Systemic Instability and the Emergence of Border Disputes

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Scott F Abramson ◽  
David B. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
Global System ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
European System ◽  
Timing Pattern ◽  
Territorial Claims

Abstract Although evidence shows that territorial disputes fundamentally shape relations among states, we know surprisingly little about when territorial claims are made. We argue that revisionist states have incentives to make territorial claims when the great powers that manage the system are in crisis. We identify five main sources of systemic instability and develop measures of each of them, demonstrating that the majority of territorial claims in Europe are drawn at times when regional great powers are embroiled in crisis, for example, 1848 or 1870 during the nineteenth century. The claims that emerge at these times are not necessarily among states involved in the crises that generated turmoil (e.g., Prussia and France in 1870). We use a newly developed spatial measure of historical boundary precedents in Europe from 1650 to 1790 to demonstrate that the effect of this known spatial correlate of where claims are drawn matters only when the European system is in crisis. We further demonstrate that this claim-timing pattern is general to the global system of states. In the appendix we corroborate our explanation of our findings with a detailed case study of the territorial claims that led to the contemporary Italian state's formation.

scholarly journals VIRTUE LANGUAGE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ORIENTALISM: A CASE STUDY IN HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 689-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
HERMAN PAUL
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Historical Epistemology ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Thought Pattern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dependency Relations

Historical epistemology is a form of intellectual history focused on “the history of categories that structure our thought, pattern our arguments and proofs, and certify our standards for explanation” (Lorraine Daston). Under this umbrella, historians have been studying the changing meanings of “objectivity,” “impartiality,” “curiosity,” and other virtues believed to be conducive to good scholarship. While endorsing this historicization of virtues and their corresponding vices, the present article argues that the meaning and relative importance of these virtues and vices can only be determined if their mutual dependencies are taken into account. Drawing on a detailed case study—a controversy that erupted among nineteenth-century orientalists over the publication of R. P. A. Dozy'sDe Israëlieten te Mekka(The Israelites in Mecca) (1864)—the paper shows that nineteenth-century orientalists were careful to examine (1) the degree to which Dozy practiced the virtues they considered most important, (2) the extent to which these virtues were kept in balance by other ones, (3) the extent to which these virtues were balanced by other scholars’ virtues, and (4) the extent to which they were expected to be balanced by future scholars’ work. Consequently, this article argues that historical epistemology might want to abandon its single-virtue focus in order to allow balances, hierarchies, and other dependency relations between virtues and vices to move to the center of attention.

‘HUNTERS-WITH-SHEEP’: THE |XAM BUSHMEN OF SOUTH AFRICA BETWEEN PASTORALISM AND FORAGING

Africa ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 521-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark McGranaghan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
Domesticated Animals ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
Northern Cape

ABSTRACTThe ability of hunting and gathering populations to adopt herding forms of subsistence constitutes the crux of a long-standing debate in southern African archaeological and anthropological scholarship concerning the spread of livestock to the subcontinent. This article takes as a detailed case study the subsistence strategies of the nineteenth-century ǀXam Bushmen of the Northern Cape (South Africa), extracted from a transcription of the entirety of the Bleek–Lloyd Archive. It focuses on ǀXam characterization of and relationships with the various domesticated species that shared their Karoo landscape, and asks whether these relationships differ markedly from their conceptions of non-domesticated animals. Turning to the wider context of hunter-gatherer engagements with domesticates, the article concludes by proposing that, for the ǀXam, domesticated fauna were part of a spectrum of differentiated resources, and did not entail an interaction with a wholly alien suite of new demands.

Realpolitik or Concert Diplomacy: The Debate over Austrian Foreign Policy in the 1860's

1981 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 84-97
Author(s):  
Richard B. Elrod
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Third ◽  
European System ◽  
Otto Von Bismarck ◽  
European Diplomacy ◽  
European Family

The third quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed momentous changes in the style of European diplomacy and statecraft. The generation of Klemens von Metternich, Alexander I, and Viscount Castlereagh gave way to that of Louis Napoleon, Viscount Palmerston, Camillo Benso di Cavour, and Otto von Bismarck. The previous conservative consensus among the great powers that had feared war and revolution and valued harmony, peace, and stability succumbed to other ideas and attitudes that accentuated the diversity and the rivalry of the European family of states. The precepts of Concert diplomacy that had formerly regulated relations between the powers were no longer obeyed or respected. Between 1854 and 1871 Europe experienced five wars involving great powers; from 1815 to 1854 there had been only two. Obviously the old european system that had discouraged direct challenges and confrontations was crumbling.

Balancing on Land and at Sea: Do States Ally against the Leading Global Power?

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack S. Levy ◽  
William R. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Global System ◽  
Power Theory ◽  
Global Power ◽  
European System ◽  
The Cold War

Scholars often interpret balance of power theory to imply that great powers almost always balance against the leading power in the system, and they conclude that the absence of a counterbalancing coalition against the historically unprecedented power of the United States after the end of the Cold War is a puzzle for balance of power theory. They are wrong on both counts. Balance of power theory is not universally applicable. Its core propositions about balancing strategies and the absence of sustained hegemonies apply to the European system and perhaps to some other autonomous continental systems but not to the global maritime system. Sea powers are more interested in access to markets than in territorial aggrandizement against other great powers. Consequently, patterns of coalition formation have been different in the European system and in the global maritime system during the last five centuries. An empirical analysis demonstrates that counterhegemonic balancing is frequent in Europe but much less frequent in the global system. Higher concentrations of power in the global system lead to fewer and smaller rather than more frequent and larger balancing coalitions, as well as to more frequent and larger alliances with the leading sea power than against it.

Comparative Grand Strategy

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Global System ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Convergence And Divergence

The study of grand strategy has historically been confined to a few great powers—preponderantly, the United States, China, and Russia. In contrast, this volume introduces readers to the novel field of “comparative grand strategy.” Its co-editors offer a framework that expands the analysis beyond a traditional rationalist approach to incorporate significant cultural factors that influence strategists as they prioritize threats and opportunities in the global system. This framework then combines these factors with domestic political influences often understated or overlooked in the international relations literature. It considers both how grand strategy is actually formulated and the varied instruments used to implement it. Applying this framework, the volume’s remaining contributors then examine how grand strategy is conceived, formulated, and implemented by ten states. These consist of the United Nations G5 members and five other states “pivotal” to global or regional economic development and security. This group is composed of Brazil and India—two regional powers operating in very different security environments—and Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, who confront each other in a truly existential conflict. Departing from a state-based analysis, an eleventh case study examines the European Union—an organization that lacks many of the trappings of a conventional state but which is able to call upon more resources than most. The volume’s concluding chapter points to both the theoretical and empirical areas of convergence and divergence highlighted by these chapters, and the prospective questions for future analysis in the emergent field of comparative grand strategy.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

More than a “Petty Chief”: Understanding Fijian Chiefship through the Entrance Ceremony and Local History

1969 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Hao-Li Lin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Local History

The diverse nature of Fiji’s chiefship and how its supremacy was strengthened by colonialism have already been closely examined. However, few studies have focused on village chiefs, who have limited authority and are at the lower end of regional chiefly hierarchies. Using both historical and ethnographic materials from a Fijian village, I argue here that its “petty chief,” as the role was called by nineteenth-century Westerners, is a powerful linkage to a past of stability represented by the chiefly title. This is particularly important for communities that have experienced historical turbulence. In this case study, it was mainly the measles crisis that caused population decline. The linkage is materialised by a standardised entrance ceremony in which the chiefly title is routinely acknowledged by foreign visitors through offerings (i-sevusevu) and thus elevated to a symbol that holds the community together. I also argue that the entrance ceremony that we observe today may have been prompted by Western contact. Through the analysis of the ceremony and local history, this study shows that the power of “petty chiefs” should be understood not solely by the structure of hierarchy, but also by their significance to historically turbulent communities.

Case Study #3: When I Was a Lad & Modern Major-General by William S. Gilbert

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Kenneth Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Government Official ◽  
Political Satire ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Generalist Education ◽  
Arthur Sullivan ◽  
Major General

“When I Was a Lad” is from H.M.S. Pinafore, a nineteenth century British operetta by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. It’s sung by a man who has become “the ruler of the Queen’s Navy.” Through the song, he tells about his climb to success. “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” is from Pirates of Penzance. Sung by the major-general, it extols his many qualifications and hints at his ambition.Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas often involved political satire, and this is the case with both of these songs. Both songs describe the talents, experience, qualifications of a government official. Both songs poke fun of officials and their self-importance. Both songs point to the benefit of having a broad, generalist education for higher-level positions. And both songs make the point that public officials need appropriate qualifications and experience. But the characters singing these songs display many differences as well, and very different outlooks on how to succeed. As you follow the lyrics, what do you make of the two gentlemen? Who would you want to work for? Who would you want working for you?

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