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This article reviews contextualist methods in intellectual history and discusses some of the specific challenges involved in their application to the study of International Relations (IR) and hence international intellectual history. While the broad thrust of these developments has been highly positive, the article argues that a distinction between classic and lesser works is a crucial part of the apparatus of the contextualist approach, which poses a problem in IR, where the idea of an established canon of great works has historically been less well developed than in the study of Political Theory or Law. As a result, the move towards contextualist methods of interpretation can force authors to restrict their focus onto a newly conceived, and somewhat narrow, canon, with a strongly political and legal flavour. The eclectic range of earlier, albeit less methodologically sophisticated, histories offer considerable resources for defining the scope of new empirical enquiries in international intellectual history, and the article concentrates on early modern journalism as an example of this opportunity.

This article identifies a series of gaps in the English school's thesis of the 'expansion of international society' from European to global extension, and presents two propositions that can correct these problems, and so give us a better understanding of the social space in which 19th-century international relations were carried on. First, we should replace the concept of 'expansion' with 'stratification', changing the terms of the enquiry from an examination of 'entry into' the society of states to an exploration of who was where in the 19th-century international social system. Secondly, we should add a more relational analysis of patterns of association to the English school's predominantly institutionalist approach to the analysis of the structure of international society. To flesh out these two proposals, the article presents a neo-Weberian framework for thinking about international social stratification and an empirical analysis of patterns of treaty-making.

This article offers an historical examination of the evolution of the practice of representing international actors as 'powers', and the classification of them as different kinds of 'power'. It argues that the practice emerged in parallel with the use of the language of sovereign states, and points to the importance of the body of journalistic literature on the 'present state of Europe', to the development of the usage of the term 'powers' and associated ideas about 'interests' and 'pretentions', which it contrasts with the tendency within the body of juristic literature to focus on the 'rights' of 'sovereigns'. It also charts the contrary move in the discourse of powers towards a grading of different classes, whereas the tendency within the discourse of sovereigns was more towards equality, although the article also notes parallel elements of hierarchy within equality. The article concludes by asking how the 'normative power Europe' thesis fits with, but in some cases also departs from, these representational practices. For example, the idea is often used to convey the unique, sui generis nature of the EU's identity as an international actor, whereas the normal tendency within the discourse of powers is towards more generic and class-oriented forms of identity.

AbstractThis article argues that hierarchy plays an important role in shaping the practice of intervention, and that the changing nature of international hierarchy is a crucial part of the story of how the modern practice of intervention emerged. It describes the early modern order of precedence, and contends that it was ill-suited to encouraging people to recognise intervention as a distinctive kind of practice. However, over the course of the eighteenth century the structure of international hierarchy changed, with the emergence of a new kind of grading of powers, which provided the context for the development of a practice of intervention after 1815.

This article examines Ian Manners' idea of a 'normative power Europe'. While discussing moral and political forms of normative power, it calls particular attention to a sociological approach based on Weberian ideas about status and social closure. The article then compares the present-day 'normative power' of the EU with the earlier European 'standard of civilization', and argues that the contemporary EU's normative power rests on a more individualist and credentialist form of social closure. This may make it less vulnerable to criticisms of imperialism, but may also make it harder for the EU to retain its relatively privileged position in the generation of international norms and a coherent sense of its own identity. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Sage Publications Ltd. & ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research.]

This article examines Ian Manners' idea of a 'normative power Europe'. While discussing moral and political forms of normative power, it calls particular attention to a sociological approach based on Weberian ideas about status and social closure. The article then compares the present-day 'normative power' of the EU with the earlier European 'standard of civilization', and argues that the contemporary EU's normative power rests on a more individualist and credentialist form of social closure. This may make it less vulnerable to criticisms of imperialism, but may also make it harder for the EU to retain its relatively privileged position in the generation of international norms and a coherent sense of its own identity.