Autore
Devetak, Richard

Titolo
Hedley Bull and the anarchical society of early modern Europe
Periodico
Storia del pensiero politico
Anno: 2025 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 385 - Pagina finale: 407

Drawing on Hedley Bull’s influential framework in "The Anarchical Society", this article examines the emergence of an early modern anarchical society in Europe. It aims to address a lacuna in Bull’s classic text by providing the intellectual history behind the concept of international society, which he theorised but did not fully historicise. The article focuses on how modes of talking about international relations evolved, from lower-level discourses such as diplomacy, the balance of power, and interest analysis, to higher-level meta-discourses of history and the law of nations. It demonstrates how these initially independent discourses were abstracted and assembled together to yield the concept of a states-system or society of states. This process, particularly evident during the "sattelzeit", involved a profound conceptual revolution that generated a new language to describe and comprehend relations among European states. Thinkers like Vattel and Heeren played a crucial role in developing the meta-discourses that made the conception of a "sui generis" international society both visible and knowable. The article thus complements Bull’s theoretical insights by detailing how the anarchical society was conceptually assembled in early modern Europe.



SICI: 2279-9818(2025)3<385:HBATAS>2.0.ZU;2-8
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.4479/118700
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.4479/118700

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