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

Abstract

Benno Teschke offers a specific focus on the historical sociology of normative change in the transition from early modernity to modernity in Europe. How can we explain international diplomacy and peace accords from within critical International Relations (IR) Theory? Teschke addresses this question by focusing on the Peace of Utrecht (1713) that concluded the War of the Spanish Succession. It tracks the relations between the domestic sources of the rise of Britain as a great power, the revolutionary transformations of its post-1688 foreign policy institutions, the formulation of a new British grand strategy—the blue water policy—in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession, and its strategic ability to impose through coercive and secret diplomacy a new pro-British ‘normative’ set of rules for post-Utrecht early modern international relations during the ‘long eighteenth Century’ (1688–1815). This British-led reorganization of early modern international order cannot be captured through prevailing IR concepts, including automatic power-balancing, off-shore balancing, hegemony, international society, formal or informal imperialism, or collective security.