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Geopolitics, social forces, and the international: Revisiting the ‘Eastern Question’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2015

Cemal Burak Tansel
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Abstract

This article contributes to current debates in materialist geopolitics and contemporary IR theorising by restating the centrality of social forces for conceptualising geopolitics. It does so by offering a detailed conceptual reading of the corpus of the ‘Eastern Question’, which is composed of a series of political analyses written by Marx and Engels in the period of 1853–6. This archive presents unique analytical and conceptual insights beyond the immediate temporal scope of the issue. I unpack this argument in three movements. The article (i) offers an overview of the debates on materialist geopolitics; (ii) contextualises the historical setting of the ‘Eastern Question’ and critically evaluates the great powers’ commitment to the European status quo; and (iii) constructs an original engagement with a largely overlooked corpus to reveal the ways in which Marx and Engels demonstrated the interwoven relationship between domestic class interests, the state, and the international system. I maintain that revisiting the ‘Eastern Question’ corpus (i) bolsters the existing materialist frameworks by underscoring the role of class as an analytical category; (ii) challenges an important historical pillar of the balance of power argument; and (iii) empirically strengthens the burgeoning scholarship in international historical sociology.

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Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 492 - 512
Copyright
© 2015 British International Studies Association 

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Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Historical Materialism Annual Conference (London, November 2013), the International Studies Association Annual Conference (Toronto, March 2014), and the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (Giardini Naxos, September 2015). For their helpful comments and suggestions, I would like to thank Andreas Bieler, Ian Bruff, Katja Daniels, Adam David Morton, Jeppe Strandsbjerg, Sébastien Rioux, and the editors and anonymous reviewers of the Review of International Studies.

References

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107 MECW 12, p. 537.

108 MECW 12, p. 19.

109 See, for example, leader of The Times dated 8 July 1953 which contains the following statement: ‘as the Russians could not master their propensity for civilizing barbarian provinces, England had better let them do as they desired, and avoid a disturbance of the peace by vain obstinacy’ (quoted in MECW 12, p. 185).

110 MECW 12, p. 113, emphasis in original.

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