The long Peace

The international contrast between the 18th and 19th centuries is one of the big historical questions of the modern world system. Whereas the 18th century was a period of almost continual war among European powers, in the 19th century they enjoyed what is commonly referred to as “the long peace”. Quantitatively battlefield deaths declined by a factor of eight between the two centuries and this despite the increasing destructiveness of the weaponry. Why should this be so? One obvious approach to answering this question is to study the various actors in the two centuries and to work out why they were more successful in securing peace. The differences between the two centuries cannot be explained by the behaviour of political elites, but must reflect, instead, a structural change in the nature of inter state politics. Structural change in the interstate system means that the fundamental way the system works, and is perceived to work, has altered in terms of what sort of behaviours are penalized and which are rewarded. In the 19th century peace broke out in Europe and war became clearly demarcated precisely because it had become unnatural where Britain played a great role. The framework agreed at Vienna in 1815 has been called the ‘modern international system‘. although it did not set up permanent international institutions - these were to come later - it did provide for the management of inter state relations for the very first time.

Studies show that English politics took the pace of becoming exceptional from the second half of the 17th century: in the initial development of modern European states in the 16th century, Tudor England shared in the common centralizing practices of the times and the English civil war (1642-9) can be interpreted as part of the general crisis of the renaissance state. Thereafter England diverges from the general pattern of European state development. The key point is that the political and legal concept of the state, so central in France and Germany for example, was not constructed for English politics. The idea of a state only appeared as an external sign to mark England’s role in the interstate system. Hence the use of the royal prerogative foreign policy became known as an Act of state; otherwise there was no reference to the state as a part of the politics. Certainly the notion of the state as a distinct corporate authority above society was never developed with respect to domestic policy. Why no state? The state that was created lacked the idea of emancipation from civil society because it was composed of members of civil society. In other words, like the Dutch before them, the English reversed the relation between state and society: society used state and not vice versa.

According to Tom Nairn ‘a spontaneously emergent bourgeois “civil society” created the state’ in the 17th century. The outcome of the conflicts from the civil war to the Glorious Revolution was the rise of political power of a commercial landed elite allied with the urban merchant class to produce their own patrician state. With the accession of William and Mary to the throne by invitation of the patricians, a new state was created whereby sovereignty lay with the Crown in Parliament. This combination of a private court and public arena proved to be a very flexible formula for rule; through its many reincarnations in the next three centuries, civil society has been able to continue domination of the state. Hence just at the same time when the latter’s abstract mystique was being promoted elsewhere, in England any vestiges of a state spirit were being eliminated by a more personal and informal rule. The result was non-bureaucratic and relatively decentralized control of the country. This decentralization was premised on a division between ‘high politics’ and ‘low politics’. the centre jealously guarded control of the former - largely fiscal and foreign policy - allowing all other matters to be dealt with through negotiation with the communities and interest groups outside the centre.

The transition from such a low profile state of patrician origins to the liberal ideal of a night watchman state during British hegemony in the 19th century was relatively smooth. While other countries experienced revolutionary political change Britain continued its famed political evolution. By investing sovereignty with the Crown in Parliament a flexible political system of checks and balances was created in which the politics could change from Tory royalism or Whig aristocratic control to constitutional liberalism without any need to change the state apparatus. Only two options were precluded by this political formula: a royal absolutism and a radical popularism. At the time of the Great Reform Act of 1832, the rising middle class political interests required just such a political formula. In their agitation for change they confronted traditional aristocratic power, but the middle classes were simultaneously watchful of new working class political aspirations. The reforms widened representation in parliament and changed the balance of power in favour of the elected House of Commons. The reformed parliament was an opportunity to eliminate t he traditional mercantilist state and bring British political practices into line with contemporary political economy needs. Half a century earlier Adam Smith had argued that economic success depended on the free operation of markets and therefore that state interference in these processes was against the public good. This left the state with little to concern itself with but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. however the British liberal state can be viewed as a transition between two alternative interventionist states: mercantile state and welfare state. Hence while political economists were having their great success with the abolition of the Corn Laws, there was also increasing recognition for the need to regulate rapid industrialization and its consequence, massive urbanisation, factory Acts with state inspectors, local boards of Health and Housing Acts for slum clearance all make their appearance at this time. Nevertheless, by any historical standards, this was a minimal state and marked Britain out as different from her European rivals.

Where the more authoritarian monarchies in Europe had to confront revolutionary popularism head on, the British with their relatively soft monarchy took a completely different route: the monarchy itself was popularized to act as a focus for popular politics. Nationalism was designated foreign and English royal patriotism developed to take its place. This was crucial in these dangerous times to maintain the peace since the world war led to a politicalization of populations throughout Europe. The result was that in England the state ruled in the public interest rather than on behalf of the people. Hence the British created an aberrant nationalism which allowed their civil society to go about its business in full knowledge that it operated a political machine where neither absolute state nor popular nation were a threat to its interests.

Derived from:
Dyson, K.H. F., 1980; The state tradition in Western Europe. Oxford: Robertson
Nairn, T., 1988; The Enchanted Class, Britain and its Monarchy. London: Radius
Robbins, K., 1988; nineteenth century Britain. Integration and Diversity. Oxford: Clarendon
Taylor, P. J., 1993a Political Geography: World economy, Nation state and locality. London: Longman