Symposium: Comparing International Systems in World History: Anarchy, Hierarchy, and Culture

[This is a post-publication review symposium] In “Between Eurocentrism and Babel: A Framework for the Analysis of States, State Systems, and International Orders,” Charles R. Butcher and Ryan D. Griffiths (2017) intervene in several important debates. These include, first, how we should compare international systems across time and space and, second, whether anarchy is a defining feature of international relations. Both are perennial issues of concern. But growing attention to non-European international relations (Acharya 2014) and the concurrent rise of the “new hierarchy studies” give them greater urgency (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon 2018; Mattern and Zarakol 2016)....