Table Of ContentMemories of Empire and Entry into
International Society
What is the role of memories for the expansion of international society? By
drawing on the English School approach to International Relations this
edited volume argues that the memories of empire and suzerainty are key to
understandingsociologicalaspects oftheexpansionofanarchicalsociety.The
expert contributors adopt a socio-historic conceptualization of entry into
international society, aiming to move beyond the legalist analysis, and also
explore the impact of identity-constructions and collective memories on the
expansion of international society.
Empirically, the volume investigates the entry into international society of
Belarus, Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and Romania and studies
memories that they activated along the way. While these memoires of bygone
politieswere used by state builders to make sense ofinternational society and
legitimiseclaimsofthenewentrants,theyinadvertentlyalsogenerated tensions
and anxieties, which in many ways persist until this day. Both the theoretical
angle and the empirical material presented in this volume are novel additions
to the growing bodyof knowledge in historical International Relations.
Exploring how memories and experiences of the past still complicate the
entrants’ positions in international society and to what degree ensuing
tensions remain today, this volumewill be ofinterest to students and scholars
ofEuropeanInternationalRelations,particularlythosewithafocusonEastern
Europe.
FilipEjdusisaMarieCurieResearchFellowattheSchoolofSociology,Politics
and International Studies (SPAIS), Universityof Bristol, UK, and an Assistant
Professor at the Facultyof Political Sciences, Universityof Belgrade, Serbia.
New International Relations
Edited by Richard Little, University of Bristol, Iver B. Neumann,
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway and
Jutta Weldes, University of Bristol.
The field of international relations has changed dramatically in recent years.
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A Practice of Ethics for Global Memories of Empire and Entry into
Politics International Society
Ethical Reflexivity Views from the European Periphery
Jack L. Amoureux Edited by Filip Ejdus
Memories of Empire and Entry
into International Society
Views from the European Periphery
Edited by
Filip Ejdus
K ~~o~;J~n~~~up
ORKYOR LLONODONNLODNDOONN
Y
LONDONANDNEWYORK
Firstpublished2017
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Series editor foreword vii
List of contributors x
1 Introduction 1
IVERB.NEUMANN
2 Belarus’ entry into international society: Between a small
nation-state and big narratives 16
ALIAKSEIKAZHARSKI
3 Bulgaria’s (re)entry into international society 38
DIMITARBECHEV
4 Greece’s entry into international society 56
YANNISA.STIVACHTIS
5 Through the East to the West: Poland’s (re)entry into
international society and the sway of memories of the Polish
Golden Age 84
DOMINIKAWOZ´NIAK
6 From Dacia to modern Europe: Imagined temporal bridges and
the politics of identity construction 100
ALEXANDRAGHECIU
7 Memories of Empire and Serbia’s entry into international society 121
FILIPEJDUS
8 Slovakia’s layered entry into international society and the
possibilities of its exit 138
JOZEFBÁTORA
9 Conclusion 158
FILIPEJDUS
Index 165
Acknowledgements
The idea for this book was conceived during a conversation that I had with
IverNeumannbackinearly2011.DuringaseminarorganisedattheUniversity
of Belgrade on state building, we discussed omission of Serbia and other East
and Southeast European states from the extant literature on the expansion of
international society. Over the past two centuries, a number of new states
emerged out of the crumbling Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires.
Theirentry into international society, however, has been far from smooth and
in some ways remains an unfinished affair until today. In order to explore
how this process unfolded, and delve into the role of collective memories
therein,weputupapanelattheISA’s54thAnnualConferenceinSanFrancisco
in2013.Thefollowingyear,theinitialfourcases–Romania,Serbia,Slovakia
and Turkey, were published as a forum “The expansion of international society
after30years:viewsfromtheEuropeanperiphery”(2014,InternationalRelations,
Vol.28(4)445–478).ThegroupmetagainattheISA’s56thAnnualConference in
New Orleans in order to bring on board an additional two cases – Poland
and Belarus – and also to discuss how to turn the project into a full-length
book. Before long, we included two more cases into the project – Greece and
Bulgaria. The book that you are reading now is the latest but hopefully not
the last result of this evolving collaboration. While the entire endeavour has
been completed without any direct financial support, it wouldn’t be possible
to accomplish it without support of many friends and colleagues. The first
among them is Iver Neumann who intellectually inspired the book and pro-
vided his backing and guidance from the outset. Special thanks go to Einar
Wigen whose excellent research on Turkey made a strong imprint in the early
phaseoftheproject.IwouldalsoliketothankPatrickThaddeusJacksonand
CorneliaNavariwhoservedasthought-provokingdiscussantsduringourISA
meetings. A special gratitude goes to Ken Booth, and reviewers from Inter-
national Relations whose comments helped us to improve earlier versions of
chapters on Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. Finally, I would like to thank
Nicola Parkin, Lydia de Cruz and the production team at Routledge for their
support in bringing this book into life.
Series editor foreword
The most distinctive and enduring idea developed by the founding fathers of
the so-called English School is that it is essential to recognise that states
emerge in the context of an international society. In other words, it is not
possible to conceive of a state existing in isolation. A state is necessarily a
member of a more extensive international society of states. If we place this
idea into a historical context, then it is also possible to see that there have
been occasions when international societies of states have given way to
empires or suzerain states systems although these more centralised polities
have invariably transformed in time to more decentralised international
societies.Thefoundingfatherswereconvinced,moreover,thattheonlyeffective
route to theorising about international relations is to carry out a systematic
comparison of the very different kinds of international society that have
formed across time.
Such a task, however, proved daunting and ultimately defeated the small
group of disparate scholars that originally constituted the English School.
Instead, they decided to focus on the foundation and expansion of the con-
temporary international society. Even this task was essentially unmanageable
because the roots of this society were seen to stretch back for at least a
millennium. So although it was acknowledged that there is a long history to
the contemporary international society the focus of their study was primarily
on the 19th and 20th centuries.
Despite the severe contraction of the original objective, it is difficult not to
beimpressedbythescaleandambitionoftheattempttomaphowtheEuropean
international society expanded across the globe. But perhaps inevitably
becausethetaskwassovasttheoverallaccountgivenwasbothpartialandin
someways distorted. These inherentfailingshavethen been further magnified
because there has been a persistent tendency to over-simplify the overarching
picture that emerged from the original study of this specific international
society.
For example, it is now often assumed that the English School depicts the
international society coming into existence within Europe and that other
polities were then co-opted into this established society until eventually the
original European society came to embrace the entire world. Unsurprisingly,
viii Series editor foreword
acommon criticism ofthisaccountisthatitrepresentsanunreformedcaseof
Eurocentrism. To a large extent, the founding fathers invited this criticism
because they stipulated that their account is Eurocentric because they argued
theveryprocessof expansion was Eurocentric. But elsewherein theiraccount
they make clear that there was a constant interaction between a process of
expansion and a process of evolution. In other words, it was accepted that
international society steadily evolved as its boundaries were extended to
include new members. But it has to be acknowledged that the essential
characteristics of this evolution were largely left unexamined.
Anevenmorefundamentalcriticism,however,isthefailureofthefounding
fathers to reveal that colonialism and imperialism were for most ofits history
part of the bedrock of the contemporary international society. Again, this
criticismtosomeextent oversimplifiesthe picture paintedbut itisundoubtedly
true that there is no attempt to acknowledge adequately that the European
international society was dominated by expanding empires rather than geo-
graphically contained sovereign states and that as a consequence the society
hadaglobalreachfromaveryearlystageinitsdevelopmentand,inthesame
way, the establishment of an international society of nation states is only a
very recent stage in the evolution of the contemporary international society.
One important consequence of this failure to place empires at the centre of
thenarrativeisthatthere hasbeen asystematicfailure todrawattentiontothe
complex, important and longstanding role that the establishment of colonies
in the Americas, then the emergence of the United States and its subsequent
development has played in the evolution of the contemporary international
society.
By the same token, in this book, it is argued that the founding fathers failed
tomakeprovisionforthosestatesthatlieontheeasternedgeofEurope.These
states are of specific interest because they have emerged from significant
empires, like the Russian and the Ottoman, that operated on the peripheryof
theEuropeaninternationalsocietyandwhosestatuswasalwaysindoubt.Itis
argued that the English School framework is unable to accommodate the
protracted process whereby these states came to enter the European interna-
tional society.It ispossible,however,to contest this line of argument because,
for example, the founding fathers undoubtedly acknowledged the ambiguous
status of the Ottoman Empire in the international society and the protracted
process of its entry. But it is unquestionably true that the founding fathers
never really found an effective way of accommodating this process into their
narrative.
As a consequence, the Ottoman Empire appears to be something of an
anomaly in the initial English School account of the international society’s
expansion. Here by contrast, it is shown that far from being an anomaly, the
long drawn out entry of the Ottoman Empire is a characteristic feature of
how some polities have eventually become members of the international
society.Thebookalsorevealsthatthecontemporaryinternationalsocietyisa
much more layered phenomenon than is often recognised. While some states
Series editor foreword ix
are able to ensure their position at the core of the international societyothers
remain for a long period on its periphery. What this book does very effectively
is to focus on the idea of historical memory to show how seven states have
been able over time to establish narratives of their past that have helped them
to gain access to at least the periphery of the international society. In the case
of Greece, for example, its dominant narrative was extended back to the
ancient Greece of Plato and Aristotle to thereby demonstrate its civilisational
and Western credentials and thus justify its entry into the European interna-
tional society. The approach adopted in the book provides a persuasive way
to comprehend the entryof these kinds of states into the international society
anditundoubtedlymakesanimportantcontributiontothegrowingliterature
on both the expansion and evolution of the international society.
Richard Little
Universityof Bristol
