From Empire to Nation-State: Explaining Wars in the Modern World, 1816-2001 Author(S): Andreas Wimmer and Brian Min Source: American Sociological Review, Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
From Empire to Nation-State: Explaining Wars in the Modern World, 1816-2001 Author(s): Andreas Wimmer and Brian Min Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 71, No. 6 (Dec., 2006), pp. 867-897 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472435 Accessed: 05/01/2010 12:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. http://www.jstor.org From Empire to Nation-State: ExplainingWars in theModern World, 1816-2001 Andreas Wimmer Brian Min University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Los Angeles on war The existing quantitative literature takes the independent nation-state as the self evident unit of analysis and largely excludes other political types from consideration. In contrast, the authors argue that the change in the institutional form of states is itself a are major cause for war The rise of empires and the global spread of the nation-state the most important institutional transformations in the modern age. To test this hypothesis, the authors introduce a new data set that records the outbreak of war infixed geographic territories from 1816 to 2001, independent of thepolitical entity in control of a territory. wars are more Analysis of this data set demonstrates that much likely during and because of these two transformations. For the transformation to the modern nation-state, the authors confirm this hypothesis further with logit regressions that control for variables that have been robustly significant in previous research. The results provide support for the main mechanisms that explain this time dependency. Modern nation states are ruled in the name of a nationally defined people, in contrast to empires, which a across or govern to spread faith the world, to bring civilization to backward people, to advance the world revolutionary cause. The institution of the nation-state thus introduces incentives for political elites toprivilege members of the national majority over ethnic minorities, and for minority elites to mobilize against such political discrimination. The over resulting power struggles the ethno-national character of the state may escalate wars can into civil wars. Interstate result from attempts to protect co-nationals who are politically excluded in neighboring states. The reported research thus provides a corrective to mainstream approaches, which exclude ethnic and nationalist politics as factors that would help understanding the dynamics of war. lives and memories of most contempo a postcolonial civil war. The list of current con The raries have been shaped by the destructive flicts is long and includes entries from power of war. Entire generations fought and Afghanistan to Zaire. "Events of the recent past died in the two world wars. Throughout the have once again clearly demonstrated that the developing world, many remember the armed world is not yet ready for perpetual peace" struggles for independence or have experienced (Hintze 1975:215). This statement is as obvi Direct to Andreas correspondence Wimmer, advice regarding research design and data coding; of of Department Sociology, University California Michael Hechter, Stathis Kalyvas, Jack Katz and Los 264 Angeles, Haines Hall, Box 951551, Los Rob Mare for offering us opportunities to present this CA Angeles, 90095-1551 ([email protected]). paper to various audiences; Lars-Erik Cederman, The authors thank Nicole Busse, Wesley Hiers, Michael Ross, Nicholas Sambanis, and Christopher Veronika Lenarz, Ani Sarkissian, and Nusrat Sheikh Winship for generous comments on a first written ver for excellent research of this assistance; Christopher sion article. Four outstanding anonymous Lars-Erik Xiao Indra Blattman, Cederman, Chen, reviewers helped to improve and clarify the argu de Felix Havard Rob ments. Soysa, Elwert, Hegre, Mare, All responsibility for errors of thought or fact Lillian Min, John O'Neal, and Michael Ross, for remains with the authors. American Sociological Review, 2006, Vol. 71 (December:867-897) 868 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW ously true today as when itwas when penned Our study intends to overcome three basic 100 years ago by Otto Hintze inwhat is perhaps limitations of mainstream quantitative research the first sociological treatise on warfare. on war. First, most current conflict scholars Why do wars break out?Where and when are focus on short-term dynamics, such as the they most likely to occur? Despite the early impact of democratization over five years interest by Hintze and others of his generation, (Mansfield and Snyder 1995) or the effects of sociology has subsequently left the study of independence over two years (Fearon and Laitin these questions to other disciplines. Sociologists 2003). Recently, scholars have assembled ever have discussed war as a cause for other phe more disaggregated data sets to explain where nomena of interest to them, but rarely as an and when wars are fought (Levy 1998), includ explanandum in its own right. Thus, a long and ing detailed war event histories that decompose respectable tradition in comparative historical a civil war into various battle episodes (Raleigh sociology, stretching from the early work of and Hegre 2005) or studies of war theaters at the Ratzenhofer (1893) to Tilly (1975) and Centeno regional level (Buhaug and Rod 2005). (2003), analyzes the role of war in the making Meanwhile, macropolitical perspectives have of the modern, sovereign state inWestern largely been abandoned. Europe and beyond. Another tradition was ini The once prominent long-wave theories of tiated by Theda Skocpol's (1979) well-known war sought to explain the periodic recurrence of book, inwhich she looked at how wars helped world wars as a consequence of economic cycles to bring about the great revolutions of the past stretched over six decades (Goldstein 1991), or centuries, such as those of Russia and China. of the rise and fall of hegemonic powers that Meanwhile, research into the causes of war has compete for preeminence in world politics remained almost the exclusive domain of his (Modelski and Morgan 1985; Thompson 1988). torians and political scientists.1 Although there is no doubt that the past two cen Yet sociology has much to offer for the study turies have seen several such global wars involv of war. This article shows that that the macro ing the major power centers of the world, most historical processes traditionally studied by researchers now recognize that they do not fol comparative sociologists need to be taken into low a clear pattern of periodicity. In other words, account to arrive at a proper understanding of there are no cycles of a uniform length between wars. why, where, and when wars break out. We assert global an that two such processes play especially With this article, we attempt to revitalize this important role in the history of modern war: the macropolitical perspective by examining pat expansion of empires during the 19th century terns of conflict over the span of decades rather and the spread of nation-states across the world than across a handful of years as inmainstream during the 20th century. contemporary research. In contrast to long we That empire building and nation-state forma cycles theory, however, do not conceive of as an nor as a tion are major driving forces of war might not the globe integrated system, sin as a in unit of but rather as an arena come surprise to scholars well versed gle observation, world history or those familiar with the political for the discontinuous diffusion of institutional development of a particular region. It represents, forms. however, a new insight for the highly specialized Second, the standard units of analysis in quan literature on wars that has emerged over the past titative political science are existing independ several decades. Furthermore, considerable ent states, which are treated as continuous and once enter methodological obstacles need to be overcome for comparatively stable entities they over this hypothesis to be evaluated in quantitative the international community of states. This terms. To that end, we created a new data set of looks the fact that their institutional shape and wars from 1816 to 2001 that identifies conflicts territorial extension may change dramatically in all of theworld's territories, including most pre over time, not least as a consequence of war.2 colonial and all colonial lands. 2 For a general discussion of the problems associ with the of constant units?when 1A partial exception is Randall Collins's theory of ated assumption geopolitics (see summary inCollins 1995). they may de facto merge or split?see Abbott (1998). FROM EMPIRETO NATION-STATE 869 Tsarist Russia of 1846, for example, is con state, and thus are most likely to break out when to same unit as the Soviet Union ceived be the these institutional principles are contested.