1914 in world historical perspective: The ‘uneven’ and ‘combined’ origins of World War I
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066111427613 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Author | Alexander Anievas |
European Journal of
International Relations
19(4) 721 –746
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066111427613
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E
JR
I
1914 in world historical
perspective: The ‘uneven’
and ‘combined’ origins
of World War I
Alexander Anievas
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
The causes of World War I remain a topic of enormous intellectual interest. Yet,
despite the immensity of the literature, historiographical and IR debates remain mired
within unhelpful methodological dichotomies revolving around whether a ‘primacy
of foreign policy’ versus ‘primacy of domestic politics’ or systemic versus unit-level
approach best account for the war’s origins. Given that this historiography is the most
prolific body of literature for any war within the modern age, it reveals a much deeper
problem with the social sciences: how to coherently integrate ‘external’ and ‘internal’
relations into a synthesized theory of inter-state conflict and war. Drawing on and
contributing to the theory of uneven and combined development, this article challenges
standard interpretations of the war by distinctively uniting geopolitical and sociological
modes of explanation into a single framework. In doing so, the article highlights how
the necessarily variegated character of interactive socio-historical development explains
the inter-state rivalries leading to war. Contextualizing the sources of conflict within the
broad developmental tendencies of the Long 19th Century (1789–1914) and their
particular articulation during the immediate pre-war juncture, the article seeks to
provide significant contributions to recent debates in IR and historical sociology, as well
as those concerning the relationship between history and IR theory.
Keywords
historical sociology, International Relations, international system, Marxism, uneven and
combined development, World War I
Corresponding author:
Alexander Anievas, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, OX2 6HS.
Email: alexander.anievas@st-annes.ox.ac.uk
427613EJT
Article
722 European Journal of International Relations 19(4)
Introduction
Nearly a century after the ‘lights went out’ in Europe the causes of World War I remain a
topic of immense intellectual attention and lively debate. Existing scholarly literature on
the subject is ‘probably the largest for any war in human history’ (Hamilton and Herwig,
2004: 1) representing ‘the most analyzed and contested case’ within the study of
International Relations (IR) (Copeland, 2001: 56).1 Despite the immensity of literature,
the ‘long debate’ remains mired within unhelpful methodological dichotomies. Whether
a Primat der Aussenpolitik versus Primat der Innenpolitik approach best explains the
war continues to dominate debates. Here, the historiographical literature intersects with
and informs IR and social theory, which remain ensnared within these binary
frameworks.
Traditional historiographical and realist studies generally explain the war from the
perspective of a European-centred changing distribution of power. They focus on devel-
opments within the international system and their effects on foreign policymaking and
military strategizing. For all their differences, classical Marxist theories of imperialism
also view the war’s origins as a structural crisis, one nonetheless rooted in a very differ-
ent system: world capitalism. A problem common to these systemic approaches is that
they elide the question of agent differentiation in explaining variations in state action.
Consequently, there is a tendency among Marxist and realist schools of thought (particu-
larly defensive realism) to conceive World War I as exemplary of an ‘inadvertent war’.2
Though a focus on the universal, systemic sources of the 1914 crisis is necessary, the
notion of an unintended slide into war has been challenged by a wealth of evidence pro-
duced by Fritz Fischer and his students. Most historians now agree that during the pre-
war juncture (1912–1914), Austrian and German policymakers engaged in a series of
provocative diplomatic moves risking — if not seeking — a European-wide war. This
was a conflict that, as German policymakers realized (though not always consistently),
would likely involve all the European powers including Great Britain (see, inter alia, Joll
and Martel, 2007; Mombauer, 2002).
By contrast to these ‘system’-level approaches, many scholars (notably the Fischer
School) have sought the origins of the war within the Sonderweg (‘special path’) of
Prussian-Germany’s internal development. This places responsibility for war squarely
with the old ruling elites, locating the mainsprings of Germany’s ‘grab for world power’
in the crisis-ridden character of the country’s incomplete modernization. Dominated by
tenacious anachronisms, German imperialism is conceived as ‘atavistic’ in nature, rooted
in the pre-modern illiberalism of an authoritarian state. Such explanations reveal the
exact opposite problem from systemic theories: an essentializing analysis of a single
state’s so-called pathological development as the primary cause. Yet as Fischer’s critics
have tirelessly contended, the role and effects of other states’ actions leading to the con-
flict — both during the 1914 crisis and before — still need to be taken into account. For
German policymakers were not the only ones prepared to risk war in the midst of domes-
tic crises and external pressures (Schmidt, 1990).
The changing nature of the historiographical debates has largely moved between
these two poles of ‘externalist’ and ‘internalist’ forms of explanation. Over their course,
many scholars have recognized the need to integrate ‘system-level’ and ‘unit-level’
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