Out Now: Special issue of Sexualities on Anarchism & Sexuality
Jean Allain, 'Anarchy and International Law: The Approaches of Hedley Bull and Noam Chomsky'
Report by panel convenor, David Bailey.
This panel attempted to approach the question of how we might consider studying topics not directly related to questions of anarchist theory, anarchist thought or anarchist political activity, but rather of more general considerations in political science, from an anarchist perspective. We had two sessions. The first session had papers on comparative political economy, social movements, and alternative approaches to science. The comparative political economy paper, presented by David Bailey (University of Birmingham), sought to compare what it presented as the consensus view in comparative political economy with an alternative account derived from Marxist and anarchist theory. The social movements paper, presented by Polly Pallister-Wilkins (School of Oriental and African Studies), argued that existing accounts of social movements had become too state-centric in their approach. The paper on alternative approaches to science, presented by Andy Robinson (University of Nottingham), compared two different approaches to science derived from Deleuze’s distinction between ‘royal’ and ‘nomadic’ science. The second panel was made up of papers on the alter-globalization movement and on understanding the inter-state system in international relations/international law. The alter-globalization movement paper, presented by Gal Kirn (Jan van Eyck Academy) and Antonis Vradis (London School of Economics), sought to examine some of the problems that had afflicted the alter-globalization movement, touching on questions relating to organization, political mobilization, and media reporting. The paper looking at the international law of the inter-state system, presented by Jean Allain (Queen’s University of Belfast), argued that the existence of an anarchic system, in the form of the inter-state system, provided illustrative instances of how an anarchist or ‘leaderless’ system might work in practice, particularly drawing on the work of Hedley Bull and Noam Chomsky. Both of the panels prompted a lively and engaged debate, with speakers from the floor showing a genuine enthusiasm for, and critical engagement with, some of the different arguments being made. Some of the key issues raised related to the extent to which, in applying anarchist approaches to more ‘traditional’ areas and methods of political investigation, there was a risk that the ‘anarchist’ aspect would be lost – both through the attempt to adhere to some of the methods, arguments and analyses developed within ‘non-anarchist’ political studies, and due to the risks associated with the attempt to produce a single, coherent ‘anarchist’ perspective. Indeed, there were also discussions of the extent to which an anarchist perspective (rather than multiple perspectives) can be said to exist at all, in which case we might question the ability to apply such a (non) approach. On the whole, the panels were well received and provided an important environment within which the panellists could develop arguments that are perhaps less often voiced and debated within political studies. Moreover, the diversity of the empirical topics approached provided a stimulating exhibition of the way in which an anarchist political science might enrich contemporary debates within the mainstream of the discipline. As such, the panels were of great use to the advancing of political debate, analysis and knowledge-creation in the areas of political science, international relations, and also for social science more generally.