Global Opinion Theory and The English School of International Relations.

It is generally accepted that the English school of international relations, associated with the London School of Economics, approaches its subject from a different perspective than its American variants. This perception has endured into the post-Cold War era. Despite their countries’ special relationship, the American and English approaches are assumed to be separated by a common language, opposing assumptions, and divergent global interests. The following paper challenges this perception by introducing global opinion theory, an American approach that shares more with its British counterpart than previous theories. A rhetorical research design, which focuses upon common usages in the quality press, will be used to test areas where the two approaches overlap and conflict, in an attempt to reconcile and enrich both theories. The English school focuses upon the existence and quality of international society as a whole and the nature, basis, and significance of? some of its key elements, namely order, cooperation and morality . It therefore differs from the Hobbesian view, which derives from an analogy with the pre-civil society condition, a war of all against all embraced by certain American realists and others . Scholars of the English school argue that an order of sorts does exist in international relations, and that this order is widespread enough to describe a loosely defined international society. Global opinion theory shares with the English school the notion of shared opinions supporting the origins of the nation-state, and of the nations of the world constituting some unit like a society. Regarding the first, Mayall notes how a general consensus had to undergird even the existence of the nation-state, since if sovereign authorities are to conclude agreements, they must recognise one another as sovereign . Similarly, I have noted in global opinion theory how the first genuine ‘world opinion’ may have been the consensus among countries that nation-states were legitimate groupings for the organization of human activities . Regarding the second, Mayall notes Anyone who has ever tried to discuss the general context of international relations has been forced, sooner or later, to use some collective noun. Some have opted for the community of mankind, others for the society of states, yet others for a states-system, or world society, or a series of international regimes . Global opinion theory similarly includes the notion of the world as a unit deriving such phrases as World community, world public, or civilized nations as synonyms in its analyses. The paper concludes by arguing that the linkage between these two theories matters because they share common assumptions and discourse conventions. These two features have fundamental effects upon international relations. First, they structure the manner in which we view the primary actors in conflicts, and, in turn, the strategies and language we use to resolve these conflicts. Second, they affect the way policymakers and citizens view the world, so that imagined communities-be they nation-states, civilizations, or global communities-become actualized through the allocation of resources and interactions between elites and non-elites. Historically, patterns of discourse and communication are instrumental in defining the primary units of political order. This paper endeavors to discover these primary units by studying the framework for the dissemination of world opinion. This challenge leads to this paper’s ultimate goal. It is generally accepted that the communitarian spirit is the best means for ensuring cooperation among individualistic actors. Whether these actors be the rational persons of economic theory or the nation-states in a Hobbesian international order, the greater the sense of community, the more likely that such barriers to cooperation as the Prisoners’ Dilemma and cyclical group preferences will be overcome . Promoting international cooperation on issues such as human rights, environmental protection, or avoiding armed conflicts is thereby predicated upon knowing the political communities within which such collaboration is likely to occur. Shared global discourse structures the boundaries within which these imagined communities will first be drawn; knowledge of this discourse guides the actions which may make these communities, and the cooperation they support, the primary features of the emerging international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]