The London School of Economics and Political Science A Genealogy of the Balance of Power Morten Skumsrud Andersen A thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, January 2016. Declaration 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 104,177 words. Statement of use of third party for editorial help I can confirm that my thesis was copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Susan Høivik. Abstract The Balance of Power is one of the foundational concepts for the academic discipline of International Relations. Most treat it as a theoretical or analytical concept – a tool that scholars use to investigate the workings of world politics. However, there is a gap in the literature on the balance of power; it is also a concept used by political practitioners and diplomats in concrete debates and disputes throughout centuries. No one has systematically investigated the concept as a ‘category of practice’, and I seek to redress this omission. I ask, how, why, and with what effects has the balance of power concept been deployed across different contexts? This is important, because the discipline needs to investigate the histories of its dominant concepts – the balance of power deserves attention as an object of analysis in its own right. I combine a genealogical reading (by what accidents of history did we end up here?) with conceptual history (how was the balance used then as a rhetorical resource in making arguments?). The result is a history of practical international thought. I trace the trajectory of the balance of power concept empirically and concretely – from its emergence in England based on a domestic republican tradition, to its elaboration at the British-founded University of Göttingen in Hanover, on to Prussia and Germany, before finally ending up in the USA with the emergence of IR as a discipline. Throughout this trajectory, the concept of the balance of power has been centrally linked to what historical actors took to be European polities and their relations. In this trajectory, ‘shifts’ in the balance of power, is governed more by how the concept itself is deployed, than any material or territorial assessment of power alone, or by any deliberate refinement of the concept. It has affected and constituted international politics and foreign policies across time, as well as our own discipline of IR. Contents Preface 001 Acknowledgements 003 Introduction 005 1 Methodologies, Ontologies, and a Genealogy of the Balance of Power Concept 031 PART I 2 The Emergence of the Balance of Power as a Concept in Early Modern Europe 063 3 Fixing the Balance: Britain, Austria, and the Utrecht Settlement 095 4 Attacking the Balance: Knowledge and Politics at the University of Göttingen 135 5 Abstractions and Reality in the Ochakov Controversy 177 PART II 6 The Balance of Power and the Congress of Europe 203 7 The End of the Congress and the Return of the Balance: Interventions and the Public Interest from Genoa to Verona 225 8 Power in the Balance: Nationalisation of the Balance of Power 245 9 Conserving the Balance of Power in Practice and Theory 277 Conclusions 303 1 Preface Once the scaffolding has been dismantled, it can be difficult to fathom certain processes important for understanding the construction of a project – also with an academic dissertation. The Preface is conventionally the place to mention them. Over the course of the past three years, this project has changed in two important ways. Firstly, I decided to start the genealogy in the mid-1600s – later than originally intended, given what seemed to be the almost routine invocation of the ‘ancient roots’ of the concept. In fact, as I came to realise, the balance of power became a concept public enough to be used in political controversies only in the mid-17th century. This proved fortunate, as the amount of historical, empirical work invested has in any case proven quite substantial and at times exhausting – again more than initially expected. The second major change concerns the problem or puzzle in focus. Because I have wanted to examine the balance of power as a concept used in historical practice, as distinct from a theoretical tool used in modern-day analytical practice within the field of International Relations, I begin by framing the research puzzle as an opposition between the balance of power as analytical statement, and the balance of power as participant practice. However, it emerged, distinguishing between these two ways of approaching the balance of power is itself an effect of the historical trajectory of the concept in use. As a result, this project also claims to have established the conditions of possibility for my framing of this puzzle in the first place. That does not invalidate the research question, but it adds a reflexive layer to the project: the discipline of IR, with the debate between ‘practice’ and ‘theory’, should be seen as yet another effect of the historical trajectory of balance-of-power rhetoric. Reflecting on my own research question and this project as I go along, as part of the discipline which is also an effect of balance-of-power rhetoric, I therefore critique myself in real time, as Daniel Levine has succinctly put it.1 1 Levine, Daniel J. 2012. Recovering International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 18. 2 That is, by exploring the practical usage of the concept, I have also explained the initial situation. At least it is my hope that T.S. Eliot’s words from Four Quartets might ring true: “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.” Oslo, December 2015 3 Acknowledgements For financial support, I thank the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, which has for many years supported and made possible a string of theses originating at independent research institutes in Norway. I thank the London School of Economics and Political Science for granting me a PhD scholarship. For comments on chapter drafts at workshops and elsewhere, I thank Tarak Barkawi, Chris Brown, George Lawson, Margot Light, James Morrison, and Peter Wilson, all of the Department of International Relations, and my fellow PhD students – in particular Scott Hamilton, Andreas Aagaard Nøhr, and Joanne Yao. My thanks also go to my employer for the past eight years, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), for support and for an outstanding research environment defined by collegiality and innovation. Here, in particular, I thank Kristin Fjæstad, Karsten Friis, Minda Holm, Susan Høivik, Francesca Refsum Jensenius, John Karlsrud, John Harald Sande Lie, Lilly P. Muller, Mateja Peters, Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud, Pernille Rieker, Niels Nagelhus Schia, Randi Solhjell, Bjørnar Sverdrup-Thygeson, Joakim Hertzberg Ulstein, and Julie Wilhelmsen, for comments and other contributions. Special thanks go to a group of friends and colleagues who have read drafts of the thesis at various stages in the process: Benjamin de Carvalho, Nina Græger, Kristin M. Haugevik, Halvard Leira, Daniel Nexon, and Ole Jacob Sending. Many other friends, colleagues and close collaborators have commented on draft chapters, been interlocutors, and provided support in various ways. Here let me mention Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Stefano Guzzini, Neil F. Ketchley, David M. McCourt, Cecilie Basberg Neumann, Lars Raaum, Håkon Lunde Saxi, Len Seabrooke, Ann Towns, and Einar Wigen. I thank my friend, colleague, and supervisor Iver B. Neumann. If I were to write my own personal genealogy, he would feature strongly in my choice of many paths taken on the academic and personal level, always to the better. 4 As for genealogy, I also wish to express thanks to my parents, for always being supportive in all respects, and to my wife Alejandra. At times, my work on this thesis threatened to become rather hegemonic in our daily lives. I thank her for bandwagoning and not balancing. Taking any of the persons above out of the equation would have affected the result negatively, and the usual disclaimers apply. 5 Introduction International Relations (IR) has generally treated the balance of power as an analytical theory moulded by scholars – but in the empirics of how this concept has actually been applied by diplomats and politicians for over 350 years there lies a hidden world of power politics that concerns far more than a stable distribution of capabilities. Taken seriously as an empirical phenomenon, the balance of power is not solely about the balance of power at all. The analytical concept has been criticised, among other things, for not providing an efficient tool for explaining international phenomena. Still, its prevalence within the discipline of IR endures. Balance of power theory as we know it has become one of the foundational, analytical theories in the discipline – not because it depicts international reality efficiently but because it, for an array of other reasons, became a central concept of political practice during the historical evolution of European international politics.