Introduction

Summary

How beneficial is it from the viewpoint of world order to transfer to the domain of international relations those legal and political principles which sustain order within states? This has been one of the central questions in the study of international relations, and the term ‘domestic analogy’ has been used to refer to the argument which endorses such transfer. The ‘domestic analogy’ is presumptive reasoning which holds that there are certain similarities between domestic and international phenomena; that, in particular, the conditions of order within states are similar to those of order between them; and that therefore those institutions which sustain order domestically should be reproduced at the international level.

However, despite the apparent division, outlined in chapter 1, among writers on international relations between those who favour this analogy and those who are critical of it, no clear analysis has yet been made as to precisely what types of proposal should be treated as exemplifying reliance on this analogy. One of the central aims of this book is to clarify the range and types of proposal which this analogy entails, and chapter 2 makes a preliminary attempt at this task.

A substantial portion of this book (chapters 3–8) is devoted to the examination of the role which the domestic analogy has played in ideas about world order since the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the present.