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The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas

Year 2024, Volume: 21 Issue: 82, 41 - 57, 12.06.2024
https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1479184

Abstract

Over the past decades, Marxist-inspired approaches from the field of International Historical Sociology (IHS) have theorised the relationship between 16th and 17th Century European colonial expansion and the development of relations of production and economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic. In this article, we argue that such attempts – from Dependency Theory (DT), World-Systems Theory (WST), and Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) – are premised on a structuralist perspective which overextend the notion of capitalism and under examine the sphere of production, rendering divergent and distinct strategies of European colonialism a homogenous and under-historicised process. Embracing theoretical innovations from Geopolitical Marxism (GPM), we dispute this unitary logic of expansion, instead applying a radical historicist methodology to demonstrate that British and Spanish colonial strategies in the Americas (intra-imperial free trade vs. mercantilism) were shaped by nationally specific class relations (capitalism vs. feudalism/absolutism), generating unique patterns of settlement on the ground (mineral extraction vs. cash-crop production). Promoting historicism thus allows Marxist International Relations to better recognise the “making of” international order during the period of European colonial expansion from the 16th century onwards, and, in doing so, further understand its enduring legacies.

References

  • Anderson, Kevin. 2010. Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
  • Anderson, Perry. 1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London, NLB.
  • Anievas, Alexander, and Kamran Matin. 2016. Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée. Global Dialogues: Developing Non-Eurocentric IR and IPE. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield International.
  • Anievas, Alexander, and Kerem Nişancioğlu. 2015. How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism. London, Pluto Press.
  • Baschet, Jérôme. 2009. La Civilización Feudal. Europa Del Año Mil a La Colonización de América. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
  • Blackhawk, Ned. 2023. The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity. New Haven, Yale University Press.
  • Blaut, J. M. 1994. Robert Brenner In The Tunnel Of Time. Antipode 26, 4: 351–74.
  • Blaut, J. M. 2000. Eight Eurocentric Historians. New York, Guilford Publications.
  • Braudel, Fernand. 1985. The Perspective of the World: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. London, Fontana.
  • Brenner, Robert. 1976. Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Past & Present, 70: 30–75.
  • Brenner, Robert. 1982. The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism. Past & Present, 97: 16–113. Brenner, Robert. 2003. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550-1653. London, Verso.
  • Brilli, Catia, and Manuel Herrero Sánchez. 2019. Italian Merchants in the Early-Modern Spanish Monarchy: Business Relations, Identities and Political Resources. London, Routledge.
  • Butler, Jon. 2001. Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
  • Carrasco, Pedro. 1976. La Sociedad Mexicana Antes de La Conquista [Mexican Society Before the Conquest]. In Historia General de México [General History of Mexico]. Ciudad de México, El Colegio de Mexico.
  • Cervantes, Fernando. 2021. Conquistadors: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest. London, Penguin Books.
  • Comninel, George C. 2000. English Feudalism and the Origins of Capitalism. The Journal of Peasant Studies 27, 4: 1–53.
  • Dauverd, Céline. 2014. Imperial Ambition in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Genoese Merchants and the Spanish Crown. New York, Cambridge University Press.
  • De Oliveira, Felipe Antunes. 2017. A Radical Invitation for Latin America: The Legacy of Andre Gunder Frank’s “Development of Underdevelopment”. Monthly Review 69. 1: 50.
  • Dobb, Maurice. 1946. Studies in the Development of Capitalism. London, Routledge.
  • Edwards, John. 2000. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474-1520. History of Spain. Oxford, Blackwell.
  • Elliott, J. H. (John Huxtable). 1963. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716. Arnold.
  • Florescano, Enrique. 1984. The Formation and Economic Structure of the Hacienda in New Spain. In The Cambridge History of Latin America, ed. Leslie Bethell.Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 153-188.
  • Frank, André Gunder. 1969. Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution: Essays on the Development of Underdevelopment and the Immediate Enemy. New York, Monthly Review P.
  • Grosfoguel, Ramón. 2000. Developmentalism, Modernity, and Dependency Theory in Latin America. Nepantla 1, 2: 347–74.
  • Hobden, Stephen, and John M. Hobson. 2002. Historical Sociology of International Relations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Hobson, John M. 2020. Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy: Beyond the Western-Centric Frontier. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Kahle, Günther. 1979. La Encomienda Como Institución Militar En La América Hispánica Colonial [The Encomienda as a Military Institution in Colonial Spanish America]. Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de La Cultura 9, 9: 5.
  • Kamen, Henry. 2003. Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492-1763. London, Penguin.
  • Knafo, Samuel, and Benno Teschke. 2020. Political Marxism and the Rules of Reproduction of Capitalism: A Historicist Critique. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory 29, 3: 54–83.
  • Knight, Alan. 2002. Mexico: The Colonial Era. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Lacher, Hannes. 2006. Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality, and the International Relations of Modernity. Routledge/RIPE Studies in Global Political Economy 20. London, Routledge.
  • Leal, J., and M Huacuja. 2011. Economía y Sistema de Haciendas En México: La Hacienda Pulquera En El Cambio [Economy and Hacienda System in Mexico: The Pulque Hacienda in Transition]. Mexico City, Era.
  • Lockhart, James. 1969. Encomienda and Hacienda: The Evolution of the Great Estate in the Spanish Indies. The Hispanic American Historical Review 49, 3: 411–429.
  • Meiksins Wood, Ellen. 2016. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London, Verso.
  • Morton, Adam David. 2011. Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development. Critical Currents in Latin American Perspectives. Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
  • Pal, Maïa. 2020. Jurisdictional Accumulation: An Early Modern History of Law, Empires and Capital. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Parisot, James. 2019. How America Became Capitalist: Imperial Expansion and the Conquest of the West. London, Pluto Press.
  • Paul, Sweezy. 1976. A Critique in the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. In The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. London, Verso.
  • Post, Charles. 2011. The American Road to Capitalism: Studies in Class-Structure, Economic Development, and Political Conflict, 1620-1877. Historical Materialism Book Series, 28. Leiden, Brill.
  • Rosenberg, Justin. 2006. Why Is There No International Historical Sociology?. European Journal of International Relations 12, 3: 307–40.
  • Salgado, Pedro. 2021. Anti-Eurocentric Historicism: Political Marxism in a Broader Context. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, 3: 199–223.
  • Taylor, Alan. 2012. Empires. In Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction, ed. Alan Taylor. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2003. The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations. London, Verso.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2008. Marxism. In The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal. New York, Oxford University Press: 163-187
  • Teschke, Benno. 2014. IR Theory, Historical Materialism, and the False Promise of International Historical Sociology. Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies 1, 6: 1-66
  • Teschke, Benno. 2019. Chapter 5 The Social Origins of 18th Century British Grand Strategy: A Historical Sociology of the Peace of Utrecht. In The 1713 Peace of Utrecht and its Enduring Effects, ed. Alfred H.A Soons. Leiden, Brill: 120-155.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2021. Capitalism, British Grand Strategy, and the Peace Treaty of Utrecht: Towards a Historical Sociology of War- and Peace-Making in the Construction of International Order. In The Justification of War and International Order, ed. Lothar Brock and Hendrik Simon . Oxford, Oxford University Press: 107-128.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2023. Ex Oriente Lux? The Extra-European Origins of “European” Capitalism Reconsidered - Part 2. Sozialwissenschaftliche Literatur Rundschau 86, 1/23: 77-85.
  • Teschke, Benno, and Hannes Lacher. 2007. The Changing “logics” of Capitalist Competition. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 20, 4: 565–580.
  • Tickner, Arlene B. 2003. Hearing Latin American Voices in International Relations Studies. International Studies Perspectives 4, 4: 325–50.
  • Todorov, Tzvetan. 1999. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
  • Von Pfaler, Lauri and Benno Teschke. 2024. Quo Vadis, Historical International Relations? Geopolitical Marxism and the Promise of Radical Historicism. Uluslararası İlişkiler. Advanced Online Publication. May: 1-20.
  • Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. 2011. The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy 1600-1750. Berkeley, University of California Press.
  • Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. 1974. The Modern World-System. V. 1, Capitalist Agriculture, and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York, Academic Press.
  • Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. 1984. The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements, and the Civilizations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Wolf, Eric R., Noel Lallana Diaz, and Thomas Hylland. Eriksen. 2010. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, University of California Press.

The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas

Year 2024, Volume: 21 Issue: 82, 41 - 57, 12.06.2024
https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1479184

Abstract

Over the past decades, Marxist-inspired approaches from the field of International Historical Sociology (IHS) have theorised the relationship between 16th and 17th Century European colonial expansion and the development of relations of production and economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic. In this article, we argue that such attempts – from Dependency Theory (DT), World-Systems Theory (WST), and Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) – are premised on a structuralist perspective which overextend the notion of capitalism and under examine the sphere of production, rendering divergent and distinct strategies of European colonialism a homogenous and under-historicised process. Embracing theoretical innovations from Geopolitical Marxism (GPM), we dispute this unitary logic of expansion, instead applying a radical historicist methodology to demonstrate that British and Spanish colonial strategies in the Americas (intra-imperial free trade vs. mercantilism) were shaped by nationally specific class relations (capitalism vs. feudalism/absolutism), generating unique patterns of settlement on the ground (mineral extraction vs. cash-crop production). Promoting historicism thus allows Marxist International Relations to better recognise the “making of” international order during the period of European colonial expansion from the 16th century onwards, and, in doing so, further understand its enduring legacies.

References

  • Anderson, Kevin. 2010. Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
  • Anderson, Perry. 1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London, NLB.
  • Anievas, Alexander, and Kamran Matin. 2016. Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée. Global Dialogues: Developing Non-Eurocentric IR and IPE. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield International.
  • Anievas, Alexander, and Kerem Nişancioğlu. 2015. How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism. London, Pluto Press.
  • Baschet, Jérôme. 2009. La Civilización Feudal. Europa Del Año Mil a La Colonización de América. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
  • Blackhawk, Ned. 2023. The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity. New Haven, Yale University Press.
  • Blaut, J. M. 1994. Robert Brenner In The Tunnel Of Time. Antipode 26, 4: 351–74.
  • Blaut, J. M. 2000. Eight Eurocentric Historians. New York, Guilford Publications.
  • Braudel, Fernand. 1985. The Perspective of the World: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. London, Fontana.
  • Brenner, Robert. 1976. Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Past & Present, 70: 30–75.
  • Brenner, Robert. 1982. The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism. Past & Present, 97: 16–113. Brenner, Robert. 2003. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550-1653. London, Verso.
  • Brilli, Catia, and Manuel Herrero Sánchez. 2019. Italian Merchants in the Early-Modern Spanish Monarchy: Business Relations, Identities and Political Resources. London, Routledge.
  • Butler, Jon. 2001. Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
  • Carrasco, Pedro. 1976. La Sociedad Mexicana Antes de La Conquista [Mexican Society Before the Conquest]. In Historia General de México [General History of Mexico]. Ciudad de México, El Colegio de Mexico.
  • Cervantes, Fernando. 2021. Conquistadors: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest. London, Penguin Books.
  • Comninel, George C. 2000. English Feudalism and the Origins of Capitalism. The Journal of Peasant Studies 27, 4: 1–53.
  • Dauverd, Céline. 2014. Imperial Ambition in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Genoese Merchants and the Spanish Crown. New York, Cambridge University Press.
  • De Oliveira, Felipe Antunes. 2017. A Radical Invitation for Latin America: The Legacy of Andre Gunder Frank’s “Development of Underdevelopment”. Monthly Review 69. 1: 50.
  • Dobb, Maurice. 1946. Studies in the Development of Capitalism. London, Routledge.
  • Edwards, John. 2000. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474-1520. History of Spain. Oxford, Blackwell.
  • Elliott, J. H. (John Huxtable). 1963. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716. Arnold.
  • Florescano, Enrique. 1984. The Formation and Economic Structure of the Hacienda in New Spain. In The Cambridge History of Latin America, ed. Leslie Bethell.Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 153-188.
  • Frank, André Gunder. 1969. Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution: Essays on the Development of Underdevelopment and the Immediate Enemy. New York, Monthly Review P.
  • Grosfoguel, Ramón. 2000. Developmentalism, Modernity, and Dependency Theory in Latin America. Nepantla 1, 2: 347–74.
  • Hobden, Stephen, and John M. Hobson. 2002. Historical Sociology of International Relations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Hobson, John M. 2020. Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy: Beyond the Western-Centric Frontier. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Kahle, Günther. 1979. La Encomienda Como Institución Militar En La América Hispánica Colonial [The Encomienda as a Military Institution in Colonial Spanish America]. Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de La Cultura 9, 9: 5.
  • Kamen, Henry. 2003. Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492-1763. London, Penguin.
  • Knafo, Samuel, and Benno Teschke. 2020. Political Marxism and the Rules of Reproduction of Capitalism: A Historicist Critique. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory 29, 3: 54–83.
  • Knight, Alan. 2002. Mexico: The Colonial Era. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Lacher, Hannes. 2006. Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality, and the International Relations of Modernity. Routledge/RIPE Studies in Global Political Economy 20. London, Routledge.
  • Leal, J., and M Huacuja. 2011. Economía y Sistema de Haciendas En México: La Hacienda Pulquera En El Cambio [Economy and Hacienda System in Mexico: The Pulque Hacienda in Transition]. Mexico City, Era.
  • Lockhart, James. 1969. Encomienda and Hacienda: The Evolution of the Great Estate in the Spanish Indies. The Hispanic American Historical Review 49, 3: 411–429.
  • Meiksins Wood, Ellen. 2016. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London, Verso.
  • Morton, Adam David. 2011. Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development. Critical Currents in Latin American Perspectives. Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
  • Pal, Maïa. 2020. Jurisdictional Accumulation: An Early Modern History of Law, Empires and Capital. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Parisot, James. 2019. How America Became Capitalist: Imperial Expansion and the Conquest of the West. London, Pluto Press.
  • Paul, Sweezy. 1976. A Critique in the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. In The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. London, Verso.
  • Post, Charles. 2011. The American Road to Capitalism: Studies in Class-Structure, Economic Development, and Political Conflict, 1620-1877. Historical Materialism Book Series, 28. Leiden, Brill.
  • Rosenberg, Justin. 2006. Why Is There No International Historical Sociology?. European Journal of International Relations 12, 3: 307–40.
  • Salgado, Pedro. 2021. Anti-Eurocentric Historicism: Political Marxism in a Broader Context. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, 3: 199–223.
  • Taylor, Alan. 2012. Empires. In Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction, ed. Alan Taylor. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2003. The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations. London, Verso.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2008. Marxism. In The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal. New York, Oxford University Press: 163-187
  • Teschke, Benno. 2014. IR Theory, Historical Materialism, and the False Promise of International Historical Sociology. Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies 1, 6: 1-66
  • Teschke, Benno. 2019. Chapter 5 The Social Origins of 18th Century British Grand Strategy: A Historical Sociology of the Peace of Utrecht. In The 1713 Peace of Utrecht and its Enduring Effects, ed. Alfred H.A Soons. Leiden, Brill: 120-155.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2021. Capitalism, British Grand Strategy, and the Peace Treaty of Utrecht: Towards a Historical Sociology of War- and Peace-Making in the Construction of International Order. In The Justification of War and International Order, ed. Lothar Brock and Hendrik Simon . Oxford, Oxford University Press: 107-128.
  • Teschke, Benno. 2023. Ex Oriente Lux? The Extra-European Origins of “European” Capitalism Reconsidered - Part 2. Sozialwissenschaftliche Literatur Rundschau 86, 1/23: 77-85.
  • Teschke, Benno, and Hannes Lacher. 2007. The Changing “logics” of Capitalist Competition. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 20, 4: 565–580.
  • Tickner, Arlene B. 2003. Hearing Latin American Voices in International Relations Studies. International Studies Perspectives 4, 4: 325–50.
  • Todorov, Tzvetan. 1999. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
  • Von Pfaler, Lauri and Benno Teschke. 2024. Quo Vadis, Historical International Relations? Geopolitical Marxism and the Promise of Radical Historicism. Uluslararası İlişkiler. Advanced Online Publication. May: 1-20.
  • Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. 2011. The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy 1600-1750. Berkeley, University of California Press.
  • Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. 1974. The Modern World-System. V. 1, Capitalist Agriculture, and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York, Academic Press.
  • Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. 1984. The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements, and the Civilizations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Wolf, Eric R., Noel Lallana Diaz, and Thomas Hylland. Eriksen. 2010. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, University of California Press.
There are 56 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects International Politics
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Samuel Parris This is me 0009-0000-4328-526X

Armando Van Rankin This is me 0000-0001-7741-9879

Early Pub Date May 9, 2024
Publication Date June 12, 2024
Submission Date October 14, 2023
Acceptance Date May 5, 2024
Published in Issue Year 2024 Volume: 21 Issue: 82

Cite

APA Parris, S., & Van Rankin, A. (2024). The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi, 21(82), 41-57. https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1479184
AMA Parris S, Van Rankin A. The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas. uidergisi. June 2024;21(82):41-57. doi:10.33458/uidergisi.1479184
Chicago Parris, Samuel, and Armando Van Rankin. “The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas”. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 21, no. 82 (June 2024): 41-57. https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1479184.
EndNote Parris S, Van Rankin A (June 1, 2024) The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 21 82 41–57.
IEEE S. Parris and A. Van Rankin, “The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas”, uidergisi, vol. 21, no. 82, pp. 41–57, 2024, doi: 10.33458/uidergisi.1479184.
ISNAD Parris, Samuel - Van Rankin, Armando. “The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas”. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 21/82 (June 2024), 41-57. https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1479184.
JAMA Parris S, Van Rankin A. The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas. uidergisi. 2024;21:41–57.
MLA Parris, Samuel and Armando Van Rankin. “The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas”. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi, vol. 21, no. 82, 2024, pp. 41-57, doi:10.33458/uidergisi.1479184.
Vancouver Parris S, Van Rankin A. The Long Shadow of Structural Marxism in International Relations: Historicising Colonial Strategies in the Americas. uidergisi. 2024;21(82):41-57.