British Committee on the Theory of International Politics and English School of International Relations

This article analyzes the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics and its role in the genesis of the English school of International Relations. The aim of the article is to study the formation and development of the general idea of the School: the concept "international society". Questions of organization, personal staff, agenda formation, periods of the work of the Committee and correlation between the British Committee and the English School are the main research tasks in the article. The sources for the study were the texts of published works by leading members of the English school. The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics was a unique scientific project, which worked for 25 years (1959-1985) and became the basis for the English School of International Relations. Historians H. Butterfield, M. Wight, A. Watson, M. Howard, philosophers D. McKinnon and H. Bull took an active part in the work of this seminar. Meanwhile, such persons as Charles Manning, Fred Norhtage, Edward Carr and some other people, who are usually referred to the English School members, did not take part in the British Committee for different reasons. The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics consisted of a small group scientists and diplomats who were educated in elite British universities like Cambridge and Oxford. They were acquainted with each other personally. Such a composition of the British Committee demonstrated the aristocratic character of the study of international relations as an intellectual pursuit in the 1950s-1960s in United Kingdom. However, this little group of specialists, many of them were not English, became the symbol of the entire British science of international relations. Is it correct? This is one of the key questions in the article. The main conclusion on this issue is that the Committee was a forum where the general practice of the English School had formed. But the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics and the English School are not synonyms. The English School consists of several generations of scholars and includes a more complex circle of questions than the Committee studied. As a result of such an understanding of the English School, three periods in the work of the British Committee can be distinguished: 1. Late 1950s-1960s, when the agenda and main issues of the British Committee had formed. H. Butterfield and M. Wight were the leading figures. 2. 19721980, when the Committee worked under the leadership of Hedley Bull and Adam Watson. In this period, the conception of international society was formed. 3. 1980-1985, a turn to the problems of human rights and to justice in international relations. The concept of international society was the uniting idea of the English School. It was developed in the Committee, although its genesis traces back to the London School of Economics. The independent states form an international order which consists of norms and institutes, like balance of power, diplomacy, international law and other. This approach to international relations becomes a foundation for the English School international theory in general, although it was formed by a congenial group of experts. The end of the work of the British Committee after Headley Bull died in 1985 was not the end of the English School of International Relations; it exists now, and the number of its adepts is increasing. International institutes and world society, historical sociology and methods of international relations study, humanitarian intervention and international justice are the main aspects of agenda in the English School now.

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