The nineteenth century liberal tradition and the English School historical narrative

Bibliographic Data

ID12923396
AuthorsDaniel M Green (0000-0003-4438-2285, University of Delaware, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume16
Issue2
Pages171-189
Publication date2020-02-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of International Political Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1755-0882 • E-ISSN: 1755-1722
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1755088220905876
OpenAlexW3007666757
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited64

This article uses the framework of “traditions of thought” and “dilemmas” to problematize and revise the English School’s Expansion Narrative of international relations history in the crucial nineteenth century, when the forms and practices of “European international society” expanded to dominate the world’s international relations. An exercise in historicizing and contextualizing the broader liberal tradition of international thought brings into focus a period of liberal ideas and policies in the first-half of the nineteenth century, before Expansion and the New Imperialism, and a particular “free trade” liberal order project adopted by Britain in the years 1830–1865 in particular. This brings a different perspective to the ES historical narrative of expansion of the European international society into a “global international society.” The article contextualizes ideas in the nineteenth century liberal tradition by highlighting a British global “unipolar moment” and the order project that accompanied it. It discusses the “dilemmas” that prompted the closing of that era and a shift in British thought and policy during the 1860s. These laid the foundation for the Expansion the English School focuses on after 1870, but also constitute a previous experiment in the engagement of the West with the Rest, with different potentialities, before the final onslaught of global-scale conquest

Higher education · International relations · Liberal arts education · Liberal education · Liberalism · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · World history · Australian History and Society · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law

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