Interpreting Diplomacy: The Approach of the Early English School

Abstract

In its first phase, which is normally dated from about 1959 to 1984,2 the scholars who came to be labelled the early English School (ES), including Hedley Bull, Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight, did not devote much effort to spelling out their preferred approach to international relations, let alone a research method. To make matters worse, the style and focus of their works varied, making it harder to distil an approach or method than it sometimes is when dealing with other schools of thought in International Relations (IR).3 But there are similarities in the essays and books produced by the early ES, and there were common commitments, and this chapter tries to tease them out.