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Hegemonic metronome: the ascendancy of Western standard time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2010

ANDREW R. HOM
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Abstract

To date, studies of international politics have little space for time. In this article, I argue that time is constitutive of the international system by offering a genealogical historical sketch of the coeval rise of territorial state sovereignty and Western standard time (consisting of seconds, minutes, and hours). Sovereignty is rightly a foundational concept of both the international system and the field of International Relations (IR), but the emergence of the contemporary method of reckoning time during the Enlightenment also supported the project of political modernity, and is thus critical to IR. The genealogical motive of the sketch is to understand what have become naturalised, global social conventions as historically contingent, cosmopolitical phenomena that resulted from significant socio-political efforts and conflicts. I locate ‘sites’ where modern sovereignty emerged and explicate contemporaneous processes, factors, and events implicated in the rise of modern time at those sites. In doing so, I outline how particular modes of understanding space and time were bred in Western Europe, spread around the world via colonialism, and embedded during the eras of global war and post-colonialism. I conclude by contrasting current challenges to territorial state sovereignty with Western standard time's untrammelled global hegemony.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 1145 - 1170
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

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References

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19 Spruyt, Hendrik, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 3Google Scholar .

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30 Ibid., p. 81.

31 Empiricism and Reason seem to oppose each other in that the former relies on experience and the latter relies on context-less propositions. I include them here because they both oppose ‘the various forms of innatism and essentialism’ associated with persistent religio-political violence in Europe, Williams, Michael C., Culture and Security: Symbolic Power and the Politics of International Security (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 14Google Scholar , and because they both hold implications for the attractiveness of modern clock time.

32 Toulmin, , Cosmopolis, p. 30Google Scholar , calls this the prioritisation of ‘epistemological proofs’ over religious doctrine.

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38 O'Malley, Michael, Keeping Watch: A History of American Time (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), p. 105Google Scholar ; Österud, Öyvind, ‘The Narrow Gate: Entry to the Club of Sovereign States’, Review of International Studies, 23 (1997), p. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Warner, Carolyn M., ‘The Political Economy of “Quasi-statehood” and the Demise of 19th Century African Politics’, Review of International Studies, 25 (1999), p. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Standardisation may be understood as a liberal coordinating process, as well as an advantage in international competition, see Mattli, Walter and Böthe, Tim, ‘Setting International Standards: Technological Rationality or Primacy of Power?’ World Politics, 56 (2003), pp. 9, 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

39 Warner, ‘The Political Economy of “Quasi-statehood”’, p. 236.

40 Williams, , The Realist Tradition, p. 38Google Scholar . See also, Hall, , National Collective Identity, pp. 24–25Google Scholar ; And Hindess, Barry, ‘Citizenship in the International Management of Populations’, American Behavioral Scientist, 43 (2000), pp. 1487–1493CrossRefGoogle Scholar , who has referred to the modern notion of citizenry as a form of international population management.

41 For instance, see Osiander, ‘Before Sovereignty’, p. 144.

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44 Ibid., p. 107.

45 Ibid., p. 62.

46 Ibid., p. 114.

47 Ibid., p. 127.

48 Ibid., p. 108.

49 While vertical, hierarchical visions of domestic authority coexist with horizontal, autonomous relations between states in most accounts, Toulmin uses the clockwork metaphor to give an orbital explication of the modern nation-state: ‘the Roi Soleil, or Solar King, wields authority over successive circles of subjects, all of whom know their places, and keep their proper orbits’, Ibid., p. 127. This image overlaps with structural materialist theories of the international system as constituted by a core, semi-periphery, and periphery, see Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 16 (1974), pp. 387–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Such accounts recognise their debt to an iconic rationalist, Karl Marx, but pay little homage to the cosmopolitical roots underpinning his philosophy.

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51 Evidence of the diffusion of this idea from Europe can be found in the writing of the US constitution, which was conceived by American Federalists as ‘“a machine that would go of itself”, like the deist's perfect watch’, O'Malley, Keeping Watch, p. 27.

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59 Ibid., p. 54.

60 Ibid., p. 58.

61 Ibid., p. 51. For current purposes, I define mechanical timekeeping as utilising stored energy in moving parts. More nuanced treatments include Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour; Landes, Revolution in Time; Cipolla, Carlo M., Clocks and Culture, 1300–1700 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003)Google Scholar ; Mooij, J. J. A., Time and Mind: The History of a Philosophical Problem, trans. Peter Mason (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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64 Ibid., p. 48.

65 Ibid., pp. 58–9.

66 Spruyt, , The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, p. 36Google Scholar .

67 Philpott, , Revolutions in Sovereignty, p. 14Google Scholar ; Spruyt, , The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, p. 36Google Scholar , claims that, as early as 1300, city-states and city-leagues represented a significant challenge to the Church, the Holy Roman Empire, and feudal obligations.

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69 Ibid., pp. 145–6. In addition, the growing urban masses were highly individuated, disconnected from the socio-economic predictability of rural communities, and lacking in consistent political influence, which may have made them more susceptible to Reformation efforts. On the urban character of the Reformation, see, Scribner, R. W., Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (Hambledon: Continuum, 1987)Google Scholar . For a discussion of the link between social atomisation and mass mobilisation, see Kornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1959)Google Scholar .

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73 Ibid., In this way, the rise of commerce in cities displayed the power of the market to produce specific types of citizens – in this case modern, time-conscious ones – through the lure of economic security. On the ‘civilizing’ abilities of market economies, see Hindess, Barry, ‘Neo-liberal Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies, 6 (2002), p. 139CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

74 Spruyt, , The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, p. 74Google Scholar .

75 Ibid.

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81 Ibid., pp. 234–5.

82 Ibid., p. 235.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid., p. 236.

86 Ibid.

87 Spruyt, , The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, p. 105Google Scholar .

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89 Spruyt, , The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, pp. 18–19, 62Google Scholar , also understands division of labour, on which capitalism is based, as partially due to the rise of cities.

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91 Ibid., p. 22.

92 Giddens, , The Constitution of Society, p. 144Google Scholar , contends that this understanding ‘is surely one of the most distinctive features of modern capitalism’.

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101 Landes, , Revolution in Time, p. 241Google Scholar ; lateness was one of the most egregious errors an employee could commit, while a personal clock was often offered as a prize to productive workers.

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115 Ibid.

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117 Ibid., p. 116.

118 Ibid., p. 115.

119 Ibid., p. 168.

120 The short treatment here summarises a centuries-long process of discovery, see Ibid.; Howse, Derek, Greenwich Time and the Discovery of the Longitude (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar .

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133 Ibid., p. 107.

134 Ibid., p. 109.

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141 Murphy, ‘The Sovereign State System as Political-Territorial Ideal’, p. 90.

142 Ibid., p. 98.

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144 Ibid., p. 233, emphasis added. Furthermore, Giddens, , The Constitution of Society, p. 135Google Scholar , traces the origins of modern school discipline to the emergence of clock time.

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147 Ibid., p. 51.

148 Ibid., p. 17. Furthermore, Strang, ‘Contested Sovereignty’, p. 37, shows how such processes also took root in non-colonised, non-Western societies as a form of ‘defensive Westernization’ which lowered the likelihood that Western states might interfere in their affairs ‘on the side of an “outraged civilization”’.

149 Hall, , National Collective Identity, p. 91Google Scholar .

150 Ibid.

151 Keegan, John, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993)Google ScholarPubMed .

152 A. J. P. Taylor, quoted in Kern, , The Culture of Time and Space, pp. 269–270Google Scholar .

153 Ibid., pp. 270–1.

154 Ibid., p. 268.

155 Ibid.

156 Ibid., pp. 268, 264.

157 Ibid., p. 268.

158 Ibid., p. 274.

159 Ibid., pp. 279, 290, 293.

160 Ibid., p. 288.

161 Ibid.

162 Edmund Blunden, quoted in Ibid., p. 293.

163 For an account of the Paris Peace Conference that vividly recounts the tragic parlour games of territorial negotiations, see Macmillan, Margaret, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2003)Google Scholar .

164 Quoted in Kern, , The Culture of Time and Space, p. 293Google Scholar .

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166 Ibid., pp. 155, 36. Although see Hindess, ‘Neo-liberal Citizenship’, p. 132, who refers to this process as the ‘imposition of independence’, in which a sovereignty based on European-established borders and standards was ‘granted’ to colonies without consulting them.

167 Philpott, , Revolutions in Sovereignty, pp. 93–94Google Scholar .

168 Ibid., p. 194.

169 Ibid., p. 198.

170 See Ibid., p. 8; Hall, , National Collective Identity, pp. 215–216Google Scholar .

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172 Ferguson, Niall, The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the Wes t (New York: Penguin, 2006)Google Scholar .

173 See Hall, Rodney Bruce and Biersteker, Thomas J., The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Ferguson and Mansbach, Remapping Global Politics.

174 Hutchings, ‘Happy Anniversary!’, p. 88; Hutchings, , Time and World Politics, pp. 160–176Google Scholar . Brent Steele and I propose ‘open time’ as an alternative to the cyclical and linear-progressive variants which we argue have dominated IR theory to date, see Hom and Steele, ‘Open Horizons’, pp. 274–80.

175 See Inayatullah, Naeem and Blaney, David L., International Relations and the Problem of Difference (London: Routledge, 2004)Google Scholar ; Blaney, David L. and Inayatullah, Naeem, ‘The Savage Smith and the Temporal Walls of Capitalism’, in Beate Jahn (ed.), The Classics and International Relations in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 123–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Hindess, Barry, ‘The Past Is Another Culture’, International Political Sociology, 1 (2007), pp. 325–338CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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