ABSTRACT
Where, by the 1980s, the work of R.J. Vincent and Hedley Bull in International Society theory illustrated that the anthropological concept of culture had eclipsed the humanist concept in IR; the 1990s witnessed a considerable expansion of this trend. With the end of the Cold War interest in culture, in its anthropological sense, appeared to be everywhere. However, given that the idea of culture generally relied upon was drawn into IR as a conventional standard, it was not surprising to find that most commentaries employing the concept invoked (albeit unwittingly so) the essentialist version. As an unspoken assumption, it was clear that culture made us what we were and that the very idea of culture now embodied, or represented in some short-hand form, the idea of difference. Where the concept was incorporated from anthropology with little regard for the debates and difficulties associated with the idea, essentialism was not only self-evident, it was rife. Undoubtedly, many scholars will be uncomfortable with this assessment, but where there was an absence of detailed conceptual explication (how culture worked for example), and indeed where the significance of culture was simply assumed, then the contextual method indicates that essentialism must have informed the underlying basis of the idea. No one, it seemed, saw any point in arguing against the existence of culture, nor was much doubt expressed over culture’s alleged pervasive influence; all of which confirmed that this particular conventional standard was exerting an extraordinary level of power and enjoying high intellectual status.
