Samenvatting HIR1
History before 1900 (part 1, reader + chapter 1)
1. History and politics
Without an historical narrative:
1. The eurocrises and its policies couldn´t be explained.
2. BRIC-countries (Brasil, Russia, India and China)
- One story: multinational cooperations for instance
- Another story: colonalisation; the (un)making of the West
To understand a current event, we have to understand the historical background.
Questions like: „who‟s interests are there and why?‟
On the other hand:
One could argue that world politics shows recurrent patterns and law-like regularities.
Can these regularities and laws be understood and formed in mathematical formula?
The predominant opinion now is: yes! Science is mathematics and mathematics inevitably treats history as a
storehouse of data.
2. History of the state
It is evident that our political vocabulary was built with the state in mind.
What is a state?
- effective government - territory (with borders)
- population
States need to be recognized by a state to be a state. (doesn‟t answer the question)
* Picture Europe 100 years ago (around 1900): states or empires?
What‟s the difference between democracies (chosen/elected) and empires (bloodlines e.g.)?
With empires can we talk about sovereignty/foreign policies?
Sovereignty has to do with private possession Roman Empire
* Picture Europe in 1814:
Vocabulary states etc. didn‟t yet exist.
The political vocabulary was still dominated by the church.
Dicision political vocabulary church-no church: Renaissance
Terms we now see as like they were always there /Presupposed when we talk about a modern state:
Autonomous political vocabulary
A specific organization of economic practices
The existence of the mass media
And what about a common national identity? (also linked to states and therefore to politics)
And what about “other histories”? (e.g. pirates, cities > included or excluded?
-Included! They are linked to the state in some way.
3. The politics of history
History is also a narrative that gives meaning to individual events.
Important seminar questions
- Which countries were recognized as a „Great Power‟ in post-Napoleonic interstate relations:
1. United Kingdom 3. Germany 5. Russia
2. France 4. Austria-Hungary
Italy was a „courtesy‟ Great Power, why?
They supported Germany, so Germany (with unification) supported them. (19th century)
Position of Italy > mediterrenean area
- The rise of nationalism and the concept of self determination constituted a threat to Austria-Hungary and Russia
because there were spoken many different languages.
, 1867-1918: There was one emperor, but after the end of the First World War this ends and Austria-
Hungary becomes separate nations.
- Does power equal military capacity? No!
e.g. - Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan America couldn‟t win it there, guerillian warfare
- This guerillian warfare is also why it took Britain (Great Power) three years to overcome the military
resistance during the Boer War (1899-1902). (Boers = white Africans of Dutch descent in the 20th century)
Chapter 1 Great Power rivalry and the World War (1900-17)
Introduction
Europeans lived in relative peace in the nineteenth century. The Congress of Vienna of 1814-15 founded a lasting
peace based on Great Power management of international politics and moderation in the pursuit of self-interest. This
general peace was broken by the Crimean War of 1853-56, and then by the 3 wars of Italian and German unification
between 1859 and 1871.
After the „long‟ peace of 1815-54 came that of 1871-1914.
By the end of the century, Europe dominated the globe. But stability at home permitted the impulses of the so-
called „new imperialism‟. Europe‟s commercial, intellectual and cultural influence spread.
The coming of Hitler‟s war finally extinguished the European system, and wit hit European world primacy.
The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as superpowers. Only after the USSR collapsed did Europeans begin
to reshape the political landshape without the boundaries drawn by the world wars.
The Great Powers, power politics and the states system
Only 5 European states undisputedly held Great Power status in the 20th century: Britain, France, Germany, Austria-
Hungary and Russia. Recognition of Great Power status:
At the crudest level, the term applied to those states with the greatest capacity for war.
But also the ones who were included in the inner circle of diplomacy, especially the drafting of peace treaties
and territorial adjusments.
The hard currency of power counted: size of population, territory, finance and industrial output. On this scale the 5 did
not measure up equally. Although unable to match the British, all the Great Powers assembled modern battle fleets in
the years before 1914. A look at defence spending in the decade before 1914, indicates that all 5 powers had the
financial strength to enter into an arms race.
Following unification in 1861, Italy regarded itself as a contender for GP status. The Powers treated Italy like
one in an effort to entice Rome into one alliance or another. The inexact relationship between military potential and
international status can in part be explained by the elusive nature of power. (also depends on intangible elements:
quality of political and military leadership and diplomatic skill)
Austria-Hungary = a multinational state encompassing Germans, Romanians, Italians, Slovaks, Croatians,
Czechs, Serbes, Slovenes and Poles, all united under the Habsburg monarchy.
The latter half of the nineteenth century was the rise of nationalism and national self-determination, exemplified by
German and Italian unification.
The states system: there was no common sovereignty, so states had to influence the behaviour of other states. War and
the pursuit of order through co-operation have both been constant factors of international life. The cost of general war
forced statesmen to turn to methods of achieving political goals through consensus building and mutual security rather
than war.
After 1815: a system of collective Great Power supremacy and security emerged, designed to contain
international violence and to prevent another hegemonic threat – the so called Concert of Europe.
The balance metaphor suggests a self-adjusting alliance mechanism: when any one state gains inordinate
power and drives to supremacy, the others close ranks to form a blocking coalition, thus restoring the equilibrium.
aim was peace
France was invited (despite defeat in Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars) because it needed to be in play to
let the system work. To balance the power of Germany as a Great Power.
Despite the mid-century setbacks, the system lasted because it satisfied the vital interests (security, status and
control) of the only states with the potential capacity to upset it – the Great Powers.
What had changed by 1900?
