1 - Outsiders and insiders in the international system

Summary

These beleaguered empires traditionally harbored an elevated self-esteem – translated in modern times into a unifying nationalism – and possessed sizable cultural elites capable of superimposing their frustrations onto the grievances of mainly peasant populations, through mechanisms ranging from religious sermonizing to nationalist education and communist propaganda …

Georgi Derluguian, Bourdieu's Secret Admirer

Introduction

This chapter introduces three political entities – Turkey, Japan, and Russia – that were not part of the original Westphalian system, despite having existed prior to the seventeenth century. In hindsight, this was a costly absence. Some time after the seventeenth century, rulers of Turkey, Japan, and Russia each made a deliberate decision to join the states system emerging from Europe, by accepting its international standards and borrowing a number of the domestic institutions of its major players. This initial decision to emulate “the West” had persistent consequences, not only for the foreign policies of the states in question, but also their domestic affairs. In the intervening centuries, each country went through numerous reforms, restorations, revolutions, reactionary backlashes, and wars, all of which were primarily motivated by the goal of catching up, competing, and standing equal with the core powers of the modern states system. However, even in the best of times, neither Turkey nor Russia, and not even Japan, has been completely able to shed its original “outsider” status and secure an unambiguous seat among the rule-makers of the modern states system.