Solidarism is one of two principal positions within the English School of International Relations, contrasted with pluralism. Where pluralists argue that international society is thin and built only on minimal coexistence rules (sovereignty, non-intervention, pacta sunt servanda), solidarists contend that states share, or are capable of sharing, deeper moral commitments — notably to human rights, humanitarian protection, and collective enforcement of international law.
The position is most closely associated with Hedley Bull's later work, particularly his 1984 Hagey Lectures Justice in International Relations, which moved beyond the more pluralist tone of The Anarchical Society (1977). It was developed systematically by Nicholas Wheeler in Saving Strangers (2000), which argued that humanitarian intervention can be legitimate when grounded in shared solidarist norms, and by R.J. Vincent in Human Rights and International Relations (1986), which made subsistence rights a basic standard of international legitimacy.
Solidarists typically accept several claims:
- International society contains primary institutions (sovereignty, diplomacy, international law) but these can evolve to accommodate cosmopolitan values.
- Individuals, not only states, are proper subjects of international moral concern.
- Practices such as humanitarian intervention, international criminal accountability, and the Responsibility to Protect (endorsed at the 2005 UN World Summit) reflect a thickening of shared norms.
- Enforcement of common rules — including against sovereign states — is legitimate when grounded in genuine consensus.
Critics, including pluralists like Robert Jackson (The Global Covenant, 2000), warn that solidarist enforcement risks great-power moralism, selective intervention, and the erosion of the sovereign equality that protects weaker states. Debates over Kosovo (1999), Iraq (2003), and Libya (2011) have been central testing grounds. Contemporary solidarist scholarship also examines whether non-Western states share these norms, and whether solidarism is genuinely universal or a projection of liberal values.
Example
In debates over NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo, Nicholas Wheeler argued the action reflected an emerging solidarist consensus that mass atrocities could override the non-intervention norm.
Frequently asked questions
Cosmopolitanism locates moral value primarily in individuals and is often skeptical of the state system. Solidarism works within the states-system, arguing that states themselves can be carriers and enforcers of shared cosmopolitan-leaning values.
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