Australasian Political Studies Association Conference 2003
Hosted by the School of Government
University of Tasmania

International Politics Stream

European international society and non-European
socialisation in the age of imperialism

Shogo Suzuki
Department of International Relations
Australian National University
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies

Abstract:

One of the central themes of English School treatments of the expansion of International Society has been the progressive adoption of cooperative institutions, namely international law and diplomacy. While this position has some historical resonance, it does not provide an adequate understanding of other facets of this complex process of integration. As Gerrit Gong has shown, membership into European international society required non-European polities to reproduce the trappings of modern European statehood. While Gong primarily focuses upon the consolidation of fluid territorial boundaries and the centralisation of political institutions, his analysis largely overlooks a more fundamental component of the expansion of international society; the role of imperialism.

Since the ‘civilized’ great powers of International Society were also imperialist powers, it seems plausible to suggest that at least some non-European polities also attempted to reinvent themselves as imperial powers, rather than simply adopting the procedural and institutional components of the prevailing international order. In this paper I explore the complex dynamic between the identities required for full membership into European international society in the late-nineteenth century and how non-European states attempted (or did not attempt) to reconfigure their own identities to meet these standards. By unpacking some of the limitations of an English School approach, it hopes to challenge the Eurocentric lens that often informs discussions of this period.