Decentring the English School: challenging the boundaries of Eurocentrism in the work of Adam Watson

Abstract

Abstract There are growing calls to address the Eurocentrism of classical English School (ES) scholarship and to adopt more holistic frameworks of analysis, which include alternative, non-Western forms of international order and interactions with the European international systems. This article investigates Adam Watson’s contribution to ‘decentring’ the ES. Two dimensions of Watson’s work speak to this objective. The first is his development of a more inclusive comparative historical sociological analysis of states-systems. The second is his development of a more generic concept of systems as complex, variegated and shifting relationships of authority, highlighting the prevalence of hierarchy and hegemony in states-systems. However, Watson’s work remains inflected with Eurocentrism in several important respects. These include his narrative of the evolution of the contemporary states-system, which largely remains one of the autonomous development and expansion of Europe, and the limited ways in which his narrative includes the agency, voices and experiences of non-European peoples.