Hunker in the bunker

VERIFY - DON'T TRUST

Superior intelligence tests whether this present multipolar system can cope with a radical and dynamic new technology—and whether it is closer to chaos than anarchy.

The concept of anarchy has been an important subject in the study of international relations (IR). Oxford University Professor Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, first published in 1977, was for many years required IR reading. And Alexander Wendt’s “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics” (1992) became one of the canonical IR articles.

What did Bull and Wendt mean by anarchy, and is it relevant today?

Bull’s point was that states exist without a higher authority above them. States are not subject to a central government. The United Nations is not, and has no pretense to be, a world government. It has no authority to legitimately use force in the way that a country’s government can.

But Bull’s starting point is that states without a higher authority do interact in ways that create an international society. States recognize that they have common interests and values and can function together without an overriding government. Bull’s international society is anarchical because it lacks a world government, but it nevertheless functions because it has rules, institutions and a degree of order—at least it did when he first published the book.

Wendt’s article makes a similar point, but from a different perspective. He accepts the absence of a central authority as a structural fact. But what that fact means depends on how states interact with one another. Wendt focuses on how states, through their interaction, construct identities, interests and expectations that give meaning to anarchy. In Wendt’s famous formulation, “anarchy is what states make of it.”

For both Bull and Wendt, then, anarchy does not mean chaos. Although there is no world government, there can still be order. Bull and the English School assume an international society with common values and rules. Wendt assumes state interaction. 

Switzerland is preparing the Geneva AI Summit 2027, scheduled for 21–22 June. Its theme, “Bridging Innovation and Trust,” is intended to bring together governments, international organizations, academia, business and civil society to  begin establishing a formal AI governance structure.

The Swiss Ambassador and Deputy Director of the Swiss Communication Office described the Summit’s aim to a local newspaper: “We don’t want a nice final declaration,” he said. “We would ideally like to lay the foundations for…trust, try to bring some order to this chaos of AI through a certain form of governance, and increase global digital security.”

You could call that certain form of governance cryptoanarchy,  if you had any intelligence.