Why History Matters

Blogging has fallen off a bit of late because the new semester has begun and class preparation demands my time.  Indeed, it demands my time in ways I cannot anticipate; and so, the beginnings of semesters are especially disorienting for me.  I have to adjust to the particular demands of time my new classes bring (the one at 8:30 AM is a bit tricky because I have to be ready the night before...).  And I have to get used to the new spatial necessities as well: being in certain rooms at certain points on campus at certain times....all of this takes a week to sort out.  I eventually internalize the physical routine of a semester, my body automatically moves across campus to where it has to be, but during the first week I am more conscious and uncertain of everything...

I am doing, as I often do, two rather different classes: ancient Chinese thought and contemporary East Asian international politics.  Happily, the first week has the greatest cross over between the two subjects: I always begin my East Asian international politics class with some historical considerations, and this year I added a chapter from Victoria Hui's excellent book, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe.  She delves into the international politics of the Warring States period (understanding the various states then in China as an international system of sorts), and that is the period of time when most of the texts in my ancient Chinese thought class emerged.  It's Warring States week...

One of my students in the East Asian IR class, however, did not see the reason for going that far back.  Did we really need to start with the Warring States, or even the tributary system, to understand post-cold war East Asia?

So, tomorrow I will start of my class with some thoughts on the importance of history for contemporary understanding.   Here are some of those thoughts.

There are at least three things that history can add to our contemporary thinking about international politics:

1.  The system.  Certain strains of international relations theory, especially structural realism, focus not on individual states and their histories and internal political dynamics but, rather, concentrate on the systemic qualities that a collection of states might have.  For example, while individual states may claim sovereignty, a system of sovereign states has the quality of anarchy (i.e. no sovereign of sovereigns).  Anarchy is a systemic characteristic, and it shapes the way that states relate to one another.  Now, as is obvious from this example, structural realists theories tend to be Euro-centric, they generalize from conditions that obtained in early modern Europe (i.e. a particular notion and practice of sovereignty).  What deeper historical consideration can give us is a broader view, a reminder that at other times and in other places other practices of political authority produced different sorts of interstate behavior.  Most notably, China's tributary system was a long-standing system of international relations that was not founded on early modern notions of sovereignty and it produced a rather different pattern of relations among separate and independent states.  Victoria Hui also argues that the Warring States period, which had an international politics similar to a European balance of power system, produced an outcome different than the European system has produced (i.e. the universal domination of one particular state, Qin).   The bottom line: history shows us that the assumptions underlying systemic and structural theories of international politics are contingent and limited.  We should not assume that they will apply to all places and all times, perhaps, given the complications of globalization, not even our own anymore.

2.  National Power.  Structural realists also tend to focus on the military capabilities of states, or, to be more precise, the distribution of military capabilities across the system of states.  What matters is how many "Great Powers" exist: one (unipolar), two (bipolar), or many (multipolar).  Economic power is relevant, to realists, mainly as it supports military power.  And even among those realists who try to integrate a fuller consideration of economic power into their theorizing, there is a tendency to discount internal political dynamics of individual states, not to mention cultural and social dynamics.  Or, as realist John Mearsheimer puts it:

...realists believe that the behavior of great powers is influenced mainly by their external environment, not by their internal characteristics. The structure of the international system, which all states must deal with, largely shapes their foreign policies. Realists tend not to draw sharp distinctions between "good" and "bad" states, because all great powers act according to the same logic regardless of their culture, political system, or who runs the government. It is therefore difficult to discriminate among states, save for differences in relative power. In essence, great powers are like billiard balls that vary only in size.

There are various theoretical critiques of realism, but I want to emphasize here that a comparative historical perspective would be one way to push back against this realist oversimplification.  That is what Hui does.  She argues that in order to understand how Qin broke out of the constraints of the Warring States balance of power system, we must factor in the internal political and economic reforms it undertook (associated most famously with Shang Yang) for over a hundred years before its ultimate success.  The internal transformations of state capacity and economic production were absolutely critical to the international politics of that time.  I would argue that much the same can be said for Meiji Japan as well as contemporary China: domestic political-economic transformation is fundamental to national power.

3.  National Identity.  Past international experiences figure centrally in contemporary national identities, not only in East Asia but just about everywhere.  We cannot appreciate the anger of the fen qin - the enraged Chinese youth who rallied around the flag during last year's Olympic torch relay - if we do not understand the historical narrative of the "hundred years of humiliation" (scroll down to the subhead "a century of humiliation").   PRC national identity is now founded upon a palpable sense of resentment arising from China's fall to Western imperialism in the 19th century.  It is clearly a case of what Faulkner meant when he wrote: "the past is not dead.  In fact, it's not even past."  Similarly, the historical memory of World War II Japanese atrocities is very much an element in contemporary East Asia international politics.  And the Warring States might figure in this manner as well.  As Chinese power grows, if resentment gives rise to forcefulness, the image of a strong and aggressive Qin could inspire a more militate Chinese identity, as it seems to do for the small number of "New Legalists" out there (I can no longer link directly to their web site because it is identified as a "attack site" by my virus filter).   When people start invoking Legalism as a model for a contemporary nationalism, we would do well to have an understanding of Warring States history.

That's why history matters.

Comments

[Jonathan Dresner]

all great powers act according to the same logic regardless of their culture, political system, or who runs the government.

I don't think your counterexamples are all that effective: Mearsheimer would probably argue that the backstory you're relying on is only important insofar as it changes their relative power. The realists aren't arguing that internal history is irrelevant to state power, but to their external use of that power.

It's the reason why the US and USSR both developed empires and enforced them with military might and economic coercion; it's the reason why Japan, Italy and Germany developed similar expansionist policies in the early 20c. At least that's the story the "realists" tell.

I'm not a realist, mind you. I'm a starry-eyed cynic.

[Jonathan Dresner]

I was thinking about it some more, and the best counter-example I can think of would be post-war Japan: though economically, there's no reason why it couldn't be a regional power, even a world-class one. Their military is one of the best equipped and best funded in the world. But their Constitution, and public opinion, has kept their politicians from actually acting in anything like a realist fashion. So far, anyway.

[Sam Crane]

Yes, postwar Japan gives realists fits. But I would also stand by the other counterexamples I give. Hui engages realist theories directly and does a great job in illustrating how Qin, especially the internal political-administrative reforms (e.g. creating xian [counties]), requires that we move deeper than structural realists do, if we are to understand dynamics of national power that can have international effects of historic import. And I think that is a story similar to Meiji Japan. This may seem obvious, but structural realists really do deflect attention away from internal political-economic factors when they tell us to look at states as "billiard balls."

[casey kochmer]

solid post

and yes I agree whole heartedly with the entire post. excellent

As mark Twain once said History never repeats it rhymes...

Sadly I suspect our times rhyme with the Warring States more than I would wish...

But one difference is due to accelerated nature of communication and ability to shift resources, I think our own times will see a much faster pulling together of power.

But here is a question for you Sam... When did our own warring states time period begin? Are we in this since Queen Victoria for instance when the sun never set on the English empire, did it begin with WWI and WWII did it begin when Eisenhower declare the industrial - military complex to be feared... did it begin after the civil war when the constitution changed allowing coporations to create a form of citizenship that we are still today trying to come to grips with? Perhaps we are already 150 years into our own warring states period.

SO instead of the families Zhi , Wei, Zhao , Han (or clans etc) we have Exxon, Citi Bank and others likewise in an economic war they are consolidating power right now.

I mean do we have a warring states period within a warring states period... As nations squabble, the inner war of corporate power continues to consolidate

SO many ways to spin this and until its after and done and historians sort it out we wont know which way this all rhymes with history, and they will look back and ask.. how could they not know?

while we in the now who did suspect, walked away to let to happen since "people are people" and the politics like rain falls

anyways I ramble since in my mind its all poetry of human nature and i prefer to stay next to my water fall in the back yard as it rhymes on out.