Problems With History and IR
1. Data and Methods
 Limitations on data, historical records (esp. considering age of info, as well as
phenomena – war – being studied)
 Cross-time comparison: ignores context
 Requires a bit of humility
2. Frames (spatial and temporal)
 When (years, centuries) and where (people, groups, regions, systems?) do we ‘cut’
into for analyzing?
3. Biases (next slide)
 The problem with History of IR, as commonly presented to students, is selectivity or
biased presentations
Usually focused on 4 particular perspectives:
a. Europe or West or White North as ‘normal’ (at expense of other areas of world)
[postcolonial point]
b. Role of men and ‘public sphere’ as ‘normal’ (at expense of women and private
sphere) [feminist point]
c. Nation-states or countries as ‘normal’ (at expense of other forms of political
organization) [poststructuralist point]
d. History unfolding as a series of ‘causes’ from which we draw eternal ‘lessons’
rather than contingencies or accidents or random outcomes [interpretive or postpositivist point]
Classical and Medieval Eras
 Antiquity: AAnitnnyArenninAnn Aomen
o Provide initial notions of sovereignty (polis), democracy (demos kratia), and
nationalism; and International (or polis) relations
o Roman Empire: Proves example for Imperial States even after ‘sovereign’
model is norm
 Mt lnAAgnsAnn AnniminynesAwtyhAEnsyA(400~1500)
o Overlapping authorities: Religious, secular, and local (feudal)
o ChtnnAnn AIn tn AImportant influences on development of state (gunpowder –
China)
 IslnetiAgml nnA(700~1300)Ann AtnynenntimnnlAenlntimns
o First major, widespread advances in sciences, law, mathematics, and history
o Vast and deep investment in scholarship and education (including
philosophy), first universities in world (Morocco)
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406, Tunisia)
 Historian, Sociologist, and (perhaps?) IR theorist
 Introduces cyclical theory of rise/fall of societies and civilizations
 Articulates key understandings of political economy
Decline of Feudal/Religious Authorities (1200~1600s)
Feudal order challenged by:
1. Military Technology (gunpowder)
 Feudal fiefdoms become difficult to defend
 Nobles pay Kings, centralize authority
2. Economic expansion (trade)
 Italy (14th-16th centuries), Egypt as a node for global trade
 More trade  Bigger ships  Bigger units
 Growth of towns/urbanization
Other factors:
Famine and Disease (Black Death), Labor scarcity
Decline in Religious Authority: Factors
1. Renaissance (1350~1650)
 Scientific inquiry and personal freedom
 Although see Islamic Golden Age [~700s-1200s]
2. Protestant Reformation (1517)
 Challenges Catholic Church’s authority
 Leads to further splintering
 England (1534) – Henry VIII and Anglican Church
 Struggles culminate in Thirty Years War (1618-1648)
Modern State System
Kn:AEvnnysAtnAMm nenASynynAs:syne’sA nvnlmpenny
1. Peace of Augsburg (1555)
 Cuius regio, eius religio, ‘whose realm, his religion’
 First establishes religion of ruler over ruled (but just Lutheranism and
Catholicism)
2. Thirty Years War (1618-1648)
 Begins as an inter-religion war: Protestants and Catholics
 Migrates into a territorial/sovereign war
3. Peace of Westphalia (~1648)
 Treaties of Osnabruck and Munster
 Ends Thirty Years War
 Religious Realm  Modern N-S
4. Peace of Utrecth (1713)
 Ends war of Spanish succession (1701~1713)
 Prevents unity of France and Spain
 Establishes of ‘balance of power’ principle
Sovereignty: Why the Sovereign State?
 Sovereign state competed against other political forms of organization at that time:
o City-states (Vince, Genoa)
o City-leagues (Hanseatic)
“In the long run, sovereign states won because their institutional logic gave them an
advantage in mobilizing their societies’ resources”
-Hendrik Spruyt, Sovereign State and its competitors, 1994,185.
‘Institutional Logics’, Sovereign States, Usually Have:
1. Mass Standing Armies
 Charles Tilly: ‘State made war and war made the state’
2. Large Bureaucracies
 Taxes or ‘revenue’ for state functions (to be able to pay for war-making, primarily
19th century)
3. National Identity, unity, belonging
 Esp. important in chance from absolute to popular sovereignty (all of these
things support each other- national identity helps you join the army, etc.)
4. Recognized Borders (first 3 is inside of a state, this only happens when you’re
recognized by other states)
Sovereignty and International Politics
Two ‘layers’ of sovereignty
1. Internal – attribute of a nation-state
 Sole Authority of a territory, monopolizes violence within this area
 Weber, ‘Monopoly of legitimate use of physical force’ within borders – the
minute you have to start using more and more force, the legitimacy of the
physical force starts decreasing (i.e. Israel/Palestine)
2. External – Sovereignty recognized in a community of other nation-states
 Internal sovereignty means little w/out neighbors recognizing borders
 Ext. sovereignty as a principle for international me neA(non-interference)
‘Age of Revolutions’ ~1760-1848
Significant revolutions that transformed international system, including 4 in particular
 Significant revolutions that transformed international system, including 4 in particular
1. Industrial, ~1760-1820
2. American, ~1765-1783
3. French, ~1789-1799
4. Haitian, ~1791-1803
 First (almost entirely) Black sovereign state
 Napoleon fails to recapture, in part leads to Louisiana purchase
 Influences British decision to ban and enforce ban on slave trade
 Inspires especially sugar plantation slave revolts in southern US
 Each an example of how ‘unit’ or ‘agent’ influences intl. structure (as opposed to just
structure determining agents/units)
Revolutionary (1792-1802) and Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)
Importance for Intl. Politics (non-exhaustive list(
1. Hegemony, hubris and ‘Imperial overstretch’
 France stronger than any one Euro power, but various coalitions (~seven) math
up to defeat France, and…
 By 1812, Napoleon controls most of continental Europe, but gets too ambitious
and invades Russia, forces overstretched
 Important example of difficulties of land acquisition and hegemony (burdens of
occupying territory)
2. Leaves UK as major naval power
 ‘Pax Britannica’ of 19th Century, and Hegemonic Stability Theory
Napoleonic Wars, impt, contd
3. Aids development of US
 Louisiana Purchase (see also Haitian revolution)
 Shortens War of 1812
4. Levee en masse (Mass conscription)
 First major example of increasing move to ‘National’ armies
5. “Second image reversed”
 How war in intl realm affects domestic politics
 In France, power shifts from decentralized (popular sovereignty) back to imperial
(monarchy)
6. ‘Concert of Europe’ results from Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)
Congress of Vienna, Historical Importance
1. ‘Concert of Europe’
 ‘Stable’ multipolar system (1815~1870)
 (exception: Crimean War)
 Defeat of France leads to war ‘weariness’
2. British push for condemnation of slave trade
 19th C: Britain enforces ban on Atlantic slave trade (see also Haitian Revolution)
3. Seen as ‘success’ of ‘high politics’
 Stems revolutionary threat of French nationalism/transnationalism
 Ensures ‘order’ of system
3 Other Pre-WWI Developments
1. IepnetnlAme nesAtnAInynenntimnnlAs:syne
 Colonization of Africa, further parts of Asia
2. HnginACmnfnenninsA(1899,A1907)
 First formal intl agreements on certain laws of war
 Influences developments of LoN
3. oissm-JnpnnnsnAWneA(1904-1905)
 Raises Japan’s prestige, becomes a world power
 Incredibly costly (presages WWI)
 Weakens Russia’s material power and prestige
 Source of Russian insecurity through Second World War (see Soviet invasion of
Manchukuo, August 1945)