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This book provides a detailed analysis of the aims, character and trajectory of the ideology of liberal internationalism in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain. The book has a genuinely interdisciplinary appeal and is relevant to students of International Relations, British history and international law.

The proliferation, globalization, and fragmentation of law in world politics have fostered an attempt to re-integrate International Law (IL) and International Relations (IR) scholarship, but so far the contribution of realist theory to this interdisciplinary perspective has been meagre. Combining intellectual history, the jurisprudence of IL and IR theory, this article provides an analysis of John H. Herz's classical realism and its perspective on international law. In retrieving this vision, the article emphasizes the political and intellectual context from which Herz's realism developed: the study of public law in Germany during the interwar period and in particular the contribution of Hans Kelsen and the pure theory of law to the study of international law. Herz was deeply inspired by Kelsen but he criticized the pure theory for ignoring the sociological foundations of law. Following his emigration to the United States, Herz embraced realism but without disregarding international law. Indeed, his mature, globally oriented realism offers a balanced, fruitful perspective for thinking about the relationship between politics and law that is deeply relevant for contemporary theory: it challenges modern, law-blind variants of realism and holds considerable potential for contributing to the approaches that have most successfully studied the law–politics nexus.

This article argues that the political theory of John H. Herz — best known in International Relations (IR) for the invention of the concept of the security dilemma — reveals a sophisticated body of thought deeply relevant to the ongoing attempt to resurrect classical realism. Like other forms of classical realism, the Herzian variant was strategic and rhetorical in character. Beneath its realist posture we find a liberal ideology focused on achieving order, progress and justice in international politics. Although this positive project began from a pessimistic rendering of the political, Herz's political theory was never fatalistic. In combining liberal ideals with a realist understanding of politics, Herz continuously stressed how international politics could be mitigated and changed. This vision was, in turn, based on a broadly constructivist rendering of the security dilemma. Through an identification and analysis of these three central characteristics of Herz's realism (its strategic character, its liberal internationalist purpose, and its underlying constructivism), the article stresses the coherence and continuity of Herz's political thought, and provides a nuanced and complex understanding of an innovative and overlooked scholar of international relations, as well as a normatively compelling position from which to re-articulate classical realism today.

AbstractThis article deploys a historical analysis of the relationship between law and imperialism to highlight questions about the character and role of international law in global politics. The involvement of two British international lawyers in practices of imperialism in Africa during the late nineteenth century is critically examined: the role of Travers Twiss (1809–1897) in the creation of the Congo Free State and John Westlake's (1828–1913) support for the South African War. The analysis demonstrates the inescapably political character of international law and the dangers that follow from fusing a particular form of liberal moralism with notions of legal hierarchy. The historical cases raise ethico-political questions, the importance of which is only heightened by the character of contemporary world politics and the attention accorded to international law in recent years.

The relationship between pluralism and internationalism is an interesting historical theme on the borderline between international relations and political theory. Intuitively the two ideologies seem to enjoy a close relationship, and at an abstract level they were both concerned with achieving political order with a minimum of central authority. However, the historical and theoretical interconnections between pluralism and (liberal) internationalism in Britain remain largely unexplored. This article attempts to fi ll this lacuna in intellectual history. Although both took shape within the confines of the same progressive intellectual agenda, the article strikes a cautious note about establishing too close a link between pluralism and internationalism, especially in the years following the Great War. This sceptical conclusion reflects not only the different preoccupations and changing nature of both pluralism and internationalism in the opening decades of the twentieth century, but also their complex theoretical relationship.