From Global Transformation to Big Bang—A Response to Buzan and Lawson. Issue 3 (5th July 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Phillips, Andrew
• Is Part Of: International studies quarterly. Volume 57:Issue 3(2013:Sep.)
• Page Start: 640
• Page End: 642
• Publication Date: 2013-07-05
• Subjects: International relations -- Periodicals; World politics -- Periodicals; 303.482
• DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12089
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-8833

Abstract

Abstract : Buzan and Lawson (2012) ( International Studies Quarterly ) persuasively argue that IR scholars must pay greater attention to the nineteenth‐century global transformation. Nevertheless, their account would be strengthened by a greater acknowledgment of the critical role indigenous intermediaries played in facilitating Western colonialism, and also by a clearer recognition of the limited and late impact that rational state‐building and ideologies of progress exerted on the shape of Western colonial empires. These amendments are necessary to avoid overstating the distinctiveness of modern empires relative to their pre‐nineteenth‐century forerunners, and thereby missing the true significance of the twentieth‐century "big bang" that saw empires' ruin and replacement by a global sovereign state monoculture.