IR462      Half Unit
Theory of International Society

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Jack Mellish

Availability

This course is available on the MSc in International Affairs (LSE and Peking University), MSc in International Relations, MSc in International Relations (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in International Relations (Research), MSc in Political Science (Global Politics) and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.

All International Relations (IR4) optional courses at LSE are Controlled Access and require an application via LfY. Students must include a statement in their LfY application of no more than 200 words explaining their interest in the course and its relevance to their academic and career goals.

Application deadline: 12:00 noon, Friday 26 September 2025.

Notification of outcome: by 12:00 noon, Monday 29 September 2025.

After this date, students should consult the MSc Course Availability Spreadsheet for remaining spaces on IR4-level courses. 

For further details, see the LSE Selecting Courses webpage in the first instance or contact IR.Programmes@lse.ac.uk only if necessary.

All students are required to obtain permission from the Teacher Responsible by completing the online application form linked to course selection on LSE for You. Admission is not guaranteed.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high.

Requisites

Additional requisites:

A good knowledge of international history since 1870. Familiarity with the main theories of international relations.

Course content

The English School (ES) is an approach to International Relations (IR) that posits that the relationships between states and other significant actors take place in a social setting. This social setting consists of a complex web of rules, principles, practices, and institutions, the identification and analysis of which is a necessary first step to the understanding of ‘how things work’ internationally. As an approach to IR the ES has been influenced by classical Realism and shares common ground with Constructivism and liberal approaches such as Regime Theory. But it continues to set out a distinctive position, both methodologically and substantively, defining itself against these and other approaches. It has its roots in the teaching of C. A. W. Manning at LSE in the 1930s and 1940s and his explorations of the concept of international society. Later scholars traced its roots further back in time in the classical political thought of Grotius, Suarez, Gentili, Vattel and other notable jurists and politico-legal theorists of early-modern Europe. It began to take shape through the work of the British Committee on International Theory in the 1950s and 1960s and acquired international standing in the decades that followed through the widely cited and influential writings of Martin Wight and Hedley Bull. Today it is a body of theory with a growing number of adherents across the world, a strong presence at international conferences, and a steady output of scholarly publications.

 

Course content includes: the nature of international society; the bases of international order; the institutional structure of international society; the expansion of international society; the eurocentrism of international society; pluralism vs. solidarism; inequality, legitimacy and justice; the diplomatic and political challenges of human rights, and environmental degradation. 

Teaching

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

The first seminar will consist of a lecture by the course convenor followed by Q&A. 

Formative assessment

Students will be expected to produce a 1500-word formative essay in the WT.

 

Indicative reading

  • Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (Macmillan, 1977)
  • Barry Buzan, An Introduction to the English School of International Relations (Polity, 2014)
  • Ian Clark, Legitimacy in International Society (OUP, 2006)
  • Ian Clark, Hegemony in International Society (OUP, 2011)
  • Robert Falkner, Environmentalism and Global International Society (CUP, 2021)
  • Andrew Hurrell, On Global Order: Power, Values and the Constitution of International Society (OUP, 2007)
  • Tonny Brems Knudsen and Cornelia Navari (eds.), International Organization in the Anarchical Society (Palgrave, 2019)
  • Richard Little and John Williams, The Anarchical Society in a Globalized World (Palgrave, 2006)
  • Cornelia Navari (ed.), Theorising International Society (Palgrave, 2009)
  • Cornelia Navari (ed.), International Society: The English School (Palgrave, 2021)
  • R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (CUP, 1986)
  • Adam Watson, Hegemony and History (Routledge, 2007)

Assessment

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

The exam will take place in the form of an e-Exam.


Key facts

Department: International Relations

Course Study Period: Winter Term

Unit value: Half unit

FHEQ Level: Level 7

CEFR Level: Null

Total students 2024/25: 13

Average class size 2024/25: 13

Controlled access 2024/25: Yes
Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Course selection videos

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.

Personal development skills

  • Self-management
  • Team working
  • Application of information skills
  • Communication
  • Specialist skills