Bull, Hedley (1932–1985)

Hedley Bull was one of most acute and original-minded of the Australian scholars who have [Page 78]worked in the field of international theory and strategic analysis. He came from a reasonably comfortable Sydney family, and his high intellectual capacity was recognized early in his life. He was admitted as a student to the University of Sydney at the age of 16 in 1949. While there, he concentrated on philosophy and history and was strongly influenced by the most controversial of his professors at the time, John Anderson. Bull remained an “Andersonian” all his life. He was also influenced by one of his history professors, Ernest Bramstead, whose vision of world history was largely focused on Europe.

Hedley Bull graduated with first-class honors in philosophy and second-class honors in history in 1952, and was accorded a scholarship to Oxford University. There, he continued to pursue those subjects, eventually to a master of philosophy degree. Quite unexpectedly, because he had taken no courses in the subject, he was offered an assistant lectureship at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in international relations. The professor at the time, Charles Manning, looked for original minds in his young appointees, and Hedley Bull certainly offered that. At LSE, Bull found the second great intellectual influence of his life in Martin Wight, then reader in the International Relations department. Wight was an immensely charismatic teacher, remarkable for the depth of his learning and the elegance of his analysis.

Moreover, London in the mid-1950s offered an immense stimulus to someone of Bull's originality of mind. Policy makers, even at the level of prime minister, were beginning to understand the immensity of the dangers that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by several powers represented for the whole world. So the old interest in disarmament reappeared, and Hedley Bull was invited to assist one of its stalwarts from the 1930s, Philip Noel-Baker, to produce a new book on the subject. During his research on that project, however, Bull found himself convinced the earlier approach to the subject was mistaken and unproductive, and in due course, he produced a book of his own, The Control of the Arms Race, which suggested a new approach to the overall objective of keeping the peace.

The English authorities in the field, such as Michael Howard, had recently founded a new institute, the Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) and were instantly impressed when the book was produced for its 1960 conference at Oxford University. So when Harold Wilson became prime minister in 1964 and was looking for a new mind to head the Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit at the Foreign Office, Bull was appointed.

He stayed in that appointment until 1967, then accepted a chair in international relations at Australian National University (ANU). By that time, Bull's main intellectual interests had focused on the general theory of international politics. In Canberra, he wrote his best-known and most influential book, The Anarchical Society. In that book, he continued his English School realist analysis of international relations, likening the international scene to a Hobbesian state of nature where anarchy prevails, kept in check by alliances and reciprocal agreements. States form a system when they interact in this manner to form a society with some common organizations where they see common interests. One can see in that notable work the influence of two associations, the ISS, and a much smaller group, the British Association for International Theory.

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