5 THE POST-WAR DECLINE OF THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIES CONFERENCE 481As to the subject matter of this discipline, Manning assumed, as had
generally been assumed by members of the ISC from the time of its incep-
tion, that it concerned what was referred to as ‘international society’. As
Vernant explained at the Windsor meeting, this expression did not refer to
some ‘ideal state of society,’ but rather designated a world in which the rela-
tions ‘between governments and between peoples are more numerous and
closer than ever and in which...national frontiers are not insuperable.’^176
Using more abstract language and borrowing from Jean-Jacques Chevallier,
Manning described international society as a ‘universal manifold of more or
less intricately interwoven relationships,’ a manifold which Chevallier styled
as ‘le complexe relationnel international’.^177
In the view of Manning and in the view of Vernant, the study of inter-
national relations was above all a sociological enterprise because the sub-
ject matter of international relations concerned a social milieu, albeit a
social milieu more comprehensive in scope than that studied by ‘ortho-
dox’ sociology: the sociology of international relations ‘out-distanced’
conventional sociology. This was an important consideration from
Manning’s point of view as it was this that justified the status of inter-
national relations as a distinct academic discipline.^178 In the view of
Manning and Vernant, it is because of its variegated nature that the
international social milieu must be examined from a great variety of
angles: from the angle not just of diplomatic history, international law
and politics, but from the angle of geography, demography, economics,
psychology, religion, sociology along with other fields.^179
(^176) Vernant, ‘International Relations: The Work of the International Studies Conference,’ 56.
(^177) Manning, The University Teaching of Social Sciences: International Relations, 10, and
Jean-Jacques Chevallier, n.d. quoted ibid. As recorded by Manning, Chevallier stated that the
concern of international relations lay ‘with a tangled intertwining of relationships arising in all
sorts of fields, among the various States [and between States and international organisations]
within that special sort of “relational” milieu which is generally referred to as “international
society”’ (ibid.).
(^178) C. A. W. Manning, ‘Report of the General Rapporteur,’ in Goodwin ed., The
University Teaching of International Relations, 73. See also Hidemi Sugnami, ‘C. A. W.
Manning and the Study of International Relations,’ Review of International Studies
27, no. 1 (2001): 91–107, 99, and Vernant, ‘International Relations: The Work of the
International Studies Conference,’ 57.
(^179) Manning, The University Teaching of Social Sciences: International Relations, 10.
See also Sugnami, ‘C. A. W. Manning and the Study of International Relations,’ 99, and
Vernant, ‘International Relations: The Work of the International Studies Conference,’ 57.