Pax Britannica: how venerating British hegemony obscures real colonial harms
This article critiques the term ‘Pax Britannica’ and its conceptualisation and use in International Relations. As a description of British dominance and global influence between 1815 and 1914, ‘Pax Britannica’ is often uncritically applied. This article highlights imperialist tropes that are reinforced and reproduced as a result.
British imperialist, Joseph Chamberlain, first popularised the term ‘Pax Britannica’ when he used it to describe how Britain’s imperial rule was ‘pacifying’ India (Matzke, 2011, p. 1). Since then, it has been used widely in academic and media circles to describe the period between 1815 and 1914; a period characterised by Britain’s military and economic dominance, a relentlessly-expanding British empire, and new ‘institutional formations’ in international relations (Buzan & Lawson, 2013, p. 620).
‘Pax Britannica’ has taken root in the world of International Relations (IR) in particular. It is often perceived as an example of successful single-state hegemony. While the strict definition of hegemony as a concept is hotly contested, the debate broadly converges on the scenario where one dominant nation state exercises power over others in the international system (O’Brien & Pigman, 1992, p. 90).
In a literal sense, the latin term ‘Pax Britannica’ translates to ‘British Peace’ (Watts, 2007), and while some suggest that the ‘Pax’ more accurately reflects the concepts of law and order (Rodger, 2016), 1815-1914 is certainly seen by many as a period of relative peace (Gilpin, 1981). This attracted the attention of early IR ‘pioneers’ as the discipline emerged in the twentieth century, and it continues to intrigue scholars to the present day. In fact, IR theorists of varying persuasions see this ‘British Peace’ as a rare case study of single-state hegemony (Clark, 2011) and therefore a key body of evidence for theories of economy, liberal politics, and international (in)stability.
However, there’s an elephant in the room here. What many of these accounts fail to confront is that ‘Pax Britannica’ is deeply entwined with the brutalities of imperial conquest. The term’s origin—in reference to the ‘pacification’ of India—is one obvious hint. But the relationship doesn’t end there.
Britain’s dominant position was forged from being ‘the imperial center of an Atlantic economy nurtured by the raw materials wrought from coercive practices’ (Buzan & Lawson, 2013, p. 621). In other words, Britain’s strength, indeed its purported hegemony, was inseparable from its empire.
And that empire was far from peaceful.
What’s more, this ‘peace’ was actually a ‘system of force’ from which ‘devolved the benefits of peace’ (Gough, 2014, p. 2). Those benefits were not universal. Not only was this peace confined to Europe, but it actually created the conditions for European powers to exercise violence elsewhere. Their warmongering was directed towards so-called “weaker peoples” ‘in the periphery’ (Fettweis, 2022, p. 183, emphasis added).
This article doesn’t systematically critique the idea of hegemony, though I do have my doubts about the moral value of a system which is underpinned by dominance and subjugation.
Instead, I want to pick apart some leading representations of ‘Pax Britannica’—partly in the context of hegemonic theory. I’ll be applying a postcolonial lens, and I’ll borrow from poststructuralist ideas about discourse being a productive force that reinforces power relations.
I have an agenda here; to get us to think more carefully about the language we use.
What do people say about hegemony and Pax Britannica?
It’s easy to get sidetracked into a discussion about the relationship between hegemony and empire. Does one need the other? How are they similar, and how are they different? This isn’t my focus here. Neither do I want to investigate whether 1815-1914 was actually a British hegemonic order or not. This is up for debate; and it’s an argument which is largely based on technicalities and semantic definitions.
Instead, three premises underpin my argument:
Britain is perceived by many as ‘the world’s preeminent military and economic power in the nineteenth century’ (Go, 2012, p. 4).
The British empire unquestionably expanded during the nineteenth century (Said, 1978; Porter & Louis, 1999).
The term ‘Pax Britannica’ (and its conceptual foundation) is commonly used to denote a peaceful, stable, and formative period in international politics.
Next, I’ll take a deep-dive into some of the theories around ‘Pax Britannica’ and how this time period has been misconceived and continues to be misrepresented. We’ll learn that this isn’t a benign issue; in fact, the veneration of ‘Pax Britannica’ and the omission of its imperial underpinnings silences the harms of colonialism and reproduces harmful tropes.
International Relations theory and ‘Pax Britannica’
Liberals and realists typically aren’t happy partners; they tend to have very different views of the world. But in the context of hegemony, some liberals and realists actually converge. More specifically, I’m referring to their bond within Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST).
Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST), Realism, and ‘Pax Britannica’
In essence, HST proponents believe that ‘international economic openness and stability is most likely when there is a single dominant state’ (Webb & Krasner, 1989, p. 183). Inspired by Charles Kindleberger—an internationalist and liberal economist who helped implement the Marshall Plan—Robert Gilpin and Stephen Krasner—both are considered to be realists, by the way—developed HST with the view that a hegemonic distribution of power allows the dominant state to ‘promote liberalization without jeopardizing essential security objectives.’ (Webb & Krasner, 1989, p. 184).
They argue that Britain was indeed a hegemon in the late nineteenth century, and this situation ‘provided stability and encouraged liberalization in the international economy.’ (Webb & Krasner, 1989, p. 183).
According to Robert Gilpin, ‘the close association between political hegemony and economic liberalism in the modern world began with the political and economic rise of Great Britain.’ (Gilpin, 1984, p. 295). As a leading producer of tradable goods, he suggests middle-class elites in Britain ‘judged the promotion of an open world economy to be in their national interest.’ (Gilpin, 1984, p. 295). Gilpin argues that the two ‘crucial elements’ of a liberal world economy—political hegemony and economic efficiency—‘came together in the guise of the Pax Britannica.’ (Gilpin, 1984, p. 295).
Generally, Gilpin sees the dominance of a liberal hegemonic power, or ‘liberal powers able and willing to manage and enforce the rules of a liberal commercial order’ (Gilpin, 1984, p. 296) as key to a liberal international economy.
In his analysis of state power and international trade, Stephen Krasner argues that ‘openness is most likely to occur during periods when a hegemonic state is in its ascendancy’ (Krasner, 1976, p. 323) and leans on Britain in the 1800s as evidence for this. He doesn’t abandon Realism’s idea that states operate with rational self-interest; claiming that increased openness in the structure of international trade suited Britain’s national interest and was supported domestically by ‘rising industrialists’ (Krasner, 1976, p. 335). ‘For the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century,’ he writes, ‘British policy favored an open international trading structure, and British power helped to create it.’ (Krasner, 1976, p. 336).
Another contributor to HST is Robert Keohane. With arguments drawn from the ‘institutionalist tradition’ (Keohane, 1984, p. 9), he suggests that hegemony can promote cooperation, but ‘there is little reason to believe that hegemony is either a necessary or sufficient condition for the emergence of cooperative relationships.’ (Keohane, 1984, p. 31). He questions whether Britain’s hegemony actually played a causal role in increased international cooperation, and posits a complex relationship between hegemony and international cooperation; one where coercion is also a factor (Keohane, 1984, p. 46).
Jack Snyder, a ‘defensive’ realist, (Taliaferro, 2000) laments the ‘self-punishing overexpansion’ of industrialised powers (Snyder, 1991, p. 9) and criticises the idea that security is gained through continuous expansion and offensive action; a perspective held by ‘aggressive’ realists (Snyder, 1991, p. 12).
For Snyder, the British empire lasted so long because it resisted the temptation to overstretch, employing tactics of appeasement as well as material threat (Snyder, 1991). He highlights domestic factors, arguing; ‘the democratic element in the British political structure acted for the most part as a moderating force’ meaning ‘narrowly self-interested imperialist cartels’ couldn’t develop (Snyder, 1991, p. 154).
Snyder writes that Britain’s conquests 1830-60 were ‘quite rational’ due to a favourable cost-benefit ratio (Snyder, 1991, p. 156). At this time, ‘rapid industrialization was making imperial expansion necessary and possible for Britain.’ (Snyder, 1991, p. 156). Sadly for Snyder, Britain’s ‘costly overextension in Africa’ and the resulting international isolation (Snyder, 1991, p. 210) was a mistake because it ‘provoked balancing coalitions’ and meant Britain got ‘stuck in quagmires in the hinterland’ (Snyder, 1991, p. 8).
Snyder’s recommendation seems to be: empire, just not too much empire. According to him, stable hegemony is maintained through restraint and the appropriate amount of expansion.
Snyder paints a picture of a self-reflective, sensible, and measured type of imperialism; one paying ‘close attention to balance of economic costs and benefits.’ (Snyder, 1991, p. 157).
And similarly, for the ‘grandfather’ of Classical Realism, Hans Morgenthau, this period of British hegemony can be considered as conservative in nature. It represented a uniquely stable status quo—an enduring cohesion characterised by the ‘deflection of rivalries’ to the ‘periphery’—where there were only ‘politically empty spaces’ (Morgenthau, 1948, as cited in Guilhot, 2014).
Power Transition Theory / Power-Shift Theory
The proponents of ‘power transition theory’ or ‘power-shift’ theories, such as A. F. K. Organski, are considered to form one branch of the realist tree, yet there are major differences in outlook from the ‘classical’ realist balance-of-power school. For example, this branch holds that the international system is not anarchical, but hierarchical. And in this setting, power preponderance ‘creates a much more peaceful structural condition.’ (Danilovic, 2002, p. 77).
‘Pax Britannica’ and ‘Pax Americana’ (post-1945) are held up as examples of a dominant state being satisfied with its position. And, apparently, ‘satisfied states do not, in general, initiate conflicts’ (Danilovic, 2002, p. 78).
This concept of ‘satisfaction’ is reflected in the work of Kenneth Waltz, too. With states being rational actors maximising security (rather than power), he argues that instead of pursuing hegemony, states should be content with the ‘appropriate amount’ of power to ensure security (Waltz, 1989, p. 40).
This is in stark contrast to fellow neorealist, the controversial John Mearseimer. He encourages states to pursue maximum (regional) hegemonic power and conduct what he calls ‘offshore balancing’ (Mearsheimer, 2001) to maintain their regional power balance. This strategy, Mearsheimer argues, was successfully executed by Britain in the 1800s. And as a result, Britain was able to freely pursue its interests outside Europe (Mearsheimer, 2001).
Liberal internationalist, institutionalist, and other views
John Ikenberry, who takes a liberal internationalist view, argues that after settling the Napoleonic wars in 1815, ‘Great Britain pursued an institutional strategy aimed at establishing formal processes of consultation and accommodation among the postwar great powers.’ (Ikenberry, 2001, p. 81).
Like Snyder, Ikenberry seems to delight in British restraint and cooperation—a ‘general pattern of compromise’ fostered by Britain (Ikenberry, 2001, p. 97) and the creation of a noble coalition tasked with ‘order creation’ in Europe (Ikenberry, 2001, p. 116).
This leadership was only possible due to Britain’s power, and Ikenberry cites Paul Kennedy (1987) when explaining the origins of their leadership position; ‘naval mastery, financial credit, commercial expertise, alliance diplomacy, and an expanding commercial empire.’ (Ikenberry, 2001, p. 85). In his view, post-Treaty of Paris (1783), we see an admirable ‘reconsideration of institutional possibilities’ and ‘an evolution of thinking about ways to stabilize and manage relations among the major powers.’ (Ikenberry, 2001, p. 83).
Robert Cox, regarded by some as the ‘father of critical theory of International Relations’ (Moolakkattu, 2009, p. 439) developed the ‘neo-Gramscian approach’, building on the work of Antonio Gramsci. This view widens the concept of hegemony to ‘broadly based consent, manifested in the acceptance of ideas and supported by material resources and institutions.’ (Bieler & Morton, 2004, p. 87). Cox argues that British hegemony during this period produced new political space and created a permissive environment, allowing other liberal states to develop as a result (Clark, 2011).
Ian Clark, a representative of the English School, constructs a world in which hegemony is actually an institution in the international society; something more than material strength, and something that requires other members of the society to normatively accept and ‘bestow’ (Clark, 2011). In Clark’s view, hegemony is conducive to peace if the hegemon seeks the ‘benefits of management’ without falling for ‘perils of unrestrained dominance’ (Clark, 2011, p. 46). He breezes past empire with just two paragraphs in his book, concluding that ‘Empire was to be profoundly ambivalent for British hegemony. While it is almost impossible to conceive of any plausible version of British hegemony that does not emphasize the imperial role, the empire spurred also that very competition that made its role unsustainable in the long run.’ (Clark, 2011, p. 113).
What do we learn from these viewpoints?
From this research, we can determine that there are different schools within the IR discipline that converge on a couple of key ideas:
Single-state hegemony is a positive thing for the world, or,
Single-state hegemony can be a positive thing for the world if,
The state is a liberal state, and/or,
The state can exercise self-restraint.
British dominance at this time is portrayed as a harbinger of a new liberal world order; one that passes the baton seamlessly to ‘Pax Americana’ in the 20th century (Clark, 2011). All of these accounts lean into the concept of ‘Pax Britannica’ in one way or another, yet few—if any—confront the ethical implications of imperial conquest, land theft, and exploitation.
Next, I’ll highlight why these representations are not benevolent; they’re indicative of a toxic Eurocentric ignorance. They obscure colonial violence and promote imperialist views.
Why representations of ‘Pax Britannica’ are problematic
The postcolonial perspective within IR picks apart the discourse tropes that ‘reproduce truths based on European experiences’ (Wilkens, 2017) and dissects many of the terminologies and conceptual frameworks that are commonplace in the field. Postcolonial scholars tend to believe that IR has engaged in ‘abstraction and sanitization, willfully ignoring the relationship between its own intellectual canon and European imperialism.’ (Gruffydd Jones, 2006, p. 3). I tend to agree.
With this in mind, below I critique three overlapping characteristics of commonly-held views about the nineteenth century: Orientalism, Eurocentrism, and State-centrism.
Orientalism
Orientalism, a term popularised by Edward Said, is ‘a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) “the Occident.”’ (Said, 1978, p. 10). This gives rise to discursive practices which set the ‘self’ off against the ‘other’—where this ‘Oriental other’ became fundamental to the construction of European identity, legitimised the dominant position of Europe, and contributed to justifications for imperial actions in the modern world system (Keyman, 1995; Wallerstein, 1997).
As we saw in the previous section of this article, the same self/other dichotomy is present in casual IR discourse. For example, Jack Snyder lauds the British ability to ‘extricate themselves from quagmires on the turbulent frontier’ (Snyder, 1991, p. 158) while Stephen Krasner uses the term ‘backward’ to describe areas that were ‘opened’ by British strength during the period.
This discursive construction of the Eastern ‘other’ is important here because,
It empowered ‘civilised’ sovereign nation states such as Britain to conquer and subjugate peoples outside Europe without stretching contemporary norms;
It enabled the concept of the British ‘Peace’ to emerge in the first place, and;
It freed later IR scholars to later engage in high-minded theoretical abstraction focusing on the ‘rationality’ of expansion, effective power-balancing, and/or the dissemination of liberalising policies vis-à-vis ‘Pax Britannica’.
Said writes that Orientalism is also a ‘Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.’ (Said, 1978, p. 11). Liberal theory on ‘Pax Britannica’ provides an example here by echoing ‘stadial theory’—a view that describes a European-led hierarchical international system ‘with a cascade of lesser political societies below.’ (Fitzmaurice, 2012, p. 122). Based on a Europeanised conception of state sovereignty, liberals were able to justify dominance of ‘inferior’ societies through empire (Fitzmaurice, 2012).
This Eurocentrism, so closely linked with Said’s Orientalism (in fact, for E. F. Keyman, Eurocentrism is ‘the precondition of the Orientalist image of the Other’) (Keyman, 1995, p. 87) takes the form of what John Hobson labels an imperialist, ‘paternalist’ Eurocentrism, whereby the West needs to ‘engage in an imperial civilizing mission in order to deliver the necessary rational institutions to the Eastern societies so as to bring to the surface their latent reason, thereby kick-starting their progressive development into modernity.’ (Hobson, 2012, p. 6).
Eurocentrism
