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The Emergence of Global Power Politics The London School of Economics and Political Science The Emergence of Global Power Politics Imperialism, Modernity, and American Expansion 1870-1914 Joseph Leigh A Thesis Submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics & Political Science for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy London, March 2020 1 I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 101,784 words. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 ABSTRACT 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 1. INTRODUCTION 6 I. Historicizing Power Politics 6 II. Foundations of the Argument 17 III. Power Transformation in the Age of Empire: Theory and History 23 IV. The Structure of the Thesis 33 2. POWER AND MODERNITY IN INTERNATIONAL THEORY 35 I. Introduction 35 II. The Historical Assumptions of International Theory 40 III. International Systems: Realist Versus Sociohistorical Approaches 49 IV. The Post-Realist Agenda and the Constructivist Challenge 56 V. For a Global Historical Sociology 62 3. THE SOURCES OF GLOBAL POWER POLITICS 72 I. Conceptualizing Modern International Change: The Spanish-American War and the Dislocation of Social Order 72 II. International Transformation as a Theoretical Concept 79 III. The Historical Constitution of Power Politics: From the Balance of Power to the Machtstaat 87 IV. Logics of the Global Condition 94 V. Conclusions: Why the Modern International Order Produced Global Power Politics 103 4. WORLD POWERS IN AN AGE OF EMPIRE 105 I. Introduction 105 II. Explaining American World Power: Empire and Expansionism at the Fin-de-siècle 108 III. The New Imperialism in Intersocietal Perspective 123 IV. Grand Strategy and World Economy 135 V. Power Politics Beyond the Rise and Fall of Great Powers 144 5. VISIONS OF THE WEST 147 I. Introduction 147 II. Theorizing Civilizational Imperialism: Symbolic Systems and Intersocietal Hierarchies in the Modern International Order 150 III. Cultures of the Machtstaat 161 IV. The Production of the West in the Anglosphere 170 V. Occidentalism as a Power-Political Form 176 6. CONCLUSION 180 I. Summary of the Argument 180 II. Lineages of the American Century 181 III. The Return of Geopolitics? 188 IV. International Theory and the Global Condition 193 BIBLIOGRAPHY 195 3 ABSTRACT While the discourse of great power politics is an intellectual commonplace of International Relations theory, its roots in nineteenth-century conceptions of imperialism have rarely been the subject of any sustained historical analysis. Rather, the prevailing literature on great power competition relies on transhistorical theoretical claims about the permanence of geopolitical rivalry under anarchy, in conjunction with a common imaginary of early modern Europe as the birthplace of modern international politics. In contrast, this thesis locates the origins of a specifically modern condition of global power politics in the strategic and ideological conflicts which drove the New Imperialism, c.1870-1914. With a particular focus on the evolution of the American Empire, it traces the international, societal, and geopolitical transformations which made possible the flourishing of imperial ambitions for world power in the century after the first Industrial Revolution (1780-1815). On this basis, the thesis makes three overarching contributions to the study of International Relations. First, to the debate over the origins of modern international politics, it contributes a sociohistorical account of the novel conceptions of grand strategy, empire, and geopolitics associated with the nineteenth-century transition to modernity. Moving beyond the so-called ‘Westphalian narrative’ of international modernity, it locates the production of a distinctively modern conception of national-imperial expansionism and civilizational hierarchy in the lived unevenness of industrialization and colonialism. Second, to the literature in historical sociology and international security, it contributes an intersocietal approach which challenges the conventional ‘states-under-anarchy’ framework and links power-political competition to the unevenly experienced constraints of global social structures. In so doing, it explains how the international pattern of the industrial revolution — the uneven and combined development of an empire-centered world economy and international order — interacted with emergent ideologies of social progress to shape and legitimize imperial projects of political order building. More generally, the thesis recovers the nineteenth century experience of a globalized struggle among empires as a critical counterpoint to apolitical accounts of globalization. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following work owes a huge amount to the guidance, criticism, and inspiration of others. My first and greatest thanks are to my supervisor, George Lawson, who has been an immense source of moral and intellectual guidance throughout the PhD. Any strengths which this thesis may possess owe a great deal to his influence and example. Financially, this project was made possible by a scholarship from the Economic and Social Research Council. I would like to thank the ESRC for their generous financial support. Several scholars, teachers, and colleagues shaped the evolution of this project. Throughout my time at LSE, Tarak Barkawi has been a major source of advice and inspiration, compelling me to think seriously about both the military and cultural dimensions of imperialism. I am also grateful to Margot Light, James Morrison and Iver Neumann, who commented on various draft chapters. Before I started the PhD, my tutors at Wadham College, Oxford — Jane Garnett, Matthew Kempshall and Aribert Reimann — provided a model example of historical scholarship. Their advice often returned to me when theoretical generalizations threatened to obscure the historicity of international relations. I have also benefitted greatly from the critical intelligence of my PhD cohort at LSE and beyond. I would particularly like to thank Sarah Bertrand, Mia Certo, Evelina Gambino, Kerry Goettlich, Rob Logan, Maia Holtermann Entwistle, Chris Murray, Adrian Rogstad, Will Rooke, Alireza Shams Lahijani and Asad Zaidi. For his solidarity throughout the final months of the PhD, a special acknowledgement is owed to Chris Murray, who was a constant source of insight and ideas. Will Rooke was among the most important interlocutors of this project, commenting on many draft chapters, and shaping my understanding of historical sociology considerably. I am especially grateful to my fellow Millennium editors, Mia Certo and Adrian Rogstad, for their stellar work at the journal. Academic work is a collective labour that would be impossible without intellectual comradeship. Here, I am deeply grateful to Lewis Bassett, Patrick Fleming, Ewen MacArthur, Rebekah Sparrow, Michael Walker and Jack Young, who all read various drafts and shaped my thinking about world politics through years of ongoing conversation. For the past four years, George Bodie has been the mainstay of this project, improving its argument immeasurably with his historian’s eye for context and specificity. I am also indebted to my sister, Clare, who has always been a vital source of insight into the realities of social struggle far beyond the academy. In the final stages of the project, Michael Neve offered sage editorial advice which helped bring the work to completion. Even in his last days, his searing intelligence brought a clarity to the thesis which it would otherwise have lacked. My most pleasurable debts are to my partner, Grace Benton. Her love and intelligence bring light to even the most difficult days. Without her, the struggle of intellectual work would be unthinkable. My parents have made all things possible. By teaching me to love books and history, they set me on the path to this thesis, and gave me every support I needed to complete it. 5 1. INTRODUCTION POWER POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL CONDITION, 1870-1914 World history has not always existed. History as world history [is] a result.1 — Karl Marx (1858) Among a plurality of co-existing polities, some, the Great Powers, usually ascribe to themselves and usurp an interest in political and economic processes over a wide orbit. Today such orbits encompass the whole surface of the planet.2 — Max Weber (1910) I. Historicizing Power Politics According to conventional wisdom, the modern geopolitical order is marked by a recurrent pattern of great power politics.3 In a formally anarchic universe of multiple sovereign states, the struggle for power and position among independent actors is widely viewed as an inexorable force of history, rooted in the “essentially conflictual” nature of political life.4 Given the fragmentary character of the modern political field, where human existence is divided into a plurality of sovereign polities, power and security constitute the primary motivations of collective action, generating a repetitive dynamic of inter-group conflicts
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