I
finally had a chance to read Daniel Nexon’s The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe. It’s not a quick read (not the
first half at least). But the book is refreshingly different from standard IR
fare making it worth reading. Although not his main argument, Dan makes a
compelling case why realism as an analytic paradigm doesn’t travel as well as
we believe across space/time. He does this though in a manner which doesn’t completely
dismiss or ignore the “states-under-anarchy” framework.
Dan’s
work provides fuel for not one, but two of my research agendas so my mind was
in overdrive trying to figure out how to apply/incorporate his work with my own.
I’m not going to review the book but instead I’ll glean a few useful insights from
it for my own work on a) social movements and world politics and b) East Asian
international relations.
Social Movements
and World Politics
Yes,
it’s the title of my blog. As you
recall, the blog was created as a space for me to write up thoughts about my
research on said topic. As I wrote in my
research statement, “I attempt to craft a coherent theory synthesizing social movement approaches with
international relations (IR) theory …To do this, I unpack various mechanisms
which link social movements to systemic consequences (and vice-versa).”
Dan’s
book falls squarely into this research agenda.
At the most obvious level, he shows how mobilization against dynastic
rulers and the rise of religious movements (the Protestant Reformation)
triggered a set of processes which exposed, exploited, and eroded the weak
political structures inherent in “composite states” (or dynastic agglomerates) characteristic
of early modern Europe. As Dan argues, transnational religious movements
“altered the structural opportunities and constraints of power-competition”
(4). These movements played a
significant (although by no means sufficient) role in the development of the
modern nation-state system.
A
broader contribution is his linking of collective action problems and
mobilization at the domestic and international level through the concept of nested relational networks. Dan writes, “Treating structure of international interaction in terms of nested
relational configurations allows us to link variation in the structure of
polities (i.e. states) – and other
corporate actors (i.e. social movements) – to international structures. Not only does this analytic move capture
the co-constituted relationship between agents and structures at different
levels of analysis, but it provides a way to think about how transactional
patterns give rise to opportunity structures for collective action in world
politics” (51). In particular, the density of network relations and degree
of identity cohesion between actors at the domestic and international level
shapes the opportunity structure of actors for mobilization and
cooperation.
So
Dan addresses two of my proposed research goals a) synthesizing social movement approaches with international
relations and b) unpacking various mechanisms which link social movements to systemic consequences
East Asian
International Relations
The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe is as far as one can get from contemporary Asia.
Yet I found Dan’s relational
institutionalism applicable to the persistence of U.S.
bilateral alliances and the structure
of post-Cold War Asia. Although I take
an ideational-institutional approach in explaining alliance resilience, the
inertia of patron-client relations also helps explain the continuation of
bilateralism in Asia. Affective and
material ties between the U.S. its Asian alliance partners (i.e. Japan, South
Korea, and Taiwan) encourages cooperation. Ikenberry (2011) describes the type of order produced
by patron-client relations as “rule by relations.” Rule by relations may move
from a strong to weak form of patronage (colonial rule à neocolonial ruleà client-state relationship à special relationship), but such
shifts don’t necessarily reduce the affective and material ties present in
bilateral alliances. “Clients” in special relationships may still act out of
loyalty to the patron or out of material interests in the form of prestige,
security, or wealth.
Finally,
Dan’s clarification of relational
structures helps me think about my own relational approach to East Asian
security. I’ve been working forever on a paper which criticizes traditional
structural approaches (i.e. polarity) applied to Asian security and instead
advocate a relational view of East Asian order. The ties generated by East Asian international relations suggests a bifurcated network with China and the U.S. centered as hubs. Reviewers have uniformly agreed
that the first half reads much better than the second half so hopefully
insights from Ch. 2 of The Struggle for
Power in will help improve the second half of the paper.
David and I have had several conversations over the years about bases. Although we disagree on several key points about the nature and consequence of US basing, we both agree that a consensus of sorts exists among policy elites regarding basing strategy. However, one point Gventer raises which is absent from Vine's book, and which Stacie Pettyjohn and I address in a working paper evaluating realist and imperial interpretations of overseas base expansion is the relationship between American strategy and bases. Gventer writes: 
