Investigating The Origins And Evolution Of The Modern Competitive System Of States

The Research question asked is:States, Markets, Populations and International Social Movements-to what extent do their spatial inter-actions help us understand the evolution of the Competitive System of States which emerged from Europe into the modern World System?The thesis takes the form of a confrontation between Kenneth N Waltz’s structural realist theory of International Relations and long term studies of European international politics, written by a number of historians, the most prominent of whom are Charles Tilly, Paul Kennedy and William H McNeill. It should not be imagined, however, that this is a confrontation between IR Theory and purely empiricist historical narrative. The main historians whose work is considered here seek patterns within international politics over long periods of time and devise theoretical constructs to explain them. My contention is that their theoretical innovations are of profound interest to IR scholars and provide a basis on which to contemplate a major recasting of IR Theory.The thesis starts from an acknowledgement of the profound originality and importance of Kenneth N Waltz’s emphasis on State Systems as a determinant of international political behavior. We might go so far as to call this a major’discovery’in the social and political sciences. However, the extent to which State Systems are’determinant’is both more and less than Waltz suggests. First, the thesis will try to show that basic State System characteristics (eg the number of Great Power’poles’, the balance of relative capabilities between them, the form taken by Balance of Power politics) do not determine all international political outcomes, but second that these system characteristics have a profound shaping influence on the long-run conduct of domestic politics. In short, Waltz’s discovery is of defining importance not only for International Politics/International Relations, but also for the whole of political science.The most important contribution to thinking through the impact of State Systems on domestic politics derives from the work of the American historical sociologist Charles Tilly. His work on the relationship between War Making and State Making in Europe demonstrates how the modern state was to a considerable degree formed as a consequence of the exigencies of competition and warfare between competing European states. Tilly’s emphasis is on the relationship between warfare and taxation, which gave rise to processes of negotiation, conflict and coercion within European states, the first major outcome of which was the’absolutist’form of the State, defined by the successful establishment of’direct control’over taxation, the centralization of military power and the civilianization of the population.However, as Waltz’s own definition of State Capability signals to some extent, the precise processes which took place during the key period of European history referred to above (roughly from the15th to the18th century) were determined by certain absolute givens faced by different states within the territories they controlled. The thesis sets out to show, however, that the key domestic factors which Waltz includes in his definition of State Capability (Size of Territory and Population, Economic Capability, Resource Endowment, Political Stability and Competence) are highly problematic, being either over-simplified or distorted reflections of a different combination of key factors. These include, most importantly, the urban-rural balance within states, which in turn determined the most effective means by which early modern European states could achieve what Tilly calls resource extraction from its population. According to Tilly, the urban-rural balance determined: first, the internal distribution of wealth and power within the territory of a given state; second, the precise forms of bargaining and coercive activity to which the State had to resort in order to achieve an optimum tax base for funding its military needs within relation to the state system; third and ultimately, this process was a powerful determinant of the precise form of the state. Insofar as it both reformulates and at the same time complements Waltz’s discovery of the determinant influence of the State System, this explanation of the relationship between War Making and State Formation is also critical for political science generally.However, Tilly tends to suppose that European states not merely retained a civilianized population after the’absolutist’period, but also progressively civilianized their own functions. In fact, the modern phenomenon of Total War reveals a powerful counter-tendency after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which reached a climax in the two world wars in the first part of the twentieth century. We see during this period a progressive re-militarization of state populations, either as soldiers directly, or mobilized for production’behind the lines’. There is the paradox, emphasized by William H McNeill, that the diversification of civilian state activity into education, health care, social insurance and the like, is essential for competence in a context of Total War. We can thus identify an ironic association between Welfare and Warfare during this period.There are other critical factors which Waltz ignores in his definition of state capability. The most important of these is the question of the geographical location of states within competitive state systems. The most obvious manifestation of this concerns the issue of central or peripheral location of states within (the) regional state systems (of the past). Broadly (see for instance Paul Kennedy or William H McNeill), it is assumed that peripheral location is advantageous, while central location is a disadvantage. However, the study of past regional state systems is beset with difficulty regarding the question of boundaries and’externalities’. For instance, states, military forces and imperial territories located’outside’past European state systems have exercised profound influences on matters’internal’to them. A history of the early modern European state system is thus rendered more or less incomprehensible without reference, for instance, to the past role of the Islamic conquests, Byzantium, the Mongol or Ottoman empires, or to the critical role of the Mediterranean Sea as a locus of both international trade and inter-state conflict.Through their work on changes in the historic relationships between states and markets, especially international markets in key factors such as credit, arms and mercenary soldiery, some of our historians develop innovative ways of thinking about the problem of state self-sufficiency, which Waltz spent much time considering in relation to modern America in’The Theory of International Polities’. During each major period in the evolution of the European state system, the dynamic and changing relationships between states and key markets have profoundly influenced outcomes. Spatially, we might say that the problem derives from the difference between clearly demarcated state territories and the existence of key international markets in non-contiguous’archipelagos’. These international market archipelagos may include apparently minor, small states, which may thus exert apparently disproportionate leverage over the so-called Great Powers within a given epoch. For this reason, and others, it becomes apparent that it is not enough to define the characteristics of a state system, as Waltz and his followers would have it, by merely counting the’Great Power’ poles.International Social Movements exercise a further powerful influence on the behaviors of state systems, especially given that their’capture’of state power is spatially randomized with these systems, as a result of pure contingency. Once such forces acquire state power, they induce’distortions’ in inter-state behavior, such that alliances, coalitions and balance of power politics tends to be influenced by preferences based on regime type, as much as by pure and simple’national interest’. Often, this has been expressed as a dilemma for states. Most of the International Social Movements considered in the thesis-Protestantism, Republicanism, Liberalism and Socialism-can be said to display variants of a similar basic pattern of influence on inter-state behavior. Ironically, Nationalism is also considered as an International Social Movement and its diverse influences discussed.Finally, the populations of states have tended to exercise a decisive influence on inter-state competition during’arms races’, and during, or in the aftermath of, periods of protracted warfare, where their resistance to the burdens of extraordinary taxation could turn into violent insurrection or revolution. The modern phenomenon of’total war’marked a turning point.The overall direction of the thesis then is to use theoretically informed historical analysis as a critique of structural realism, while at the same time leaving Waltz’s most profound point of departure-the emphasis on the determinant role of the State System-intact. However, competing territorial states confront three further forces with different spatial dynamics-the internal needs of their populations, the non-contiguous international market archipelago and the random spatial impact of international social movements. The thesis seeks to demonstrate that all three of these factors exercise a profound influence on the conduct of International Politics between states. A purely state-centric approach to IR theory offers a much diminished model of the forces which shape international political reality.