Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Figures and tables -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Glossary -- Introduction -- 1 English school theory and its problems: an overview -- English school theory: a summary -- World society, and the problems and potentials of English school theory -- The main areas of weakness in English school theory -- Levels -- Sectors -- Boundaries -- Normative conflicts -- Methodology -- Is English school theory really theory? -- 2 World society in English school theory -- The intellectual history of world society within English school thinking -- The pluralist-solidarist debate -- Conclusions -- 3 Concepts of world society outside English school thinking -- IR writers with a sociological turn: Burton, Luard and Shaw -- Sociological conceptions of world society -- Global civil society -- Conclusions -- 4 Reimagining the English school's triad -- State and non-state -- Physical/mechanical and social concepts of system -- Society and community -- Individual and transnational -- Conclusions: reconstructing the English school's triad -- 5 Reconstructing the pluralist-solidarist debate -- What type of values, if shared, count as solidarist? -- Does it make any difference to solidarism how and why any given values are shared? -- What does 'thickness' mean in terms of type and number of values shared, and type and number of people and/or states sharing them? -- Conclusions -- 6 The primary institutions of international society -- Definitional problems -- The concept of primary institutions in English school literature -- Hierarchy and functionalism within primary institutions -- The range of institutions and the types of international society -- Conclusions -- 7 Bringing geography back in -- Exclusive globalism is not necessary -- Unwarranted pessimism.

Understanding the interplay among the interhuman, transnational and interstate domains -- Conclusions: a vanguard theory of international social structures -- 8 Conclusions: a portrait of contemporary interstate society -- A snapshot of contemporary interstate society -- Looking back: what changed, what didn't and why? -- Driving forces, deeply rooted structures and contradictions -- Tensions and contradictions among primary institutions -- The dynamics of societal geography and the distribution of power -- The nature of binding forces and the character of leading powers -- The interplay among the three domains -- The pressures of material conditions: interaction capacity, human powers of destruction and the planetary environment -- Conclusions: where to from here? -- References -- Index.