the last few months of 1975, the latter for his interest and encouragement through­out.

My thanks are due to the Publications Committee at the London School of Economics, and its secretary, Patrick Davis, for their assistance in publishing this volume. To the Univer­sity of Tasmania, which allowed me to spend six months in Britain to complete this book, I am most grateful, as I am towards the University of Keele which provided me with an ideal environment in which to write. Christopher Brewin and John Vincent of the Department of International Relations at Keele gave me considerable encouragement and advice, while Hidemi Suganami's exceptional generosity with time and advice was invaluable.

An earlier version of chapter two appeared in the British journal of International Studies (published by the Longmans Group) in April 1981, and a previous draft of chapter four appeared in Millennium: journal of International Studies of the London School of Economics, in Autumn 1981. I would like to thank the editors of these journals for their kindness in granting permission to draw upon this material in the present work.

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Vlll Acknowledgements

Finally, throughout the period in which this book was researched and written I have been the recipient of my wife's unselfish support. I dedicate this book to Jane in gratitude.

September 1980 Hobart, Tasmania

A.L.

Preface

The claims advanced in the following pages form an effort to overcome the limitations inherent in those traditions of political thought which have concentrated almost exclusively upon providing a philosophical account of the state in abstraction from a speculative theory of the international states-system; they arise also from a discontent, frequently sounded recently, with the serious absence of theoretical explorations of a more classical and synoptic kind within the analysis of international relations. My purpose here is to extend some of the themes which have been discussed in a small but growing body of literature which testifies clearly to the resurgence of international political theory in Britain in recent years; 1 it is, in short, to seek to establish a basic framework upon which to build a general theory of relations between political communities.

Hegel stated that philosophy must confront its own de­velopment through a search for the reason immanent within its history. 2 Accordingly, a philosophy of relations between political associations should not be advanced in abstraction from a search for the rationality inherent within the history of that philosophy. It will be argued below, in opposition to one of the prevalent themes in the literature mentioned above, that a very significant part of the history of modern inter­national thought has centred upon what may be termed the problem of the relationship between men andcitizens.3 We may characterise this problem in different ways: as the issue of the proper relationship between the obligations which men may be said to acquire qua men and the obligations to which they are subject as citizens of particular associations; or, as the question of reconciling the actual or potential universality of human nature with the diversity and division of political community. The posing and answering of these problems is central to the further development of the theory of inter-

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X Preface

national relations; as we shall see later, they also lead to the establishment of important connections between a consoli­dated political theory of international relations and that remarkable tradition of political thought, beginning essen­tially with Rousseau, which is concerned with the enhance­ment of human freedom.

In the opening sections of this argument, I aim to establish some elementary princi pies of international political theory in connection with the theme that a tension between two concepts of obligation, two modes of moral experience, is firmly embedded within the theory and practice of the modern state. Thereafter, the argument will give an account of the way this tension was inherent within rationalist inter­national thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen­turies. My purpose is to reveal that at least two exponents of rationalist thinking failed to give a satisfactory statement of the relationship between the idea of humanity, with its suggestion of a moral community more inclusive than the independent state, and the individually contracted rights and duties of citizenship. It will be argued that Kant is the sole representative of the rationalist genre to approach that cohe­rent vision of world political organisation which had eluded his most immediate and prominent predecessors, Pufendorf and Vattel.

A philosophical and historical inquiry into the problem of men and citizens must confront two crucially important extensions of the romantic rejection of rationalism: histori­cism and universal, or philosophical, history. The immediate impetus for doing so arises from the observation that the moral foundations of Kant's international theory are espe­cially vulnerable to the historicist critique of rationalism. Indeed the historicist assault upon the notion of an immut­able, universal human reason subverted the traditional foundations, both medieval and modern, of international rela­tions thought. Clearly, in the earlier ideas of Meinecke, and in the philosophy ofTreitschke, the rejection of rationalism had as its aim the dissolution of that realm of humanity, or human obligation, which seemed to earlier thinkers to compete with the ethical dictates of the sovereign state. If the present work may be said to have any fundamental theoretical purpose, it is to seek a non-rationalist foundation for the traditional belief

Preface XI

in obligations to hurpanity, and for the recovery of the critique of the international states-system. While the present work accepts the substance of the historicist critique of rationalism, it is unsympathetic with the bases of that criticism. Undoubt­edly, the rejection of theoretical persuasions should lead the theorist in a determinate direction; in this case it leads towards an alternative framework with which to defend the inter­nationalist element within rationalist thought. In this work the failures of rationalism and historicism as philosophical doc­trines point to the conclusion that the principles of a universal history can recover many important elements of an earlier tradition exemplified in, but not completed by, the Kantian theory of international society. It is within theories which sought to comprehend the nature of man as an historical subject, as a self-developing and self-transforming being realising the conditions of his freedom, that I locate the foundations of a modern theory of international relations. Various themes follow from this perspective. Among them is the argument that the division between citizenship and humanity is integral to the historical movement from attempt­ing to realise autonomy within states to aiming to advance autonomy in relations between them. Further, it will be claimed that the existence of a moral community more inclusive than the sovereign state can be defended only on the basis of man's unique capacity for self-determination.

In the final stages of the argument, I employ one of the most valuable legacies of the philosophy of history: the attempt to mobilise principles of historical periodisation in order to place different social formations upon a scale of ascending types in accordance with the extent to which each approximates the conditions of realised human freedom. Through this de­velopment of the resources of philosophical history, the possibility arises of placing a variety of types of international relations upon 'a scale of forms' which expresses each one's distance from, or proximity to, a more adequate realisation and expression of the notion of self-determination. 4 U nderly­ing this application is the urge to establish connections between the historical development of human capacities and the evolution of international life. In particular, the develop­ment of the capacity to overcome various forms of inter­societal estrangement, and to exercise control over the totality

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of social and political relations, will be reflected in the construction of a theory of ascending types. Our scale of inter societal forms will trace the development of the freedom of human subjects in the area of their international relations. Beginning with their membership of tribal groups, estranged from one another, it proceeds to discuss their incorporation as independent and equal citizens within states; and it will consider the evolution of relations between political com­munities, including relations which take place within an evolving international states-system, towards the condition in which the species is united to form, in Kantian terms, 'a universal kingdom of ends'. 5 This theory, it will be argued, not only overcomes several deficiencies associated with alternative forms of international political theory; it is to be regarded as a more adequate fulfilment of the aspirations present in all philosophies of politics, especially the search for a rational and intelligible form of life.