ABSTRACT
Proponents of the English School approach to international relations—Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight in particular—maintained that all historical international societies emerged in regions with distinctive patterns of civilization. Conceptions of moral or religious unity made societies of states possible; perceptions of civilizational identity including a sense of superiority over outlying areas facilitated the development of a political vocabulary that enabled separate communities to associate in an anarchic society. The theme has arisen in discussions of Hellenic international society (Wight: ch. 1) and is a recurrent dimension of analyses of Western colonialism and its place within the development of the modern states-system (O'Hagan 2002). Its significance for the modern world is illustrated by the fact that Western political elites invented ‘the standard of civilization’ more than a century ago to justify the subjugation of non-Western peoples and to detail the social and political changes their subjects would have to undergo before they could become equal members of international society (Gong 1984). In more recent times, the struggle against Fascism, the Western policy of the ‘containment’ of the Soviet threat and the ‘war against terrorism’ have all been described as a conflict between civilization and evil or barbarism. In the post-bipolar world, a new standard of civilization has emerged in response to human rights violations. Concerns about regimes that sponsor international terrorist organizations and fears that ‘weapons of mass destruction’ will fall into the hands of terrorist groups have intensified this trend.
