The English School and International Relations Theory: The Conceptual Universe, The Academic World, and Critiques

Abstract

This article investigates the English School's approach to International
Relations (IR). The first of the four parts examines the intellectual and
institutional origins of the English School (ES), and its position within IR
theory. The second studies the concepts of the ES by uniting elements of it,
and examining its three core concepts. The third part studies the ES as an
academic phenomenon, and the final part presents a critique of the ES,
pointing out the approach's ontological, epistemological, and
methodological obscurities, and examining the ES from the perspectives of
selected other International Relations theories and theoretical approaches.
Finally, the summary presents the positive heuristics of the ES.