Debt Relief and Norms: An International Society Approach of the English School

Norms and International Relations Theory

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of an English School approach by focusing on the process of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) by the G8 and international financial institutions (IFIs) in the late 1990s. Some of the world's poorest countries, with the support of non-governmental organizations, demanded debt forgiveness from the developed countries and the IFIs before the Millennium, and the comprehensive debt relief package was adopted in the G8 Cologne summit.
In the process of the HIPC debt relief, it was evident that there was no central authority to deal with the debt issue in the anarchical states system, unlike domestic society. However, the lack of central authority did not bring chaotic consequences for creditors themselves, or for the relationship between the creditors and debtors. Therefore, one can point out the existence of a widely accepted norm about inter-state borrowing. ‘Borrowed money should be repaid’ is one of the oldest, consistent, and fundamental norms and rules in any society, and international society is not an exception. Like individuals and firms in domestic society, a state has a legal and moral obligation to repay. Apart from the persistence of norms and rules which have been observed by sovereign states, existing international institutions also played a central part in the process of debt relief. The Paris Club, G7/8 summits, and International Financial Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank represent such institutions, although each of them is different from others in terms of organizational structures. At the same time, the elements of world society were amply present. Trans-national NGOs like Jubilee 2000 played an important role, representing the normative force beyond national borders.
The English School shares similarity with constructivism in many respects, such as its tendency to regard international norms as important. However, they take different approaches to the study of international relations in some points. For instance, the constructivists emphasize (and often exaggerate) the aspect of change in international politics, and the essence of their approach is to prove how progressive norms have changed the perceptions of policymakers and subsequently led to the transformation of domestic policy. By contrast, for English School theorists, progressive norms are not the only type of norms, as a norm means shared values and interests among states and they do not necessarily lead human society toward the good.
The English School has been highly criticized for the lack of empirical study and neglect of economic issues, but this study concludes that the case study of the HIPC debt process can be well understood by employing methodological pluralism and trilogy of the English School perspective. I argue that the process of international debt relief has shown that three elements of International Relations theory, that is, realism (states system), pluralism (international institutions and multilateral diplomacy), and global society (universal norms and ethics) were all present in the process, and they were interacting each other.