João Marques de Almeida

Jahn, B. The Cultural Construction of International Relations: The Invention of the State of Nature Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000, ISBN: 0-312-23471-6, £ 40 (hbk).

This book puts forward two very strong claims. First, International Relations (IR) theory is grounded on "a variety of versions of the concept of the state of nature" (xii). Among those versions, two are dominant. On the one hand, the realist version describes the international state of nature as a pre-cultural, pre-normative, and pre-social system. The result is a "radical distinction" between the domestic and the international (131), and an effort to ignore the element of culture from the analysis of world politics. On the other hand, for the liberal version, the idea of the state of nature serves as an instrument of political programmes which seek to overcome cultural diversity and to impose hegemonic orders. In short, As Beate Jahn put it elsewhere, liberals use the idea of the state of nature as a "ruling ideology". The second claim is that these two versions of the state of nature have dominated modern political thought up to the present. As the author so clearly says, "the concept of the state of nature was so fundamental for classical European thought on human society in general that it can be viewed as the common ground on which all modern European social sciences rest" (113).

How then does the author develop her argument to arrive at these two claims? The modern intellectual production of the state of nature theories has known four different periods. The first, and the most important, occupies the entire Part I of the book, where Jahn traces the roots of the discourse of the state of nature. Chapter 2, "The Discovery of America as a Cultural Shock", tells us how the encounter between Spaniards and Amerindian peoples forced the first to reformulate the concept of the state of nature. Given that the reality found in America could not fit into "the pre-existing worldview" (46), "the Spaniards had to work out new categories" (50). Chapter 3, "Reinventing the State of Nature", explains how this occurred. In the process, and quite significantly, Spanish thinkers developed "a new understanding of international relations", what Jahn calls ‘the natural law conception of international relations’ (51-2). The reformulation of the concept of the state of nature has a fundamental importance for it allows the Spaniards to embark "on a totalizing project of cultural assimilation" (71). This strategy of cultural and political conquest is the focus of Chapter 4, "The Politics of the State of Nature in the ‘New’ World". Crucially, the ‘reinvented’ natural law discourse had two effects. First, it "led to a conception of the international based on a hierarchy of cultures", where "cultural differences were reinterpreted as developmental stages" (xiv). Secondly, it originated strategies of domination directed towards both "the destruction of the Amerindian cultures" and "their total assimilation to Spanish culture" (72-3).

We must note two relevant challenges to conventional IR scholarship at this point. Contrary to what we believed, the concept of the state of nature is not associated with the idea of equal sovereign states living in anarchy, but rather with the view of a hierarchy of cultures and states. Moreover, this also shows, again against common beliefs, that the classical European doctrine of the state of nature is a ‘cultural’ construction, which resulted from an encounter with other cultures, and not a concept that expresses a pre-cultural and pre-social condition. It is now also the time to make a small criticism. As we saw above, at some points of the book, the author refers to two versions of the state of nature, but on other occasions she seems to abandon the ‘pre-cultural’ one and to concentrate only on the ‘cultural’ version. However, this is a bit confusing. The book starts with the opposition between the realist, the ‘pre-cultural’, and the liberal, the ‘cultural’, versions which is the theme of Chapter 1, "Culture, Nature, and the Ambivalence of International Theory", but ends up with almost identifying the realist, which becomes also a cultural version, and the liberal arguments: "there is...nothing much to choose either theoretically or practically between Realism and Liberalism" (167).

The First Part is to a great extent the central section of the book. It sets the terms that define the natural law conception of international relations until the invention of the discipline during the second half of the twentieth century. As the author affirms, "the concept of the state of nature...continued to play an immensely important role in Europe" (90). Here, we arrive at the second and third historical periods addressed in the book. Chapter 6, "The State of Nature as the Basis for Classical Political Thought", discusses how a number of classical political thinkers, from Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and Pufendorf in the seventeenth century, through Montesquieu, Vattel, Adam Smith, Rousseau, and Kant in the eighteenth century, to Tocqueville in the nineteenth century received and further developed the Spanish conception of the state of nature. Thus, according to the author, we find in their work the same hierarchy of cultures, founded on a linear interpretation of history, in which "the Amerindians are placed in a different historical time from the Europeans" (119). In such a hierarchy, European societies provided the model of the best social and political order for all human societies (127). It was this place on the top of the world hierarchy that justified concepts such as the right of conquest and imperialist strategies. The third historical period, the focus of Chapter 7, "The Politics of the State of Nature in the American and French Revolutions", as the author tells us, continues and develops the same line of thought, which emerged with the Spanish thinkers. This Chapter is, in my view, the least convincing of the book. The reader has the impression that the author is overemphasising her argument. Indeed, the discussion on the French Revolution is very short and rather weak. Likewise, to reduce the discussion on the American Revolution to the thought of Thomas Paine seems to me very unsatisfactory. Given the ambitious nature of the argument in the rest of the book, in order to convince the reader, the discussion on those Revolutions should have been much more elaborated.

Despite these problems, the book has undoubtedly many merits. First, contrary to conventional interpretations in IR, the book places the encounter of Westerns and non-Westerns, specifically the Amerindians, at the central stage of the emergence and growth of modern international society. By doing this, the author demonstrates that to recover such a context is fundamental to adequately understand concepts such as political and territorial sovereignty, intervention, right of conquest, just war, and so forth. Moreover, the author’s claim that the founding fathers of liberal thought also provided the moral and political justifications for imperialism reminds us of the arguments of the historians of political thought, such as Richard Tuck and James Tully, who have recently addressed the same issue. Secondly, and again in opposition to mainstream IR theories, which "argue from the domestic to the international" (29), Jahn claims that international practices constitute domestic political communities. This point of course challenges one of the central IR myths: the clear cut distinction between domestic and international politics. Thirdly, the book, quite correctly, also demonstrates that classical political theory was always addressing international questions. To make this point certainly helps IR to reclaim classical political thought, which is a fundamental task for contemporary students within the discipline. These achievements show that this book constitutes an innovative work which challenges many conventional assumptions within IR. Moreover, it is always written with a strong self-belief, at some points even with passion, which engages the reader. All these factors recommend the book for undergraduate students and for teachers alike. But, as it happens with all good books, this one also has major problems.

Is the author’s story, ‘the story of the state of nature conception of international relations', a fair and plausible story? In other words, has the idea of the state of nature completely dominated modern thinking about international society, as the author wants us to believe? I think that the author exaggerates her case, and by doing so misunderstands the nature of modern political thought. First of all, take Jahn’s account of the natural law tradition. The continuity between, on the one hand, the Spanish conception of natural law, developed by Vitoria and Suarez, and the thought of Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke is one of the central points of the author’s argument. In an exercise of interpretation of past political thought, it is always possible to stress this kind of continuity. Yet, this is quite a polemical interpretation, and the author should be aware of this. More importantly, in order to strength her own argument, Jahn should have addressed the arguments that dispute her interpretation. One of the central theses that we find in the contemporary work of the history of political thought is that the secular understanding of natural law, identified with Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke, is the result of a break with scholastic thinking. Quite strangely, given the radical intent of the book, by stressing the element of continuity between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries’ understanding of natural law, Jahn recovers the conventional thesis adopted by early twentieth century international lawyers and by IR figures such as Martin Wight. On the other hand, by having not discussed other interpretations of the modern natural law tradition, Jahn’s argument is more vulnerable to criticisms.

The second problem with the historical argument is that the author overemphasises the importance of the natural law tradition in the history of modern political thought. The result is that Jahn ignores other traditions, which are essential for our understanding of international relations. Quite significantly, such traditions have built conceptions of international society, which serve as alternatives to the natural law conception. The author simply overlooks many important intellectual developments that have occurred in modern political thought since the period in which natural law thinking dominated. Now, some of those developments emerged precisely as a reaction against the natural law tradition. For instance, the moral scepticism of David Hume, the political pluralism of Montesquieu and Edmund Burke, the historical approaches of Hegel and Marx, the nationalist reaction of Leopold Ranke. Crucially, many of these traditions built an understanding of international society which recognises and accepts cultural pluralism. Moreover, one cannot understand the thought of some influential contemporary IR thinkers if one neglects these traditions. This takes me to the third problem of the book.

Contrary to what the author claims, not all IR theory is heir to the classical natural law tradition. Let me illustrate what I mean with the case of Hedley Bull. Bull’s criticism of the natural law and liberal traditions, which appears quite consistently in his work from 1962 to 1984, derives from the deep influence that Hume’s moral scepticism, and Burke’s and Heeren’s political pluralism had on his thought. To a certain extent, Bull replicated in the discipline of International Relations the reaction against the natural law tradition that occurred during the eighteenth century in Europe. When Bull criticised the ‘Grotian tradition’, in 1962, he was attacking the recovery of the natural law tradition during the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, Bull’s reaction stemmed from his awareness that the response to cultural diversity is the central question of a ‘post-European’ international society. The replacement of a European international society by a universal international society requires coming to terms with the failure of the imperial projects of cultural and political domination. It is a mistake to affirm that Bull "eliminates any trace of cultural diversity" (12) from his IR theory. Jahn sustains her position by saying that Bull treats states as "like units" (13-4). Now, does this mean that Bull ‘eliminates any trace of cultural diversity’ from his thought? For Bull, the expression ‘like units’ means merely that states are constitutionally independent, have a central government, and enjoy territorial sovereignty. By recognising that states have these institutional attributes, it does not mean that Bull considers that they should share cultural and political principles and values. On the contrary, the recognition of cultural and political diversity lies at the heart of Bull’s pluralist conception of international society.

In the very beginning of the book, the author states her intentions and the implications of the argument for IR theory: "It may well be necessary...to attempt the construction of a theory of International Relations on the assumption that there is no human nature without culture and that, consequently, a theory of International Relations has to inquire into the conditions of conflict and cooperation between cultures" (xvi). This is what Bull did for the major part of his professional life. Moreover, he did so by attacking the natural law tradition. Yet, to grasp this, one has to abandon the two-schools interpretation of IR, which is adopted by the author. Quite ironically for such a radical work, Jahn adopts a very conventional reading of IR theory, divided between Realism and Liberalism.

João Marques de Almeida teaches international relations at the University of Lisbon.