The Exclusions of Civilization

Indigenous Peoples in the Story of International Society

Mark Pearcey

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137528612
• eBook ISBN: 9781137528629
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book builds upon an inter-disciplinary body of literature to detail the centrality of European colonialism and imperialism in the constitution of modern international relations. A critical historical analysis that challenges conventional assumptions about the evolution and expansion of international society, it addresses the interconnections between the European and non-European sides of that history. Pearcey argues that features of European expansion were guided by a discourse on civilization, one that subsumed the uncivilized Other within the boundaries of the civilized Self. Doing so, civilization enabled a process of "exclusion by inclusion", whereby many of the world's indigenous peoples were gradually excluded from the "international" by being subsumed within the "domestic." Challenging conventional assumptions about the evolution and expansion of international society, especially those of the English School, this book contributes to central debates in International Relations theory.

© The Author(s) 2016

Mark PearceyThe Exclusions of CivilizationThe Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought10.1057/978-1-137-52862-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Mark Pearcey¹

(1)

Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

End Abstract

The concept of civilization is deceptively complex. While we use it in our everyday lives without much hesitation, the fact remains that it has long been employed as a discursive tool to delineate an inside from an outside, that is, between the civilized and uncivilized worlds. Whether it came in the form of white man’s burden, the mission civilisatrice, or manifest destiny, discourses on civilization have played a central role in defining the boundaries between Self and Other. For others, civilization refers more specifically to a cultural entity. Perhaps the best example of this is Samuel P. Huntington’s now famous thesis, outlined in “The Clash of Civilizations?” which was premised on the idea that civilizations, plural, would define the trajectory of conflict in the post–Cold War era along cultural lines—a departure from the more ideological and economic lines of conflict that characterized decades past. For Huntington, a civilization “is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people.” ¹ Huntington further nuanced his definition by noting “levels of identity” within civilizations, as well as the associated challenge of neatly demarcating one civilization from another. ² And, on that basis, he proceeded to describe a state of affairs in which the Western world would have to contest with a number of rising civilizations in the post–Cold War period, in particular, “several Islamic-Confucian states.” ³ As others have argued, however, that line of argumentation could be perceived as perpetuating an imperial discourse on civilization, rooted in problematic assumptions about Western civilization, and the uncivilized peoples beyond it. Citing Huntington’s wider body of work, for example, Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Blaney suggest that his is an approach that results in an inversion of violence; specifically, “the violence of international relations against an external other is simultaneously turned inward against the ungovernable other within.” ⁴ Speaking to the Self’s relationship to the “other within,” Inayatullah and Blaney’s point raises interesting questions about the way civilization is defined and deployed in international relations, as well as its consequences for theory and practice (not least, their concern with the discipline’s sidestepping of cultural difference). In the context of this book, for example, it provokes thought on the relationship between inclusion and exclusion, and how inclusions and exclusions have been manifested through a European discourse on civilization. Answers to these sorts of questions, however, are something of a moving target, as the historical meaning of civilization has varied from one society to the next. For example, the Chinese, Greeks, and Ottomans all adopted discourses on civilization that varied in their specific content: the Chinese with their Emperor, the Greeks with their “language and culture,” and the Ottomans with Islam. ⁵ But with that said, the discursive purposes of civilization have operated in a fairly consistent way across those that employ it as a discourse, that is, as a structuring device that can subsume and exclude the Other by way of its inclusion within the Self. ⁶

From a disciplinary point of view, it is disappointing to find that this function of civilization is largely missing from mainstream international relations theories. Where the English School is concerned, for example, it has traditionally fixed its focus on the specific content of a European discourse on civilization in defining membership in the society of states through a standard of civilization. That is in large part due to the fact that the orthodox account of international society’s evolution and expansion frames it as one of inclusion; in particular, a story that involves the expansion and transformation of a once European international society into a global one, culminating with the rapid entry of non-Western states in the mid-twentieth century with their adoption of European institutions (of note, my usage of the term ‘orthodox’ echoes others who have described a similar expansion story within the English School, such as Buzan and Little, and Carsten-Andreas Schulz, the latter who also refers to an “orthodox account” epitomized by The Expansion of International Society). ⁷ What that story misses is the more complicated interrelationship between inclusion and exclusion. Despite his critical view of the legal standard of civilization, for example, Gerrit W. Gong’s skillful analysis was fundamentally concerned with the role of the standard of civilization in defining membership in the society of states. What is not sufficiently addressed is how the gradual inclusion of non-Western countries foreclosed the possibility of them exercising alternative forms of sociopolitical existence. That is not to say that Gong’s analysis ignored the exclusionary dimensions of the standard of civilization—far from it—his analysis is deeply concerned with the cultural hierarchies implicit in the standard of civilization’s content (such as the role of the standard in eroding the sovereignty of non-Western societies until their inclusion within the society of states). But, the exclusionary aspects of the standard of civilization did not end with the entry of non-Western countries into the society of states; rather, it facilitated and institutionalized the exclusion of non-Western forms of sociopolitical organization from international society.

In effect, the evolution and expansion of international society enabled a process of ‘exclusion by inclusion.’ Although this turn of phrase is not often used in the international relations literature, the idea itself is not new, as a critical body of literature has increasingly concerned itself with the complex relationship between insider and outsider relations (including the exclusionary dynamics of inclusion). ⁸ Building on this body of literature, the central claim in this book is that the story of international society was underwritten by a European discourse on civilization that subsumed indigenous peoples within its expanding boundaries, resulting in the exclusion of indigenous peoples from the ‘international.’

That history of the colonial encounter—including the subsequent evolution of indigenous-state relations—provokes important questions about issues at the cutting edge of English School theory, such as the relationship between international and world society (broadly understood here as the relationship between state and non-state societies in the global space, and discussed in Chap. 2), and the colonial history of the former’s evolution and expansion. With a view to generating new insights and fresh thinking on those issues, I ask two interrelated and primary research questions: How did European colonialism and imperialism shape contemporary relations between state and non-state societies, in particular, those between states and indigenous peoples? ⁹ And, what does that tell us about the theory and practice of international relations? While a wave of critical and second-generation English School scholarship has begun to make important headway on these matters, I begin from the premise that the English School has much more to say on the evolution and expansion of international society, especially from a critical perspective. As such, I place the English School in dialogue with postcolonial theory in a way that conceptualizes their core concepts, themes, and interests (especially on the subject of international society’s evolution and expansion), as complementary elements in the telling of what Gurminder K. Bhambra and Sanjay Subrahmanyam have respectively referred to as a “connected history.” ¹⁰

Through that dialogue, I undertake a critical analysis of the evolution and expansion of international society, with a specific focus on the evolution of relations between states and indigenous peoples from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present. A key moment in world history, the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas laid the foundations for the inception of modern international law and was premised on the question of legal relations between two fundamentally unlike societies, the Amerindians and the Spanish; as Antony Anghie has persuasively argued, subsequent stages of international law—as well as the institution of sovereignty—evolved from these origins and perpetuated colonial structures. ¹¹ How these stages have influenced the contemporary relations between indigenous peoples and international society from an English School perspective has, in my view, yet to be comprehensively explored (although an important exception is Paul Keal’s European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). As such, the book proceeds with an examination of the legacies of that history for the relations between indigenous peoples and international society today to generate insights into the colonial and imperial constitution of institutions that govern those relations, and the wider social content of the global space. With a view to ‘setting the table’ for this line of argumentation, this chapter proceeds through four sections. First, I explain how this book conceptualizes civilization, with a specific focus on the content of a European discourse on civilization. Second, I reflect critically on the orthodox English School’s account of the evolution and expansion of international society, as epitomized by the joint works of Hedley Bull and Adam Watson. Third, I describe the book’s empirical focus and historical timeline, that is, the historical relations between indigenous peoples and international society from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present. Fourth, the chapter concludes by sketching out its main line of argumentation and provides short chapter summaries to help guide the reader.

Civilization

In this book, my discussion of civilization is almost exclusively targeted at a European discourse on civilization that evolved over the course of Europe’s colonial and later imperial expansion. Despite a retreat from the more overt racial assumptions that were once characteristic of this discourse, its lingering assumptions about Self and Other are perpetuated through Eurocentric discourses on the theory and practice of international relations today. ¹² With that in mind, defining civilization with any specific set of criteria is difficult, even if the scope is narrowed to a European discourse. For example, while it is true that a European discourse on civilization gradually came to associate itself with the sovereign state in the nineteenth century, its origins in like-terms suggest something rather different. Citing the work of Norbert Elias, Andrew Phillips reminds us that early European conceptualizations of civility were closely associated with “discipline and self-restraint.” ¹³ And, it was this meaning that was associated with the term civilisation, in 1756, by the elder Mirabeau (Victor de Riqueti); who, in the words of Phillips, “understood civilisation to refer […] to a refinement of popular manners and internal moral sensibilities,” but “also […] to the regulation of public violence.” ¹⁴ The inscription of civility (and later civilization) with self-restraint draws attention to the fact that discourses on civilization evolve over time and have been employed for both more progressive and violent purposes. Though I do not want to diminish the variety of ways that discourses on civilization have been used, I do want to draw attention to a European discourse’s specific r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theoretical Framework
• 3. The Colonial Period
• 4. The Imperial Period
• 5. The Postcolonial Period
• 6. Conclusion
• Backmatter