Book contents
- The Historicity of International Politics
- The Historicity of International Politics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The Imperial Past and Present in International Politics and IR
- 2 The Colonial Origins – and Legacies – of International Organizations
- 3 Collective Hegemony after Decolonization
- 4 The Historicity of State Formation
- 5 Privateering, Colonialism and Empires
- 6 Where Did the Mongol Empire Go?
- 7 Where Would We Be without the Fog Lifting in Austerlitz?
- Part II Historical Sociology and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics
- Part III Global History and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
5 - Privateering, Colonialism and Empires
On the Forgotten Origins of International Order
from Part I - The Imperial Past and Present in International Politics and IR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 June 2023
Book contents
- The Historicity of International Politics
- The Historicity of International Politics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The Imperial Past and Present in International Politics and IR
- 2 The Colonial Origins – and Legacies – of International Organizations
- 3 Collective Hegemony after Decolonization
- 4 The Historicity of State Formation
- 5 Privateering, Colonialism and Empires
- 6 Where Did the Mongol Empire Go?
- 7 Where Would We Be without the Fog Lifting in Austerlitz?
- Part II Historical Sociology and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics
- Part III Global History and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter discusses the historical practice of privateering, in particular its role in the making and breaking of empires. Focusing on privateering allows us to highlight both the persistence of past institutions and the extent to which the present breaks with the past. Privateering disrupts tidy dichotomies, such as between mediaeval and modern, public and private and state and empire. Today, privateering is most obviously present through its absence. The Treaty of Paris of 1856, which abolished privateering, helped normalizing the idea of a modern state with a monopoly on legitimate violence and the oceans as a global common under the control of benign hegemons. Ambiguities between private and public violence at sea were forgotten, as was the extensive ‘peripheral’ agency, obvious in how privateering was used time and again to oppose the leading powers of the day.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Historicity of International PoliticsImperialism and the Presence of the Past, pp. 104 - 122Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
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