A history of International Relations theory

Third edition

Torbjørn L. Knutsen

• Verlag: Manchester University Press
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781784997717
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Politics & International Relations
• Thema: Politics

This introduction to International Relations theory, now in its third edition, shows how discussions of war, wealth, peace and power stretch back well over 500 years. It shows how ancient ideas still effect the way we perceive world politics. By placing international arguments, perspectives, terms and theories in their proper historical setting, it traces the evolution of International Relations theory in context. Beginning with the emergence of the territorial state in the Middle Ages, the book follows the international ideas of sages, statesmen and scholars. It discusses early theories about the sovereign nature of the state. It demonstrates how contract philosophers like Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau paved the way for the modern analysis of international relations. It shows how Enlightenment theorists followed up with balance-of-power theory and perpetual-peace projects. It seeks to demonstrate that the contemporary science of International Relations is the outcome of a long evolution and how its core concepts and major theories have been deeply affected by international events along the way while also showing that basic ideas have remained remarkably constant over the centuries. This has been a top selling title for a number of years and this new edition is keenly awaited.

Part I

Preludes

1

Gods, sinners and preludes of International Relations theory

Where should we look for the origins of an International Relations theory tradition?¹ On the one hand are authors who claim that we should begin with World War I. This is too late. Long before World War I, a large body of literature existed which discussed issues of war, wealth, peace and power in international relations – as this book seeks to show. On the other hand are authors who argue that we should begin with the dawn of recorded history. But this is too early. No sustained connection exists between the famous discussions of Xenophon, Thucydides and other classical authors with the arguments of modern theorists.

There are many reasons why discussions about the genealogy of International Relations theory are littered with disagreements. One reason is that such discussions are clouded by an unclear idea of what ‘tradition’ means. It is therefore useful to distinguish at the outset between a ‘historical tradition’ and an ‘analytic tradition’ (Gunnell 1978; Schmidt 1998, pp. 24, 61ff). This book will emphasize the latter.

A historical tradition is commonly defined as a self-constituted pattern of conventional practice. A historical tradition of International Relations may be traced back to antiquity – to Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, Plutarch and other ancient authors who discussed the causes of war, described practices of containment and counterbalance and claimed that kings and princes will always try to divide in order to conquer and form alliances in order to defend. However, one cannot safely assume that political practices indicate the existence of political theories. It can be argued that political practice in fact preceded political theorizing, and that a historic tradition of International Relations existed long before an analytic tradition. This is the argument of David Hume (1985c, p. 337), for whom the balance of power is inherent in politics; it follows naturally from political interaction as one fencer’s parry follows another’s thrust. By this view, ancient accounts convey little more than the existence of ‘common sense and obvious reasoning’ (Hume 1985c, p. 337).

An analytic tradition refers to an inherited pattern of thought or a sustained intellectual connection through time along which scholars stipulate certain concepts, themes and texts as functionally similar. As an analytic tradition the study of International Relations can hardly be traced back more than a few centuries. Thucydides may testify to the existence of balance-of-power practices in ancient Greece, but his account does not demonstrate the existence of a sustained intellectual tradition originating in ancient times – in this case lasting some 2500 years. Indeed, Thucydides and other classics faded from Western scholarship when Greece fell to Macedon and Rome. And when Rome collapsed, they slipped out of view altogether.

Yet, it is precisely the collapse of Rome which marks the beginning of the present study. On the face of it, it seems unlikely that the beginnings of a sustained intellectual connection along International-Relations themes and concepts could emerge from the primitive, rough and turbulent era which followed the collapse of Rome. But several authors of the ‘Dark Ages’ touched on some of the broader issues of international affairs. Cassiodorus (490–583) briefly discussed issues war in his History of the Goths; Gregory of Tours (538–94) touched on issues of diplomacy in his History of the Franks; and Paul the Deacon (720–99) noted both themes in his History of the Lombards. Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) wrote about the experiences of his youth when he was Rome’s ambassador to Byzantium and negotiator with the Lombards.

This chapter will sketch the distant adumbrations of a few terms and notions that are central to International Relations theory – rudimentary concepts of states and state interactions, early notions of the value of peace and the necessity to achieve it by establishing rules for war. It will begin by briefly sketching the fall of Rome and the chaos that followed in its wake. It will then discuss the slow emergence of feudal institutions which reintroduced some order in the West. Finally it will point out that discussions about the nature of these institutions, and of the order they sustained, were steeped in religion – as is evident in the writings of Christian authors like Augustine and Gelasius and in Muslim authors like al-Shaybani. Political discussions were much enriched by the rediscovery of classical thought – especially Aristotle – which reverberate through the works of thinkers like Aquinas, Dubois and Marsiglio.

The fall and rise of the Far West

Rome had imposed unity and order upon Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East and the northern coast of Africa from about 500 BC. By the fourth century AD, the politics of the Empire was riddled by corruption and paralysis. Armies gained influence; generals fought each other; they recruited bands of barbarians to serve under them; they seated and unseated emperors. Roman cities faltered; industry and commerce decayed. Since the eastern regions of the Empire remained stronger, wealthier and more unified, Emperor Constantine moved the imperial capital to Byzantium (Constantinople) in AD 330. Soon the great Roman Empire split into a Western and an Eastern half.

In this weakened state, the Empire faced a sudden wave of great migrations (380–450). It was mortally challenged by the Goths who came from south Russia, threatened Constantinople about AD 380, tore through Greece in 396 and sacked Rome in 410. The entire Empire shook. Its western half collapsed under this added burden. The tribes which overran the old Roman provinces did not have a sturdy political organization at more than a local level. Security and order all but disappeared; the old, gigantic Empire split into local, self-sufficient, impoverished fragments. More precisely put, it split in two: into a consolidated eastern half and a fragmented western half.²

The eastern part of the Roman Empire survived the great migrations. It clung to its Roman traditions under the onslaught of the barbarians. From its splendid capital in Byzantium, the East Roman Empire managed to ensure the traditional unity of Orthodox religion and authoritarian politics. It secured the survival of the empire partly by repelling the barbarian onslaught by armed force, and partly by deflecting them by diplomacy – in 489, for example, Emperor Zeno gave Theodoric, the leader of the Ostrogoths, permission to conquer Italy³ and rule in the emperor’s name. Byzantium remained the major European city. But the Byzantine Empire closed itself defensively off from the rest of the world, and took no leadership in European events.

It is the western part of the Roman Empire that will most concern us here. It unravelled under the impact of the great migrations. Communications ground to a halt. Production and trade choked. Two centuries afterwards, the area had unravelled into a great jumble of tribes, military raiders, villages, manors, monasteries and trading towns. Kingdoms rose under exceptionally strong rulers, but fell apart again under weaker ones.

The early Church; the early Empire

Various institutions emerged during these centuries to provide some measure of unity and order on the Far West. The most important of these was the Church. It maintained, against all odds, the rudiments of a common Western identity through the Dark Ages. It kept the Christian religion alive; it conserved the remnants of the Roman civilization; it provided a reservoir of literacy. It also spread the light of religion, learning and literacy to the north-western peripheries.

The Church became an important force partly because it offered the only ordering structure of central administration in these chaotic times, and partly because conversions of more barbarians contributed to its growing might. Such conversions were actively promoted by missionaries and were often sponsored by the pope. They extended Catholic Christendom northwards and steeped the Far West in a common culture. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century and the Germans in the eighth were important milestones in medieval history. The Catholic religion and the Latin language provided, together with the memories of Roman law and various remnants of imperial institutions, some measure of cultural unity to the fragmented Continent.

Another important force for unity was the German and Frankish kingdoms which rose – often with support from the pope – and fell during the early Middle Ages. One of these was established by Clovis (466–511).⁴ Another by Carolus Magnus or Charlemagne (768–814). Both were supported by the Church. Charlemagne was even crowned emperor of the West by the pope in 800. He became so powerful in the end that he became a competitor to the pope and prepared the grounds for a secular conflict between pope and emperor concerning power and authority over vast, Western territories. However, the Carolingian Empire (like the Merovingian Empire before it) did not long survive its founder. It disintegrated in all but name soon after Charlemagne’s death.

The demise of the Carolingian Empire was quickened by new waves of destructive migrations. Magyar, Viking and Arab assaults threatened to bring chaos to the Far West in the eighth and ninth centuries – as the Goths had done half a millennium earlier. But the Carolingian Empire lacked a strong imperial centre. Although Charlemagne had developed a formidable cavalry force, it was slow, cumbersome and ineffective when faced by warriors who emphasized swiftness – like the Magyars on their light steppe ponies or the Vikings who harassed the Carolingian coasts in the their fast ships.

The recovery of the West

Magyar tribes emerged from the Hungarians plains and attacked northern Italy and Germany. Vikings descended upon the coasts and rivers of the British Isles and the Continent’s Atlantic rim. Saracens attacked the Mediterranean coasts of Italy and France. Arab armies, flying the flag of the new religion of Islam, conquered all of Iberia during the first half of the eighth century and launched incursions into the heart of the Rhône valley. These onslaughts destroyed the order which Charlemagne had imposed upon the Far West. But in some places the onslaughts also spurred constructive actions which stimulated the growth of military tactics and organization.

The most consequential of these developments concerned the evolution of knightly cavalry tactics. These had evolved in the Carolingian Empire. But since it was immensely expensive to equip armoured knights, they were for a long time considered too costly to maintain. However, frequent Viking and Magyar attacks in the ninth century made some Frankish regions realize that it was better to make heavy, regular payments to local knights who remained in residence and on call than to periodically be exposed to devastating barbarian raids. Counts and other administrators enfeoffed knights who promised military service in return for rights to collect income from one or more villages. In one sense, then, these barbarian invasions triggered a reaction which in some places produced stable order on the local level. The origins of feudal society, in short, lie with the heavy cavalry which evolved within the Carolingian Empire.

The evolution of cavalry – which amounted to a military revolution in its day – produced the trunk of the feudal order: a supreme class of specialized warriors (‘vassals’) who received large land grants (‘fiefs’) in exchange for armed service. When the Carolingian Empire collapsed, the warrior class remained a distinguishing feature of the post-imperial order. But without the Empire to contain it, it was not harnessed by any clear political purpose. Legally, its members were liegemen or vassals of kings (of whom Charlemagne had been the greatest). But in practice they could ignore royal orders; the new monarchs had neither the fiscal base nor the military power to enforce their claims. Europe thus fell under the rule of armoured lords who assumed authority to govern all those who lived on their fiefdom. They administered justice, collected taxes and agricultural produce, claimed labour service and military service from the residents. And in the process they evolved from a military elite to a social elite. Its members called themselves nobiles in the Roman fashion and appropriated various late imperial titles such as comes (count) and dux (duke).

It may be argued, as a crude simplification, that early feudal society was an elaborate supply system which ensured that mounted knights were equipped and maintained. Mounted warfare was specialized, costly and exclusive and gave feudal society its armorial bearing and its knightly code of chivalry. However, even at the height of their power, a military aristocrat could never do precisely as he liked. He inhabited a ‘heteronomous’ political framework. His own authority was circumscribed by that of others. His freedom of action was limited by a web of allegiances and obligations.

The word ‘feudal’ is derived from feudum (‘fief ’) which in essence was land which a lord bestowed upon his vassal by investiture in return for services. This etymology suggests a crucial point: that the entire feudal structure rested on entitlement to land. When this is said, another crucial point must be added: that a fief was not simply defined by drawing clear ‘boundaries’ around it and giving it as ‘property’ to an individual owner. No, a fief was an amalgam of conditional property and private authority – property was conditional in that it carried with it explicit social obligations which limited a lord’s freedom of action; authority was private in that the rights of jurisdiction over the inhabitants of a fiefdom resided personally in its ruler. The system was rendered more complicated still by the prevailing concept of usufructure which meant that different lords could have different titles to the same landed property. As a result, the medieval system of rule reflected a patchwork of overlapping and incomplete rights of government (Strayer 1970); a lattice-like web in which ‘different juridical instances were geographically interwoven and stratified, and plural allegiances, asymmetrical suzerainties and anomalous enclaves abounded’ (Anderson 1979, pp. 37f). Medieval politics was a heteronomous system in which even the highest lord found himself circumscribed. His actions were restricted by other high lords – by popes (who were able to modify, if not control, the behaviour of clerics and noblemen) or by monarchs (like those which developed in England, France, Germany and the Iberian Peninsula before 1000)⁵. He was limited by towns and structures of trade which gradually revived at the turn of the millennium and stimulated the rise of walled cities and powerful city-states in Italy, the Rhineland and the Low Countries.

States existed, but they did not reign supreme. Medieval Europe was not really a state system; it was a shifting kaleidoscope of political arrangements among monarchs, nobles, clerics and towns (Spruyt 1994).

Figure 1.1 Islam, Byzantium and the Far West, c. 1025

The three medieval civilizations

By AD 950 three distinct civilizations existed in the Western world, confronting each other around the Mediterranean: the Byzantine, the Arabic and the ‘barbarian’ civilizations.

Byzantium

The first civilization of the High Middle Ages was the Byzantine Empire. It was contained within the Eastern Roman Empire which had survived the onslaught of the Great Migrations. It included Asia Minor, the Balkan peninsula and scattered parts of Italy. Byzantium was Christian in religion and Greek in language and culture. Geographically, it guarded the Straits of the Bosporus; spiritually, it guarded the Graeco-Roman tradition in its orthodox, Christian version. Commerce and navigation were continued on much the same level as in ancient times. Byzantine scholarship was not as creative and flexible as in the classical age, but it was still an advanced civilization. For most Christians, the Byzantine emperor rep...