Of Once and Future Kings

TY - JOUR

T1 - Of Once and Future Kings

AU - Bottelier, Th. W.

PY - 2017/2/7

Y1 - 2017/2/7

N2 - This paper seeks to advance the so-called rising powers debate of the past fifteen years by interrogating its selective use of the past. Key to the debate are the impact of rising powers like China on the international order, and how to accommodate them. Historiography plays a crucial but unappreciated role in the debate, as scholars look to the past to make sense of the future. Especially in the United States, many compare the US now to Great Britain before 1940, the idea being that both faced the same difficulties of decline relative to rising challengers. This is the core case of power transition theory in the field of International Relations. It is also, fundamentally, weak. As I show, it relies on a ‘long chronology’ of British decline that the past quarter-century of historical scholarship on twentieth-century Britain has undermined. I instead propose a ‘short chronology’ of the transition away from Britain that emphasizes agency and contingency over structure and the longue durée. Bringing the work of historians to the rising powers debate thus indicates that the key factors to study are not grand systemic forces, but short-term politics and diplomacy.

AB - This paper seeks to advance the so-called rising powers debate of the past fifteen years by interrogating its selective use of the past. Key to the debate are the impact of rising powers like China on the international order, and how to accommodate them. Historiography plays a crucial but unappreciated role in the debate, as scholars look to the past to make sense of the future. Especially in the United States, many compare the US now to Great Britain before 1940, the idea being that both faced the same difficulties of decline relative to rising challengers. This is the core case of power transition theory in the field of International Relations. It is also, fundamentally, weak. As I show, it relies on a ‘long chronology’ of British decline that the past quarter-century of historical scholarship on twentieth-century Britain has undermined. I instead propose a ‘short chronology’ of the transition away from Britain that emphasizes agency and contingency over structure and the longue durée. Bringing the work of historians to the rising powers debate thus indicates that the key factors to study are not grand systemic forces, but short-term politics and diplomacy.

KW - Rising powers

KW - United States

KW - Great Britain

KW - Declinism

KW - History and International Relations Theory

U2 - 10.1080/07075332.2016.1274916.

DO - 10.1080/07075332.2016.1274916.

M3 - Article

SN - 0707-5332

JO - INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW

JF - INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW

ER -