E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR (Palgrave Studies in International Relations) 3030993590, 9783030993597

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PSIR · PALGRAVE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR Haro L Karkour

Palgrave Studies in International Relations

Series Editors Mai’a K. Davis Cross, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA Benjamin de Carvalho, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway Shahar Hameiri, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia Knud Erik Jørgensen, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Ole Jacob Sending, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway Ay¸se Zarakol, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Palgrave Studies in International Relations (the EISA book series), published in association with European International Studies Association, provides scholars with the best theoretically-informed scholarship on the global issues of our time. The series includes cuttingedge monographs and edited collections which bridge schools of thought and cross the boundaries of conventional fields of study. EISA members can access a 50% discount to PSIR, the EISA book series, here http://www.eisa-net.org/sitecore/content/be-bruga/mci-registrat ions/eisa/login/landing.aspx. Mai’a K. Davis Cross is the Edward W. Brooke Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University, USA, and Senior Researcher at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway. Benjamin de Carvalho is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway. Shahar Hameiri is Associate Professor of International Politics and Associate Director of the Graduate Centre in Governance and International Affairs, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. Knud Erik Jørgensen is Professor of International Relations at Aarhus University, Denmark, and at Ya¸sar University, Izmir, Turkey. Ole Jacob Sending is the Research Director at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway. Ay¸se Zarakol is Reader in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a fellow at Emmanuel College, UK.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14619

Haro L Karkour

E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR

Haro L Karkour School of Law and Politics Cardiff University Cardiff, UK

Palgrave Studies in International Relations ISBN 978-3-030-99359-7 ISBN 978-3-030-99360-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Sabine Thielemann/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1

Introduction Context of the Book The Book’s Argument Contribution of the Book Structure of the Book References

1 1 3 7 9 15

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Realist Variations on Imperialism and Race Introduction Realist Variations on Imperialism and Race Carr on Imperialism and Race Conclusion References

19 19 20 34 42 44

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Carr and the First Wave of Post-colonialism: Shared Intellectual Origins Introduction The Dynamics of War and Imperialism in the Works of Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire Shared Intellectual Origins in Marxist Thought Conclusion References

49 49 50 56 72 73

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CONTENTS

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Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire’s Ideology Critique of Imperialism: Early Critiques of Eurocentrism in IR Introduction Carr’s Ideology Critique of Imperialism Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire on the Ideology Critique of Imperialism Conclusion References

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Visions of the Future World Order—Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, Césaire and the Post-war Settlement Introduction Carr’s Vision of the Post-war Order Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire on the Post-war Settlement Carr and the First Wave of Post-colonial Visions of World Order Today Conclusion References

77 77 80 86 98 101 105 105 107 114 123 127 128

Carr’s Lessons for Post-colonial IR Introduction Carr and Post-Colonialism on the Historiography of Neo-Liberal Rights On the Liberal International Order Carr’s Lessons for Post-Colonial IR Conclusion References

133 133

Conclusion Critical IR Theory and Neo-Liberalism Today References

161 165 172

135 140 150 153 155

Bibliography

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Index

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Context of the Book In the 2013 special issue in European Journal of International Relations (EJIR) on ‘the end of IR’, the contributors debated the issue of camp formation in the discipline following the fourth debate (Sylvester, 2007, 2013). At stake was whether and how IR may maintain its identity as a (meta) theoretically pluralist discipline that did not fragment into incommensurable camps (e.g. Brown, 2013; Dunne et al., 2013).1 That theories, or isms, consist of ‘camps’ is a problematic notion, however. For instance, the ‘traditional’ IR theory, the classical realist canon, its position in disciplinary history (Behr & Williams, 2017; Williams, 2013), and neat distinction from critical theory (Cozette, 2008; Linklater, 2000; Scheuerman, 2011), post-structuralism (Bain, 2000; Behr & Roesch, 2012), and constructivism (Barkin, 2003, 2010), remains contested in IR. Isms therefore cannot be essentialised or caged into ‘camps’. More crucially, to problematise the neat distinctions between the theories has implications for the discussion of the fragmentation of the discipline. It challenges the basic assumption or framework on which the debate on the fragmentation of IR as a discipline is premised. If ‘isms’ are fluid

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_1

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and contested, rather than essentialised and caged, this would problematise attempts to bring about ‘theoretical syntheses’ (Kratochwil, 2003), to develop ‘middle grounds’ (Wendt, 1999), to produce ‘via medias’ (Buzan, 2001), or ‘integrative pluralism’ (Dunne et al., 2013), between neat theoretical camps. Disciplinary history, one may argue, will not provide the separate theoretical positions that would allow such attempts in the first instance. Thus, these attempts, from the standpoint of the latest literature on classical realism cited here, may be deemed as built on sand, that is, on caricatures of theories and disciplinary history, rather than real distinctions, and thus followed by ‘syntheses’, ‘middle’ grounds, and ‘integrative’ pluralisms that cause further confusion and reify division in the discipline. This book therefore is not an attempt to bridge theoretical camps in IR, but rather shows that such ‘camps’ are more complex and more nuanced than currently appreciated by IR scholars. Positions that may seem theoretically distinct in fact overlap and often share interests, concepts, and unexpected, or rather expected, intellectual origins.2 One reason such overlaps are often overlooked in the discipline lies in the training of IR scholars. Hartmut Behr and Amelia Heath’s explanation of this case with regard to Hans J. Morgenthau and classical realism is worth quoting in some length here, If one skims … through the various editions of Politics Among Nations in university libraries (and this applies according to our experience to the US, the UK and Germany), one will always find the same passages highlighted (which are more or less identical with textbook quotes) which refer only to approximately one fifth of the entire book. This cursory examination might represent habits of very selective readings and abridged understanding to reflect independently on the contents of highly standardised and canonised teaching curricula. The original writings – which include in the context of our argument authors from the history of political thought as well as Morgenthau’s oeuvre – seem to fall into oblivion and hence misreadings go unnoticed. Instead of thorough individual reading and scrutinising, mainstream IR (not only its scholarly proponents, but also thousands and thousands of students) seems to rely on lore, oral traditions, and works of ideologues. (Behr & Heath, 2009, 347–348)

The problem with ‘canonisation’ in IR is therefore not only due to the prioritisation of figures such as Morgenthau over post-colonial thinkers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Aimé Césaire, but also to

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the simplification of the works of such ‘canons’ by means of standardised curricula, selective reading lists and ‘oral traditions’ that misread texts and cage positions, figures and ‘theories’ into ‘camps’ that seemingly share little intellectual interests or origins with other ‘camps’. Little is it known, let alone debated among IR scholars, for example, that Morgenthau, the father of political realism in the discipline, talked about the relevance of race in IR in works such as the Purpose of American Politics and Truth and Power. Not only did Morgenthau write on the problem of race in America in Truth and Power (1970, 209–214), but he also drew on his personal experience with racism, as a Jew in America, in his analysis of the principle of ‘equality in freedom’ that US democracy ought to serve. ‘The unequal condition of the black American’ Morgenthau wrote in Truth and Power (1970, 209–210), ‘has been an endemic denial of the purpose for the sake of which the United States of America was created and which, in aspiration and partial fulfilment has remained the distinctive characteristic of American society; equality in freedom’. ‘Less than thirty years ago’ Morgenthau continued, ‘I had to deal with American consuls who considered it their patriotic duty to violate the law in order to prevent the immigration of Jews; once I was here, I could not find a place to sleep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire until I registered under my wife’s maiden name’. Racial equality, therefore, is not only of interest to post-colonial scholars, but rather an issue that classical realists—such as Morgenthau, but also Carr and Niebuhr as Chapter 2 will show—debated and attempted to address. Thus as Behr and Williams (2017, 9) argue, ‘a fuller recognition of classical realism problematises the conventional theoretical landscape of IR theory [and] demonstrates how historical, conceptual and political problematics actually cut across them’.

The Book’s Argument The argument in this book proceeds in four steps. First, the book argues that the classical realist analysis of imperialism and race is more nuanced than currently presented in IR literature, particularly in post-colonial literature. Within this nuance, the book argues that E. H. Carr’s analysis of imperialism and race shares important parallels with keys ‘canons’ of the post-colonial tradition from his time—the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Aimé Césaire.3 Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ explanations of imperialism and war are rooted in the ‘social question’ in Western democracies. The

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expansion of the franchise and rise of social democracy in Europe, they argued, could not be accommodated by laissez faire which in turn led to its export in the form of imperialism and war abroad. The demand for a bigger share in the economic pie in Western democracies did not turn workers against capital but rather accelerated the latter’s exploitation of the colonies abroad. This turned class antagonism at home into a race antagonism at home (in case of settler colonialism) and abroad. Carr, thus, along with the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, saw racial injustice as imbedded in nineteenth century liberalism, particularly the logic of the ‘free market’ under laissez faire. The second step the book takes is to explain this parallel between Carr, an historian associated with the classical realist school in IR and the canons of post-colonialism. The book argues here that Carr, along with Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, were influenced by a twentieth century reinterpretation of Marxist analysis of war and imperialism that was commonly shared by others, such as Vladimir Lenin and J. A. Hobson. It is this shared intellectual origin that explains the commonality in their analyses of imperialism and war. The shared intellectual origins in Marxism should not be surprising, as Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers were all admirers of the USSR,4 and Carr, and more so Du Bois, paid a heavy price for it.5 It is the necessity to reinterpret Marxist analysis in the twentieth century however that unites Carr with the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. This necessity stems from a reality of the twentieth century that frustrated classical Marxist prediction: the nationalisation of socialism and the rise of the nation state, along with ethno-nationalism and racism, at the expense of the international proletariat. Carr and the early postcolonial thinkers thus accepted the limitations of Marxist analysis of class in the context of ethno-nationalism and racism. In explaining the limitations of Marxist analysis of class in the context of nationalism and racism, this book argues, the similarity between Carr’s IR theory and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers transcends the materialist critique of imperialism and war. Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers presented an ideology critique of imperialism. The book defines ideology in Karl Mannheim’s sense, namely as a totalising worldview that universalises a partial experience, agency and interests: ‘a false consciousness or misled Weltanschauung (world view), and which posits objective conditions and “realities” in order to manipulate certain social and political situations’ (Behr & Heath, 2009, 329).6 In particular, Carr and the first wave of

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post-colonial thinkers critique the universalist pretentions of ‘Enlightenment reason’ that legitimates imperialism as a practice. This critique, the book argues, covers the key tenets in Hobson’s (2014) conceptualisation of ‘Eurocentrism’ in IR. These tenets can be summarised in Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ critique of two assumptions in Enlightenment reason. First, the association of ‘reason’ with Western civilisation, which in turn creates a dualism of European reason in contrast to non-European barbarity. Second, and following from this, a critique of linearity: the notion that progress in light of reason is not only possible, but also follows a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development. This twofold critique of Enlightenment reason leads Carr to expose the ideological role this ‘reason’ plays to advance European, particularly British, interests under the pretext of the ‘harmony of interests’. In turn, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ exposes the dualistic conception of sovereignty that Hobson identifies, where powerful nations, Great Britain in particular, employed ‘reason’ ideologically, to legitimate imperial hierarchy in the international. Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire share this ideology critique with Carr. Like Carr, they critiqued the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning European science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography. The ideology critique of the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning European science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography in the works of Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, the book argues, parallel Carr’s ideology critique of the universalist pretentions of liberal reason and Victorian moralism. ‘Reason’ in all these cases operates on the basis of the key tenets of Eurocentrism that Hobson identified to ideologically legitimate and perpetuate imperialism. Pace Hobson (2007, 2012) and post-colonial critics of Carr’s ‘Eurocentrism’, therefore, Carr presented an early critique of Eurocentrism in IR. Carr’s realism is much closer to post-colonialism than previously appreciated in the discipline. In the third step, the book turns from the critique that Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers presented of imperialism and war, towards their visions of the post-war order. The post-war settlement for Carr, as to Fanon, Césaire, and Du Bois, the book argues here, did not only have an economic purpose but also psycho-social purpose: it aimed to address the sense of alienation felt by the individual in late modern society. The sense of alienation is associated with the individual’s quest for purpose, meaning, and social solidarity, which Carr identified with the quest for nationalism or national identity. The first wave of post-colonial

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thinkers associated this sense of alienation with the colonial and racial experience: the colonial and racial experience themselves were implicated in the individual’s sense of alienation. While the post-war settlement for Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers aimed to address the individual’s sense of alienation in late modern society, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions of this settlement diverged here. Carr and Césaire were closer to one another in that they advocated a postwar settlement that aimed to address the individual’s sense of alienation without emphasis on national sovereignty. They supported multinational empires that would grant colonial subjects equal social and economic rights, as well as cultural freedom. Unlike Carr and Césaire, Fanon could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. National independence, Fanon however warned, requires African unity lest neo-colonialism creeps into the continent under global capitalism. Like Fanon, Du Bois held a vision of African unity under socialist Pan-Africanism that would ensure sovereignty and address the problem of alienation for Africans. With the benefit of hindsight, the book argues here that Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions of the post-war settlement can be seen as idealistic today. Carr and Césaire’s visions for instance downplayed the reality of power in postimperial relations and the problem of racism as a hindrance to progress along multinational and multi-racial lines. Fanon and Du Bois’s visions on the other hand overplayed the case for African unity and more generally unity along socialist lines. This in turn led to neglecting the power asymmetries that would form the basis for the continuation of neo-colonial relationships after independence, in the form of economic dependency as well as military interventionism on the African continent. In the fourth, and final, step, the book engages with the relevance of the present interpretation of Carr for post-colonial IR today. The argument here is that Carr’s work opens avenues for engagement between classical realism and post-colonialism across two debates relevant to postcolonial IR scholars today: first, on human rights; second on the liberal international order. With regard to the former, Carr’s work shows that the post-colonial critique of racial injustice in the context of human rights ought to be embedded in a critique of the neo-liberal historiography of human rights. It is this historiography that explains the ideological uses of human rights and the perpetuation of the ‘orientalist’ lens through which the West gazes at demands for human rights and democracy in

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the Global South. With regard to the latter, Carr’s analysis of the ubiquity of the individual’s sense of alienation in late modernity brings a new light to post-colonial critiques of the liberal international order. Firstly, it highlights, contrary to prevalent belief among post-colonial scholars, that neither the feeling of alienation nor its association with racial and gendered violence is particular to the West. Secondly, it sheds a new light on the post-colonial critique of neo-liberalism and neorealism in the debate on the liberal international order. While a Carrian analysis shares with post-colonial IR scholars the critique of neo-realism and neo-liberalism’s defence of the status quo under US hegemony, his analysis of individual alienation in liberal modernity reveals a flaw in a key assumption held by post-colonial scholars, namely the efficacy of these theories’ prescriptions to maintain US hegemony in practice. Taken together, a Carrian engagement with the debate on human rights and the liberal international order presents an important lesson for postcolonial IR today: that all theories and concepts in IR are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they originally promised. Carr’s lesson here applies to the various concepts that post-colonial scholars critiqued—such as human rights, development, and security—but also goes beyond this critique to highlight that post-colonial IR scholarship, its concepts and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s critique.

Contribution of the Book This book contributes to two sets of scholarship within IR as a discipline. First, it contributes to the broad range of scholarship published on Carr’s contribution to IR theory in the past thirty years. Following an edited volume and two biographies (Cox, 2000; Haslam, 1999; Jones, 1998), the turn of the century witnessed a proliferation of works in intellectual history that examined Carr’s indebtedness to Mitrany (Ashworth, 2017), Nietzsche (Gismondi, 2004), Dostoyevsky (Nishimura, 2011), and Freud (Schuett, 2011). Others re-examined Carr’s theoretical and methodological assumptions (Babik, 2013; Chong, 2007; Heath, 2010; Molloy, 2006), and Carr’s relevance today to the sub-discipline of International Political Economy (Germain, 2019), the post-Cold War era (Cunliffe, 2020; Karkour, 2021; Kostagiannis, 2017), global reform (Scheuerman, 2011), and the resurgence of nationalism in the EU (Kenealy & Konstagiannis, 2013). With a rare exception (Mearsheimer, 2005), the consensus

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in this latest scholarship is that Carr is by no means the realist he was earlier caricatured in the discipline. Accordingly, the latest scholarship on Carr is situated in a growing debate in IR that problematises conventional theoretical divisions between classical realism and critical approaches (among others, see Barkin, 2003; Behr & Roesch, 2012; Behr & Williams, 2017; Cozette, 2008; Scheuerman, 2011; Williams, 2013). An important divide remains unproblematised in this debate however: between classical realism and post-colonialism. Consequently, post-colonial scholars in IR have the last word on Carr. Carr’s work is ‘Eurocentric’ if not racist, according to these scholars, alongside Waltz and Morgenthau (Henderson, 2013; Hobson, 2012; Lynch, 2019). In turn post-colonial scholars reinforce Carr’s categorisation within a classical realist ‘camp’ that stands in theoretical opposition to the post-colonial project. The first contribution of the book is situated in this scholarly context. The book here shows that Carr was much closer to post-colonial thinkers, both intellectually and politically, than previously appreciated in the discipline. By reading Carr alongside Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire, his ‘post-colonial’ contemporaries, the book highlights important parallels in their understanding of the causes of imperialism and war. These parallels lead not only to a materialist critique of imperialism, but also a shared ideology critique of imperialism that unveils the Eurocentrism of ‘Enlightenment reason’ and its uses as a legitimating tool for empire. Another important parallel that emerges in the book is on the theme of alienation, which both Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers took seriously. Carr’s analysis of nationalism linked it to the sense of alienation the individual feels in late modernity. The individual’s support for nationalism, even in the age of the ‘socialised nation’, where it is expected to provide employment and welfare provision, to Carr did not only have an economic logic but also a psycho-social logic—nationalism provided a sense of meaning and social solidarity that is otherwise lacking in late modern society.7 The first wave of post-colonial thinkers associated this feeling of alienation with the colonial and racial experience. The psycho-social dimension in Carr’s analysis of nationalism has been largely neglected in the literature on nationalism in Carr (e.g., Cox, 2021; Gellner, 1992; Germain, 2019; Konstagiannis, 2017; Linklater, 2000; Pettman, 1998). The second contribution of the book is thus situated in this scholarship on nationalism in Carr. In particular, the book here does not only highlight and elaborate on this neglected dimension in Carr,

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but also demonstrates its contemporary empirical and theoretical relevance. Empirically, the book demonstrates the contemporary relevance of this argument, particularly as it pertains to the rise of aggressive nationalism with Trumpism in the United States and Xi Jinping in China. An important insight gained from this contemporary empirical application of Carr is that the sense of alienation is not specific to defeat or the colonial/racial experience, as the first wave of post-colonial thinkers such as Fanon and Du Bois noted. Rather, it applies today to China as much as to the United States. It would be more accurate to say that it can be, and has been, instrumentalised by various actors for nationalistic purposes. Theoretically, the book demonstrates the relevance of this argument to post-colonial IR today. In particular, Carr’s argument firstly highlights, contrary to prevalent belief among post-colonial scholars, that neither the feeling of alienation nor its association with racial and gendered violence is particular to the West. Secondly, it sheds a new light on the post-colonial critique of neo-liberalism and neo-realism in the debate on the liberal international order. While a Carrian analysis shares with post-colonial IR scholars the critique of neo-realism and neo-liberalism’s defence of the status quo under US hegemony, his analysis of individual alienation in liberal modernity reveals a flaw in a key assumption held by post-colonial scholars, namely the efficacy of these theories’ prescriptions to maintain US hegemony in practice. The value added of this book thus is not simply to set the record straight on IR disciplinary history and highlight missing links in Carr’s work that problematise the discussion on theoretical fragmentation, along with the ‘solutions’ proposed in the form of a ‘middle ground’, ‘via media’ or ‘integrative pluralism’, but, crucially, to show that the present interpretation of Carr provides valuable lessons that remain relevant to post-colonial IR today.

Structure of the Book To proceed with this contribution, the argument of the book unfolds in seven chapters. Chapter 2 highlights the realist variations on imperialism, race, and war. The aim is to demonstrate that the classical realist analysis of imperialism is largely misrepresented in post-colonial literature. The post-colonial critique of realism as little more than an ideology to justify US imperialism, applies to neo-realism. This position however may be juxtaposed with classical realism, which is both reflexive and

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critical of empire. Despite their critiques of empire, however, the classical realists also diverged in their analysis of its causes. Morgenthau and Niebuhr rejected the Marxist-inspired analysis that associated imperialism with nineteenth-century laissez faire and the ‘social question’ in Western democracies. They perceived the causes of imperialism in the human drive for power more generally and the deceptive nature of human pride over the reality of power. Morgenthau and Niebuhr associated this human pride with in-group association and out-group ethnic/national/racial prejudice. Racial prejudice, to Morgenthau and Niebuhr therefore, is rooted in the individual’s drive for power, enabled by in-group identification. As a diagnosis for imperial policies, as well as out-group racial prejudice, Niebuhr and Morgenthau accordingly argued for an ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. Racial justice was, in this context, integral to Morgenthau’s analysis of power and the national interest. Racial justice in America, for instance, was integral to Morgenthau’s nation’s spatio-temporal negotiation of its sense of purpose, equality in freedom, which in turn was fundamental to America’s conceptualisation of its national interest. In contrast to Morgenthau and Niebuhr, Carr’s critique of imperialism entailed a critique of nineteenth-century laissez faire and the social question in Western democracies. The rise of the social question in Western democracies, according to Carr, could not be accommodated by laissez faire thus leading to its export in the form of imperialism and war abroad. The demand for better socio-economic conditions in light of modern industrialisation in Western democracies did not turn workers against capitalists but rather accelerated the latter’s exploitation of the colonies abroad. This turned class antagonism at home into a race antagonism at home and abroad. Carr thus saw racial injustice as imbedded in nineteenth-century liberalism, particularly the pretence of the ‘free market’ under laissez faire, that rationalised the socio-economic violence. As Chapter 2 concludes with situating Carr’s analysis of imperialism and war in the social question in Western democracies, building on this argument, Chapter 3 shows that Carr’s analysis of war and imperialism was shared by the first wave of post-colonial thinkers—Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Aimé Césaire. Specifically, the chapter argues here that, akin to Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire saw the advancement of the social question in Western democracies as inseparable from, and linked to, imperialism and war abroad. After presenting this parallel between Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, the chapter sets

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out to explain it. The explanation, the chapter argues, lies in that Carr, along with Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, were influenced by a twentiethcentury reinterpretation of Marxist analysis of war and imperialism that was commonly shared by others, such as Lenin and Hobson. Like Lenin and Hobson, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers were faced with the necessity to reinterpret Marxist analysis in the twentieth century, given the reality of the twentieth century that frustrated classical Marxist prediction: the nationalisation of socialism and the rise of the nation state, along with xenophobia and racism on the basis of colour (and ethnonationalist) lines, at the expense of the international proletariat. Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers thus accepted the limitations of Marxist analysis of class in the context of nationalism and racism. While they agreed with Marx that the twentieth century was the century of revolution, they distinguished two components of this revolution: the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. While the social question was at the centre of each, racism and ethno-nationalism hindered the realisation of the latter. Having presented the shared intellectual origins of Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ works in Marxist thought, Chapter 4 demonstrates that Carr’s analysis of imperialism and war parallels the first wave of post-colonial thinkers in more than one respect. In particular, Chapter 4 shows that in highlighting the limitations of classical Marxist analysis of class in the context of nationalism and racism, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers presented an account of imperialism and war that transcended the materialist critique. The chapter argues that Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers did not only situate imperialism in the context of the social question of Western democracies, but also provided an ideology critique of imperialism. This ideology critique, the chapter argues, entails the four core tenets in Hobson’s definition of Eurocentrism. These include the rejection of the dualism that equates the West with civilisation and the East with barbarism; the rejection of a linear path to development that culminates in a ‘Western civilisational terminus’; the rejection of a Eurocentric standard of civilisation; and finally, a critique of schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that yields a hierarchical ‘gradated sovereignty’ (Hobson, 2014, 560). These tenets can be summarised in the ideology critique of two assumptions in Enlightenment reason in the works of Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. First, the association of ‘reason’ with Western civilisation, which in turn creates a dualism of European reason in contrast to non-European

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barbarity. Second, and following from this, a critique of linearity: the notion that progress in light of reason is not only possible, but also follows a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development. This twofold critique of Enlightenment reason leads Carr to expose the ideological role that ‘reason’ played to advance European, particularly British, interests under the pretext of the ‘harmony of interests’. In turn, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ exposes the dualistic conception of sovereignty that Hobson identifies, where powerful nations, Great Britain in particular, employed ‘reason’ ideologically, to legitimate imperial hierarchy in the international. Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire shared this ideology critique with Carr. Like Carr, they critiqued the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning science, morality, medicine, and historiography. Like Carr, they view the purpose of such pretentions to legitimate and perpetuate the violence of imperialism. To Césaire, European science and morality were ideological tools to legitimate racism and the violence of European imperialism. Fanon’s critique targeted the field of psychiatry. Psychiatry, to Fanon, did not only operate within the violence of settler colonialism, but also played an ideological role that legitimated its perpetuation. Du Bois’s analysis focused to the White historiography of the American Civil War. The narrative in the ‘official’ historiography of the American Civil War according to Du Bois played an ideological role that legitimated the perpetuation of a new system of racist segregation, Jim Crow, bringing a tragic end to Reconstruction and resetting White settler colonialism. These ideology critiques of the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography in the works of Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, the chapter argues, parallel Carr’s ideology critique of the universalist pretentions of liberal reason and Victorian moralism. Chapter 5 moves beyond Carr and the early post-colonial thinkers’ critiques of imperialism towards their visions of the post-war order. The post-war settlement for Carr, as to Fanon, Césaire, and Du Bois, Chapter 5 argues, did not only have an economic purpose but also psycho-social purpose: it aimed to address the sense of alienation felt by the individual in late modern society. By alienation this chapter means the lack of ‘confidence or trust that the natural and social worlds are as they appear to be, including the basic existential parameters of self and social identity’ (Giddens, 1984, 375). This chapter shows that Carr’s analysis of nationalism and the post-war settlement takes seriously this dynamic in late modernity, namely the psycho-social role of nationalism in providing a

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sense of purpose, meaning, and social solidarity in late modernity. The first wave of post-colonial thinkers associated this sense of alienation with the colonial and racial experience. Despite the common aim in addressing the individual’s sense of alienation in late modern society, Chapter 5 argues, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions of this settlement diverged. Carr and Césaire were closer to one another in that they advocated a post-war settlement that was cosmopolitan and addressed the individual’s sense of alienation without emphasis on national sovereignty. They both supported multinational empires that would grant colonial subjects equal social and economic rights, as well as cultural freedom. Unlike Carr and Césaire, Fanon could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. National independence, Fanon however warned, cannot address the social question in the new reality of neo-colonialism under global capitalism without African unity. Like Fanon, Du Bois held a vision of African unity under socialist Pan-Africanism that would ensure sovereignty and address the problem of alienation for Africans. Having set out their arguments on the post-war settlement, the chapter then argues that, with the benefit of hindsight, these visions can be seen as idealistic today. Carr and Césaire’s visions are idealistic in that they downplay the reality of power in post-imperial relations and the problem of racism as a hinderance to progress along multinational lines. Fanon and Du Bois’s visions are also idealistic in that they overplay the case for African unity and more generally unity along socialist lines. This in turn leads to neglecting the power asymmetries that would form the basis for the continuation of neo-colonial relationships after independence, in the form of economic dependency as well as military interventionism in the African continent. Given the failure to materialise the visions proposed by Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, Chapter 5 asks, what is the relevance of the present, ‘post-colonial’, interpretation of Carr in the twenty-first century? In answering this question, Chapter 6 argues that despite the failure of his vision of the post-war settlement, Carr’s work remains relevant today. In particular, Carr’s work opens avenues for engagement between classical realism and post-colonialism across two debates relevant to postcolonial IR scholars today: first, on human rights; second on the liberal

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international order. Overall, a Carrian engagement with the debate on human rights and the liberal international order presents an important lesson for post-colonial IR today: that all theories and concepts in IR are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they originally promised. Carr’s warning here is especially relevant in the neo-liberal era, which, Chapter 6 demonstrates, on one hand intensifies the individual’s feeling of alienation, while, on the other hand, leads to nationalistic identification and violence. In the neo-liberal context, postcolonial IR scholarship, its concepts and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s critique. The relationship between the increasing sense of alienation under neoliberalism on one hand and aggressive nationalism on the other is thus an important theme from Carr’s work today. Given its importance, it raises the question for critical IR theory today: what alternative does critical IR theory, including post-colonial theory, provide to neo-liberalism? The book’s conclusion, Chapter 7, engages with this question and argues that in the absence of an alternative, forward-looking, narrative to the neo-liberal status quo, critical and post-colonial IR theory today are left unarmed against reactionary forces and the emerging nationalism that would feed the future of great power politics.

Notes 1. While maintaining the discipline’s pluralism is a common objective in IR (Jackson, 2011), the meaning of pluralism is contested (Levine & McCourt, 2018). To Global IR scholars, for example, pluralism means expanding the scope of IR theorising beyond the Anglo-American dominance (Acharya, 2014; Acharya & Buzan, 2019). To postcolonial scholars, it means challenging the epistemological and ontological foundations of IR as a racist and colonial discipline (e.g. Henderson, 2013; Seth, 2011). 2. This position also problematises Jahn’s analysis of the development of IR theory on the basis of the development of ‘new meta-theoretical grounds’ and ‘methodological tools’, since such grounds and tools may not have been in contest in the first instance (e.g. see Bain’s, 2000 critique of George, 1995). It does, however, vindicate Jahn’s position that the universalist claims of science that theories may assume cannot be reconciled with their partial political positions, in turn leading to the fragmentation of the discipline through the prolieferation of theoretical approach. On the proliferation of theories within IR as a social science, see Karkour and Giese (2020).

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3. The book borrows the term ‘first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ from Julian Go (2017). The reason the book similar parallels can be found with the works of Senghor and Cabral, however the focus here is on Fanon, Du Bois and Césaire due to their higher coverage among post-colonial scholars in IR. 4. Carr also wrote a biography of Karl Marx in the 1930s. 5. Carr, as Haslam, notes became unemployable. Du Bois fell victim to McCarthyism. 6. As acknowledged in his preface to the Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr was greatly influenced by Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia. Furthermore, Mannheim himself was influenced by Marx’s ideology critique of the universality of reason, who in turn influenced Césaire, Fanon and Du Bois’s ideology critique of imperialism and war. 7. The purpose of post-war planning to Carr was therefore also not only economic but also psycho-social. Carr, as Rosenboim (2017), Scheuerman (2011) and Kenealy and Konstagiannis (2013) noted, was more sensitive than Mitrany to the political challenge nationalism posed. The political roots of nationalism, to Carr, did not only stem from the economic advantages the worker gained from the socialised nation, but also the sense of purpose it provided. Thus the ‘European Reconstruction and Public Works Corporation’ and the ‘European Planning Authority’ aimed to direct the individual’s pursuit of purpose and meaning away from war and nationalism towards a higher sense of meaning and social solidarity on a post-national level.

References Acharya, A. (2014). Global international relations (IR) and regional worlds. International Studies Quarterly, 58(4), 647–659. Acharya, A., & Buzan, B. (2019). The making of global international relations: Origins and evolution of IR at its centenary. Cambridge University Press. Ashworth, L. (2017). David Mitrany on the international anarchy—A lost work of classical realism? Journal of International Political Theory, 13(3), 311–324. Babik, M. (2013). Realism as critical theory: The international thought of E. H. Carr. International Studies Review, 15(4), 491–514. Bain, W. (2000). Deconfusing Morgenthau: Moral inquiry and classical realism reconsidered. Review of International Studies, 23(3), 445–464. Barkin, S. (2003). Realist constructivism. International Studies Review, 5(3), 325–342. Barkin, S. (2010). Realist constructivism. Cambridge University Press.

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Behr, H., & Heath, A. (2009). Misreading in IR theory and ideology critique: Morgenthau, Waltz and neo-realism. Review of International Studies, 35(2), 327–349. Behr, H., & Roesch, F. (2012). Introduction. In H. Behr & F. Roesch (Eds.), The concept of the political (M. Vidal, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan. Behr, H., & Williams, M. (2017). Interlocuting classical realism and critical theory: Negotiating ‘divides’ in international relations theory. Journal of International Political Theory, 13(1), 3–17. Brown, C. (2013). The poverty of grand theory. European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 483–497. Buzan, B. (2001). The English school: An underexploited resource in IR. Review of International Studies, 27 (3), 471–488. Chong, A. (2007). Lessons in international communication: Carr, Angell and Lippmann on human nature, public opinion and leadership. Review of International Studies, 33(4), 615–635. Cox, M. (2000). E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave Macmillan. Cox, M. (2021). E. H. Carr, Chatham House and nationalism. International Affairs, 97 (1), 219–228. Cozette, M. (2008). Reclaiming the critical dimension in realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the ethics of scholarship. Review of International Studies, 34(1), 5–27. Cunliffe, P. (2020). The new twenty years’ crisis: A critique of international relations, 1999–2019. McGuill-Queen’s University Press. Dunne, T., Hansen, L., & Wight, C. (2013). The end of international relations theory? European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 405–425. Gellner, E. (1992). Nationalism reconsidered and E. H. Carr. Review of International Studies, 18(4), 285–293. Germain, R. (2019). E. H. Carr and IPE: An Essay in Retrieval. International Studies Quarterly, 63(4), 952–962. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. University of California Press. Gismondi, M. (2004). Tragedy, realism and postmodernity: Kulturpessimismus in the theories of Max Weber, E. H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger. Diplomacy and Statecraft, 15(3), 435–463. Go, J. (2017). Postcolonial thought and social theory. Oxford University Press. Haslam, J. (1999). The vices of integrity: E. H. Carr, 1892–1982. Verso. Heath, A. (2010). E.H. Carr: Approaches to understanding experience and knowledge. Global Discourse: an Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs and Applied Contemporary Thought, 1(1), 43–46. Henderson, E. (2013). Hidden in plain sight: Racism in international relations theory. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 26(1), 71–92.

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Hobson, J. (2007). Is critical theory always for the white west and for western imperialism? Beyond Westphalian towards a post-racist critical international relations. Review of International Studies, 33(S1), 91–116. Hobson, J. (2012). The Eurocentric conception of world politics: Western international theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge University Press. Hobson, J. (2014). The twin self-delusions of IR: Why ‘hierarchy’ and not ‘anarchy’ is the core concept of IR. Millennium, 42(3), 557–575. Jackson, P. (2011). The conduct of inquiry in international relations: Philosophy of science and its implications for the study of world politics. Routledge. Jones, C. (1998). E. H. Carr and international relations: A duty to lie. Cambridge University Press. Karkour, H. L. (2021). Debating global justice with Carr: The crisis of laissez faire and the legitimacy problem in the twentieth century. Journal of International Political Theory, 17 (1), 81–98. Karkour, H. L., & Giese, D. (2020). Bringing Morgenthau’s ethics in: Pluralism, incommensurability and the turn from fragmentation to dialogue in IR. European Journal of International Relations, 26(4), 1106–1128. Kenealy, D., & Konstagiannis, K. (2013). Realist visions of European Union: E.H. Carr and integration. Millennium—Journal of International Studies, 41(2), 221–246. Konstagiannis, K. (2017). Realist thought and the nation state: Power politics in the age of nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan. Kratochwil, F. (2003). The monologue of “Science”. International Studies Review, 5(1), 124–128. https://doi.org/10.1111/1521-9488.501019_2 Levine, D., & McCourt, D. (2018). Why does pluralism matter when we study politics? A view from contemporary international relations. Perspectives on Politics, 16(1), 92–109. Linklater, A. (2000). E. H. Carr, nationalism and the future of the sovereign state. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave. Lynch, C. (2019). The moral aporia of race in international relations. International Relations, 33(2), 267–285. Mearsheimer, J. (2005). E. H. Carr vs. idealism: The battle rages on. International Relations, 19(2), 139–152. Molloy, S. (2006). The hidden history of realism: A genealogy of power politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Morgenthau, H. (1970). Truth and power: Essays of a decade 1960–1970. Praeger. Nishimura, K. (2011). E. H. Carr, Dostoevsky, and the problem of irrationality in modern Europe. International Relations, 25(1), 45–64. Pettman, J. (1998). Nationalism and after. Review of International Studies, 24(5), 149–164. Rosenboim, O. (2017). The emergence of globalism: Visions of world order in Britain and the United States, 1939–1950. Princeton University Press.

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Scheuerman, W. (2011). The realist case for global reform. Polity. Schuett, R. (2011). Classical realism, Freud and human nature in international relations. History of the Human Sciences, 23(2), 21–46. Seth, S. (2011). Postcolonial theory and the critique of international relations. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 40(1), 167–183. Sylvester, C. (2007). Whither the international at the end of IR. Millennium, 35(3), 551–573. Sylvester, C. (2013). Experiencing the end and afterlives of international relations/theory. European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 609–626. Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge University Press. Williams, M. (2013). In the beginning: The international relations enlightenment and the ends of international relations theory. European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 647–665.

CHAPTER 2

Realist Variations on Imperialism and Race

Introduction The classical realist analysis of imperialism is largely misrepresented in post-colonial literature. While scholars with interest in classical realism would agree with the post-colonial critique of neo-realism, as little more than an ideology to justify US imperialism (Behr & Heath, 2009; Williams, 2013), they would juxtapose this position with Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Carr, who are more reflexive and critical of empire (Babik, 2013; Cozette, 2008; Karkour, 2021). Despite their critiques of empire, however, the classical realists also diverged in their analyses over its causes. The classical realist position is thus more nuanced than currently presented in post-colonial literature, in that there are variations among the classical realists in the analyses of imperialism. Morgenthau and Niebuhr rejected the Marxist-inspired analysis that associated imperialism with nineteenth-century laissez faire and the ‘social question’ in Western democracies. They perceived the causes of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power. Morgenthau and Niebuhr associated this human pride more generally with in-group association and out-group ethnic/national/racial prejudice. Racial prejudice, they argued, is rooted in the individual’s drive for power, enabled via in-group identification. As a diagnosis for imperial policies, as well as out-group racial prejudice, Niebuhr and Morgenthau thus argued for an © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_2

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ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. It is precisely this ‘ethic of humility’ that Morgenthau incorporated into his conception of the national interest ‘defined in terms of power’ (among others, see Karkour, 2018; Molloy, 2014). Racial justice was, in this context, integral to Morgenthau’s analysis of power and the national interest. Racial justice in America, for instance, was integral to Morgenthau’s nation’s spatio-temporal negotiation of its sense of purpose, equality in freedom, which in turn was fundamental to America’s conceptualisation of its national interest. In contrast to Morgenthau and Niebuhr, Carr’s critique of imperialism entailed a critique of nineteenthcentury laissez faire and the social question in Western democracies. According to Carr, the rise of the socialised nation, to whom the issue of economic (re)distribution was fundamental to democracy, could not be accommodated by laissez faire. This in turn led to the export of the social question at home to imperialism, racism, and war abroad. The demand for a bigger share in the economic pie by workers in Western democracies did not turn them against capital but rather accelerated the latter’s exploitation of the colonies abroad. This turned class antagonism at home into a race antagonism abroad. Carr thus saw racial injustice as imbedded in nineteenth-century liberalism, particularly the pretence of the ‘free market’ under laissez faire, that rationalised and legitimated imperial violence. To proceed with this argument, this chapter unfolds in two steps. Section one problematises the post-colonial critiques of imperialism and race in classical realism. It presents the variations within classical realism on these issues and identifies the centrality of the social question in Carr’s distinctive analysis. Section two highlights the context that Carr provides to explain the rationale behind the centrality of the social question in explaining imperial violence.

Realist Variations on Imperialism and Race Despite the prevalence of generalisation on realism in post-colonial literature, there is no uniform Realist (with capital R) position on the causes of imperialism or racial injustice in classical realist analysis. This section is divided into two sub-sections, with the aim to, respectively, problematise the post-colonial critiques of imperialism and race in classical realism.

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Realist Variations on Imperialism This sub-section argues that the post-colonial critique of realism as an ideology that justifies imperialism applies to neo-realism. The classical realists, however, set out their arguments explicitly as critiques of all forms of imperialism. Morgenthau and Niebuhr perceived the causes of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power. The solution to restraining imperialism, therefore, was an ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and attempts to limit its exercise in the international sphere. It is common for post-colonial scholarship in IR to present sweeping generalisations about realist analysis of imperialism. In a famous paper, for instance, Enrol Henderson argues that Realism (with capital R to encompass all strands), ‘roots its conception of anarchy in the Hobbesian view of the state of nature’ (Henderson, 2013, 80). Echoing Charles Mills, Henderson argues that this conception was not applicable to ‘the general state of mankind’ but rather intended to describe the state of affairs of ‘non-whites’ to rationalise imperialistic violence against them and the appropriation of their land. Thus, ‘a non-white people, indeed the very non-white people upon whose land his fellow Europeans were then encroaching, is his only real-life example of people in a [Hobbesian] state of nature’ (Mills, 1997, 65; cited in Henderson, 2013, 80). It follows that, the concerns among realists and idealists with anarchy are grounded in a racist discourse that is concerned with the obligations of superior peoples to impose order on the anarchic domains of inferior peoples in order to prevent the chaos presumed to be endemic in the latter from spilling over into the former’s territories or self-proclaimed spheres of interest. Similarly, the realist and idealist concern with power was grounded in a racist discourse concerned largely with the power of whites to control the tropics, subjugate its people, steal its resources and superimpose themselves through colonial administration. (Henderson, 2013, 85)

There are two problems with Henderson’s generalisation about realism. First, the ‘Hobbesian’ state of nature Henderson associates with realism has been rejected by classical realists. For example, in response to Martin Wight’s Hobbesian interpretation of his work, Morgenthau replied in a letter to International Affairs:

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To say that a truth is “hidden” in an “extreme” dictum can hardly be called an endorsement of the dictum. To call a position “extreme” is not to identify oneself with the position but to disassociate oneself from it … I was trying to establish the point, in contrast to Hobbes’s, that moral principles are universal and, hence, are not created by the state. (Morgenthau, 1959; on Carr’s rejection of Hobbesianism see, for instance, Linklater, 2000; Molloy, 2021)

Secondly, the concept of anarchy was indeed central to neo-realists such as Waltz (whom Henderson cites most extensively), but not to classical realists. In response to those who take it as ‘a matter of course that anarchy [is] a basic assumption of Morgenthau’s “realist’ theory” for instance, Hartmut Behr and Amelia Heath argue that ‘although this may be true for Waltz, it is not the case for Morgenthau’ (Behr & Heath, 2009, 332). Since ‘the term anarchy is mentioned in Politics Among Nations only three times; and when Morgenthau refers to it, it is in a critical dissociation from Hobbes’ (Behr & Heath, 2009, 332). Importantly, Behr and Heath note that Politics Among Nations originated as a reflexive attempt to critique the ideological rationalisation of power. It was only later that ‘a plethora of neo-realists became cooks in the “kitchen of power”’ (Behr & Heath, 2009, 345). In this sense, Morgenthau’s (classical) realism and Waltz’s (neo)realism are diametrically opposed in their aims and methodologies: the former rejects the ‘value free’ social science of the latter and pursues instead a normative critique of power (Karkour & Giese, 2020; Roesch, 2014; Williams, 2013). Morgenthau’s critique of power runs counter to any social science that proceeds on the basis of its rationalisation, let alone the rationalisation of empire. Akin to Morgenthau, in The Structure of Nations and Empires, Niebuhr presents a critique of power as an instrument of imperialism. The ‘pretentions’ of power, according to Niebuhr, ‘are the source of evil, whether they are expressed by kings and emperors or by commissars and revolutionary statesmen’ (Niebuhr, 1959, 298). It is thus simply not true, pace Henderson and other post-colonial IR theorists (as cited below), that classical realists such as Morgenthau and Niebuhr either justified or omitted imperialism from their analyses of international politics. Morgenthau, as well as Niebuhr (but unlike Carr), rejected the Marxist explanation of imperialism as rooted in laissez faire capitalism and the social question in Western democracies. Instead,

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they presented a long durée explanation of imperial domination: imperial domination, according to Morgenthau and Niebuhr, was a political problem that pre-dated the capitalist structure of the global economy. ‘The economic interpretation of imperialism’ that Marxism proposes, according to Morgenthau, ‘erects a limited historic experience, based on a few isolated cases, into a universal law of history’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 53). The notion that ‘capitalist societies’ wage wars in search of ‘markets for their products and sufficient investments for their capital’ did not stand to empirical scrutiny according to Morgenthau (1978, 52). For ‘during the entire period of mature capitalism’ Morgenthau observed, ‘no war, with the exception of the Boer War, was waged by major powers exclusively or even predominantly for economic objectives’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 53). Furthermore, ‘the main period of colonial expansion which the economic theories tend to identify with imperialism precedes the age of mature capitalism’ and ‘Louis XIV, Peter the Great, the Napoleon I were the great imperialists of the modern pre-capitalist age’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 54). ‘What the precapitalist imperialist, the capitalist imperialist, and the “imperialistic” capitalist want’ thus Morgenthau concluded, ‘is power, not economic gain’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 55). To counter imperialism, therefore, the scholar ought to address the problem of power—namely to limit power, through an ethic of humility. Morgenthau incorporated such an ‘ethic of humility’ into his, largely misunderstood among post-colonial scholars, conception of the national interest. This ‘ethic of humility’ calls for the acknowledgement of the deceptive nature of power and acceptance of the ‘lesser evil’. It is based on the premises, which Morgenthau summarises in Scientific Man Versus Power Politics as follows, Neither science nor ethics nor politics can resolve the conflict between politics and ethics into harmony. We have no choice between power and the common good. To act successfully, that is, according to the rules of the political art, is political wisdom. To know with despair that the political act is inevitably evil, and to act nevertheless, is moral courage. To choose among several expedient actions the least evil one is moral judgment. In the combination of political wisdom, moral courage, and moral judgment, man reconciles his political nature with his moral destiny. (Morgenthau, 1946, 173)

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The ‘lesser evil’ does not justify imperialism, but, by accepting the selfdeceptive nature of power and attempting to limit it, also prescribes a limit to power-hungry and self-deceptive imperial policies. ‘The existence of the lesser evil’ in the words of Sean Molloy ‘gives rise to the development of specifically political virtues such as prudence and moderation which raise the possibility of moral politics beyond mere expedience’ (Molloy, 2009, 94). Like Morgenthau, Niebuhr rejected the Marxist explanation of imperialism as rooted in laissez faire capitalism. ‘The facts are at variance with this [Marxist] dogma’ Niebuhr wrote (echoing Morgenthau), ‘for if imperialism had any political form it was the pre-capitalistic mercantilism in which political authority, primarily the monarchy, tried to gain advantage by extending its dominion’ (Niebuhr, 1959, 23). Thus, ‘imperialism in the name of universal values was … a characteristic mark of dominion for many millennia’ (Niebuhr, 1959, 27). What particularly distinguished British imperialism was its racism: ‘Anglo-Saxons exhibit more race pride than the Latins, whether French, Spanish or Italian; and all the achievements of British rule cannot obscure the fact that British dominion insisted on separation of the dominant and the subject peoples, while Latin rule allowed intermarriage more consistently and made little of the distinction between white and coloured peoples’ (Niebuhr, 1959, 213). ‘The Latins were not more just to their subject peoples but they were more tolerant of intermarriage’ (Niebuhr, 1959, 213). Like Morgenthau, Niebuhr saw imperialism as both pre-dating capitalism and sourced in human pride and self-deception over power. The rationalisation of empire and the rationalisation of power, to Niebuhr, as to Morgenthau, were part and parcel of the same process of rationalisation. ‘Most evil arises’ as Niebuhr put it, ‘because finite men involved in the flux of time pretend that they are not involved. They make claims of virtue, of wisdom, and of power which are beyond their competence as creatures’ (Niebuhr, 1959, 298). Like Morgenthau, Niebuhr thus called for an ethic of humility as a bulwark against imperialism. Of course, not everyone concurs with this interpretation of Niebuhr and Morgenthau as reflexive critics of imperialism, whose aims were diametrically opposed to contemporary neo-realists. Nicholas Guilhot for instance argues that ‘Morgenthau’s 1965 denunciation of US policy in Vietnam, is not based on a principled opposition to imperialism, but on a clear discernment of what constitutes, at a given historical moment, the national interest of the United States’, while adding that ‘it is the

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same analysis that sustains recent realist critiques of US ventures in Iraq or Afghanistan, such as John Mearsheimer’s’ (Guilhot, 2014, 714). While it is true that Morgenthau did not see the intervention in Vietnam in the US national interest, Morgenthau’s conception of the national interest, as discussed above, was different, and more complex, than Mearsheimer’s. To Mearsheimer the national interest meant the maintenance of US hegemony through a strategy of offshore balancing (Mearsheimer, 2018; Mearsheimer & Walt, 2016). To Morgenthau, on the other hand, the national interest was a ‘critical device’ for a reflexive analysis of foreign policy (Behr, 2013). By ‘reflexive’ it is meant here an analysis that is aware of the self-deceptive nature, and thus limitation of, power (Morgenthau, 1959). This reflexive aspect in Morgenthau’s work is well established in the discipline (Behr & Williams, 2017; Cozette, 2008; Molloy, 2019; Roesch, 2014; Scheuerman, 2010), and it presents a missing link in much of the post-colonial interpretations of Morgenthau’s analysis of imperialism. These interpretations do not only present a selective account of Morgenthau’s position vis-à-vis imperialism, but also attribute to him arguments which he explicitly opposed. For example, Henderson argues that ‘even in such a prominent IR text as Politics Among Nations Hans Morgenthau (1985 [1948], 369), one of the most influential IR scholars of the twentieth century, could refer to “the politically empty spaces of Africa and Asia”’ (Henderson, 2013, 76). Morgenthau however did not write about ‘politically empty’ spaces to approve of imperialism or justify it, but rather to explain how by pursuing a policy of imperialism an aggressive nation legitimates its power ambitions. As Politics Among Nations was primarily a critique of power, Morgenthau explained this ambition and how it rationalises power to help policymakers identify and counter it, rather than confuse it with a policy of ‘status quo’. Morgenthau’s own normative prescription was premised on what Felix Roesch (2014) refers to as a ‘normative concept of power’, a concept that pursues the accommodation of various interests and rejects all rationalisation of power, including a power that aims ‘the construction of a hierarchical racial order to be imposed upon the anarchy allegedly arising from the tropics’ (Henderson, 2013, 85). As Morgenthau put it in his foreign policy prescription, nations must ‘look at the political scene from the point of view of other nations’ and ‘be willing to compromise on all issues that are not vital to them’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 552–554).

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The most detailed post-colonial analysis of (the various strands in) realism can be found in John Hobson’s works, particularly the Eurocentric Conception of World Politics (Hobson, 2007, 2012, 2014). Central to Hobson’s argument in the Eurocentric Conception is that with the delegitimation of scientific racism in the post-1945 period, a ‘subliminal Eurocentrism’ operated in IR theory, ‘to sanitise or whitewash Western imperialism from the historical record of world politics’ (Hobson, 2012, 84). Thus, disqualified racist language disappears, but only to reappear in new semantics that keep the meaning intact: ‘manifest Eurocentrism is not so much exorcised as turned inside out such that it takes on a “subliminal” manifestation. This move allows its representatives to speak a language that has appeared to be more socially acceptable in the postNazi/postcolonial era’ (Hobson, 2012, 186). A key characteristic of this ‘subliminal Eurocentrism’ Hobson refers to in the context of realism entails the deployment of ‘conceptions of formal or informal hierarchy and gradated sovereignty’ where ‘the West is held to be the pioneering agent or subject of world politics while the East is portrayed as a passive object of the diktat of the Western great powers’ (Hobson, 2012, 186). A good example of ‘gradated sovereignty’ according to Hobson can be found in Gilpin’s Hegemonic Stability Theory and Waltz’s neo-realist theory. A central point in Hobson’s critique here is that by emphasising anarchy these theories obscure ‘the politics of hierarchy’: a focus on anarchy ‘means that the role played by Western imperialism/neoimperialism in international politics in the modern era (1648–2010) is necessarily obscured or sublimated’ (Hobson, 2012, 205; see also Hobson, 2012, 211; 2013; 2014). Crucially, Hobson provides a critique of a contradiction in the application of neo-realist theory—the unquestioned assumption that power politics applies to all bar the hegemon in Gilpin and Waltz’s analyses of hegemony (Hobson, 2012, 212–213). In Hobson’s words, I turn to consider a number of fundamental contradictions that lie in Waltz’s Theory, which in turn reveal a residual paternalist Eurocentric dimension to his approach. All of this emerges in the context of his discussion of US hegemony and his denial of the presence of American neo-imperialism in the post-1945 era. Much as Waltz elides the politics of Western imperialism between c.1800 and c.1960, so he seeks explicitly to sanitise or whitewash the postcolonial era of its American neo-imperialist properties. (Hobson, 2012, 211)

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Hobson’s argument here on the dualist or ‘gradated’ conception of sovereignty in realism is generally applicable to Waltz.1 Hobson’s critique can also be extended to Mearsheimer and Walt’s strategy of ‘offshore balancing’. ‘By pursuing a strategy of “offshore balancing”’ Mearsheimer and Walt argue, ‘Washington would forgo ambitious efforts to remake other societies and concentrate on what really matters: preserving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and countering potential hegemons in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf’ (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2016, 71). While Mearsheimer and Walt present this as a ‘rational’ strategy for peace, the strategy has unmistakable similarities with the divide and conquer techniques of European imperial powers. For instance, the strategy aims to maintain the ‘balance of power’ in the Middle East to ensure that ‘neither a local state nor an outside power is able to control the region’s energy resources’ that supply the United States (Walt, 2018, 14). As Mearsheimer and Walt put it, ‘because the [Middle East] region has a large percentage of global energy supplies, the most important interest is maintaining access to the oil and natural gas located in the Persian Gulf’ (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007, 337). To protect this interest, Mearsheimer and Walt continue, the United States needs ‘to prevent any local power from establishing hegemony in the Gulf and to deter outside powers from establishing control of the region’ (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007, 337). Importantly, the strategy contradicts the dictates of the balance of power in neo-realist theory in that the balance of power applies to everyone but the hegemon (the United States), which itself is allegedly a ‘benign empire’. The explanation to this contradiction lies in Mearsheimer and Walt’s juxtaposition of what Hobson (2014, 559) once referred to as a ‘level playing field of juridically-equal sovereign states’ with ‘the unequal field of civilisational or racial hierarchy and “gradated” sovereignties in world politics’. Though states are ‘like units’ in Mearsheimer and Walt’s neo-realist theory, not all states are alike when a strategy of offshore balancing is employed in practice. Still, Mearsheimer defends the universal applicability of his theoretical propositions. For instance, Mearsheimer recently wrote that he felt, intellectually more at home in Beijing than Washington because Chinese scholars and policymakers tend to be more sympathetic to realism than their American counterparts. So, when I speak in China— where there is a deep fascination with American IR theories — I sometimes start my

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talks by saying, “It is good to be back among my people.” And I do not speak one word of Chinese, although I do speak the same language as my Chinese interlocutors when we talk about the basic realities of international politics. (Mearsheimer, 2016, 148)

To Mearsheimer the acceptance of his theoretical propositions in China vindicates his theory against charges of ‘Eurocentrism’ and demonstrates the US’ ‘benign hegemony’.2 Offshore balancing strategy however can be mimicked by other great powers, particularly China, in the pursuit of neoimperialist objectives. It may be the case, therefore, that Mearsheimer’s popularity in China may be more reflective of the rising popularity of nationalist discourse and China’s neo-imperial ambitions, rather than the universality of neo-realist theory. There is evidence, from Chinese cyberspace for example, of a growing discourse in China that epitomises ‘anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies … used to underline the superiority of the pragmatic authoritarianism of the Chinese regime’ (Zhang, 2020, 90). The argument that neo-realist theory legitimates US imperialism however cannot be simply extended to classical realism. Despite this, and akin to Henderson, Hobson lumps together his critique of neo-realism (Waltz and Mearsheimer) with the classical realists. ‘Morgenthau’s treatment of imperialism’ Hobson notes, ‘illustrates one of the key aspects of orthodox subliminal Eurocentrism’ (Hobson, 2012, 188). In his definition of imperialism, Morgenthau contrasts a foreign policy of imperialism, which seeks to overturn the overall distribution of power in the status quo from a foreign policy of ‘status quo’ that is compatible with the existing distribution of power. This definition narrows the historical scope of imperialism as a foreign policy tool. It means, in Morgenthau’s words, that ‘since the 1870s, British “imperialism” – that is, British foreign policy with regards to Britain’s overseas possessions – was in the main a policy of the status quo’ (Morgenthau, 1967, 60). Hobson concludes from this statement that Morgenthau’s definition is a tactical move to ‘“whitewash” Western imperialism from the historical record’ as ‘the majority of the formal-imperial era [in Morgenthau’s analysis] logically drops out from view’ (Hobson, 2012, 189). Akin to Hobson, Guilhot argues that Morgenthau ‘defines imperialism exclusively from the point of view of European powers: only for them - and for their stipendiated theorists - can imperialism take the form of the maintenance of the “status quo”, while

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it may well be experienced as a dramatic form of destitution by the populations subjected to these putatively “conservative” policies’ (Guilhot, 2014, 708). Morgenthau however did not deny the presence of imperialism and the policies designed for the ‘administration and safeguarding of empire’ throughout the modern period, beyond the periods where he identified foreign policies of imperialism (Morgenthau, 1967, 61). Rather, Morgenthau distinguished between policies designed to maintain, stabilise, and defend empires, from policies designed to acquiring empires, while also conceding that ‘it makes sense to apply the term “imperialism” to the domestic policies of an existing empire’ (Morgenthau, 1967, 59). Why did Morgenthau draw this distinction? Morgenthau provides the answer in his analysis of imperialism in the final chapter in Politics Among Nations on diplomacy: because ‘a nation that mistakes a policy of imperialism for a policy of the status quo will be unprepared to meet the threat to its own existence which the other nation’s policy entails … a nation that mistakes a policy of the status quo for a policy of imperialism will evoke through its disproportionate reaction the very danger of war which it is trying to avoid’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 530). In other words, to help policymakers make prudent judgements on the policies of their opponents and engage in prudent policies themselves. It is a fair critique that Morgenthau’s normative position here is narrow—the emphasis is on assisting policymakers in their foreign policy decisions. But this does not mean that Morgenthau legitimated imperialism or denied that Britain’s policies, which aimed to maintain an existing empire, could be termed as ‘imperialism’ (in the sense of maintaining an empire). In sum, despite the prevalence of generalisation in post-colonial literature, there is no uniform Realist (with capital R) position on imperialism. The post-colonial critique of realism—that it provides an ideological justification to imperialism—applies to neo-realism. The classical realists set out their arguments explicitly as critiques of imperialism. Morgenthau and Niebuhr perceived the causes of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power. The solution to imperialism was an ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and attempts to limit it. Morgenthau and Niebuhr also associated this human pride with in-group association and out-group racial prejudice.

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Morgenthau and Niebuhr on Racial Prejudice Just as Morgenthau and Niebuhr perceived the roots of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power, they rooted racial prejudice in the same drive for power, enabled by in-group identification. As with imperialism, Morgenthau and Niebuhr’s diagnoses for out-group racial prejudice thus remained the recognition of the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. Racial justice was, in this context, integral to Morgenthau’s analysis of power and the national interest. In particular, it was integral to the nation’s spatio-temporal negotiation of its sense of purpose, equality in freedom, which in turn was fundamental to America’s conceptualisation of its national interest. The post-colonial generalisation about the classical realist take on imperialism finds its echo in the post-colonial critique of race or racism in realist theory. Henderson for instance, ‘examines the extent to which’ realism (and liberalism) ‘are oriented by racist—primarily, white supremacist — precepts that inhere within their foundational construct, namely, anarchy’ (Henderson, 2013, 70). ‘While realism and idealism converge on a white supremacist logic that has been evident since the establishment of the field of IR’ Henderson writes, ‘not only was this racism present at the creation of the field, but it continues to inform the major paradigms, primarily — though not uniquely — through their conceptions of anarchy’ (Henderson, 2013, 85). The general consensus in post-colonial literature in IR is thus that realism’s downplaying of imperialism is closely associated with a second amnesia about race (Biswas, 2017, 31). ‘Intellectual life’ in IR theory as Vitalis put it, ‘is governed by the “norm against noticing”’ race (Vitalis, 2000, 333). In Persaud and Walker’s words, The theory of international relations has shown a famous aversion to complex and multiply contested concepts. It has been especially silent about race, as about many other practices that cannot be quickly reduced to claims about the necessities of states in a modern states-system. Like culture, economy, or gender, it does not fit into the prevailing division of the world into "levels" above (the international) and below (the individual) the state. Unlike culture, economy, and gender, there has been very little attempt to insist that claims about race do indeed deserve serious discussion in the context of a changing international or global order. (Persaud & Walker, 2001, 373)

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‘The primary problem that must be addressed’ it thus follows, ‘is not that race has been ignored in IR (there is, in fact, a fairly significant literature on racial factors in world politics), but that race has been given the epistemological status of silence’ (Persaud & Walker, 2001, 374). In a similar vein Krishna ‘argues that the discipline of international relations was and is predicated on a systematic politics of forgetting, a wilful amnesia, on the question of race’ (Krishna, 2001, 401). One ‘strategy’ that IR theory uses to engage in this ‘wilful amnesia’ according to Krishna is ‘abstraction’: IR discourse’s valorisation, indeed fetishization, of abstraction is premised on a desire to escape history, to efface the violence, genocide, and theft that marked the encounter between the rest and the West in the postColumbian era. Abstraction, usually presented as the desire of the discipline to engage in theory-building rather than in descriptive or historical analysis, is a screen that simultaneously rationalizes and elides the details of these encounters. By encouraging students to display their virtuosity in abstraction, the discipline brackets questions of theft of land, violence, and slavery - the three processes that have historically underlain the unequal global order we now find ourselves in. (Krishna, 2001, 401–402)

While ‘abstraction’ is central to all forms of theorising, the question remains to be answered: have classical realists failed to theorise race as post-colonial scholars argue? The answer is, quite simply, no. Just as Morgenthau and Niebuhr perceived the roots of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power, they rooted racial prejudice in the same drive for power, enabled by in-group identification. The drive for power, according to Niebuhr and Morgenthau is rooted in the contingency of existence. It can take many forms—for example, in the love of partner or God, or, in corrupt form, absolute power. In his essay on ‘Love and Power’ Morgenthau argued that the pursuit of love— of partner or God—and power are both rooted in the human quest for the absolute in a reality of contingency and finitude. In the attempt to escape finitude, to ‘become what he is destined to be’ man becomes aware of his need of others, of his loneliness. The more intense loneliness is felt, the higher the desire to escape it in the absolute—love or power. ‘It is that striving to escape his loneliness which gives the impetus both the lust for power and the longing for love’ (Morgenthau, 1962, 8). Racial prejudice in this context is an attempt to escape loneliness—to substitute the powerlessness of the individual with the power and feeling of superiority of the in-group. Morgenthau’s textbook case for this dynamic was

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Nazi Germany. ‘This relation between social integration, personal insecurity, and the ferocity of modern nationalistic power drives can be studied to particular advantage in German fascism’ Morgenthau wrote, making Germany an ‘easy prey for National Socialism’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 113). Specifically, German society in the wake of the first world war faced three key challenges: the loss of traditional values and the ‘proletarisation’ of the middle class through inflation and economic crisis, bringing ‘all the different groups of the German people in different ways face to face with the actual or threatened loss of social status and intellectual, moral and economic insecurity’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 114). In this context, National Socialism took the opportunity to ‘identify in a truly totalitarian fashion the aspirations of the individual German with the power objectives of the German nation’ (Morgenthau, 1978, 114). Like Morgenthau, Niebuhr saw ‘racial prejudice’ as ‘an inevitable concomitant of racial pride’ and ‘an inevitable concomitant of the ethnic will to live’ (Niebuhr, 1944, 139). By ‘will to live’ Niebuhr did not simply mean ‘mere physical survival’ but rather referred to the ‘spiritual elements in every human survival impulse’ namely, the ‘elements’ that pertain to individual ‘pride’ and its achievement, in however corrupt form, by the ‘the will-to-power’ (Niebuhr, 1944, 139). Racial prejudice here is rooted in the human desire for power, which the in-group satisfies, through domination over other groups. ‘Without this understanding’ of racial prejudice, as rooted in the corruption of power and the ‘will to live’, Niebuhr argued, ‘the humility necessary for the achievement of democratic good-will is lacking’ (Niebuhr, 1944, 144). In the absence of such an ethic of humility, the ‘foolish children of light’ lay in their attempt, to mitigate race prejudice merely by championing the minority groups and by seeking to prove that they are not as bad as their detractors claim them to be. This procedure preserves the proud illusion of the majority that its “mind” is the final bar of judgment before which all nations and peoples must be brought. It would be more helpful if we began with the truer assumption that there is no unprejudiced mind and judgment which is not, at least partially, corrupted by pride. The assumption must include the mind and the judgment of the pure idealists who imagine themselves emancipated of all prejudice but frequently manage to express a covert prejudice in their benevolent condescension. (Niebuhr, 1944, 144)

In other words, since the corruption of power is universal, so is racial prejudice, and both require an ethic of humility to restrain finite human

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judgement. To address the problem of racial prejudice, Niebuhr and Morgenthau thus called for an ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. This ethic of humility is necessary because ‘there is no unprejudiced mind and no judgment which is not, at least partially, corrupted by pride’, and this includes ‘the mind and the judgment of the pure idealists’ (Niebuhr, 1944, 144). As with imperialism, therefore, Niebuhr and Morgenthau’s diagnoses for outgroup racial prejudice remained an ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. Racial justice in this case was integral to Morgenthau’s analysis of power and the national interest. In The Purpose of American Politics, Morgenthau argued that defining the national interest required an interpretation of America’s purpose, equality in freedom, in a given historical time (Morgenthau, 1960, 212–213). Indeed, writing in 1960, Morgenthau noted that a key obstacle to defining America’s sense of purpose, fundamental to its conception of the national interest, was the problem of racial inequality: ‘when we speak of equality in freedom in America and pride ourselves on its achievement, we cannot ignore what has been a hindrance to its full achievement – that is, the denial of racial equality’ (Morgenthau, 1960, 306). The improvement of race relations to Morgenthau was integral to America’s spatio-temporal negotiation of its sense of purpose, equality in freedom. This sense of purpose pertained to a fundamental principle of democracy in America: the check on the power of the majority against a minority, to protect ‘equality in freedom’. In Truth and Power, Morgenthau drew on his personal experience with racism (as a Jew) in America, to highlight the importance of the principle of ‘equality in freedom’ that US democracy ought to serve. ‘The unequal condition of the black American’ Morgenthau wrote in Truth and Power (1970, 209– 210), ‘has been an endemic denial of the purpose for the sake of which the United States of America was created and which, in aspiration and partial fulfilment has remained the distinctive characteristic of American society; equality in freedom’. ‘Less than thirty years ago’ Morgenthau continued, ‘I had to deal with American consuls who considered it their patriotic duty to violate the law in order to prevent the immigration of Jews; once I was here, I could not find a place to sleep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire until I registered under my wife’s maiden name’. The personal was thus political to Morgenthau, who linked his analysis of racial inequality in America to an analysis of the balance of power in US society and, crucially, America’s sense of purpose that was in turn

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fundamental to its conceptualisation of the national interest. Morgenthau’s position on race here is akin to Hannah Arendt’s. Morgenthau, like Arendt, has ‘built [his] conceptions of freedom on the founding principles of the founding revolution of the US republic’ (Grovogui, 2013, 115). The key, for every generation of Americans, was to reinterpret these principles, and provide ‘equality in freedom’ a concrete spatio-temporal meaning. No such concrete meaning could exist in 1960, without facing the reality of racial injustice, which Morgenthau saw as an obstacle to America’s conception of its national interest. The absence of this purpose, Morgenthau argued, would turn America into ‘a soulless giant, armed to the teeth and producing abundantly, but for no other end than to stay ahead of the Russians’ (Morgenthau, 1960, 299). In sum, while Morgenthau and Niebuhr rejected the Marxist-inspired analysis that associated imperialism with nineteenth-century laissez faire, they perceived the roots of imperialism and racial prejudice in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power. The solution was thus an ethic of humility that recognised the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. In contrast to Morgenthau and Niebuhr, Carr’s critique of imperialism entailed a critique of nineteenth-century laissez faire and the social question in Western democracies. It is to Carr’s analysis of imperialism that the chapter now turns.

Carr on Imperialism and Race Following his critique of Morgenthau, Hobson offers the following reason not to engage fully with Carr, [I]t is worth noting that Morgenthau’s analysis of international change is also contained within two of E. H. Carr’s books, The New Society (1951) and Nationalism and After (1945), where the latter was published three years before Morgenthau’s text. Because the analysis is almost identical, I shall merely draw out the relevant connections rather than elaborate upon the whole argument. (Hobson, 2012, 192–193)

Akin to Hobson, Guilhot (2014) does not engage with Carr. Pace Hobson and Guilhot, Carr’s critique of imperialism was not ‘almost identical’ to Morgenthau (or Niebuhr). While Morgenthau and Niebuhr rejected the Marxist-inspired analysis that associated imperialism with nineteenth-century laissez faire, the critique of imperialism was integral

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to Carr’s critique of nineteenth-century laissez faire. Carr saw imperialism as rooted in the social question in Western democracies: the rise of the socialised nation, to whom the issue of economic (re)distribution was fundamental to democracy could not be accommodated by laissez faire and was externalised in the form of imperialism, racism, and war abroad. Thus, unlike Morgenthau and Niebuhr, Carr saw racial prejudice and injustice as embedded in liberal thought that rationalised the imperial violence of nineteenth-century laissez faire under the pretence of the ‘harmony of interests’. To develop this argument, this section first outlines Carr’s contextualisation of the rise of the social question in the twentieth century. The section, secondly, explains the link in Carr’s analysis between, on one hand, the rise of the social question and, on the other, imperialism, racism, and war. Carr on the Rise of the Social Question in the Twentieth Century Carr contextualised the advancement of the social question in the international order in his historical analysis of the metamorphosis of nationalism. In Nationalism and After, Carr referred to three periods of nationalism, with each period making a further democratic advancement than in the preceding period. ‘The first period’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ‘begins with the gradual dissolution of the mediaeval unity of empire and church and the establishment of the national state and the national church’ (Carr, 1945, 2). ‘The essential characteristic of the period was the identification of the nation with the person of the sovereign’ (Carr, 1945, 2). ‘International relations were relations between kings and princes’ (Carr, 1945, 3). The second period, from the time of Napoleon onward, is that of the ‘liberal democratic’ or ‘middle class’ nationalism. Thus, if ‘Frederick the Great still belonged to the age of legitimate monarchy, treated his subjects as instruments of his ambition’ then ‘Napoleon’ in this second period ‘by posing as the champion and mandatory of the emancipated French nation, made himself the chief missionary of modern nationalism. He was in many senses the first “popular” dictator’ (Carr, 1945, 8). In the second period, ‘international relations were henceforth to be governed not by the personal interests, ambitions and emotions of the monarch, but by the collective interests, ambitions and emotions of the nation’ (Carr, 1945, 8). The third period, from the late nineteenth century up to 1914, saw ‘the development of

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industry and industrial skills; the rapid expansion in numbers and importance of urban populations; the growth of workers’ organisations and of the political consciousness of the workers; the introduction of universal compulsory education; and the extension of the franchise’ (Carr, 1945, 18). ‘These changes’ Carr argued, ‘quickly began to affect the content of national policy in a revolutionary way’ (Carr, 1945, 18). For if ‘the “democratisation” of the nation in the earlier part of the century had resulted in [inter alia] guaranteeing the rights of property and, in general, “holding the ring” for the operations of an economic society managed’ then ‘the “socialisation” of the nation’ in the third period meant that ‘the primary aim of national policy was no longer merely to maintain order and conduct what was narrowly defined as public business, but to minister to the welfare of members of the nation and to enable them to earn their living’ (Carr, 1945, 19). Daniel Kenealy and Konstantinos Kostagiannis argue that Carr’s ‘dynamic view of a nationalism that changes its character to adapt to changing political realities accounts not only for the elusive character of nationalism, but also for its significant resilience’ (Kenealy & Kostagiannis, 2013, 243–244). Indeed, this ‘resilience’ of Carr’s analysis of nationalism has been exemplified in a range of recent studies that highlighted the relevance of Carr’s analysis of nationalism today (Cox, 2010; Cunliffe, 2020; Karkour, 2021). A key strength in Carr’s analysis of nationalism is its emphasis of its changing characteristics alongside the changing political realities and historical context. Far from viewing nationalism as static, as Gellner put it, Carr ‘saw the way in which nationalism meshed in with the other great changes’ in international politics (Gellner, 1992, 293). A key change is the advancement of technology, and, along with it, the advancement of mass society. Thus Carr argues in an important, though often neglected, passage, By curious coincidence the year which saw the publication of The Wealth of Nations was also the year in which Watt invented his steam engine. Thus, at the very moment when laissez-faire theory was receiving its classical exposition, its premises were undermined by an invention which was destined to call into being immobile, highly specialised, mammoth industries and a large and powerful proletariat more interested in distribution than in production. (Carr, 1984, 44)

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With the rise of the ‘powerful proletariat’, ‘the class which might be more interested in the equitable distribution of wealth than its maximum production’ also became influential (Carr, 1984, 44). In other words, in the socialised phase of nationalism rose an important phenomenon: the social question. The ‘socialisation of the nation’ followed, bringing ‘for the first time … the economic claims of the masses into the forefront of the nation’ (Carr, 1945, 19). Technological change thus did not only contribute to the advancement in democracy, but also altered the function of nationalism: with the rise of the industrial proletariat, it brought the centrality of the social question as a new political reality in the twentieth century that nineteenth-century laissez faire could not accommodate. It is precisely this analysis of historical change which sets out a distinct path to Carr’s argument on the post-war international order, particularly when compared with other classical realists such as Morgenthau and Niebuhr. This transformation or ‘socialisation’ of nationalism had upmost bearing on the nature and character of war in the twentieth century. ‘The world war of 1914’ Carr wrote, ‘was the first war between socialised nations’ (Carr, 1945, 26), and ‘war among socialised nations inevitably became an instrument for securing economic advantages for the victor and inflicting economic disabilities on the defeated. Modern wars are fought to a finish and the loser has no rights’ (Carr, 1945, 28). The socialised nation did not only change the character of war in the twentieth century, but, rather, can also provide an explanation for imperialism. No explanation of imperialism, according to Carr, can proceed without grasping the significance of the rise of the social question with the socialised nation. It is to this distinct explanation that Carr provides that the section now turns. Carr on the Link Between the Socialised Nation and Imperialism The socialisation of the nation according to Carr was not only a domestic phenomenon, but rather linked to imperialism abroad. The demand for a bigger share in the economic pie in Western democracies, particularly in Great Britain, raised by the extension of the franchise and the socialisation of the nation, did not turn workers against capital but rather accelerated the latter’s need to exploit the colonies abroad. Imperialism became the means for capital to expand the economic pie for White labour and postpone the class issue at home by means of exploitation abroad. Since imperial expansion in the nineteenth century remained possible without major war, imperialism did not cause a major disruption to the

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international order. As Carr puts it, ‘since fresh marked were constantly becoming available; it postponed the class issue, with its insistence on the primary importance of equitable distribution, by extending to members of the less prosperous classes some share in the general prosperity’ (Carr, 1984, 44–45). Thus, ‘perpetual expansion was the hypothesis on which liberal democracy and laissez faire economics were based’ (Carr, 1943, 106). But there was also a racial dimension to this narrative: to legitimate violence and exploitation abroad, imperialism had to devise a moral system or moral distinction, between the white worker at home and the coloured worker abroad. Thus, ‘under the growing strains of the latter half of the nineteenth century, it was perceived that competition in the economic sphere implied exactly what Darwin proclaimed as the biological law of nature – the survival of the strong at the expense of the weak’ (Carr, 1984, 47). Unlike Morgenthau and Niebuhr, Carr’s analysis of imperialism thus saw racial injustice as integral to nineteenth-century laissez faire. As Cecilia Lynch argues, ‘Carr … hinted at the moral aporia of race in international relations by drawing attention to the imperialism embedded in much liberal thought’ (Lynch, 2019, 273). ‘Laissez faire’ Carr argued, ‘is the paradise of the economically strong’, meanwhile state control ‘is the weapon of self-defence invoked by the economically weak. The clash of interests is real and inevitable; and the whole nature of the problem is distorted by an attempt to disguise it’ (Carr, 1984, 60). To Carr, therefore, nineteenth-century laissez faire was far from peaceful. Pace post-colonial critics who argue that Realists (with capital R to encompass all strands) portrayed the nineteenth century as peaceful (Hobson, 2012, 193; Krishna, 2001, 404), Carr problematised the notion that ‘peace’ meant the absence of war among great powers in the nineteenth century, since such notion rendered invisible the violence committed against the powerless, through for example economic expropriation, racism, and imperial violence. ‘International morality’ in the context of imperial expansion was ‘little more than a convenient weapon for belabouring those who assailed the status quo’ (Carr, 1984, 147). Like Carr, postcolonial IR scholars took issue with a history that portrayed the nineteenth century as ‘peaceful’. ‘To describe the period from 1815 to 1914 as “peaceful” in any sense of that term seemed astounding to anyone familiar with the history of empire’ writes Chowdry, ‘Krishna’s contrapuntal reading of sovereignty, of “the Hundred Years’ Peace”, and of the history of empire makes visible the hidden history of violence, land theft,

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slavery, racism, empire building, etc. during this period’ (Chowhdry, 2007, 106). Carr held this position earlier. Nineteenth-century laissez faire, Carr noted, ‘was established through the sacrifice of the “unfit” Africans and Asiatics … the whole ethical system was built on the sacrifice of the weaker brother’ (Carr, 1984, 49). Carr’s work thus did not imagine ‘global anarchy’ that post-colonial scholars ascribe to ‘realists and liberal/idealist IR theorists’ (Henderson, 2013, 501–502). Rather, Carr’s contribution to IR theory, as seen from these quotations and from a closer reading of the Twentieth Years’ Crisis, recognised ‘the prevalence of white supremacist imperialism which subjugated whole swaths of humanity in Africa and Asia’ (Henderson, 2013, 502). Furthermore, because Carr’s analysis of the war revealed the interlink between class question at home and the race question abroad, it did not simply recognise global hierarchy, but also demonstrated that ‘white racism had overcome the putative class antagonism between white capital and white labour to compel them towards a concerted effort at imperialist foreign policy and war’ (Henderson, 2013, 502). This explains why, according to Carr, an internationalism that did not adequately address the social question was bound to collapse into racism, as well as beggar thy neighbour and protectionist policies that the third stage of nationalism, the socialised nation, became associated with. ‘In outlying the prospects for a new internationalism’ as Kenealy and Kostagiannis argue, ‘Carr warned that for any internationalism to succeed, it must address that challenge and thus become social in the way nationalism did’ (Kenealy & Kostagiannis, 2013, 244). Indeed, beyond the equality of post-colonial states, through national self-determination, Carr advocated an international order that would provide social and economic rights of the individual irrelevant to their race or nationality. Carr thus explicitly rejected the arrangements at Bretton Woods and the top-down approach of international institutions, which he earlier critiqued in light of the League of Nations. Instead, after the Second World War Carr became involved in a project set out by UNESCO to formulate the ‘theoretical bases of human rights’ (Dunne & Wheeler, 2019). In the report, Carr noted that ‘any declaration of rights which would be felt to have any validity today must include social and economic as well as political rights’ (Carr, 1948). It is thus a mistake to argue that Realists (with a capital R) ‘advocated a policy that overlapped to a very large extent with the one endorsed by liberal internationalists’ or that

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‘they suggested that the best conduit for the management of colonial relations was now provided by international organisations’ (Guilhot, 2014, 175). In fact, as seen with his critique of the League and the settlement at Bretton Woods in 1944, Carr explicitly rejected the liberal organisations that Guilhot refers to. By contrast, Carr firmly believed that international planning as the way forward and suggested, ‘capital investment, technical aid, planned national economies, planned international trade’ so that economies in former colonies are not ‘placed at the mercy of a fluctuating and unprotected international market’ (Carr, 1951, 97). It is also a mistake to argue that Carr ‘ultimately deferred action to rectify its injustices, insisting instead that the “constant intrusion” of power renders equality impossible, and that at most, the process of give-and-take must apply to challenges to the existing order’ (Lynch, 2019, 273). Since this is the conclusion that Carr reaches only in the Twenty Years’ Crisis. In his war-time and post-war writings however, most notably in Conditions of Peace, Nationalism and After and New Society, Carr transcends this position and focuses on the transformation of the international order in the interest of the individual. ‘The freedom and equality which the makers of the coming peace must seek to establish’ Carr wrote in 1945, ‘is not a freedom and equality of nations, but a freedom and equality which will express themselves in the daily lives of men and women’ (Carr, 1945, 43). ‘The driving force behind any future international order’ Carr continued in Nationalism and After, ‘must be a belief, however expressed, in the value of individual human beings irrespective of their national affinities or allegiance and in common and mutual obligation to promote their well-being’ (Carr, 1945, 43). Carr’s position can be juxtaposed with Morgenthau and Niebuhr, who, despite their advocacy of racial equality in America as central to the renewal of its purpose, held more sobering views with regard to the ‘cultural’ and ‘political’ impediments to eradicate global inequality and poverty in the ‘developing world’. Morgenthau for instance remained sceptical about the capacity of the United States to pursue economic development in post-colonial states through offering foreign aid and instead considered aid as a ‘weapon’ in the ‘political armoury of the nation’ to be employed in the service of wider foreign policy objectives (Morgenthau, 1969, 105). Carr’s position can also be juxtaposed with contemporary realists, such as Mearsheimer (2018, 217), who in light of the rise of Trumpism, for example, called for the acceptance of nationalism and protect the national (where liberalism and welfarism can

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operate in peace) from the international (where power politics remains in safe distance). In a recent International Security piece, Mearsheimer grounded this argument in the centrality of nationalism as a force that trumps the liberal notion of universal rights: This belief, which says that every individual on Earth has the same set of basic rights, is what underpins the universalistic dimension of liberalism. This universalistic or transnational perspective stands in marked contrast to the profound particularism of nationalism, which is built on the belief that the world is divided into discrete nations, each with its own culture. Preserving that culture is best served by having one’s own state, so that the nation can survive in the face of threats from the “other”. (Mearsheimer, 2019, 36)

From a Carrian standpoint, Mearsheimer makes two errors. First, Mearsheimer makes an error in his reading of liberalism: pace Mearsheimer, the ‘universalistic dimension of liberalism’ was never ‘universalistic’ in its advancement of freedom and equality to the individual. Second, Mearsheimer’s particularistic conception of nationalism, in its acceptance of the status quo, also accepts the violence of the unfettered global capitalist market, which ultimately turns nations against one another through protectionist and beggar thy neighbour policies.3 This, from a Carrian standpoint, would not bring about peace in an international order consisting of socialised nations. In sum, there is a difference between Morgenthau and Niebuhr on one hand and Carr on the other on the explanation of imperialism. Morgenthau and Niebuhr perceive the roots of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power. Both reject the Marxist-inspired analysis that associates imperialism with nineteenth-century laissez faire. By contrast, integral to Carr’s critique of imperialism is a critique of nineteenth-century laissez faire. The rise of the social question in Western democracies could not be accommodated by laissez faire which in turn led to its export in the form of imperialism and war abroad. The demand for a bigger share in the economic pie in Western democracies did not turn workers against capital but rather accelerated the latter’s exploitation of the colonies abroad. This turned class antagonism at home into imperial policies and race antagonism abroad. Carr thus saw racial injustice as imbedded in nineteenth-century liberalism that rationalised imperial violence.

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Conclusion In sum, there is a tendency among post-colonial IR scholars to generalise on the Realist position on imperialism and race. This chapter argued, pace post-colonial scholars in IR, that, first, the critique of imperialism and racial prejudice were fundamental to classical realists. Second, there were great variations within Realism on imperialism and race. While the postcolonial critique of ‘realism’, namely that it rationalises empire and omits race, applies to neo-realism, this chapter has contested the application of this argument to classical realism. Furthermore, the chapter highlighted variations between classical realists on the analysis of the causes of imperialism and racial prejudice in international politics. Morgenthau and Niebuhr rejected the Marxist-inspired analysis that associated imperialism with nineteenth-century laissez faire and instead perceived the causes of imperialism in human pride and self-deception over the reality of power. Morgenthau and Niebuhr associated this human pride more generally with in-group association and out-group ethnic/national/racial prejudice. Racial prejudice, they argued, is rooted in the individual’s drive for power, enabled by in-group identification. As a diagnosis for imperial policies, as well as out-group racial prejudice, Niebuhr and Morgenthau thus argued for an ethic of humility that recognises the deceptive nature of power and its limitations. Racial justice was, in this context, integral to Morgenthau’s analysis of power and the national interest. In contrast to Morgenthau and Niebuhr, Carr’s critique of imperialism entailed a critique of nineteenth-century laissez faire and the social question in Western democracies. The rise of the social question in Western democracies could not be accommodated by laissez faire which in turn led to its export in the form of imperialism and war abroad. Carr thus saw racial injustice as imbedded in nineteenth-century laissez faire, particularly the pretence of the ‘free market’, that rationalised the vested interests of imperial powers, particularly Britain. Carr’s critique of laissez faire meant that, compared to other classical realists, he was more sensitive to issues of socio-economic inequality as a precondition for the realisation of global justice. As William Scheuerman put it in The Realist Case for Global Reform, Unlike Carr, Morgenthau’s postwar writings consistently placed questions of cross-border economic distribution on the back burner. Supranational society, it seemed, would somehow have to be built without economic

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redistribution between and among nation states. While Carr quite plausibly argued that a viable world community presupposed greater de facto material equality, Morgenthau’s version of Progressive Realism ultimately had little to offer impoverished peoples around the globe. (Scheuerman, 2011, 84)

This sensitivity towards redistribution in Carr’s analysis stems from his interpretation of the historical metamorphosis of nationalism and the centrality of the social question in the context of the socialised nation. Carr’s emphasis on the significance of the socialised phase of nationalism, which highlights the importance of the social question in the metropole in explaining imperialism and racial injustice, finds its parallels in the works on Lenin and Hobson in the early twentieth century. The same line of argument can also be found in the works of the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, particularly W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, and Frantz Fanon. The next chapter will contextualise this parallel, to then explain the shared intellectual origins between Carr’s ‘realism’ and Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire’s ‘post-colonialism’ on the questions of imperialism and racial injustice in international politics.

Notes 1. Although one may argue that it sits uneasily with Waltz’ argument that Iran should get a nuclear bomb (Waltz, 2012). This is because Waltz does not ‘gradate’ the sovereignty of Iran (or irrationality of its leaders) in comparison with Israel or the West more generally. 2. Mearsheimer’s discussion of ‘benign hegemony’ comes in the context of the ‘Global IR’ debate. 3. The critique may also apply to those who accept the ‘communitarian’ argument in international political theory. Statists, for instance, who emphasise rights of nations (Miller, 2007; Nagel, 2005; Walzer, 1983) or peoples (Rawls, 1999). From a Carrian standpoint, such arguments in the context of the socialised nation accept the violence implicit in the status quo under (neo)liberalism.

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Henderson, E. (2013). Hidden in plain sight: Racism in international relations theory. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 26(1), 71–92. Hobson, J. (2007). Is critical theory always for the white west and for western imperialism? Beyond Westphalian towards a post-racist critical international relations. Review of International Studies, 33(S1), 91–116. Hobson, J. (2012). The Eurocentric conception of world politics: Western international theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge University Press. Hobson, J. (2013). The other side of the Westphalian frontier. In S. Seth (Ed.), Postcolonial theory and international relations. Routledge. Hobson, J. (2014). The twin self-delusions of IR: Why ‘hierarchy’ and not ‘anarchy’ is the core concept of IR. Millennium, 42(3), 557–575. Karkour, H. L. (2018). Unipolarity’s unpeacefulness and US foreign policy: Consequences of a coherent system of irrationality. International Relations, 32(1), 60–79. Karkour, H. L. (2021). Debating global justice with Carr: The crisis of laissez faire and the legitimacy problem in the twentieth century. Journal of International Political Theory, 17 (1), 81–98. Karkour, H. L., & Giese, D. (2020). Bringing Morgenthau’s ethics in: Pluralism, incommensurability and the turn from fragmentation to dialogue in IR. European Journal of International Relations, 26(4), 1106–1128. Kenealy, D., & Kostagiannis, K. (2013). Realist visions of European Union: E.H. Carr and integration. Millennium—Journal of International Studies, 41(2), 221–246. Krishna, S. (2001). Race, amnesia, and the education of international relations. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 26(4), 401–424. Linklater, A. (2000). E. H. Carr, nationalism and the future of the sovereign state. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave. Lynch, C. (2019). The moral aporia of race in international relations. International Relations, 33(2), 267–285. Mearsheimer, J. (2016). Benign hegemony. International Studies Review, 18(1), 147–149. Mearsheimer, J. (2018). The great delusion: Liberal dreams and international realities. Yale University Press. Mearsheimer, J. (2019). Bound to fail: The rise and fall of the liberal international order. International Security, 43(4), 7–50. Mearsheimer, J., & Walt, S. (2007). The Israeli lobby and US foreign policy. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Mearsheimer, J., & Walt, S. (2016). The case for offshore balancing. Foreign Affairs, 95(4), 70–83. Miller, D. (2007). National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press. Mills, C. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell University Press.

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Molloy, S. (2009). Aristotle, Epicurus, Morgenthau and the political ethics of the lesser evil. Journal of International Political Theory, 5(1), 94–112. Molloy, S. (2014). Pragmatism, realism and the ethics of crisis and transformation in international relations. International Theory, 6(3), 454–489. Molloy, S. (2019). Realism and reflexivity: Morgenthau, academic freedom and dissent. European Journal of International Relations. Epub ahead of print 14 August 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066119868283 Molloy, S. (2021). Theorizing liberal orders in crisis then and now: Returning to Carr and Horkheimer. International Studies Quarterly, 65(2), 320–330. Morgenthau, H. J. (1946). Scientific man versus power politics. Phoenix. Morgenthau, H. J. (1948). The Political Science of E. H. Carr. World Politics, 1(1), 127–134. Morgenthau, H. J. (1959). The nature and limits of a theory of international relations. In W. T. R. Fox (Ed.), Theoretical aspects of international relations. University of Notre Dame Press. Morgenthau, H. J. (1960). The purpose of American politics. Alfred Knopf. Morgenthau, H. J. (1962). Politics in the twentieth century: Vol. 3 The restoration of American politics. Chicago University Press. Morgenthau, H. J. (1967). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace (4th ed.). Alfred Knopf. Morgenthau, H. J. (1969). A new foreign policy for the United States. Pall Mall. Morgenthau, H. (1970). Truth and power: Essays of a decade 1960–1970. Praeger. Morgenthau, H. (1978). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace (5th ed.). Alfred Knopf. Nagel, T. (2005). The problem of global justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33(2), 113–147. Niebuhr, R. (1944). Children of light and children of darkness. Nisbet. Niebuhr, N. (1959). The structure of nations and empires: A study of the recurring patterns and problems of the political order in relation to the unique problems of the nuclear age. Charles Scribner’s Son. Persaud, R., & Walker, R. B. J. (2001). Apertura: Race in international relations. Alternatives, 26(4), 373–376. Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples. Harvard University Press. Roesch, F. (2014). Pouvoir, puissance, and politics: Hans Morgenthau’s dualistic concept of power? Review of International Studies, 40(2), 349–365. Scheuerman, W. (2010). The (classical) realist vision of global reform. International Theory, 2(2), 246–282. Scheurman, W. (2011). The realist case for global reform. Polity. Vitalis, R. (2000). The graceful and generous liberal gesture: Making racism invisible in American international relations. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29(2), 331–356.

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Walt, S. (2018). US grand strategy after the Cold War: Can realism explain it? Should realism guide it? International Relations, 32(1), 3–22. Waltz, K. (2012). Why Iran should get the bomb. Foreign Affairs, 91(4), 2–5. Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. Basic Books. Williams, M. (2013). In the beginning: The international relations enlightenment and the ends of international relations theory. European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 647–665. Zhang, C. (2020). Right-wing populism with Chinese characteristics? Identity, otherness and global imaginaries in debating world politics online. European Journal of International Relations, 26(1), 88–115.

CHAPTER 3

Carr and the First Wave of Post-colonialism: Shared Intellectual Origins

Introduction The previous chapter argued that according to Carr’s analysis, imperialism and war are rooted in the social question in Western democracies. Building on this argument, this chapter’s aim is twofold. First, the chapter aims to show that Carr’s analysis of war and imperialism was shared by the first wave of post-colonial thinkers—Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Aimé Césaire. Specifically, the chapter argues here that, akin to Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire saw the advancement of the social question in Western democracies as inseparable from, and linked to, imperialism and war abroad. This argument in turn poses a question: how come Carr, a historian associated with the classical realist school in IR, shares a similar analysis of war and imperialism with canons of post-colonialism in IR? The second aim of this chapter is to answer this question. The chapter argues here that Carr, along with Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, were influenced by a twentieth-century reinterpretation of Marxist analysis of imperialism and war that was commonly shared by others, such as Lenin and Hobson. It is this shared intellectual origin that explains the commonality in their analyses of imperialism and war. The necessity to reinterpret Marxist analysis in the twentieth century stems from a

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_3

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reality of the twentieth century that frustrated classical Marxist prediction: the nationalisation of socialism and the rise of the socialised nation. Carr and the first wave post-colonial thinkers accepted the limitation of the Marxist emphasis on international class consciousness in the context of the socialised nation. While they agreed with Marx that the twentieth century was the century of revolution, this revolution had two components: the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. While the social question was at the centre of each, racism and ethno-nationalism hindered the realisation of the latter. To proceed with this argument, the chapter is divided into two sections. Section one highlights the centrality of the social question in Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire’s accounts of imperialism and war, thus identifying their commonality with Carr. Section two provides an explanation for this commonality by unpacking the shared intellectual origin these thinkers share with Carr.

The Dynamics of War and Imperialism in the Works of Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire Carr’s argument that imperialism and war are rooted in the social question in Western democracies is shared by the first wave of post-colonial thinkers—Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire. Like Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire saw the advancement of the social question in Western democracies as inseparable from, and linked to, imperialism and war abroad. This dynamic can be seen in Du Bois’s analysis of World War One (WWI) as well as, later on, his study of the American Civil War. It can also be seen in Fanon’s analysis of Algeria’s independence from France, as well as Césaire’s analysis of the relation between the coloniser and colonised in his Discourse on Colonialism. This section will expand on each of these analyses respectively. Du Bois’s Analysis of WWI and the American Civil War ‘With the waning of the possibility of the Big Fortune, gathered by starvation wage and boundless exploitation of one’s weaker and poorer fellows at home’ Du Bois wrote in his analysis of World War One, ‘arose more magnificently the dream of exploitation abroad’ (Du Bois, 1915, 709). Put differently, the social question at home in Western democracies was the engine that fuelled imperialism and war abroad: ‘soon the mass of

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merchants at home demanded a share in this golden stream; and finally, in the twentieth century, the labourer at home is demanding and beginning to receive a part of his share’ (Du Bois, 1915, 709). With the advancement of the democratic cause at home, wider segments of the white population joined hands with merchants and aristocrats to split the shares of imperialism. ‘The white workingman has been asked to share the spoil of exploiting “chinks and niggers”’ (Du Bois, 1915, 709). It follows then that, ‘the present world war is … the result of jealousies engendered by the rise of armed national association of labour and capital whose aim is the exploitation of the wealth of the world mainly outside the European circle of nations’ (Du Bois, 1915, 711). ‘Germany’ in this case was not an aggressive outlier but rather, at last one and united and secure on land, looked across the seas and seeing England with sources of wealth insuring a luxury and power which Germany could not hope to rival by the slower processes of exploiting her own peasants and workingmen, especially with these workers half in revolt, immediately built her navy and entered into a desperate competition for possession of colonies of darker peoples. To South America, to China, to Africa, to Asia Minor, she turned like a hound quivering on the leash, impatient, suspicious, irritable, with blood-shot eyes and dripping fangs, ready for the awful word. England and France crouched watchfully over their bones, growling and wary, but gnawing industriously, while the blood of the dark world whetted their greedy appetites. (Du Bois, 1920, 96)

Du Bois thus dismissed the notion that it was ‘the Death of Ferdinand’ of Austria-Hungary that triggered the war. Rather, the explanation lay ‘in the possession of land overseas, in the right to colonies, the chance to levy endless tribute on the darker world—on coolies in China, on starving peasants in India, on black savages in Africa, on dying South Sea Islanders, on Indians of the Amazon—all this and nothing more’ (Du Bois, 1920, 98). ‘The World War’ Du Bois thus concluded ‘was primarily the jealous and avaricious struggle for the largest share in exploiting darker races’ (Du Bois, 1920, 101). But what did this make of America? Did Wilson engage the United States into the war to ‘end all wars’ and ‘make the world safe for democracy’? The trouble, as Du Bois saw it, was that ‘instead of standing as a great example of the success of democracy and the possibility of human brotherhood America has taken her place as an awful example of its pitfalls and failures, so far as black and brown and yellow peoples are concerned’

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(Du Bois, 1920, 103). ‘How could America condemn in Germany’ Du Bois asked, ‘that which she commits, just as brutally, within her own borders?’ (Du Bois, 1920, 79). Thus, ‘so long as’ the war ‘sits enthroned, even in the souls of those who cry peace, the despising and robbing of darker peoples, it is far from Americas’ war to end all wars. Rather, ‘it is but the beginning!’ (Du Bois, 1920, 101–102). Given this analysis, as Mullen notes, ‘after World War I, it would be impossible for Du Bois to perceive the U.S. state as an ally either in African-American freedom struggle or for example the liberation of African peoples’ (Mullen, 2016, 49). Wilson’s claim that America entered the war to make ‘the world safe for democracy’ was, as far as ‘black and brown and yellow peoples are concerned’, repudiated by the fact that no such democracy existed in America in the first place. Indeed, later on, in Black Reconstruction, Du Bois returned to his argument on the centrality of the social question in the American Civil War to explain the hypocrisy in America’s claim for democracy. Du Bois asked here: why did whites fight a Civil War to end black slavery? At stake in the Civil War, Du Bois argued, was the social question for the newly arrived white European peasants in the North: the threat of competition the South raised in using cheaper slave labour. For ‘if Northern industry before the war had secured a monopoly of the raw material raised in the South for its new manufactures; and if Northern and Western labour could have maintained their wage scale against slave competition, the North would not have touched the slave system’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 422). But this precisely was what ‘the South had frustrated’. The South ‘had threatened labour with nation-wide slave competition and had sent its cotton abroad to cheap manufacturers and had resisted the protective tariff demanded by the North’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 422–423). ‘It was this specific situation’ Du Bois noted, ‘that had given the voice of freedom a chance to be heard: freedom for new-come peasants who feared the competition of slave labour; peasants from Europe, New England and the poor white South; freedom for all men black and white through that dream of democracy in which the best of the nation still believed’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 421). The Civil War according to Du Bois was thus caused primarily by an economic challenge that slavery posed to white labour in the North. ‘The South’ as Du Bois put it ‘was determined to make free white labour compete with black slaves, monopolise land and raw material in the hands of a political aristocracy, and extend the scope of that power’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 421). Thus, rather than rooted

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in the ideal of emancipation and the extension of the franchise, the Civil War unfolded ‘because white American labour, while it refused to recognise black labour as equal and human, had to fight to maintain its own humanity and ideal of equality’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 421). ‘It was the drear destiny of the Poor White South’ rather than the love of emancipation by the North, therefore, ‘that … it became the instrument by which democracy in the nation was done to death, race provincialism deified, and the world delivered to plutocracy’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 427). Fanon on Algeria’s Independence from France Akin to Du Bois, in his analysis of Algeria’s independence from France, Fanon historically situated the account of imperialism and war in the broader context of the socialisation of democracy in the metropole. It was based on the overseas markets, especially in Africa, that the workers in European cities could improve their material lot: ‘the well-being and the progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians, and the yellow races’ (Fanon, 1963, 96). Nor did the end of formal colonialism in Algeria mean an end to economic exploitation by France. Rather, ‘neo-colonialism, because it proposes to do justice to human dignity in general’ Fanon noted, ‘addresses itself essentially to the middle class and to the intellectuals of the colonial country [and] the peoples [in former colonies / post-independence Algeria] no longer feel their bellies at peace when the colonial country has recognised the value of its elites’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 122). ‘The concern to maintain the former colony in the yoke of economic oppression’ lay in the logic of French imperialism which understood that ‘the handling of their national riches by the colonised peoples compromises the economic equilibrium of the former occupant’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 122). As a former colonial power, in other words, France understood that ‘the reconversion of the colonial economy, the industries engaged in processing raw materials from the underdeveloped territories, the disappearance of the colonial pact, competition with foreign capital, constitute a mortal danger for imperialism’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 122). The end of formal colonialism in this case did not mean the end of French imperial domination, since ‘unanimous in their decision to stifle the national aspirations of the colonial peoples’ France would now ‘wage a gigantic struggle for the seizure of world markets’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 123). In turn, the ‘post-colonial’ world was born, where French colonialism, while formally ended, became substituted for a neo-colonial post-war order,

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The economic battles between France, England, and the United States, in the Middle East, in the Far East, and now in Africa, give the measure of imperialist voracity and bestiality. And it is not an exaggeration to say that these battles are the direct cause of the strategies which, still today, shake the newly independent states. In exceptional circumstances, the zones of influence of the pound sterling, of the dollar, and of the franc, are converted and become, by a conjurer’s trick, the Western world. (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 122–123)

And it is in this context that Fanon also explained Cold War rivalry, It is surely not purely by chance that the hand or the eye of Moscow is discovered, in an almost stereotyped way, behind each demand for national independence, put forth by a colonial people. This is because any difficulty that is put in the way of the supremacy of the West in any given section of the world is a concrete threat to its economic power, to the range of its military strategic bases, and represents a limiting of its potential. (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 124)

Whereas the logic of exploitation in Du Bois sets the stage for the perpetuation of violence and war, forty years later in Fanon’s time, the time of the ‘post-colonies’, this violence continues with the control of capital. To end it means to deprive the capitalist core, France in the case of Algeria, along with the French white working class, of their markets. Neo-colonialism, to Fanon, thus operated on the basis of market fundamentalism and through the conditionalities imposed by foreign aid. ‘At a pinch they willingly agree to lend money to the young states’ Fanon reasoned, ‘but only on condition that this money is used to buy manufactured products and machines: in other words, that it serves to keep the factories in the mother country going’ (Fanon, 1963, 103–104). To bring an end to imperial domination in neo-colonial form, through the continuation of the cycle of neo-colonial exploitation after independence, Fanon thus called for former colonial powers to be ‘deprived of their overseas markets’ (Fanon, 1963, 105). ‘The closing of factories, the paying off of workers and unemployment will force the European working class to engage in an open struggle against the capitalist regime’ (Fanon, 1963, 105).

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Césaire on the Relation Between the Coloniser and Colonised Like Du Bois and Fanon, Césaire explained imperialism and war in terms of the interplay between the social question in Europe and the colonial question abroad. As with Carr, Du Bois and Fanon, imperialism to Césaire was ultimately driven by a socio-economic logic. Imperialism tamed the ‘social question’ at home by increasing the size of the economic pie— in the form of new markets—abroad. In the process, imperialism did not only expand into new markets but also ultimately led to imperial violence and war. This explains why ‘between coloniser and colonised there is room only for forced labour, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses’ (Césaire, 1972, 42). The violence is ingrained in the socio-economic logic of capitalism and the ‘free market’, which tames the social question in the metropole through externalising the resulting class struggle at home towards racial violence and imperialism to the colonies. Thus, the social and colonial questions, while part and parcel of the same struggle against global capital, presented distinct struggles in the context of imperialism. The emancipation of White workers did not only go hand in hand with the exploitation of ‘coloured’ workers but became the very condition for the latter. Césaire read the history of European colonialism in light of this dynamic that related the social question at home to imperialism and war abroad. ‘what has bourgeois Europe done?’ Césaire asked, ‘It has undermined civilizations, destroyed countries, ruined nationalities, extirpated “the root of diversity”’ (Césaire, 1972, 76). Césaire did not only associate European history with the dynamics of the social question and imperialism but also warned of American neo-colonialism, following the same logic. Thus, Césaire associated the ‘American hour’ with ‘violence, excess, waste, mercantilism, bluff, conformism, stupidity, vulgarity, disorder’ (Césaire, 1972, 76). Akin to Fanon, moreover, Césaire warned his ‘dear friends’ from foreign aid, “Aid to the disinherited countries,” says Truman “The time of the old colonialism has passed.” That’s also Truman. Which means that American high finance considers that the time has come to raid every colony in the world. So, dear friends, here you have to be careful! (Césaire, 1972, 76)

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‘High finance’ in this case, as Fanon also noted, is driven by the profit motive, namely to expand the market, rather than help advance the welfare of Africans. It imposes its conditionalities that prioritise capital over socialism and individual socio-economic well-being in the post-colonies. In sum, like Carr, the first wave of post-colonial thinkers explained imperialism and war in light of the social question in Western democracies. While this was the explanation that Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire provided to war and imperialism generally, the section focused on Du Bois’s analysis of WWI and the American Civil War, Fanon’s was Algeria’s war of independence from France and Cesaire’s was on the relation between the coloniser and colonised. This raises the question: what explains this commonality between Carr and the post-colonial thinkers? The next section develops an answer to this question by unpacking the context of this commonality—namely, their shared intellectual origins in Marxist thought, or, more precisely, their re-interpretation of Marx in light of the concrete circumstance and peculiarities of the twentieth century that presented a dilemma to Marxism: the failure of the international proletariat in the context of racism and ethno-nationalism.

Shared Intellectual Origins in Marxist Thought The influence of twentieth-century Marxist thought explains the shared intellectual origin Carr shares with the first wave post-colonial thinkers. This section argues that Carr, along with Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, were influenced by a twentieth-century reinterpretation of Marxist analysis of war and imperialism that was commonly shared by others, such as Lenin and Hobson. It is this shared intellectual origin that explains the commonality in their analyses of imperialism and war. The necessity to reinterpret Marxist analysis in the twentieth century, stems from a reality of the twentieth century that frustrated classical Marxist prediction: the nationalisation of socialism and the rise of the socialised nation. While Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers agreed with Marx that the twentieth century was the century of revolution, this revolution had two components: the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. At the centre of each was not only political emancipation, but also the social question. While the social question was at the centre of each, however, racism and ethno-nationalism hindered the realisation of the latter.

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From Class Conflict to Conflict Between Nations: The Influence of Marxist Thought on Carr Marx’s influence on Carr’s IR theory can be seen in the Marxist language that Carr adopts throughout his works. For instance, in The Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ between nations under laissez faire echoes the Marxist critique of the harmony of interests between the classes on the national level. ‘Behind Hegel stood Marx’ Carr says, ‘who materialised the Hegelian conflict into a class war of interest groups, and working class parties came into being which steadfastly refused to believe in the harmony of interests between capital and labour’ (Carr, 1939, 62). ‘It is the natural assumption of a prosperous and privileged class’ Carr thus argues using a Marxist analogy, ‘whose members have a dominant voice in the community and are therefore naturally prone to identify its interests with their own’ (Carr, 1939, 102). The argument applies both nationally between classes and internationally between nations: ‘just as the ruling class in a community prays for domestic peace, which guarantees its own security and predominance, and denounces class war, which might threaten them’ Carr puts it explicitly, ‘so international peace becomes a special vested interest of predominant Powers’ (Carr, 1939, 104). As Carr proceeds with the ‘realist’ critique of utopianism, the Marxist language continues: ‘just as the threat of class war by the proletarian is “a natural cynical reaction to the sentimental and dishonest efforts of the privileged classes to obscure the conflict of interest between the classes” … so the war mongering of the dissatisfied Powers is the “natural, cynical reaction” to the sentimental and dishonest platitudinising of the satisfied Powers on the common interest of peace’ (Carr, 1939, 106). The Marxist critique of the ‘relativity of thought’ is thus fundamental to Carr’s realist critique of utopianism (Carr, 1939, 81– 90). ‘The relativity of thought to the interest and circumstances of the thinker’ Carr notes, ‘has been far more extensively recognised and understood since Marx wrote’ (Carr, 1939, 88). And the ‘critique of realism’ precisely transposes this relativity of thought and interest from the realm of the national, which deals with ‘class’, to the realm of the international, which deals with nations. ‘Social and economic pressures resulting from the breakdown of laissez faire’ Carr thus concluded, ‘illustrated in practice what Marx has demonstrated in theory’ (Carr, 1951, 66).

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Despite Marx’s influence, however, Carr is also critical of Marxism, particularly of the thesis of the inevitability of revolution on the basis of international class-based—that is, proletarian—affinity in the twentieth century. The Nationalisation of Socialism and the Dilemma of Marxism Importantly, Carr rejects the Marxist prediction of the inevitability of revolution or, for that matter, the notion that the proletariat will form an international class that transcends the national/international distinction. In Nationalism and After, Carr presented this critique of Marxism when he wrote: ‘Bismarck … schooled by Lassalle showed the German workers how much they had to gain from a vigorous and ruthless nationalism’ (Carr, 1945, 19). As nationalism was socialised, ‘the mass of workers knew instinctively on which side their bread buttered’ and ‘Lenin was a lone voice proclaiming the defeat of his own country as a socialist aim’ for ‘once the “workers state” was effectively established, “socialism in one country” was the logical corollary’ (Carr, 1945, 20–21). It is precisely this deviation from international socialism, that is, the nationalisation of socialism that did not only make war—for the conflicting socio-economic aims—inevitable, but also changed the nature of war into ‘total wars’ among ‘socialised nations’. ‘The view of war as the exclusive affair of governments and armies was tacitly abandoned’ and instead replaced with wars that ‘are fought to the finish’ where ‘the loser has no rights’ (Carr, 1945, 26–28). As Andrew Linklater argues, therefore, while ‘Marxist theories … argued that the struggle between nation-states had temporarily displaced class conflict … Carr [instead] argued that the conflict between ‘have’ and ‘have not’ nation-states was more profound than class struggle’ (Linklater, 2000, 243; see also Linklater, 1997). Indeed, Carr criticised Marx’s linear view of historical progress towards class unity and emancipation, or what Carr referred to as ‘secular eschatology’, for ‘failing to see the growing power of nationalism, and the precedence it would achieve over internationalism or class loyalty in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ (Halliday, 2000, 260). But while Carr was unambiguous about the fact that ‘Marx’s writings seriously misunderstood the importance of nationalism’ (Linklater, 2000, 241), this does not mean that Carr took the other extreme realist end, devoid of any socialist or internationalist aspirations. At this other end, namely the end that interprets Carr as a hard-headed realist, is

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Mearsheimer’s 2005 inaugural Carr Lecture. Mearsheimer interprets Carr as a realist with statist beliefs and considerations about the balance of power, akin to neo-realists. ‘In the spirit of Carr’ Mearsheimer argues, ‘states are still the main actors on the world stage and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Those states will also continue to worry a great deal about the balance of power, and this concern will shape much of what they do. In short, power politics are alive and well in the world around us’ (Mearsheimer, 2005, 140). According to Mearsheimer therefore, There are … many instances where the pursuit of power conflicts with liberal ideals: where there is, in Carr’s words, an “antithesis of utopia and reality.” These cases are where the rubber meets the road, because they force national leaders to choose between two starkly different sets of calculations. Realists argue that states will privilege power over ideals in such instances, and the historical record supports that view quite strongly. Carr is no exception in this regard; he believes that power ultimately trumps all other considerations in the nasty and dangerous world of international politics. And that is why Carr is a realist. (Mearsheimer, 2005, 143)

Carr is indeed a ‘realist’ as Mearsheimer proclaims, but not in the sense that Mearsheimer portrays him. Carr is not a realist because he ultimately believes that nationalism trumps internationalism and no higher authority exists above states to tame their abuse of power. Carr is not a realist because he believes, as Mearsheimer portrays him, that states ultimately will choose power politics over higher ideals. Rather, Carr’s critique of the ‘idealists’ in the Twenty Years’ Crisis was premised on the notion that they neglected the social transformations in nationalism in the twentieth century (e.g. see Evans, 1975; Karkour, 2021; Molloy, 2021; Wilson, 2001). In other words, they failed to take notice of the socialised nation. Unlike Mearsheimer, who perceives nationalism as static, to Carr nationalism was thus dynamics and it is in its social phase in the twentieth century that it became incompatible with an international morality premised on nineteenth-century laissez faire (Konstagiannis, 2017). Mearsheimer’s reading of Carr, as the theorist of power, is reminiscent of Morgenthau’s (1948) World Politics review. In his review, Morgenthau critiqued Carr for becoming a ‘utopian of power’. This critique however has been dismissed in recent scholarship on Carr (Karkour, 2021; Molloy, 2013, 270; Scheuerman, 2011, 26). Carr’s realism rather lies in his pragmatism: morality for Carr needs to be context specific and in alignment

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with the three elements of power, economic, military, and opinion, both within as well as between states. It is the task of the historian to observe this alignment between morality and power given the reality of historical change (Germain, 2000; Heath, 2010; Konstagiannis, 2017; Molloy, 2014; Williams, 2013). The key historical change in the twentieth century was the rise of the socialised nation that changed the relationship between morality and power in the international order. One cannot grasp Carr’s critique of idealism, as Peter Wilson argues (2013), as distinct from Carr’s analysis of historical change in the conditions under which the international order operated in the nineteenth century. ‘Taking a “realistic” view’ in other words, ‘ultimately meant taking a view that was in line with prevailing material conditions ’ (Wilson, 2013, 49–50 emphasis in original). It is precisely this critique that Gareth Evans (1975) presents early on against Whittle Johnston’s (1967) critique of Carr’s apparent inconsistency in his body of work. Johnston, like Mearsheimer, neglects ‘the basic assumption that pervades most of [Carr’s] work, i.e. the conditioned character of thought and responses’ (Evans, 1975, 84). Carr does not critique the idealists for simply neglecting power, but rather, for also neglecting the changing material conditions in the twentieth century—a change that opened a schism between morality and power. Carr’s thought on morality thus, as Sean Molloy (2014) argues, is pragmatic: it proceeds on the basis of a concrete evaluation of the historical context and offers solutions accordingly. In this context, Halliday’s criticism of Carr’s analysis of nationalism is also problematic. Halliday writes, Carr’s argument on the multiplication of nations mirrors that early nineteenth-century impatience with nationalism that Marx himself exhibited, and that Carr elsewhere scorns. Indeed, one might on the matter of nationalism, without too much injustice, summarise Carr’s difference with Marx as being a matter of timing: neither liked nationalism, both despised smaller nations, and wished they would amalgamate with larger ones. Marx thought it was happening in the 1840s. Carr thought it was happening in the 1940s. Marx was just one century out. (Halliday, 2000, 261)

Carr did not think that it was inevitable that the nation state will be superseded, but rather that it was not sufficient, for practical purposes, to maintain independence, particularly for smaller nations in economic and security matters: ‘it is an illusion to suppose that security for the individual or for the nation can be attained through the limited resources

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of the small or medium-sized nation-states or through the untrammelled and independent action of national governments’ (Carr, 1951, 69–70). Carr’s argument was prescriptive and pragmatic rather than descriptive and predictive. In sum, the rise of the socialised nation in the twentieth century is the main change that led Carr to identify the ‘moral bankruptcy’ of nineteenth-century laissez faire as well as the failure of the Marxist prediction of the inevitability of revolution on the basis of international class solidarity. Despite the failure of this Marxist prediction, however, Carr agreed with Marxist thinking that the twentieth century was the century of revolution. ‘The infusion of Marxism and class analysis into Carr’s thought’ as Paul Rich notes, ‘led him to present what seemed to be a rather more radical and wide-ranging critique of the world order in the late 1930s and 1940s than that of the idealist tradition’ (Rich, 2000, 212). Indeed, the infusion and, importantly, reinterpretation of Marx, enabled Carr to see an important revolutionary development in the twentieth century: the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. At the centre of each was not only political emancipation, but also the social question. Reinterpreting Marx(Ism): The Social and Colonial Revolutions in the Twentieth Century In line with Marxist thinking, Carr argued that the twentieth century was the century of revolution. In the twentieth century, this revolution had two components: the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. At the centre of each revolution was the social question—namely, socio-economic emancipation. Thus, while Carr agreed with Marx(ism) on the centrality of the ‘social revolution’ in the twentieth century without which democracy would be incomplete, he saw two fundamental realities in the twentieth century that Marx did not anticipate. First, the ‘social revolution’ in the twentieth century has been nationalised, with ethno-nationalism standing in the way of its expansion beyond the contours of the nation state. Second, the social revolution was complemented with the ‘colonial revolution’ where the demand for (social) democracy extended beyond Europe and is now at the centre of any discussion of international—or, more accurately, global—peace.

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‘Any attempt to assess Carr’s debt to Marxism’ Linklater acutely notes, ‘must take account of the literature on imperialism which appeared in the aftermath of the First World War’ (Linklater, 2000, 241). ‘Colonialism, international rivalries which culminated in violence and the collapse of the international socialist movement’ Linklater continues, ‘forced Marxists to reconsider the importance of nationalism, the state and war in modern history’ (Linklater, 2000, 241). Indeed, and Carr was no exception here. Carr’s reinterpretation of Marxism in the context of nationalism echoes the works of J. A. Hobson and Vladimir Lenin. There is of course a difference in the positions of Hobson, the social liberal, and Lenin, the Marxist revolutionary. Lenin, the Marxist revolutionary, on one hand agreed with Hobson that ‘the new imperialism differs from the older’ in two senses: ‘first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire the theory and the practice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political aggrandisement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests’ (Hobson, 1902, 324). But on the other hand, Hobson was a social liberal who believed in reform, rather than revolution, as the road to peace under global capitalism.1 Lenin, true to his Marxist analysis, saw a fundamental contradiction in the capitalist system and an ‘impending social revolution’ as a result (Lenin, 1999 [1917], 128). Carr’s position was closer to Lenin, We are living today in a period of revolution which has now been in progress for nearly two centuries – what Marx, would, I suppose, have called ‘‘permanent revolution’’ – and of which the two current phases may perhaps best be labelled the social revolution and the colonial revolution. (Carr, 1945, 86)

Crucially, Carr’s reference to the ‘colonial revolution’ alongside the ‘social revolution’ in Europe was an attempt to reinterpret Marxist categories to the colonial condition in the twentieth century. Carr here did not abandon Marxism but reinterpreted Marxist thought through emphasising that the struggle for socio-economic equality encompassed the colonies as well as the metropole. On one hand, therefore, Marx according to Carr was correct to assert the centrality of the ‘social revolution’ without which democracy would be incomplete. But, on the other hand, there were two fundamental realities in the twentieth century that Marx did not anticipate. First, the ‘social revolution’ in the twentieth century has been nationalised, with

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xenophobia and racism standing in the way of its expansion beyond the contours of the nation state. Second, the social revolution was complemented with the ‘colonial revolution’ where the demand for (social) democracy extended beyond Europe and is now at the centre of any discussion of international—or, more accurately, global—peace. Thus, if Nationalism and After contextualised imperialism and its climax in total war that led to the breakdown on the international order in the rise of the socialised nation in Europe, or what Carr termed as the ‘social revolution’, in later lectures, published as a short book with the title The New Society, Carr established the link between the social revolution in Europe and the ‘colonial revolution’ in Asia and Africa. Like the social revolution in Europe, Carr noted in these lectures, ‘the underlying essence of the colonial revolution is today economic rather than political’ (Carr, 1951, 93). ‘What Asia and Africa are fundamentally in revolt against’ Carr continued, is the nineteenth- century division of the world between advanced and backward peoples and the basis of that division in the intensive industrialisation of certain areas of the world to the exclusion of others. Political independence and political equality are no longer enough. These achievements, which seemed all-important so long as they were out of reach, are now seen to be hollow and unreal unless they are backed up by the reality of economic independence and economic equality; and the path to these is even longer and more difficult. (Carr, 1951, 94)

‘The colonial revolution’ therefore was ‘advancing side by side with the social revolution and forming part of it’ (Carr, 1951, 95). The revolutions were interlinked by the fact that they brought the social question at the centre of the debate on the international order. This further reinforced Carr’s earlier critique of the ‘moral bankruptcy’ of laissez faire. This ‘moral’ bankruptcy stemmed from the fact that laissez faire’s legitimating principles of freedom and equality in the political realm proved incompatible with the change to mass society. This change was not only fundamental in Europe but also in Asia and Africa, where the social question also became central to claims for political freedom. In other words, political freedom was an end to post-colonial states, but also a means for social and economic emancipation. Since independence and equality would be ‘hollow and unreal unless they are backed up by the reality of economic independence and economic equality’ (Carr, 1951, 94).

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Carr was not alone in this reinterpretation of Marxism and the attempt to apply the Marxist analysis of the social question to the colonial context. A similar reinterpretation is found in the works of Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire, to whom the chapter now turns. The Reinterpretation of Marxism in the First Wave of Post-colonial Thinking Like Carr, Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire accepted the limitations of Marxist analysis of class in the context of ethno-nationalism and racism. While they agreed with Marx that the twentieth century was the century of revolution, like Carr, they distinguished between the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. The social question was hindered in the latter due to the reality of racism and ethno-nationalism. This ‘hindrance’ has been examined in Fanon’s analysis of the Hegelian dialectic turning upon itself in the context of Algeria; Du Bois’ analysis of the failure of the American ‘revolution’ and Césaire’s critique of ‘abstract Communism’. The section will unpack these respectively. Dialectic Turning upon Itself: Racism and the Limits of Emancipation in Algeria In Black Skin, White Masks Fanon opened his conclusion with Marx’s famous quote from the Eighteenth Brumaire: The social revolution . . . cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped itself of all its superstitions concerning the past. Earlier revolutions relied on memories out of world history in order to drug themselves against their own content. In order to find their own content, the revolutions of the nineteenth century have to let the dead bury the dead. Before, the expression exceeded the content; now, the content exceeds the expression. (Fanon, 2008 [1952], 174)

Fanon’s intention in quoting this passage from Marx was to emphasise the importance of the social question for the future emancipation of the postcolonial world. Echoing Marx on the importance of the emphasis in the social revolution of the future, rather than the culturalism and nativism of

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the past, Fanon argued, ‘in no way should I derive my basic purpose from the past of the peoples of colour. In no way should I dedicate myself to the revival of an unjustly unrecognised Negro civilisation. I will not make myself the man of any past. I do not want to exalt the past at the expense of my present and of my future’ (Fanon, 2008 [1952], 176). Fanon thus rejected the essentialism of past culture and the determinism of race, and embraced the importance of material emancipation in the present and future: I am convinced that it would be of the greatest interest to be able to have contact with a Negro literature or architecture of the third century before Christ. I should be very happy to know that a correspondence had flourished between some Negro philosopher and Plato. But I can absolutely not see how this fact would change anything in the lives of the eight-year-old children who labour in the cane fields of Martinique or Guadeloupe. No attempt must be made to encase man, for it is his destiny to be set free. The body of history does not determine a single one of my actions. I am my own foundation. (Fanon, 2008 [1952], 180)

As Christopher Murray notes, therefore, to Fanon neither culture nor race alone serve as the basis for revolutionary emancipation (Murray, 2020, 427).2 This ‘revolutionary emancipation’ can, in the final analysis, only be completed through material emancipation. The basic task for Fanon thus was not the rejection of Marxism but reinterpreting Marxist thought and applying it to the colonial situation in the twentieth century. Fanon, on one hand, employed Marxist critique of the political economy of laissez faire capitalism, while on the other, exposed the distinct experience of racism and its implications for the application of social emancipation in the concrete circumstance of colonialism. Like Carr, Fanon noted that ethno-nationalism and racism stood in the way of class solidarity. Racism, according to Fanon, turned the Marxist dialectic upon itself in the colonial situation, or ‘strengthened’ the dialectic, as he put it in Towards the African Revolution. Thus, writing on the situation in Algeria (and Africa more generally), Fanon noted, In the course of the different wars of national liberation that have succeeded one another during these past twenty years it was not rare to note a suggestion of hostility, indeed of hate, in the attitude of the colonialist worker toward the colonised. This can be explained by the fact that the retreat of imperialism and the reconversion of the underdeveloped

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structures specific to the colonial state are immediately accompanied by economic crises that the workers in the colonialist country are the first to feel. The ‘‘metropolitan’’ capitalists allow social advantages and wage increases to be wrung from them by their workers to the exact extent to which the colonialist state allows them to exploit and make raids on the occupied territories. (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 144–145)

This passage depicts an explicit link between the social question in the metropole, which benefits the European workers and sets their interests contra the interests of the workers in Algeria. This explains not only the perpetuation of imperialism but also the support of imperial policy among the workers in the metropole. In turn, creating a ‘paradoxical’ situation where the moment of anti-colonial liberation turned White and Coloured workers against one another. In Fanon’s words, At the critical point at which the colonised peoples fling themselves into the struggle and demand their independence a critical period elapses in the course of which, paradoxically, the interest of the “metropolitan” workers and peasants seems to go counter to that of the colonised peoples. The damage caused by this “unexpected” alienation must be recognised and energetically counteracted. (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 145)

It is at this point where ethno-nationalism and racism enter the political scene to strengthen intra-class conflict. ‘To diversify and legitimise this general attitude of the colonialist [worker]’ as Fanon put it, ‘we find racism, hatred, contempt on the part of the oppressor, and correlatively stultification, illiteracy, moral asphyxiation, and endemic undernourishment in the oppressed’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 145). In other words, racism provided the legitimating platform for the perpetuation of international intra-class conflict. Class solidarity on the national level, having failed to consummate into class solidarity on the international level, ultimately drew on racism to oil the wheels of international intra-class conflict. ‘In the colonies’ Fanon thus wrote in The Wretched of the Earth, ‘the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is a consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to deal with the colonial problem’ (Fanon, 1963, 32). The Marxist analysis of class antagonism here finds as its corollary the antagonism between the coloniser and the colonised. The emancipation of the former becomes insufficient and irrelevant at best, counterproductive at

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worst, to the emancipation of the latter, despite the common objective of emancipation. This explains Fanon’s rejection of Sartre: ‘Jean-Paul Sartre had forgotten that the Negro suffers in his body quite differently from the white man’ (Fanon, 2008 [1952], 106). Thus, exposing the peculiarity of race and the experience of colonialism is a stepping-stone in Fanon’s analysis to disrupt capitalism and transcend its socio-economic structure of exploitation. This should not be interpreted as a rejection of Marxist analysis and categories, that the historical moment of post-colonial liberation aims to transcend into international solidarity. Since Fanon concedes that ‘the struggle against colonialism, in its specific aspect of exploitation of man by man … belongs in the general process of man’s liberation’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 145). Rather, it should be interpreted as an explanation, in a manner akin to Carr, of the failure of international revolution in the twentieth century due to the second dialectic imposed by the ‘movement of liberation’. Like Carr, Fanon argued that the demands of the social revolution in Europe needed to be supplemented with the separate demands of the colonial revolution in the Third World. Pace Marx, the emancipation of the former did not necessarily translate into solidarity with the latter, due to the reality of racism and ethno-nationalism. While the question to the workers across the globe essentially was social, racism, and ethno-nationalism stood in the way of emancipation beyond the confines of the socialised nation. Du Bois on the Failure of the American ‘Revolution’ Akin to Fanon and Carr, Du Bois regarded Marx, as he wrote in his autobiography, Dusk of Dawn, ‘one of the greatest men of modern times’. For Marx, Du Bois continued, ‘put his finger squarely upon our difficulties when he said that economic foundations, the way in which men earn their living, are the determining factors in the development of civilization, in literature, religion, and the basic pattern of culture’ (Du Bois, 2007 [1940], 151). Du Bois thus provided a Marxist interpretation of the American Civil War and the tragic events that followed the end of Reconstruction. The interpretation of the history of the Civil War in terms of class consciousness bears the mark of the influence of Marxist thought on Du Bois. Du Bois for instance referred to Reconstruction as the ‘proletarian dictatorship’, despite the absence of such socialist terminology in nineteenth-century America. Du Bois, in other words, understood Black Reconstruction, as Marx did the Commune, as

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an ‘experiment of Marxism’ (Mullen, 2016, 81). ‘The unending tragedy of Reconstruction’ was due to ‘the utter inability of the American mind to grasp its real significance... We are still too blind and infatuated to conceive of the emancipation of the labouring class in half the nation as a revolution comparable to the upheavals in France in the past, and in Russia, Spain, India and China today’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 708). The Bolshevik revolution therefore provided a framework for Du Bois to interpret the American ‘Revolution’. The slaves in this context behaved as ‘Black Bolsheviks’. This interpretation of the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction through a Marxist lens, or rather, Bolshevik history read backwards, explains Du Bois’s statement later on: ‘I can interpret the Soviet Union today through my experience with two million American Negroes in the last half of the nineteenth century’ (Du Bois, 1950, 83). As Mullen concludes, therefore, ‘DuBois invoked the American Revolution as a war against the exploitation of “colonial labour” to commemorate it retrospectively as a template for what became the workers’ uprisings in 1917 Russia’ (Mullen, 2015, 57). In this context, the failure of the American revolution to Du Bois was indistinguishable from the failure of socialism. The cause of this failure was the racism that dominated US society. The failure of Reconstruction and the political possibilities opened by emancipation, in other words, could be explained by the fact that ‘coloured labour has no common ground with labour’ and that ‘black proletariat is not part of the white proletariat’ (cited in Mullen, 2015, 73). Du Bois thus assigned white labour the label ‘labour aristocracy’ that protected its privilege over coloured labour. The concept of ‘labour aristocracy’ is influenced by Lenin’s work, particularly Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, where Lenin (1917) mentions the disunity of international proletariat due to the segment of European labour who united with capital to maintain its privilege over non-white labour. Akin to Lenin, Du Bois thus sought to ‘tell the story’ of the American Civil War where the white working class became the oppressors of black labour: ‘The lowest and most fatal degree of [their] suffering comes not from capitalists but from fellow white workers’ (quoted in Lewis, 2000, 309). The failure of Reconstruction, in other words, was a result of a betrayal of the white working class of labour interests and instead conspiration with the capitalist elites to preserve at once their limited racial privileged and the capitalist system. The exploitation of poor whites by white landowners in America’s settler colonial history, Du Bois reminded his readers, did not lead to class consciousness between

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the poor whites and Blacks contra capital. Since during the American Civil War, ‘five million non-slaveholding poor white farmers and labourers sent their manhood by the thousands to fight and die for a system that had degraded them equally with the black slave’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 96–97). Aside from Lenin’s influence, Du Bois also personally knew Hobson. For example, in 1911, Du Bois attended the ‘Universal Races Congress’ in Paris, a meeting that aimed to bring the latest research on racism. Hobson attended the meeting and presented his theory of imperialism and finance capital. While Du Bois agreed with Hobson’s analysis of imperialism, like Carr, Du Bois’s position leaned more towards Lenin’s critique of capitalism: like Carr, that is, Du Bois believed that no emancipation was possible for Black workers in the context of global capitalism. Since the ‘colour caste’ according to Du Bois, was ‘founded and retained by capitalism’ as well as ‘adopted, forwarded and approved by white labour’ resulting in the ‘subordination of coloured labour to white profits the world over’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 30). Racism and ethno-nationalism explained the tragic failure of the Marxist prophecy. Or, to put it in Fanon’s terms, with racism turned the Marxian dialectic upon itself. While the Marxian dialectic dictated that after capitalism came revolution, the interference of racism and the agency of white workers contra Black workers, meant that socialism and democracy—which in Du Bois’s works were used interchangeably—were postposed. This was the tragedy of the history of the American Civil War—namely, its failure to consummate class consciousness due to the divisions caused by racism and ethnonationalism. ‘If the Negro does not embrace the doctrines of socialism’ Du Bois thus advised posterity, ‘his advance will increase difficulties of the labour movement’ (Du Bois, 1997 [1929], 389). Césaire’s Critique of ‘Abstract Communism’ Like Du Bois and Fanon, Césaire did not reject Marxism, but sought to reinterpret Marx and the proletarian struggle in light of the colonial experience. ‘Marx is all right’ Césaire argued, ‘but we need to complete Marx. I felt that the emancipation of the Negro consisted of more than just a political emancipation’ (Césaire, 1972, 86). Indeed, akin to Carr, Fanon, and Du Bois, Césaire insisted that the emancipation of former colonies could not be complete simply through political independence but by addressing the social question. To address the social question in

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the former colonies, however, required a reinterpretation of Marxism, since the conditions of the people in former colonies were different from those of workers in the metropole. As Julian Go notes, Césaire ‘did not completely reject Marxism. The point was to unsettle its universalistic assumptions, problematise its categories, and thereby recraft or redeploy it to best theorise matters of social difference, which European versions of Marxism had for too long underestimated, if not ignored, at their own peril’ (Go, 2017, 37). Indeed, Césaire’s analysis of imperialism and war did not reject Marxism but—and as with Carr and Du Bois—proceeded on the basis of Leninist interpretation of Marx and explanation for why international solidarity along class lines did not occur. Césaire, like his contemporaries, rejected the ‘abstract’ Marxism, namely the Marxism that neglects the concrete facts of the twentieth century—most importantly, the dynamics of imperialism and war as based on the disunity among workers on the basis of the colour and ethno-nationalist lines. This was ultimately the reality of the twentieth century that Marxism needed to grapple with. As Césaire put it, I criticised the Communists for forgetting our Negro characteristics. They acted like Communists, which was all right, but they acted like abstract Communists. I maintained that the political question could not do away with our condition as Negroes. We are Negroes, with a great number of historical peculiarities. (Césaire, 1972, 85)

Césaire here rejects the ‘colourless’ Marxism—the Marxism that neglects the ‘historical peculiarities’ of the ‘Negroes’. This is not a rejection of Marxism per se, but an attempt to reinterpret Marx, expand on him and apply him to a concrete situation that defies international solidarity due to divisions along racial and national lines. In writing the Discourse on Colonialism, thus, Césaire, as Robin Kelley notes, ‘was attempting to revise Marx … by suggesting that the anticolonial struggle supersedes the proletarian revolution as the fundamental historical movement of the period’ (Kelley, 2000, 10). In other words, Césaire did not question the fundamental importance of economic emancipation in the twentieth century, but rather sought to contextualise it in the colonial experience where class alone, or simply the emphasis on the social revolution as separate from the colonial revolution, led to ‘abstract Communism’. According to Césaire, on one hand, the ‘problem of the proletariat’ was inextricably linked to the ‘colonial problem’, and the violence perpetuated in

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one is mirrored in the other. ‘The fact is that the so-called European civilisation “Western” civilisation has it has been shaped by two centuries of bourgeois rule’ as Césaire put it plainly, ‘is incapable of solving the two major problems to which its existence has given rise: the problem of the proletariat and the colonial problem’ (Césaire, 1972, 31). The colonial struggle for Césaire was therefore, while distinct from, interpreted as part of a larger class struggle against capital. On the other hand, as seen also with Carr, Du Bois, and Fanon, to assume that the interests of the proletariat in the metropole were in harmony with the interests of the proletariat in the ‘Third World’ was to present an ‘abstract’ understanding of Communism. Since this assumption of the ‘harmony of interests’ (to use Carr’s expression) simply neglected the reality where interests are in collision, along racial and/or nationalist lines.3 The World Wars (and rise of Hitlerism) in the twentieth century, according to Césaire, rendered visible this fact of ‘conflicting interests’ along racial and ethno-nationalist lines that was already present—and continuously felt in the colonies— in the nineteenth century. These ‘conflicting interests’ were not only on the basis of class lines within nations, but also along racial and ethnonationalist lines between nations. The wheels of imperialism, in the final analysis, did not spin on class alone, but class, race and ethno-nationalism in tandem. Like Carr, therefore, Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire on the one hand critiqued Marx in that they rejected historical determinism towards the social revolution where the ‘international proletariat’ would stand in solidarity in pursuit of common interests. As with Lenin, the reality of the twentieth century compelled Césaire, as it compelled Du Bois, Fanon, and Carr, to explain the failure of international revolution on the basis of international class consciousness. On the other hand, they sought to apply the Marxist dialectic, rooted in economic materialism, to the peculiarity of the colonial experience of ‘coloured labour’. This led to a distinction between the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. The social question was hindered in the latter due to the reality of racism and ethno-nationalism. This reality explains the absence of the ‘harmony of interests’ between the white worker and the coloured worker, thus turning the dialectic upon itself (Fanon), explaining the failure of the American ‘revolution’ (Du Bois), and, finally, meaning one must reject ‘abstract’ communism (Césaire).

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Conclusion This chapter contextualised the conceptual similarities between Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. Akin to Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire saw the advancement of the social question in Western democracies as inseparable from, and linked to, imperialism and war abroad. What explains this shared critique of imperialism and war? The answer, the chapter argued, lay in the fact that neither Carr nor the first wave post-colonial thinkers rejected the Marxist analysis of class conflict and the centrality of economic materialism in the dialectical movement of history. What Carr and the first wave post-colonial thinkers were critical of was the interpretation of Marxism in the strict sense—that is, they were all critical of the ‘abstract’ and deterministic Marx. Carr and the postcolonial thinkers in this case sought to reinterpret Marxism in a reality of the twentieth century that frustrated classical Marxist prediction of international class consciousness: the nationalisation of socialism and the rise of the socialised nation. While they agreed with Marx that the twentieth century was the century of revolution, this revolution had two components: the social revolution in the Western democracies and the colonial revolution in Asia and Africa. At the centre of each was not only political emancipation, but also the social question—namely, socio-economic emancipation, hindered by racism and ethno-nationalism. Having presented the shared intellectual origins of Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinker’s works in Marxist thought, the next chapter will demonstrate that Carr’s analysis of imperialism and war parallels the first wave of post-colonial thinkers in more than one respect. Carr’s work did not only situate imperialism in the context of the social question of Western democracies, but also provided an ideology critique of imperialism, that is, a critique that exposed the latter’s pretence of reason and universality to legitimate the status quo. This parallel in particular reveals that Carr did not only recognise global hierarchy, but also theorised what Julian Go refers to as the ‘episteme of empire’ and its role in turning class antagonism into colour antagonism. In turn, Carr’s IR theory was much closer to post-colonialism than previously appreciated in IR as a discipline.

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Notes 1. Hobson’s belief in reform is a logical conclusion from his analysis of imperialism as a result of maldistribution of the gains of capitalism at home, rather than intrinsic to the capitalist system itself. Lenin by contrast held the latter position. 2. Fanon’s work also rejects the ahistorical essentialisation of the category of ‘non-West’, along with its implications for ethnicised and territorialised accounts of culture and history. While recent IR scholarship problematise the ‘West’ versus ‘non-West’ binary (Bilgin, 2008; Doty, 1996; Grovogui, 2006; Hutchings, 2011; Shilliam, 2010), the categories remain to be used as heuristic tools. For recent critiques, see Vasilaki (2012), Karkour and Giese (2020). 3. In a crucial sense, therefore, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ under laissez faire is present in the works of Du Bois, Fanon and Césaire, For instance, Du Bois critiqued in the ‘harmony of interests’ between white and Black workers; Fanon presented a similar critique between the French white proletariat and the colonised natives; and finally, it is seen here in Césaire’s critique of colonialism.

References Bilgin, P. (2008). Thinking past ‘Western’ IR? Third World Quarterly, 29(1), 5–23. Carr, E. H. (1939). The twenty years’ crisis: 1919–1939. Macmillan. Carr, E. H. (1945). Nationalism and after. Macmillan. Carr, E. H. (1951). New society. Macmillan. Césaire, A. (1972). Discourse on colonialism. Monthly Review Press. Doty, R. (1996). Imperial encounters: The politics of representation in North-South relations. University of Minnesota Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1915). The African roots of the war. Atlantic Monthly, 115, 707–714. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1920). Darkwater: Voices from within the veil. Harcourt, Brace and Howe. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1950). Russia and America: An interpretation. Unpublished manuscript. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mum s312-b222-i001. Last accessed 12 Apr 2022. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1997 [1929]). Letter to Algernon Lee. In H. Aptheker (Ed.), The correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois (Vol. 1). University of Massachusetts Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007 [1940]). Dusk of dawn: An essay toward an autobiography of a race concept. Oxford University Press.

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Du Bois, W. E. B. (2013 [1935]). Black reconstruction in America. Russell & Russell. Evans, G. (1975). E.H. Carr and international relations. British Journal of International Studies, 1(2), 77–97. Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1967 [1964]). Toward the African revolution: Political essays. Grove Press. Fanon, F. (2008 [1952]). Black skin, white masks. Pluto Press. Germain, R. (2000). E. H. Carr and the historical mode of thought. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave. Go, J. (2017). Postcolonial thought and social theory. Oxford University Press. Grovogui, S. (2006). Beyond eurocentrism and anarchy: Memories of international order and institutions. Palgrave Macmillan. Halliday, F. (2000). Reason and romance: The place of revolution in the works of Carr. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave. Hutchings, K. (2011). Dialogue between whom? The role of the West/NonWest distinction in promoting global dialogue in IR. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39(3), 639–647. Heath, A. (2010). E.H. Carr: Approaches to understanding experience and knowledge. Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs and Applied Contemporary Thought, 1(1), 43–46. Hobson, J. A. (1902). Imperialism: A study. James Pot & Co. Johnston, W. (1967). E. H. Carr’s theory of international relations: A critique. The Journal of Politics, 29(4), 861–884. Karkour, H. L. (2021). Debating global justice with Carr: The crisis of Laissez Faire and the legitimacy problem in the twentieth century. Journal of International Political Theory, 17 (1), 81–98. Karkour, H. L., & Giese, D. (2020). Bringing Morgenthau’s ethics in: Pluralism, incommensurability and the turn from fragmentation to dialogue in IR. European Journal of International Relations, 26(4), 1106–1128. Kelley, R. (2000). ‘Poetics of anti-colonialism’ in discourse on colonialism. Monthly Review Press. Konstagiannis, K. (2017). Realist thought and the nation state: Power politics in the age of nationalism. Palgrave MacMillan. Lenin, V. (1917). Imperialism the highest stage of capitalism. International Publishers. Linklater, A. (1997). The transformation of political community: E. H. Carr, critical theory and international relations. Review of International Studies, 23(3), 321–338. Linklater, A. (2000). E. H. Carr, Nationalism and the future of the sovereign state. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave.

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Mearsheimer, J. (2005). E.H. Carr vs. Idealism: The battle rages on. International Relations, 19(2), 139–152. Molloy, S. (2006). The hidden history of realism: A genealogy of power politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Molloy, S. (2013). Spinoza, Carr, and the ethics of the twenty years’ crisis. Review of International Studies, 39(2), 251–271. Molloy, S. (2014). Pragmatism, realism and the ethics of crisis and transformation in international relations. International Theory, 6(3), 454–489. Molloy, S. (2021). Theorizing liberal orders in crisis then and now: Returning to Carr and Horkheimer. International Studies Quarterly, 65(2), 320–330. Morgenthau, H. J. (1948). The political science of E. H. Carr. World Politics, 1(1), 127–134. Mullen, B. (2015). UnAmerican: W. E. B. Du Bois and The century of world revolution. Temple University Press. Mullen, B. (2016). Du Bois: Revolutionary across the color line. Pluto Press. Murray, C. (2020). Imperial dialectics and epistemic mapping: From decolonisation to anti-Eurocentric IR. European Journal of International Relations, 26(2), 419–442. Rich, P. (2000). E. H. Carr and the quest for moral revolution in international relations. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave Macmillan. Scheuerman, W. (2010). The (classical) realist vision of global reform. International Theory, 2(2), 246–282. Shilliam, R. (2010). The perilous but unavoidable terrain of the non-West. In R. Shilliam (Ed.), International relations and non-western thought: Imperialism, colonialism and investigations of global modernity. Routledge. Vasilaki, R. (2012). Provincialising IR? Deadlocks and prospects in post-Western IR theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41(1), 3–22. Williams, M. (2013). In the beginning: The International Relations enlightenment and the ends of International Relations theory. European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 647–665. Wilson, P. (2001). Radicalism for a conservative purpose: The peculiar realism of E. H. Carr. Millennium—Journal of International Studies, 30(1), 123–136. Wilson, P. (2013). Power, morality and the remaking of international order: E. H. Carr’s the twenty years’ crisis. In H. Bliddal, C. Sylvest, & P. Wilson (Eds.), Classics of international relations. Routledge.

CHAPTER 4

Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire’s Ideology Critique of Imperialism: Early Critiques of Eurocentrism in IR

Introduction The similarity between Carr’s IR theory and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers transcends the materialist critique of imperialism. Carr’s work does not only situate imperialism in the context of the social question of Western democracies, but also provides an ideology critique of imperialism. This chapter understands ‘ideology’ in Karl Mannheim’s sense, namely as a totalising worldview that universalises a partial experience, agency, and interest to advance a particular political objective: ‘a false consciousness or misled Weltanschauung (world view), and which posits objective conditions and “realities” in order to manipulate certain social and political situations’ (Behr & Heath, 2009, 329). Mannheim’s influence on Carr is widely acknowledged among Carr scholars today (e.g. see Babik, 2013; Behr & Heath, 2009; Jones, 1998). Indeed, Carr himself acknowledges in his preface to the Twenty Years’ Crisis that he was influenced by Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia (1929).1 Furthermore, Mannheim himself was influenced by Marx’s critique of the universality of ‘reason’, who in turn influenced Césaire, Fanon, and Du Bois’ critique of imperialism and war as noted in the previous chapter. Mannheim’s definition of ideology is therefore pertinent to the present analysis. The overall argument in this chapter is that Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers present an ideology critique of imperialism. In © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_4

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particular, they critique the universalist pretentions of ‘Enlightenment reason’ that legitimates imperialism as a practice. This critique, the chapter aims to show, covers the four tenets in Hobson’s (2014) conceptualisation of ‘Eurocentrism’. These tenets include, ‘The elevation of the West to the status of “civilisation” and the demotion of the East to the realms of barbarism and savagery … [the notion that] the West’s exceptional institutions ensured that it would inevitably develop through the endogenous Eurocentric logic of immanence, while it was thought either that the East’s irrational institutions blocked its economic development … or that the East can develop but that it will do so only by following the natural path that was trailblased by the pioneering Europeans and which would necessarily culminate with the idealised Western civilisational terminus … a three-worlds meta-geography based on the Eurocentric standard of civilisation … [and finally] the construction of a schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that yields two twin-hierarchical conceptions of ‘gradated sovereignty’. (Hobson, 2014, 560 emphasis in original)

These tenets can be summarised in Carr and the first wave of postcolonial thinkers’ critique of two assumptions in Enlightenment reason. First, the association of ‘reason’ with Western civilisation, which in turn creates a dualism of European reason in contrast to non-European barbarity. Second, and following from this, a critique of linearity: the notion that progress in light of reason is not only possible, but also follows a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development. This twofold critique of Enlightenment reason leads Carr to expose the ideological role this ‘reason’ plays to advance European, particularly British, interests under the pretext of the ‘harmony of interests’. In turn, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ exposes the dualistic conception of sovereignty that Hobson identifies, where powerful nations, Great Britain in particular, employed ‘reason’ ideologically, to legitimate imperial hierarchy in the international. Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire share this ideology critique with Carr. Like Carr, they critiqued the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography. To Césaire, European science and morality were ideological tools that operated on the assumptions of dualism and linearity to legitimate racism and the violence of European imperialism. Fanon’s critique targeted the field of psychiatry. This field, according to Fanon, on one hand, neglected the

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social and political environment in which it operated, namely the violence inflicted by French settler colonialism. This environment altered the relationship between the doctor and the patient, thus hindering the efficacy of psychiatric treatment. Having neglected this environment, on the other hand, the field of psychiatry, under the pretence of ‘reason’, attempted to explain the failure of the diagnosis by imposing a racist dualistic framework that juxtaposed the ‘rational’ French science with the native Arab ‘prone to outbursts of homicidal rage, fanatical, possessively jealous and fatalistic’. The purpose of this categorisation was to conceal the role of psychiatry as part of a wider colonial environment to which it sought to assimilate the Arab native. Consequently, psychiatry did not only operate within the violence of settler colonialism, but also played an ideological role that legitimated its perpetuation. While Fanon’s context was the Algerian War of Independence, Du Bois’s analysis turned to the White historiography of the American Civil War. The narrative in the ‘official’ historiography of the American Civil War according to Du Bois presented the superiority and benevolence of the White settler, the main agent for Black emancipation. This historiography did not only exclude Black voices from history but also, once again, employed a dualist framework that portrayed Blacks as an ‘inferior race’ with no agency in the Civil War and whose freedom was bestowed upon by superior and ‘benevolent’ White. In turn it played an ideological role that legitimated the perpetuation of a new system of racist segregation, Jim Crow, bringing a tragic end to Reconstruction and resetting White settler colonialism. These ideology critiques of the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography in the works of Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, the chapter argues, parallel Carr’s ideology critique of the universalist pretentions of liberal reason and Victorian moralism. ‘Reason’ in all these cases operates on the basis of the key tenets of Eurocentrism that Hobson identified to ideologically legitimate and perpetuate imperialism. Pace Hobson (2007, 2012) and post-colonial critics of Carr’s ‘Eurocentrism’,2 therefore, Carr’s ideology critique of ‘reason’ presents an early critique of Eurocentrism in IR. To proceed with this argument this chapter is divided into two main sections. The first section unpacks Carr’s ideology critique of imperialism. Second two draws the parallels with Césaire, Fanon, and Du Bois, respectively.

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Carr’s Ideology Critique of Imperialism This section argues that Carr’s ideology critique of imperialism covers the four tenets in Hobson’s definition of ‘Eurocentrism’ in IR. These include the rejection of the dualism that equates the West with civilisation and the East with barbarism; the rejection of a linear path to development that culminates in a ‘Western civilisational terminus’; rejection of a Eurocentric standard of civilisation; and finally, a critique of schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that yields a hierarchical conception of ‘gradated sovereignty’ (Hobson, 2014, 560). Beyond the critique of materialism as an obstacle to democracy in the age of mass politics, Carr learned from Marx the relativity of ‘universal reason’ as representative of vested interests of powerful actors in national and international politics. As Carr put it, Marx played … a far more important part in what has been called “the flight from reason” than by the mere exaltation of the collective over the individual. By his vigorous assertion that “being determines consciousness, not consciousness being”, that thinking is conditioned by the social environment of the thinker, and that ideas are the superstructure of a totality whose foundation is formed by the material conditions of life, Marx presented a clear challenge to what had hitherto been regarded as the sovereign or autonomous human reason. (Carr, 1951, 70)

This ‘sovereign or autonomous human reason’ is fundamental to Enlightenment thinking from the eighteenth century onward. Marx’s importance here lay in ‘the extraordinary vigour and conviction with which he drove home his main argument’ that ‘shattered the comfortable belief of the Age of Enlightenment in the decisive power of individual reason in shaping the course of history’ (Carr, 1951, 70–71). This ‘comfortable belief of the Age of the Enlightenment’ in the power of reason held two assumptions that Carr problematised. First, the association of ‘reason’ with Western civilisation, which in turn created a dualism of European reason in contrast to non-European barbarity. Second, and following from this, a critique of linearity: the notion that progress in light of reason is not only possible, but also follows a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development.3 Carr presented this twofold critique against liberal thought from the eighteenth century onward. The notion that ‘reason’ must be universal and uncontested, Carr noted in the Twenty Years’ Crisis, ‘was handed on from the eighteenth-century rationalists to

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Bentham, and from Bentham to the Victorian moralists’ (Carr, 1939, 43). ‘Before the end of the nineteenth century’ Carr continued ‘serious doubts had been thrown from more than one quarter on the assumptions of Benthamite rationalism. The belief in the sufficiency of reason to promote right conduct was challenged by psychologists’ (Carr, 1939, 28). Thus, ‘after 1900 it would have been difficult to find, either in Great Britain or in any other European country, any serious political thinker who accepted the Benthamite assumptions without qualification’ (Carr, 1939, 28). It was ‘in the second and third decades of the twentieth century’ that ‘these half-discarded nineteenth-century assumptions reappeared’ in international politics ‘and there became the foundation-stones of a new utopian edifice’ (Carr, 1939, 28). The explanation for this reappearance, Carr noted, was ‘the influence of the United States, still in the heyday of Victorian prosperity and of Victorian belief in the comfortable Benthamite creed’ (Carr, 1939, 28). Thus, Just as Bentham, a century earlier, had taken the eighteenth-century doctrine of reason and refashioned it to the needs of the coming age, so now Woodrow Wilson, the impassioned admirer of Bright and Gladstone, transplanted the nineteenth-century rationalist faith to the almost virgin soil of international politics and, bringing it back with him to Europe, gave it a new lease of life. (Carr, 1939, 29)

The problem with this ‘doctrine of reason’ is that it created a ‘dualism’ that falsely ascribed the ‘objectivity’ and thus superiority of European (and now American) reason in contrast to the inferiority and nonEuropean ‘unreason’. This ignored the fact that (now former) Yugoslavia or Colombia might simply have had different needs and interests vis-à-vis free trade or the capitalist mode of development (Carr, 1984, 57–59). Associated with the critique of dualism was thus a critique of linearity, namely the notion that progress in light of reason was not only possible, but also followed a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development. Carr rejected this notion of linearity, The view that nineteenth-century liberal democracy was based, not on a balance of forces peculiar to the economic development of the period and the countries concerned, but on certain a priori rational principles which had only to be applied in other contexts to produce similar results, was essentially utopian; and it was this view which, under Wilson’s inspiration, dominated the world after the first world war. (Carr, 1939, 29)

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‘Utopianism’, in other words, entailed the attempt to superimpose liberal rationalist principles ‘by a purely intellectual process to a period and to countries … whose practical needs were utterly different from those of Western Europe in the nineteenth century’ (Carr, 1939, 29). But neither Western prescriptions of development were ‘objective’ and applicable across time and space, nor were they relevant to every culture and/or nation. Carr’s ideology critique of the assumptions of dualism and linearity in Enlightenment reason formed the basis of his critique of liberal institutions, such as the League of Nations but also Bretton Woods after WWII, which operated within the same assumptions that prioritised abstract reason that generalised and prioritised European (and later American) modes of development. ‘Any social order’ Carr noted in his critique of the League, ‘implies a large measure of standardisation, and therefore of abstraction’. ‘Such standardisation’ however ‘presents infinite complications when applied to sixty known states differing widely in size, in power, and in political, economic and cultural development. The League of Nations, being the first large-scale attempt to standardise international political problems on a rational basis, was particularly liable to these embarrassments’ (Carr, 1939, 29–30). It was not, for example, evident that laissez faire, based on a priori reason, benefited Colombia and the United States equally. After WWII, Carr presented a similar critique of Bretton Woods. Carr argued that there can be no return to the ‘aristocratic cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment’ that Bretton Woods represented, any less than the ‘laissez faire individualism of the nineteenth century’ (Carr, 1945, 45).4 Carr’s ideology critique of the Enlightenment reason, as well as his application of this critique to liberal institutions, covers the four tenets in Hobson’s definition of ‘Eurocentrism’ in IR. For instance, Carr’s rejection of the assumption of the linear, Western, path to development in liberal institutions directly addresses/critiques Hobson’s second tenet: ‘that the East can develop but that it will do so only by following the natural path that was trailblased by the pioneering Europeans and which would necessarily culminate with the idealised Western civilisational terminus’ (Hobson, 2014, 560 emphasis in original). Moreover, Carr’s problematisation of the ‘civilisation’ vs ‘barbarism’ binary addresses/critiques the first tenet: ‘the elevation of the West to the status of ‘civilisation’ and the demotion of the East to the realms of barbarism and savagery’ (Hobson, 2014, 560). Carr’s critique of Enlightenment reason exposes

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the ideological role ‘reason’ plays to advance European, particularly British, interests under the pretext of ‘rationality’. ‘The assumption that every nation has an identical interest in peace, and that any national which desires to disturb the peace is therefore both irrational and immoral’ Carr wrote (explicitly critiquing the Eurocentrism of such notion of rationality), ‘bears the marks of its Anglo-Saxon origin’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 51). ‘Biologically and economically’ Carr continued his critique, ‘the doctrine of the harmony of interests was tenable only if you left out of account the interest of the weak who must be driven to the wall, or called in the next world to redress the balance of the present’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 50). ‘Barbarism’ and ‘irrationality’ to Carr therefore are not the anti-thesis, but a tenet of Western civilisation as exemplified in Enlightenment reason underpinning liberal thought. As Nishimura argues, ‘the problem of modern utopianism [according to Carr] was its lack of concern with the fundamental issue illuminated by Dostoevsky: human irrationality (Nishimura, 2011, 54).5 The rationalist thinking of modern utopianism could irrationally sacrifice minorities’. Indeed, the influence of Dostoyevsky and the Romantic Exiles made it clear to Carr that on one hand, the binary distinction between civilisation and barbarism and/or rationality and irrationality is untenable, while, on other, rationality may be employed as a deceptive weapon by the strong to justify barbarism and exploitation. Carr’s rejection of the standard of civilisation that leaves European civilisation at the pinnacle also addresses/critiques the ‘Eurocentric standard of civilisation’ (Hobson’s third tenet). Carr’s critique of the dualism of ‘barbarism’ and ‘civilisation’ in Enlightenment reason can be seen, for instance, in his rejection of the universality or superiority of European morality. ‘International morality’ in the context of imperial expansion Carr rather argued was ‘little more than a convenient weapon for belabouring those who assailed the status quo’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 147). Carr thus rejected the presence of ‘civilisational terminus’ let alone one defined by British imperialism which he vehemently castigated. Finally, and based on this critique, Carr identified what Hobson refers to as the fourth tenet: a ‘schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that yields two twin-hierarchical conceptions of “gradated sovereignty”’ (Hobson, 2014, 560). This can be seen in Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’, which, following the ideology critique of ‘reason’, exposes the Eurocentric framework that monopolises ‘reason’ to legitimate imperial hierarchy in the international.

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This analysis shows that Carr shared with the ‘Howard School’ scholars the critique of international hierarchy and double standards in the application of international norms (Vitalis, 2015). Carr agreed with the School that ‘racism served as a remarkably productive device for the imperialist’ and refutes the hypocrisy of ‘the seeming truths of the science of dominance and subjugation’ (Henderson, 2017, 497).6 Carr’s work did not imagine ‘global anarchy’ that post-colonial scholars ascribe to ‘realists and liberal/idealist IR theorists’ (e.g. Henderson, 2017, 501–502). Rather, Carr’s contribution to IR theory recognised ‘the prevalence of white supremacist imperialism which subjugated whole swaths of humanity in Africa and Asia’ (Henderson, 2017, 501–502). This recognition can be seen in Carr’s critique of British imperialism, which both cites and brings to its centre the experiences of the marginalised. Unlike neo-realists, such as Kenneth Waltz (1979) and John Mearsheimer (2001), who concern themselves primarily with great powers, Carr’s Twenty Years’ Crisis quotes in length Yugoslav and Columbian officials as they presented, and were denied, their people’s concerns in the League of Nations (Carr, 1984 [1939], 57–59). Yugoslavia and Columbia’s positions, Carr reminded his readers, reveal that the international is hierarchical and that the ‘harmony of interests’ is merely the deceptive plea of the powerful. Carr’s sensitivity to the marginalised is the influence of the ‘Russian exiles’. Carr’s strong sense of the ‘voices in exile’ (Ashley & Walker, 1990), grew in earlier biographies of Dostoyevsky (1931), The Romantic Exiles (1933) and Bakunin (1937). These biographies gave Carr the ability to see history from the perspective of the marginalised and provide further context to Carr’s problematisation of Enlightenment reason as representative of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ origins and interests.7 It is on this basis that Carr also problematised the notion that ‘peace’ means the absence of war, since it renders invisible the violence committed against the powerless, through for example economic expropriation and colonial violence. Like Carr, post-colonial IR scholars take issue with a history that portrays the nineteenth century as ‘peaceful’. ‘To describe the period from 1815 to 1914 as “peaceful” in any sense of that term seemed astounding to anyone familiar with the history of empire’ writes Chowdry, ‘Krishna’s contrapuntal reading of sovereignty, of “the Hundred Years’ Peace”, and of the history of empire makes visible the hidden history of violence, land theft, slavery, racism, empire building, etc. during this period’ (Chowdry, 2007, 106). Carr agrees. Nineteenth-century laissez faire was far from peaceful, Carr notes, it ‘was established through the sacrifice of the “unfit” Africans

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and Asiatics … the whole ethical system was built on the sacrifice of the weaker brother’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 49). While Carr rejects the argument that it was the West’s ‘superior rationality’ or ‘exceptional institutions’ that led to its development, he would have qualified Hobson and Sajed’s claim on the ‘global interconnectedness and co-constitutivities between the Western and non-Western worlds’ (Hobson & Sajed, 2017, 551). This claim ‘rejects the notion that the West is absolutely autonomous because it is, in so many ways, shaped and reshaped through its interactions with the non-Western world’. It rejects the notion of ‘a hyper-autonomous West alongside that of Western Empire’s representation of its Self as permanently omnipotent and universal, unified and self-directed’ (Hobson & Sajed, 2017, 551). The qualification is precisely that this ‘interconnecteness’ of the ‘West’ and ‘non-West’ did not exist in a consistent way historically. For instance, one may concede, with Erik Ringmar, that Cordoba, in Spain, was ‘an intellectual centre’ of the Islamic Empire with ‘a library which contained some 400,000 books’ and scholars who ‘did cutting-edge research in the medical sciences, including surgery and pharmaceuticals’ (Ringmar, 2019, 82). Thus, the argument follows, knowledge from the Islamic Empire was transferred to Christian forces after the defeat of Muslim, leading the city to ‘soon establish itself as the cultural and intellectual centre of Christian Spain’ (Ringmar, 2019, 83). This history clearly shows global interconnectedness, where ‘Eastern Agency’ contributed to the transfer of knowledge to Europe. It does not, however, contradict the later history, where Bagdad was burnt by the Mongols, its scholars killed and books thrown into the river. Following this defeat, and the European Renaissance, which benefited from the transfer of knowledge, Europeans ultimately gained an advantage, which in turn was brought back into the Middle East in the form of colonial exploitation. The structures of power under which ‘interconnectedness’ and ‘Eastern Agency’ operated in this period were qualitatively different from the previous period. To describe the latter period as one of ‘interconnectedness’ where ‘Eastern Agency’ remained active is not necessarily incorrect as much as lacking nuance and at risk of downplaying the exploitative nature of the European colonial period. As post-colonial critics have themselves noted, ‘Hobson’s highlighting of Eastern agency troubles us because it permits a kind of complicity to creep into the actions of the East—or rather it assumes the East to be equally complicit in its own exploitation and devastation’ (Sajed & Inayatullah, 2016, 202). It is precisely for this reason that a

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post-colonial critique needs to put emphasis on the structures of power in the colonial period, which did not only constrain ‘Eastern Agency’ but also rendered any conception of ‘interconnectedness’ seem like an idealistic fantasy. Such conception of ‘interconnectedness’ finds its corollary in the notion of the ‘harmony of interests’ which Carr deemed not only as idealistic, but also itself Eurocentric and a legitimating weapon on the part of the imperial powers. In sum, Carr did not only present a materialist but also an ideology critique imperialism, in particular the latter’s problematic assumptions of dualism and linearity. This ideology critique in Carr’s work, as this section has shown, covers the four tenets of Eurocentrism identified by Hobson. In short, Carr did not only provide a materialist critique of imperialism, namely, its exploitation of the colonies in light of the dynamics of global capitalist—that is, nineteenth-century laissez faire, but also a critique of the Eurocentrism of the doctrines of reason and morality that imperialism employed as an ideological weapon against the powerless. The latter critique is also present in the works of Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire, to whom the chapter now turns to reveal the parallels with Carr.

Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire on the Ideology Critique of Imperialism This section argues that Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire share the ideology critique of imperialism with Carr. Specifically, they critique the universalist pretentions of Enlightenment reason underpinning European science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography. This ‘reason’ advances the assumptions of dualism and linearity within science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography to ideologically legitimate the interests of imperial powers and the violence within the status quo. On European Science and Morality Akin to Carr, Césaire critiqued the universalist pretentions of Enlightenment ‘reason’ underpinning European science and morality. To Césaire, European science and morality were ideological tools that operated on the assumptions of dualism and linearity to legitimate racism and the violence of European imperialism. The assumptions depict a binary distinction between the superiority and rationality of the West on one hand, and the inferiority and irrationality of the rest on the other. Consistent with

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this binary distinction was a racism that was followed by violence against ‘inferior races’. This violence was not only physical and socio-economic, but also epistemic—through, for example, the erasure of non-Europeans contribution to science and morality. In the context of this endemic violence, which, as Carr also noted, was characteristic of the ‘peaceful’ nineteenth century, the violence of Nazism from Césaire’s standpoint was not an aberration to an otherwise civilised and peaceful Europe, but rather representative of the successful application, and return to home of European ‘humanism’. As Césaire famously put it in his Discourse on Colonialism, People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind-it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimised it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples. (Césaire, 1972, 36)

Nazism, to Césaire, was thus not the anti-thesis of Enlightenment reason and morality, but its ultimate consummation—having long legitimated barbarism in the colonies, Enlightenment humanism ‘boomeranged’ into the metropole in the figure of Hitler. Thus, ‘whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe … there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler’ (Césaire, 1972, 37). Césaire’s critique of European Enlightenment, whose violence is hidden in plain sight, is reminiscent of Carr’s critique of the violence of nineteenth-century laissez faire: in both cases there is a moral critique of the ideological framework that sustained the nineteenth-century international order. ‘What am I driving at?’ Césaire asked, and he responded: At this idea: that no one colonises innocently, that no one colonises with impunity either; that a nation which colonises, that a civilisation which justifies colonisation and therefore force is already a sick civilisation, a civilisation which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment. (Césaire, 1972, 39)

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This ‘disease’ did not only pertain to the moral bankruptcy of the violence of colonialism, but could also be found in the various sciences, particularly the social sciences that perpetuated such violence epistemically. ‘From the psychologists, sociologists’ Césaire noted, their views on “primitivism” their rigged investigations, their self-serving generalisations, their tendentious speculations, their insistence on the marginal, “separate” character of the non-whites, and – although each of these gentlemen, in order to impugn on higher authority the weakness of primitive thought, claims that his own is based on the firmest rationalism – their barbaric repudiation, for the sake of the cause, of Descartes’s statement, the charter of universalism, that “reason … is found whole and entire in each man,” and that “where individuals of the same species are concerned, there may be degrees in respect of their accidental qualities, but not in of their forms, or natures”. (Césaire, 1972, 56)

The social sciences, in other words, rather than presenting objective and disinterested facts, played an ideological tool in justifying racism and ultimately the violence of imperialism against the ‘enemies’ of progress. They proceeded on the basis of the binary distinction between the ‘progress’, ‘superiority’, and ‘rationality’ of the Europeans on one hand, and the ‘backwardness’, ‘inferiority’, and ‘barbarism’ of natives on the other. ‘Of course there remain a few small facts that resist this doctrine’ Césaire replied, ‘to wit, the invention of arithmetic and geometry by the Egyptians. To wit, the discovery of astronomy by the Assyrians. To wit, the birth of chemistry among the Arabs. To wit, the appearance of rationalism in Islam at a time when Western thought had a furiously pre-logical cast to it’ (Césaire, 1972, 69–70). None of these in effect matter, however, since the objective of imperialism was to perpetuate racism, and thus silence the parts in history that did not cohere with the ‘objective’ reality that proceeded on the basis of a rational/irrational dualism and a linear narrative of progress with the Europeans at the pinnacle of civilisation. Like Carr, Césaire thus shared Hobson’s critique of the four tenets of Eurocentrism, namely the dualism that equates the West with civilisation and the East with barbarism; the linear path to development that culminates in a ‘Western civilisational terminus’; the Eurocentric standard of civilisation; and finally, the schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that aimed to convert non-European cultures to the ‘Western standard of civilisation’. In highlighting the contributions of the non-Europeans to civilisation, Césaire aimed to break the assumptions of dualism and linearity in the

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imperial narrative. It was for this aim specifically, and not simply to reveal a story of ‘interconnectedness’ and ‘co-constitutiveness’ under imperialism, that Césaire employed his ideology critique. This is crucial, because to Césaire revealing the contribution of non-Western agency to human civilisation was not separate from the objective of revealing the epistemic and physical violence of imperialism against non-Europeans. In presenting non-Western contributions over a longer historical span and using these contributions to reveal the epistemic violence of imperialism, Césaire did not risk turning the argument on non-Western agency to non-Western complicity in imperial violence.8 Aside from the sciences, Césaire also identified the assumptions of dualism and linearity in his critique of European morality. The overall system of ethics under imperialism, Césaire noted, was premised on the notion of the superiority of Europe and the inferiority of the nonEuropean. Thus for example, in his critique of French literary critic Roger Calois, Césaire wrote sarcastically, Just think of it! M. Caillois has never eaten anyone! M. Caillois has never dreamed of finishing off an invalid! It has never occurred to M. Caillois to shorten the days of his aged parents! Well, there you have it, the superiority of the West: “That discipline of life which tries to ensure that the human person is sufficiently respected so that it is not considered normal to eliminate the old and the infirm.” The conclusion is inescapable: compared to the cannibals, the dismemberers, and other lesser breeds, Europe and the West are the incarnation of respect for human dignity. (Césaire, 1972, 70)

As is the case with science, European morality distinguished the ‘civilised’ European from the ‘cannibals’ and the ‘lesser breeds’. The purpose of this distinction was to legitimate and perpetuate racism and the violence of European imperialism. In sum, like Carr, Césaire presented an ideology critique of the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning European science and morality. If Carr’s Eurocentric critique targeted the universalist pretentions of Enlightenment reason underpinning nineteenth-century Victorian moralism, and Césaire’s targeted European science and morality, Fanon’s critique, due to his profession as a doctor, targeted the psychiatric field.

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On Psychiatry and Colonialism The field of psychiatry in French Algeria, according to Fanon, on one hand, neglected the social environment of the Arab patients, namely the violence they experienced under French settler colonialism, that altered the relationship between the doctor and the patient and thus hindered the efficacy of psychiatric treatment. On the other hand, having neglected this environment, under the pretence of ‘reason’ the field attempted to explain the failure of the diagnosis by imposing a racist dualistic framework that juxtaposed the ‘rational’ French science with the native Arab ‘prone to outbursts of homicidal rage, fanatical, possessively jealous and fatalistic’. The purpose of this categorisation was to conceal the role of psychiatry as part of a wider colonial environment to which it sought to assimilate the Arab native. Consequently, psychiatry did not only operate within the violence of settler colonialism, but also served as an ideology that legitimated its perpetuation. Fanon’s critique of the field of psychiatry in French Algeria pointed out its total neglect of the social and political environment in which it operated: French settler colonialism. This was a grave mistake, according to Fanon, because the colonial situation altered the relationship between the doctor and the patient. ‘In a non-colonial society’ Fanon wrote, ‘the attitude of a sick man in the presence of a medical practitioner is one of confidence. The patient trusts the doctor; he puts himself in his hands. He yields his body to him. He accepts the fact that pain may be awakened or exacerbated by the physician, for the patient realises that the intensifying of suffering in the course of examination may pave the way to peace in his body. At no time, in a non-colonial society, does the patient mistrust his doctor’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959] , 123). In the colonial situation on the other hand, ‘acts of refusal or rejection of medical treatment are not a refusal of life, but a greater passivity before that close and contagious death. Seen from another angle, this absence of enlightened behaviour reveals the colonised native’s mistrust of the colonising technician. The technician’s words are always understood in a pejorative way. The truth objectively expressed is constantly vitiated by the lie of the colonial situation’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959], 128). This fundamental difference between the ‘colonial’ and ‘non-colonial’ society ultimately explains the ambivalent relationship the native in Algeria held vis-à-vis the French doctors. ‘For dozens of years, despite the doctor’s exhortations’ therefore Fanon observed, ‘the Algerian shied away from hospitalisation. Even though the

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specialist might insist that any hesitation would seriously endanger the patient’s life, the patient would hang back and refuse to be taken to the hospital. It would always be at the last moment, when hardly any hope remained, that consent was given’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959], 124). Psychiatry in the colonial situation, Fanon concluded from these observations, could not simply draw on abstract scientific reason while neglecting the sociological context. ‘Fanon’ as David Macey thus puts it in his biography, ‘stresses that psychoanalysis may not in fact provide a full explanation and insists that a theory of phylogeny and ontogeny must be complemented by one of sociogeny: the black man’s alienation is not an individual question, and its causes are socially determined’ (Macey, 2012, 184; see also Aching, 2013; Bulhan, 1985; Menozzi, 2015). Indeed, the field of psychiatry neglected the fact that, ‘Psychologically, the colonised has difficulty, even here in the presence of illness, in rejecting the habits of his group and the reactions of his culture. Accepting the medicine, even once, is admitting, to a limited extent perhaps but nonetheless ambiguously, the validity of the Western technique. It is demonstrating one’s confidence in the foreigner’s medical science. Swallowing the whole dose in one gulp is literally getting even with it.’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959], 131)

The problem is not only the sociological context in which science itself operates as a form of cultural imposition, but also the political context in which the field of psychiatry operates as inseparable from the colonial context (Desai, 2014; Gibson, 2003; McCulloch, 1983). Science in general and psychiatry in particular are political in the colonial situation: ‘the French medical service in Algeria could not be separated from French colonialism in Algeria’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959], 123). For ‘in the colonial situation, going to see the doctor, the administrator, the constable or the mayor are identical moves’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959], 139). Indeed, in the colonial situation, neither the doctor nor the intellectual are solely doctors or intellectuals, but also first and foremost colonial settlers. ‘Whether the land has come to him from his family, or he has bought it himself, the doctor is a settler’ Fanon reminded his readers, ‘the doctor is not socially defined by the exercise of his profession alone. He is likewise the owner of mills, wine cellars, or orange groves, and he coyly speaks of his medicine as simply a supplementary source of income’ (Fanon, 1965 [1959], 134). Given this political and sociological context, ‘the diagnosis and treatment

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of mental illness in the colonial situation must begin, not with metapsychology, but with the situation and the lived experience it induces’—that is to say, it must explain ‘mental illness as a form of social alienation’ (Macey, 2012, 190). In emphasising this social dimension of alienation, Fanon highlights how the structure and violence of French imperialism alters the psyche of the native. Thus, in lieu of arguing that the mind of his patient is suffering mentally in the abstract, Fanon recontextualises mental illness in the environment of imperialism and the violence it inflicts. In Fanon’s words, ‘threatened in his affectivity, threatened in his social activity, threatened in his membership in the community – the North African combines all the conditions that make a sick man’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 13). Having neglected the reality of the settler colonial environment, the field of psychiatry according to Fanon, attempted to explain the failure of the diagnosis by imposing a Eurocentric conception of reason that employed a racist categorisation of the native Arab in Algeria, a categorisation that epistemically maintained the binary distinction between the ‘rational’, ‘civilised’, ‘trustworthy’ European settler on one hand and the ‘irrational’, ‘barbaric’, and untrustworthy’ Arab on the other. Thus, the argument of French imperialists went, ‘the North African is a simulator, a liar, a malingerer, a sluggard, a thief’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 7). The European doctor treated the native as ‘pseudo-invalid like every Arab’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 14). Fanon here presents an ideology critique of the field of psychiatry, which neglected the experience of the native and instead sought to impose the validity of ‘European science’ and ‘reason’ as universal categories that portrayed the native as the problem, only to perpetuate the status quo. As Hannah Gooze argues, Fanon affords a bridge between politics and psychiatry … His psychiatry … reveals the danger of the Eurocentric universalism underpinning modern psychiatry. Fanon enables analysis to go beyond that which has so far been achieved in contemporary trauma scholarship, directly addressing the complicity of psychiatry itself in political oppression. (Gooze, 2021, 104)

Indeed, the position of the field of psychiatry within the colonial regime was part of the problem. Rather than alleviate the patient from the violence of colonialism, it played an ideological role, namely employed a racist categorisation of the native Arab in Algeria in order to justify

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the perpetuation of this environment (Fanon et al., 2018, 363). ‘The North African’ in this case did not come ‘with a substratum common to his race, but on a foundation built by the European’. In other words, ‘the North African, spontaneously, by the very fact of appearing on the scene, enter[ed] into a pre-existing framework’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 7). Such a framework proposed by European psychiatry served the ideological purpose of legitimating the perpetuation of the settler colonial environment and its violence. The field of psychiatry was thus problematic not only because it neglected the social and political environment of Fanon’s patients, namely settler colonialism, but also attributed the resulting failure of therapy to racist and ungrounded ideological stereotypes about the Arab native. Aside from its neglect of the political and sociological foundation of the alienation of Algerian Arabs in the settler colonial context, this field according to Fanon ideologically served the colonial structure through its racist representation of the Arab as ‘prone to outbursts of homicidal rage, fanatical, possessively jealous and fatalistic’ (cited in Macey, 2012, 223). The so-called European ‘science’, thus Fanon declared, entails ‘Western bourgeois racial prejudice as regards the nigger and the Arab … a racism of contempt’ (Fanon, 1963, 163). It was this racism that the ‘scientific’ pretentions of the field of psychiatry attempted to conceal through representing the settler colonial context as ‘not racism nor paternalism, but quite simply a scientific appreciation of the biologically limited possibilities of the native’ (Fanon, 1963, 244). The goal of the field of psychiatry came to perpetuate this context through aiming to ‘heal’ and ‘reintegrate’ the patient into colonial society. Thus ‘society ask[ed] the psychiatrist to render the patient able to reintegrate into society’ and ‘the psychiatrist’ became ‘the auxiliary of the police’ (Fanon et al., 2018, 517). ‘Psychiatry’ in turn became ‘complicit in the illness of society, seeking to reintegrate patients into colonial society, the very cause of mental disorder’ (Gooze, 2021, 112). Fanon’s ideology critique of the Eurocentrism field of psychiatry here echoes Carr and Césaire’s critiques of the role of science and morality in legitimating the perpetuation of imperialism. Like Carr and Césaire, Fanon shared Hobson’s critique of the four tenets of Eurocentrism, namely the dualism that equates the French with civilisation and the Arab with barbarism; the linear path to scientific development; the Eurocentric standard of civilisation, defined by French science; and finally, the schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that aimed, by means of science,

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to integrate the native Arab, as an inferior race, into the settler colonial hierarchy. Psychiatry in the case of Fanon was ‘utopian’ in the Carrian sense, in that it neglected the reality of the colonial context and sought to superimpose an ideological framework for the purpose of perpetuating the status quo. Under the pretence of ‘objective’ and ‘universal’ science, the field came to perpetuate the settler colonial environment, along with the vested interests of French imperial power and the violence committed in this environment. The notion that an ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ endeavour may be ideologically self-serving to the violence of imperialism within the status quo is common not only to Carr, Césaire and Fanon but also Du Bois to whom this section now turns. While Fanon’s context is the field of psychiatry in the context of the Algerian War of Independence, Du Bois’s analysis turns to the White historiography of Reconstruction and emancipation following the American Civil War. On the (White) Historiography of the American Civil War and Reconstruction The narrative in the ‘official’ historiography of the American Civil War according to Du Bois did not only exclude Black voices from history but also, once again, employed a dualist framework that portrayed Blacks as an ‘inferior race’ with no agency in the Civil War and whose freedom was bestowed upon by superior and ‘benevolent’ White. In turn the historiography ideologically legitimated the perpetuation of a new system of racial segregation, Jim Crow, bringing a tragic end to Reconstruction and resetting White settler colonialism. In Black Reconstruction, Du Bois presented an ideology critique of the history of Reconstruction and emancipation following the American Civil War. Specifically, Du Bois critiqued the White historiography of the American Civil War that ascribed the superiority and benevolence of the White settler towards Black emancipation. The narrative in turn denied Black agency and continued to portray Blacks as inferior to the White race. In this ‘official’ historiography, the black slave was seen as an object of emancipation. The narrative thus noted that ‘the American Negroes are the only people in the history of the world, so far as I know, that ever became free without any effort of their own’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1200). This was a false representation however, since ‘in proportion to

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population, more Negroes than whites fought in the Civil War’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1202). This denial of agency was complemented with the invisibility of Black voices on Reconstruction: The chief witness in Reconstruction, the emancipated slave himself, has been almost barred from court. His written Reconstruction record has been largely destroyed and nearly always neglected. Only three or four states have preserved the debates in the Reconstruction conventions; there are few biographies of black leaders. The Negro is refused a hearing because he was poor and ignorant. It is therefore assumed that all Negroes in Reconstruction were ignorant and silly and that therefore a history of Reconstruction in any state can quite ignore him. (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1209)

The history of Reconstruction was thus written by Whites and for Whites. This misrepresentation of history did not involve only history books, but the totality of institutions, including universities, social life, and religion: ‘while many young white Southerners can get funds to attack and ridicule the Negro’ in the history of Reconstruction, ‘it is almost impossible for first-class Negro students to get a chance for research or to get finished work in print’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935] 1215). ‘In propaganda against the Negro since emancipation in this land’ thus Du Bois noted, ‘we face one of the most stupendous efforts the world ever saw to discredit human beings, an effort involving universities, history, science, social life and religion’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1219). Thus under the pretentions of ‘reason’ and ‘objectivity’, ‘the social sciences were deliberately used as instruments to prove the inferiority of the majority of the people of the world, who were being used as slaves for the comfort and culture of the masters’ or ‘History’ that ‘declared that the Negro had no history’ or ‘Biology’ that ‘exaggerated the physical differences among men’ (Du Bois, 2005, 138). Take the example of universities. ‘The real frontal attack on Reconstruction’ Du Bois observed, ‘came from the universities and particularly from Columbia and Johns Hopkins. The movement began with Columbia University and with the advent of John W. Burgess of Tennessee and William A. Dunning of New Jersey as professors of political science and history’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1204). Thus,

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Johns Hopkins University has issued a series of studies similar to Columbia’s; Southern teachers have been welcomed to many Northern universities, where often Negro students have been systematically discouraged, and thus a nation-wide university attitude has arisen by which propaganda against the Negro has been carried on unquestioned. The Columbia school of historians and social investigators have issued between 1895 and the present time sixteen studies of Reconstruction in the Southern States, all based on the same thesis and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro; third, a judicial attitude towards the North, which concludes that the North under great misapprehension did a grievous wrong, but eventually saw its mistake and retreated. (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1206)

What explains the ‘attitude’ of these ‘writers toward Reconstruction’? Du Bois’ answer here is that they simply could not ‘conceive Negroes as men; in their minds the word “Negro” connotes “inferiority” and “stupidity” lightened only by unreasoning gayety and humour’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1217). In the final analysis, therefore, despite the emancipatory potential of Reconstruction, as one of ‘the finest effort to achieve democracy for the working millions which this world had ever seen … an upheaval of humanity like the Reformation and the French Revolution’ (Du Bois, 2013 [1935], 1219), it ended in tragedy: Jim Crow and the restoration of a racist regime that perpetuated White settler colonialism. The ideological framework that rose out of slavery was not dismantled but reinforced the inferiority of Blacks. While slavery was gone racism remained, and the stamp of racial inferiority continued as an obstacle to democracy. Du Bois’s task in Black Reconstruction was precisely to critique this ideological framework that employed a White historiography that perpetuated the myth of inferiority of the Black race. In other words, Du Bois’s task was to show the other side of history: that which represented the role of Black agency in the Civil War and Reconstruction. In highlighting Black agency, Du Bois sought to problematise the dualist framework that represented Whites as ‘superior’ (and ‘benevolent’) and Blacks as ‘inferior’ (and ‘ought to be grateful’). In problematising this framework—and akin to Césaire in relation to science and morality—Du Bois sought to reveal Black agency in the history of the American Civil War. Problematising this dualist framework was fundamental to Du Bois as it pertained to achieving the political objective of ending settler colonial exploitation, which, in

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the name of white superiority/Black inferiority, continued to ideologically legitimate the practices of segregation on racial grounds after the end of slavery. Thus, if the ‘typical paternal and racist Civil War historiography of his time emphasised the benevolence of white figures like Abraham Lincoln and used racist stereotype to denigrate African-Americans as incapable of achieving their own freedom’ it was Du Bois’s aim to present ‘the end of slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction period as the first time in U.S. history that the black working class undertook its own widescale self-emancipation’ (Mullen, 2016, 78–79). Du Bois’s aim was not only to unveil the violence of settler colonialism as seen in slavery but to problematise the epistemic framework that the White historiography of the American Civil War and Reconstruction ideologically perpetuated and which meant the continuation of racism and Jim Crow. As with Carr’s critique British imperialism and its ideological use of Victorian moralism to perpetuate the violence of laissez faire, Césaire’s ideology critique of European science and morality as the weapons of imperialism and Fanon’s ideology critique of the field of psychiatry as the ideological tool of French imperialism in Algeria, the reader here finds the final parallel in Du Bois: historiography, like science and morality, employing ‘objective’ and ‘universal’ standards, in order to legitimate and perpetuate the status quo. Alongside Carr, Césaire and Fanon, therefore, Du Bois shared Hobson’s critique of the four tenets of Eurocentrism, namely the dualism that equated Whites with civilisation and Blacks with barbarism; the linear path to American society’s advancement towards emancipation; the Eurocentric standard of civilisation, defined by American ideals and figures such as Lincoln; and finally, the schizophrenic conception of sovereignty that aimed, by means of a flawed historiography, to integrate Blacks into the settler colonial hierarchy where they would remain an ‘inferior race’. The overall objective of such a historiography was ideological: to justify the perpetuation of racial segregation, along with the vested interests of White settlers, after the end of slavery. Du Bois’s ideology critique of the White historiography of the American Civil War therefore once again reveals that what seemed like an ‘objective’ historiography in fact was self-serving: it advanced the assumption of dualism that contrasted the superiority and benevolence of the White settler with the inferiority, and lack of agency, of Blacks. It is precisely this dualism, according to Du Bois, that explained the failure of the American ‘revolution’ and the tragic end of Reconstruction in Jim Crow.

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Conclusion Overall, this chapter argued that Carr, along with Césaire, Fanon, and Du Bois, presented an ideology critique of ‘universal reason’ that problematised two assumptions. First, the association of ‘reason’ with Western civilisation, which in turn created a dualism of European reason in contrast to non-European barbarity. Second, and following from this, a critique of linearity: the notion that progress in light of reason is not only possible, but also follows a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development. This twofold critique of Enlightenment reason led Carr to expose the ideological role ‘reason’ played to advance European, particularly British, interests under the pretext of the ‘harmony of interests’. In turn, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ exposed the ideological use of ‘reason’ and ‘morality’ by powerful nations, particularly Great Britain, to legitimate hierarchy in the international. Overall, Carr’s critique of Enlightenment thinking, as embodied in liberal thought from the eighteenth century onward, thus echoed Hobson’s critique of Eurocentrism. Like Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire critiqued the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography. To Césaire, European science and morality were ideological tools that operated on the assumptions of dualism and linearity to legitimate racism and the violence of European imperialism. Fanon’s critique targeted the field of psychiatry. This field, according to Fanon, on one hand, neglected the social and political environment of Arab patients, namely the violence inflicted by French settler colonialism. On the other hand, having neglected this environment, it proceeded on the basis of a racist dualism that juxtaposed the ‘rational’ French science with the native Arab ‘prone to outbursts of homicidal rage, fanatical, possessively jealous and fatalistic’. The purpose of this categorisation was to conceal the role of psychiatry as part of a wider colonial environment to which it sought to assimilate the native. Consequently, psychiatry did not only operate within the violence of settler colonialism, but also played an ideological role that legitimated its perpetuation. Du Bois’ analysis turned to the White historiography of Reconstruction and emancipation following the American Civil War. The narrative in the ‘official’ historiography of the American Civil War according to Du Bois ascribed the superiority and benevolence of the White settler. This historiography did not only exclude Black voices from history but also, once again, employed a dualist framework that

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portrays Blacks as an ‘inferior race’ with no agency in the Civil War and whose freedom was bestowed upon by superior and ‘benevolent’ White. In turn it ideologically legitimated the perpetuation of a new system of racist segregation, Jim Crow, bringing a tragic end to Reconstruction and resetting White settler colonialism. Overall, despite the various contexts where the Eurocentric critique was applied, Carr, along with Césaire, Fanon, and Du Bois presented an ideology critique of the Eurocentrism of ‘universal reason’. This ‘reason’ advanced the assumptions of dualism and linearity to contrast the superiority of European reason with the inferiority non-European ‘barbarity’. Consequently, it advanced an ideological framework that ‘posits objective conditions and “realities” in order to manipulate certain social and political situations’ a la Mannheim. Science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography operated within this framework to ideologically legitimate the interests of imperial powers and the violence of imperialism and settler colonialism. Akin to Césaire, Fanon, and Du Bois, Carr was thus aware of what Julian Go refers to as the ‘episteme of empire’: ‘the meanings and modalities of seeing and knowing that … accompanied empire and made it possible in the first place’ (Go, 2017, 19–20). Like the ‘first-wave postcolonial thinkers’ Carr ‘targeted nothing less than the entire imperial episteme and its moorings in the Enlightenment’ (Go, 2017, 29). Carr, in short, presented an early critique of Eurocentrism in IR. This chapter, along with the previous chapter, have demonstrated that Carr’s IR theory is much closer to post-colonialism than previously appreciated in IR as a discipline. The reader can see a thread that runs through Carr’s work, along with the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, that critiques imperialism not only on the material level but also on the ideological level—its justification of racism and use of ‘objective’ categories of ‘reason’, ‘science’, and ‘morality’ to legitimate of imperial violence. This raises the question: what could be done about it? This is where Carr and Césaire on one hand, and Fanon and Du Bois on the other, diverged: they presented different visions of the post-war—that is, post-imperial, settlement. The following chapter proceeds to unpack these visions.

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Notes 1. As well as Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, that was originally published in 1932. 2. The earlier critiques can be found in (Howe, 1994, 297; Miller, 1991, 70; Smith, 1992). 3. In the latter critique, Carr transcended Marx in that he rejected an end point of history or end point of utopia (as Dunne, 2000 put it). In The New Society, Carr voiced his critique as follows, ‘Hegel, as a good conservative, had exempted the current reality of the Prussian from the operation of the dialectic which had destroyed successively so many earlier historical forms. Marx, as a revolutionary, admitted no such absolute in the present, but only in the future. The proletariat, whose victory would automatically abolish classes, was alone the basis of absolute value; and collective proletarian thinking had thus an objectivity which was denied to the thinking of other classes. Marx’s willingness, like that of Hegel, to admit an absolute as the culminating point of his dialectical process was, however, an element of inconsistency in his system; and, just as Marx was far more concerned to dissect capitalism than to provide a blue-print for socialism, so his use of the dialectic to lay bare the conditioned thinking of his opponents lay far nearer to his heart, and was far more effective, than his enunciation of the objective and absolute values of the proletariat’ (Carr, 1951, 70–71). 4. Carr’s critique of Enlightenment rationalism and its political manifestation in the League of Nations set him in collision course with Lord Davies, who funded the Woodrow Wilson Chair at Aberystwyth (for a detailed exposition of the animosity between Carr and Lord Davies, see Porter, 2000). Although Lord Davies died in 1944 and Carr in 1947 was forced to resign from the Chair due to ‘conjugal irregularity’, after the war Carr was marginalised. 5. On Carr’s critique of human irrationality, see also (Schuett, 2010, 2011). 6. Fred Schumann was thus not alone, as Vitalis (2015) notes, to confront this ‘uncomfortable truth’ in the 1930s. 7. As Jonathan Haslam notes in his biography, ‘increasingly Carr found himself in internal exile, at odds with the establishment, cut off from a secure source of income, living actively by his pen’ (Haslam, 1999, 137). Michael Cox echoes Haslam: ‘ever the optimist, Carr thus lived just outside the political pale … annoying the establishment without necessarily threatening them, but annoying them just enough (and often enough) to make him quite unacceptable, and for a while unemployable as well’ (Cox, 1999, 652). Unlike other realists, and despite his long life, Carr was thus as Barry Buzan lately notes, ‘conspicuously absent’ from conferences and debates about international politics (Buzan, 2020, 584). Speaking the language of

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exile, ultimately, led Carr himself into exile. Scheuerman presents an explanation for Carr’s ‘exile’ and Morgenthau’s ‘fame’ during the Cold War: Carr’s emphasis on Soviet-style planning, which was unpopular, to say the least, in the West during the Cold War and which Morgenthau rejected. In Scheuerman’s words, ‘Morgenthau’s fame, and Carr’s relative neglect during the Cold War in the United States, can surely be attributed at least in part to this difference. Morgenthau’s modest conception of planning meshed well with the New Deal and postwar US left-liberal visions of a “mixed economy,” whereas Carr’s was much more closely linked to traditional socialist ideals’ (Scheuerman, 2011, 83–84). Du Bois, Fanon and Césaire were on Carr’s side in this argument, and this fact, namely, that they too admired socialist-style planning and the USSR, may extend Scheuerman’s argument to the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. In the case of Du Bois, the price was even heavier, as he fell victim to McCarthyism in the 1950s United States. 8. A critique that, as seen above, was levelled against Hobson.

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Desai, M. (2014). Psychology, the psychological and critical praxis: A phenomenologist reads Frantz Fanon. Theory & Psychology, 24(1), 58–75. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2005). W.E.B. Du Bois on Asia: Crossing the world color line (B. Mullen & C. Mullen, Eds.). Mississippi University Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2013 [1935]). Black reconstruction in America. Russell & Russell. Dunne, T. (2000). Theories as weapons: E.H. Carr and international relations. In M. Cox (Ed.), E.H. Carr: A critical appraisal (pp. 217–233). Palgrave Macmillan. Fanon, F. (1965 [1959]). A dying colonialism. Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1967 [1964]). Toward the African revolution: Political essays. Grove Press. Fanon, F., Khalfa, J., & Corcoran, A. (2018). Alienation and freedom. Bloomsburg. Gibson, N. (2003). Fanon: The postcolonial imagination. Polity Press. Go, J. (2017). Postcolonial thought and social theory. Oxford University Press. Gooze, H. (2021). Decolonising Trauma with Frantz Fanon. International Political Sociology, 15(1), 102–120. Haslam, J. (1999). The vices of integrity: E. H. Carr, 1892–1982. Verso. Henderson, E. (2017). The revolution will not be theorised: Du Bois, Locke, and the Howard school’s challenge to white supremacist IR theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 45(3), 492–510. Hobson, J. (2007). Is critical theory always for the white West and for Western imperialism? Beyond Westphalian towards a post-racist critical international relations. Review of International Studies, 33(S1), 91–116. Hobson, J. (2012). The Eurocentric conception of world politics: Western international theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge University Press. Hobson, J. (2014). The twin self-delusions of IR: Why ‘hierarchy’ and not ‘anarchy’ is the core concept of IR. Millennium, 42(3), 557–575. Hobson, J., & Sajed, A. (2017). Navigating beyond the Eurofetishist frontier of critical IR theory: Exploring the complex landscapes of non-Western agency. International Studies Review, 19, 547–572. Howe, P. (1994). The Utopian realism of E. H. Carr. Review of International Studies, 20(3), 277–297. Jones, C. (1998). E.H. Carr and international relations: A duty to lie. Cambridge University Press. Macey, D. (2012). Fanon: A biography. Verso. McCulloch, J. (1983). Black soul white artefact: Fanon’s clinical psychology and social theory. Cambridge University Press. Mearsheimer, J. (2001). The tragedy of great power politics. W. W. Norton.

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Menozzi, F. (2015). Fanon’s letter. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 17 (3), 360–377. Miller, G. (1991). Review: E. H. Carr: The realist’s realist. The National Interest, 25, 65–71. Mullen, B. (2016). Du Bois: Revolutionary across the color line. Pluto Press. Nishimura, K. (2011). E. H. Carr, Dostoevsky, and the problem of irrationality in modern Europe. International Relations, 25(1), 45–64. Porter, B. (2000). E. H. Carr: The Aberystwyth years 1936–47. In M. Cox M (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave Macmillan. Ringmar, E. (2019). History of international relations: A non-European perspective. Open Book Publishers. Sajed, A., & Inayatullah, N. (2016). On the perils of lifting the weight of structures: An engagement with Hobson’s critique of the discipline of IR. Postcolonial Studies, 19(2), 201–209. Scheuerman, W. (2011). The realist case for global reform. Polity. Schuett, R. (2010). Political realism, Freud, and human nature in international relations: The resurrection of the realist man. Palgrave Macmillan. Schuett, R. (2011). Classical realism, Freud and human nature in international relations. History of the Human Sciences, 23(2), 21–46. Smith, A. (1992). Nationalism and the historians. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 32(1–2), 58–80. Vitalis, R. (2015). White world order, black power politics: The birth of American international relations. Cornell University Press. Waltz, K. (1979). Theory of international politics. McGraw Hill.

CHAPTER 5

Visions of the Future World Order—Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, Césaire and the Post-war Settlement

Introduction In the previous chapter, this book outlined a common thread that ran through Carr and the early post-colonial thinkers’ ideology critiques of imperialism. This chapter takes a step beyond these critiques, towards the visions of the future prescribed by Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, in particular their proposed vision of the post-war settlement. The post-war settlement to Carr, as to Fanon, Césaire, and Du Bois, the chapter argues, did not only have an economic purpose but also psychosocial purpose: it aimed to address the sense of alienation felt by the individual in late modern society. By alienation this chapter means the lack of ‘confidence or trust that the natural and social worlds are as they appear to be, including the basic existential parameters of self and social identity’ (Giddens, 1984, 375). In other words, the sense of alienation is existential, and pertains to the individual’s lack of clear sense of group identity and social solidarity. It is, as Hannah Arendt once put it, the feeling of not belonging to a community, family or ‘the world at all’ (Arendt, 1958, 475). The sense of alienation defined as such is commonly accepted in IR as being associated with the individual’s quest for purpose and meaning as grounds for one’s identity and ontological security in late modern society (Kinnvall, 2004, 2007, 2019; Mitzen, 2006; Steele, 2008; Steele & Homolar, 2019). This chapter will show that Carr’s analysis of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_5

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nationalism and the post-war settlement has a psycho-social dimension that has been largely neglected in the literature on nationalism in Carr (Gellner, 1992; Germain, 2019; Kenealy & Kostagiannis, 2013; Linklater, 2000; Pettman, 1998). Specifically, Carr took the heightened sense of the individual’s alienation in late modernity seriously in his analysis of nationalism. As such Carr saw a psycho-social role for nationalism in providing a sense of purpose, meaning, and social solidarity in late modernity. The first wave of post-colonial thinkers associated this sense of alienation with the colonial and racial experience. This association can be seen, for example, in Du Bois’s famous statement on possessing a ‘double consciousness’ in Souls of the Black Folk, which consists of a ‘two-ness … two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body’ and a ‘longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self ’ (Du Bois, 2007 [1903], 8–9; emphasis added). The sense of alienation in the colonial and racial experience was also examined in length in Fanon’s depiction of the Arab patient’s experience as discussed in the previous chapter, and has been the subject of a range of scholarship on Fanon (Bergner, 1995; Bulhan, 1985; Desai, 2014; Gibson & Beneduce, 2017). Despite the common aim in addressing the individual’s sense of alienation in late-modern society, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions of this settlement diverged. Carr and Césaire were closer to one another in that they advocated a post-war settlement that was cosmopolitan and addressed the individual’s sense of alienation without emphasis on national sovereignty. They both supported multinational empires that would grant colonial subjects equal social and economic rights, as well as cultural freedom. Unlike Carr and Césaire, Fanon could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. National independence, Fanon however warned, cannot address the social question in the new reality of neo-colonialism under global capitalism without African unity. As well as granting national sovereignty, this unity would provide a sense of solidarity as a bulwark against individual alienation in the context of colonial control, racism, and exploitation. Like Fanon, Du Bois held a vision of African unity under socialist Pan-Africanism that would ensure sovereignty and address the problem of alienation for Africans. Having set out their arguments on the post-war settlement, the chapter will argue that, with the benefit of hindsight, these visions can be seen as

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idealistic today. Carr and Césaire’s visions are idealistic in that they downplay the reality of power in post-imperial relations and the problem of racism as a hindrance to progress along multinational lines. Fanon and Du Bois’s visions are also idealistic in that they overplay the case for African unity and more generally unity along socialist lines. This in turn leads to neglecting the power asymmetries that would form the basis for the continuation of neo-colonial relationships after independence, in the form of economic dependency as well as military interventionism in the African continent. To develop this argument, the chapter proceeds in three steps. First it develops Carr’s vision of the post-war order. Secondly, it engages with Fanon, DuBois, and Césaire’s to compare and contrast their visions in turn. The final section explains why these visions can be seen as idealistic today.

Carr’s Vision of the Post-war Order The main problem of the twentieth century for Carr was the rise of the socialised nation. The rise of the socialised nation according to Carr meant that the post-war settlement needed to address the social question on a post-national level. Recent scholarship highlighted this post-national emphasis in Carr’s argument on the post-war order to identify Mitrany’s influence on his thinking (for instance, Ashworth, 2017; Kenealy & Kostagiannis, 2013; Scheuerman, 2011). While in agreement with this scholarship, this section will also highlight a neglected dimension in Carr’s argument: the purpose of post-war planning to Carr was not only economic but also psycho-social. The ‘European Reconstruction and Public Works Corporation’ and the ‘European Planning Authority’ aimed to direct the individual’s pursuit of purpose and meaning away from war and nationalism towards a higher sense of meaning and social solidarity on a post-national level. Nor were these projects to be limited to Europe. Rather, in Carr’s mind such projects presented a steppingstone for the cosmopolitan objective to substitute aggressive nationalism and address the individual’s sense of alienation in late modernity across the former colonies. Carr’s critique of liberal institutions lay in their failure to solve the social question on a post-national level. The liberal institutions advocated in 1919 and 1944, to Carr, were conservative in their aim to preserve the status quo. ‘The settlement of 1919’ Carr wrote in Nationalism and

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After, ‘was strongly influenced by the nineteenth century doctrine of the laissez faire. Those reared in this tradition were likely to take a limited and negative view of the functions of an international organisation’ (Carr, 1945, 60–61). Carr rejected such ‘negative view’ which sought to simply prevent ‘unnecessary violence’ and safeguard ‘the right of property’ (Carr, 1945, 61). Rather, embracing the Marxist critique of the economic causes of war, Carr argued that, Any international order which seeks to conjure the spectre of war and win the allegiance of mankind will have in future to set before it some higher ideal than orderly stagnation. Its primary function will have to be not to maintain the international status quo or to defend the rights of nations, but to seek by active policies to improve the conditions of life of ordinary men and women in all countries. (Carr, 1945, 61)

Without this improvement of the ‘conditions of life’, by which Carr referred to the socio-economic needs of the individual, the international order could not resolve the challenge posed by the socialised nation contextualised in Nationalism and After—the challenge that socialism is neither substituted for laissez faire nor internationalised, but aggressively employed by warring nations at the expense of one another. It is on the basis of this critique that Carr also rejected the post-war settlement negotiated at Bretton Woods. ‘The explicit or implicit undertone of much current discussion’ Carr wrote in 1945, ‘encourages the belief that the whole course of economic evolution in the twentieth century is an error to be retrieved by returning to the universalism of an idealised past’ (Carr, 1945, 46). ‘Such a view’ Carr added, ‘which inspired a long series of abortive international conferences from Brussels in 1920 to Bretton Woods in 1944, is both false and sterile’ (Carr, 1945, 46). Carr’s explanation followed: ‘The forces which produced the socialised nation are still operative; nor will its demands be abated’ (Carr, 1945, 46). To Carr these ‘forces’ that produced the socialised nation, by which he meant the steam engine and the industrial revolution, led to the failure of laissez faire by bringing a contradiction between liberalism and democracy. Between liberalism and democracy, Carr chose the latter. Carr’s priority thus, in reaction to the failure of laissez faire, was to revitalise democracy and ‘make it once more a reality’. Carr’s reaction to laissez faire can be contrasted with proponents of neo-liberalism—such as Hayek, Freedman and later members of the Chicago School—who, as Quinn

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Slobodian (2018, 12) and Philip Mirowski (2009, 29) argued, instead prioritised the role of the state to preserve liberalism—through regulating the market to make it safe from democracy. Proponents of neo-liberalism, as Slobodian later put it, sought a world that is ‘kept safe from mass demands for social justice’ (Slobodian, 2018, 16). Despite being both reactions to the failure of laissez faire and both calling for the role of the state (Mirowski, 2011), a marked difference here between Carr and proponents of neo-liberalism was that whereas the latter saw democracy as a threat to the market, the former saw the market as a threat to democracy. Thus, while neo-liberals attempted to maintain a status quo where capital, with the arm of the state, was free from progressive agendas, Carr embraced the progressive agendas of his time: racial justice and social protection from capitalist markets. As Carr put it in Conditions of Peace, ‘the political, social and economic problems of the post-war world must be approached with the desire not to stabilise, but to revolutionise’ (Carr, 1943, xxiii). Liberals institutions negotiated at Bretton Woods, in Carr view, sought to ‘stabilise’—that is to say, they were conservative in their objective to maintain laissez faire and failed to grasp the reality of a changing world (Wilson, 2013). A reality where mass democracy and the ‘colonial revolution’ rendered the application of laissez faire both exclusionary and reactionary. Aside from liberal institutions and their exclusionary nature in the age of the socialised nation, Carr also rejected any calls for world government as a ‘post-national’ solution to world peace. Along with the classical realists of his time, Niebuhr and Morgenthau, Carr considered world government to be premature: ‘the sense of the unity of mankind, sufficient to support the common affirmation of certain universal principles and purposes, is not yet strong enough … to sustain an organization exercising sovereign and universal authority’ (Carr, 1945, 44). Instead, Carr called for socialist style planning, with a special role of ‘multinational units’, namely the Great Powers, to transcend the excesses of nationalism: ‘The answer to the socially and internationally disruptive tendencies inherent in the juxtaposition of a multitude of planned national economies is not an abandonment of planning, but a reinforcement of national by multi-national and international planning’ (Carr, 1945, 47). This does not mean, as one critic put it, that Carr despised nationalism and smaller nations (Halliday, 2000, 261). Rather, Carr believed that ‘selfdetermination’ is ‘a principle of good government’ but with limitations: it

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‘can hardly hope to survive so long as it is interpreted in a way which nullifies security and limits economic well-being and economic opportunity’ (Carr, 1945, 58–59). It is Carr’s realism that led him to appreciate the role that Great Powers would play in the post-war settlement. As Scheuerman notes, ‘Carr acknowledged that the Great Powers would still inevitably possess disproportionate influence in any prospective post-national political order’ (Scheuerman, 2011, 76). Despite this, however, Carr rejected any notion that Great Powers, along with their citizens, would hold an advantage in the post-war settlement, as Hitler attempted to achieve for Germans. Carr, ‘proposed multinational social and economic units would focus on guaranteeing equal economic opportunity and full employment as well as eliminating “freedom from want” to generate social and economic equality within as well as between and among national units: only farreaching economic redistribution could provide sufficiently sturdy social foundations for post-national governance’ (Scheuerman, 2011, 77). To promote equal opportunity and socio-economic equality to the individual, Carr endorsed aspects of Mitrany’s functionalist theory of the international order, particularly cross-border institutions oriented towards concrete social and economic functions. This ‘multiplicity of functional organisations’ for diverse concrete tasks, became Carr’s bulwark against nationalist centralisation, particularly under the dominance of Great Powers (Scheuerman, 2011, 80). Thus Carr argued in Nationalism and After, Organisations for different purposes can be built up on different international groupings whose scope will vary with the functions they perform; and this variety and multiplicity is one of the most important safeguards against the accumulation of exclusive powers and exclusive loyalties under the control of the great multinational units. (Carr, 1945, 62)

Carr’s vision of the post-war order thus had two components: the first was the social component and it concerned the individual. The second was the power component and it concerned the nation. The merging of these two components gave the socialised nation its explosive character that led to total war. The post-war settlement, according to Carr, thus needed to take account ‘of the fact that the fundamental problems of the world today express themselves in economic terms, and that a political settlement will have little chance of lasting unless it emerges as the

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crown and coping-stone of a successful economic reconstruction’ (Carr, 1943, 241). On the other hand, such economic reconstruction, under multinational units risked developing ‘a new imperialism which would be simply the old nationalism writ large and would almost certainly pave the way for more titanic and more devastating wars’ (Carr, 1945, 53). Carr thus attempted to resolve the social and national questions via functional institutions. Scheuerman succinctly summarises Carr’s aim here, Functional organisation contributed to the creation of a postnational social and economic order which alone might successfully undergird stable political organization beyond the nation state. Simultaneously it checked potentially dangerous centralizing tendencies, including the pathological side-effects of a globe likely to be carved up into competing regional power blocs. (Scheuerman, 2011, 81)

Echoing Scheuerman, Lucian Ashworth notes that, ‘Carr sketches a functional approach to the immediate problems of Europe in the post-war world. Like Mitrany, Carr saw the fusing of economic and political power in the new nationally planned states of Europe as a problem, and that international planning offered a way out’ (Ashworth, 2017, 320). In a concrete sense, Carr called for a ‘European Reconstruction and Public Works Corporation’ for the task of reconstruction in works that ‘are too extensive or cover too wide and area to be handled by local initiative’ and a ‘European Planning Authority, whose mission will be nothing less than the reorganisation of the economic life of ‘Europe as a coherent whole’ (Carr, 1943, 251–252). The European Reconstruction Corporation would be internationally funded and its ‘immediate appeal’ would stem from the fact that ‘it be dealing with things tangible, obvious and important’ namely, reconstruction of Europe after devastation (Carr, 1943, 252). Two important points that are crucial to emphasis on here. First, Carr, as Rosenboim, Kenealy, and Kostagiannis noted, was more sensitive than Mitrany to the political challenge nationalism posed. As Rosenboim notes, Carr agreed with Mitrany that a new global or multinational level of functional organisation could complement the political authority of the state, but opined that functional agencies could not be considered non-political since their authority depended on the political decisions of states. Yet, he suggested that to achieve peace and order the world ‘may have to put up

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with a certain salutary make-believe’, and pretend that functional organisations were politically and ideologically neutral. In a sense, Carr shared Aron’s awareness of the omnipresence of conflict and debate in human life but conceded that the best possible way out of the international impasse could be based on economic or social rather than political or ideological interests. (Rosenboim, 2017, 54)

Despite Carr’s endorsement of Mitrany, therefore, as Kenealy and Kostagiannis (2013) also note, Carr rejected Mitrany’s depoliticised functionalism that ‘saw the possibility of separating the political, economic and social spheres’ (Kenealy & Kostagiannis, 2013, 238–239 note 84). This distinction is crucial, not only because, it ‘highlights a counter-hegemonic critique built in Carr’s realism that may, for example, form the basis for a critique of the political economy of the European Union (EU), particularly in times when the latter fails to provide a substitute for the social function of nationalism: redistribution, economic justice and social solidarity’ (Karkour, 2021, 85), but also because it touches upon an issue in Carr’s argument that has been neglected by Carr scholars ever since: Carr’s attempt to tackle not only the economic but also the psycho-social causes of war. The political roots of nationalism, to Carr, did not only stem from the economic advantages the worker gained from the socialised nation, in the form of employment and welfare provision, but also the fact that ‘the individual seeks strength through combination with others in the group’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 159). Thus, while Carr praised the condition of full employment that war offered, he argued that the function of war was far from being only economic: ‘Apart from the emotional excitement associated with war, it provides a sense of meaning and purpose widely felt to be lacking in modern life’ (Carr, 1943, 115). ‘Hence’ Carr noted, ‘war has become the most powerful known instrument of social solidarity’ (Carr, 1943, 115). Thus, to Carr, ultimately the political nature of nationalism stemmed from its psycho-social, rather than simply economic, basis and the post-war settlement ought to function not only on the economic level but also on the psycho-social level, namely to provide a sense of purpose and meaning to the individual, largely lacking in late modernity. ‘The new faith’ after the war thus Carr argued, ‘must solve the unemployment problem by providing a moral purpose as potent as was religion in the Middle Ages’ (Carr, 1943, 120). The significance of the ‘European Reconstruction and Public Works Corporation’ and the

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‘European Planning Authority’ therefore did not stem from the socioeconomic benefits they provided, in the form of employment, but also the sense of meaning and purpose they provided to the individual, as a substitute for extreme nationalism and war. In Carr’s words, their aim was not only ‘to remedy unemployment’ but also ‘promote practical international cooperation as a psychological substitute for war’ (Carr, 1943, 252). A technocratic approach to planning, which emphasises economic cooperation but fails to grasp the significance of the psycho-social function of nationalism, is not only misguided but also bound to ultimately fail. Second, while the majority of Carr’s proposals in Conditions of Peace (published during the war) were centred on Europe, the European Planning Authority presents a blueprint for post-national and post-racial economic cooperation, to be extended beyond Europe to the (then) colonies. ‘In the first place’ Carr notes, ‘the European Planning Authority must enshrine the principle of equal cooperation between peoples, not of national or racial predominance’ (Carr, 1943, 255). ‘The overseas colonies of the European powers’ therefore, ‘will be brough within the full scope of the Authority’ with the aim ‘to treat the administration and management of colonial territories as a matter of international concern’ (Carr, 1943, 259). At the core of Carr’s call for planning was ‘the increasing equalisation of standards of living, and wider distribution of the processes of production, between the more privileged and lesser privileged countries’ (Carr, 1943, 261). Once again, Carr’s reference point was the Yugoslav official, whom he earlier cited in the Twenty Years’ Crisis, The fact is that apart from economic considerations there are also political and social considerations. The old ‘things-will-right-themselves’ school of economists argued that if nothing were done and events were allowed to follow their natural course from an economic point of view, economic equilibrium would come about of its own accord. That is probably true (I do not propose to discuss the point). But how would that equilibrium come about? At the expense of the weakest. Now, as you are aware, for more than seventy years there has been a powerful and growing reaction against this theory of economics. All the socialist parties of Europe and the world are merely the expression of the opposition to this way of looking at economic problems. (Carr, 1943, 261)

Contra ‘Hitler’s New Order’ which ‘is admittedly designed to concentrate in Germany the most highly skilled and therefore most lucrative forms of production’ Carr’s European Planning Authority would ‘from

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the outset reject the principle of differentiated standards of living’ (Carr, 1943, 256). Carr expanded this cosmopolitan argument further after the war. For example, in the New Society Carr emphasised on the merging between the ‘social’ revolution in Europe and the ‘colonial’ revolution in Asia and Africa. Furthermore, after the war, Carr chaired a committee sponsored by UNESCO to prepare a report on the ‘theoretical bases of human rights’. Carr argued in the report that ‘any declaration of rights which would be felt to have any validity today must include social and economic as well as political rights’ (Carr, 1948). This is because, inter alia, decolonisation would become hollow if former colonies were ‘placed at the mercy of a fluctuating and unprotected international market’ (Carr, 1951, 97). The bulwark that economic planning provided against individual alienation in late modernity, the source of nationalism and violence, was therefore part of a cosmopolitan project according to Carr. Carr’s vision of the post-war order was therefore cosmopolitan, as Linklater (2000) argues. It did not, however, underplay the force of nationalism, particularly its psycho-social underpinnings. In Carr’s mind, cosmopolitanism would not succeed unless it provided a psychological substitute to aggressive nationalism—a substitute that would tackle the individual’s sense of alienation and quest for meaning and social solidarity in late modernity.

Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire on the Post-war Settlement Like Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire saw the post-war settlement as a bulwark against alienation. Unlike Carr, however, they associated this sense of alienation with the colonial experience and sought to advance a post-war settlement that would transcend it. Fanon and Du Bois saw national sovereignty as a prerequisite for addressing the sense of alienation felt by Africans. Césaire was closer to Carr in that he advocated a post-war settlement that was cosmopolitan and addressed the problem of alienation without emphasis on national sovereignty. National Independence and African Unity Unlike Carr, Fanon could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. Despite this call for national

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sovereignty, Fanon however, like Carr, warned that the social question could not be settled under global capitalism. Fanon thus argued that national sovereignty ought to be complemented with African unity against imperialism and global capitalism. As well as granting national sovereignty, this unity would provide the sense of social solidarity as a bulwark against individual alienation in the context of colonial control, racism, and exploitation. In Dying Colonialism Fanon stated his case for national sovereignty as follows: The same time that the colonised man braces himself to reject oppression, a radical transformation takes place within him which makes any attempt to maintain the colonial system impossible and shocking … It is true that independence produces the spiritual and material conditions for the reconversion of man. But it is also the inner mutation, the renewal of the social and family structures that impose with the rigor of a law the emergence of the Nation and the growth of its sovereignty. We say firmly that Algerian man and Algerian society have stripped themselves of the mental sedimentation and of the emotional and intellectual handicaps which resulted from 130 years of oppression. (Fanon, 1959, 179)

Sovereignty in the above quote has not only a material but also psychological significance against humiliation, individual degradation and the sense of alienation felt in colonial society. It is precisely to address this problem of alienation, of the native stripped from their culture and dignity, and which Fanon examined in length in his analysis of Algerian society under French colonialism, that national liberation and sovereignty was necessary. Fanon therefore rejected Charles De Gaule’s ‘links to France’ argument. ‘The demand for special links with France’ Fanon replied, ‘is a response to the desire to maintain colonial structures intact. What is involved here is a kind of terrorism of necessity on the basis of which it is decided that nothing valid can be conceived or achieved in Algeria independently of France’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 88). ‘In fact’ Fanon continued, ‘the demand for special links with France comes down to a determination to maintain Algeria eternally in a stage of a minor and protected State. It is unquestionably proof of a grave failure to understand the revolutionary implications of the national struggle’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 88). By ‘revolutionary implications’ Fanon meant here the liberation from the sense of alienation the native felt for over a century due to colonial humiliation and racism. Independence was not only a defence

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against racism, but also its ‘spiritual infirmity’ that alienated the colonised native. Thus, ‘the colonialist people will be cured of its racism and of its spiritual infirmity only if it shows a willingness to consider the former possession as an absolutely independent nation. Any evocation of “former ties” or of unreal “communities” is a lie and a ruse’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 105). Only independence, Fanon noted, ‘will allow the Algerian people to take its destiny wholly in hand’ (Fanon, 1964, 101). Taking one’s destiny ‘wholly in hand’ did not only have material significance to Fanon but was also a perquisite for the sense of dignity and psychological well-being: ‘to put an end to French occupation, to give the land to the Algerians, to establish a policy of social democracy in which man and woman have an equal right to culture, to material well being, and to dignity’ (Fanon, 1964, 102). It is in this context, the context of liberation from the state of alienation in colonial society, that Fanon’s thought on violence should be situated (Améry, 2005; Arendt, 1970). Violence is a liberating force when it is not internalised by the oppressed but directed against the oppressor. Through this redirection of colonial violence reactively against the colonial power, the colonised achieves liberation from the state of alienation caused by the colonial context. Thus, to Fanon, as Frazer and Hutchings note, ‘the instrumental character of violence works in tandem with violence in its libidinal sense as a powerful, natural energy, which can be channelled to create a new and better world’ (Frazer & Hutchings, 2008, 98). Despite his call for national sovereignty and violence against colonial oppression, Fanon was aware of the limitations of national liberation.1 National liberation, to Fanon, ‘is a refusal, at one and the same time, of political non-existence, of wretchedness, of illiteracy, of the inferiority complex so subtly instilled by oppression, its battle is for a long time undifferentiated’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 121). ‘Undifferentiated’ in the sense that its battles were at once economic, as well as political and psycho-social. ‘Neo-colonialism’, Fanon warned on the economic front, ‘takes advantage of this indetermination … it grants the former colony everything. But in so doing, it wrings from it an economic dependence which becomes an aid and assistance program’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 121). Like Carr, Fanon argued that under global capitalism relations of dependence under neo-colonialism may perpetuate—with the support of local elites. Fanon thus warned that a focus on race alone risked replacing a white ruling class with a native ruling class while keeping intact the oppressive structure of colonial domination (Fanon, 1963, 125–127).

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‘Neo-colonialism, because it proposes to do justice to human dignity in general, addresses itself essentially to the middle class and to the intellectuals of the colonial country. Today, the peoples no longer feel their bellies at peace when the colonial country has recognised the value of its elites’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 122). How would this politico-economic challenge be met? The answer, to Fanon, was African unity. Just as the colonial powers unified against the evil of Nazism, Fanon drew the comparison, so should African state unify against the evil of European neo-colonialism, The countries against which the manifestations of Nazism were most immediately directed leagued together and pledged themselves not only to liberate their occupied territories but literally to break the backbone of Nazism, to root out the evil where it had sprung up, to liquidate the regimes to which it had given rise. Well! The African peoples must likewise remember that they have had to face a form of Nazism, a form of exploitation of man, of physical and spiritual liquidation dearly imposed, that the French, English, and South African manifestations of that evil need to engage their attention, but they must be prepared also to face this evil as an evil extending over the whole of the African territory. (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 171)

Only African unity could combat the evil of (neo)colonialism—its extension of colonialism by means of economic dependence, ‘aid’ and the ‘free market’. Since ‘the fact remains’ Fanon noted, ‘that the African continent is still extensively occupied by the colonial powers and after Bandung, after the Cairo Afro-Asiatic conference, the African peoples have now met in Accra, the capital of independent Ghana, to lay the foundations of a tactic and a strategy of combat with the distant prospect of a United States of Africa’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 153). In the final analysis, therefore, real national independence for African peoples, according to Fanon, could only be attained with African unity and the ‘distant prospect of a United States of Africa’. As well as granting national sovereignty, this unity would provide the sense of solidarity, the bulwark against individual alienation in the context of colonial control, racism and exploitation. ‘The inter-African solidarity must be a solidarity of fact a solidarity of action, a solidarity concrete in men, in equipment, in money’ therefore, and, as a way forward, ‘Africa shall be free’ so long as it does ‘not lose sight of its own unity’ (Fanon, 1967 [1964], 173).

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Pan-African Socialism Africa, awake! Put on the beautiful robes of Pan-African socialism. You have nothing to lose but your chains! You have a continent to regain! You have freedom and human dignity to attain! (Du Bois, 2007 [1946], 198)

This call for ‘Pan-African socialism’, to Du Bois, was the answer to the social question and the question of alienation posed by the colonial context. Like Carr, Du Bois critiqued the liberal institutions negotiated at Bretton Woods for the post-war settlement. ‘If the treatment of Africa in post-war planning begins or ends’ at the Atlantic Charter, DuBois wrote, ‘here the results will be tragic’ (Du Bois, 1996, 660). Like Fanon, Du Bois held a vision of African unity under socialist Pan-Africanism. Also like Fanon, Du Bois was wary about national elites being incorporated into global capitalism. The latter particularly marked the difference between Du Bois and his friend George Padmore, whose book, Pan-Africanism or Communism? The Coming Struggle for Africa, argued for fulfilling ‘the socio-economic mission of Communism, under a libertarian political system’ (Du Bois, 1986, 973). In response, Du Bois wrote, and it is worth quoting in length, How can a national African socialism meet the danger of a rising black bourgeoisie associated closely with foreign investors? Padmore wants “an American Marshall Plan” for Africa; he welcomes British capital for the Volta dam. He thinks the Philippines are free. This seems to be dangerous thinking … [W]ith a mass of sick, hungry and ignorant people, led by ambitious young men, like those today supporting tribalism on the Gold Coast and Big Business in Liberia, under skies clouded by foreign investing vultures armed with atom bombs — in such a land, the primary fight is bound to be between private Capital and Socialism, and not between Nationalism and Communism. It may be in Africa, as it was in Russia, that Communism will prove the only feasible path to Socialism. (Du Bois, 1986, 179)

Du Bois’s weariness of national elites here echoes Fanon. ‘Du Bois’s warning about rising nationalist elites’ as Mullen observes, ‘sounds like the anti-colonial radical Frantz Fanon’s historical caution about a “new class”—a national bourgeoisie—which may carry out the historic mission of counter-revolution or “neo-colonialism” after decolonisation’

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(Mullen, 2016, 101). Only African unity, under the banner of ‘panAfrican socialism’, Du Bois reasoned, could save Africans from becoming prey to the ‘foreign investing vultures’ enabled by the greed of corrupt national leaders. In a letter to Nkrumah, Du Bois argued that PanAfrican socialism ‘would seek common aims of progress for Black Africa, including types of political control, economic cooperation, cultural development, universal education and freedom from religious dogma and dictation’ (Du Bois, 2007 [1946], 189). The goal of ‘Pan-African socialism’, according to Du Bois, should be ‘to develop a new African economy and cultural centre standing between Europe and Asia, taking from and contributing to both. It should stress peace and join no military alliance and refuse to fight for settling European quarrels. It should avoid subjection to and ownership by foreign capitalists who seek to get rich on African labour and raw material’ (Du Bois, 2007 [1946], 189). Like Fanon and Carr, therefore, Du Bois warned that African states should ‘avoid subjection to and ownership of foreign capitalists’, reject ‘the exaggerated private initiative of the West, and seek to ally itself with the social program of the Progressive Nations; with British and Scandanavian Socialism, with the progress toward the Welfare State in India, Germany, France, and the United States; and with the Communist States like the Soviet Union and China, in peaceful cooperation and without presuming to dictate also how Socialism must or can be attained at particular times and places’ (Du Bois, 1968, 400). Alongside the ‘progressive’ socialist nations, ‘pan African socialism’ would ‘seek the welfare state in Black Africa’ (Du Bois, 2007 [1946], 189). It would seek support from the USSR and China, rather than the United States. While ‘the supply which socialist nations can at present spare is small as compared with that of the bloated monopolies of the West’ Du Bois told his fellow Africans, ‘it is large and rapidly growing’ and, crucially, ‘its acceptance involves no bonds which a free Africa may not safely assume. It certainly does not involve slavery and colonial control which the West has demanded and still demands’ (Du Bois, 2007 [1946], 197). Pan-African socialism would be based on the ‘old African communal life’ which is essentially socialist and, as with Fanon, emphasises African unity. Du Bois made the case for this unity as follows: If Africa unites, it will be because each part, each nation, each tribe gives up a part of its heritage for the good of the whole. That is what union means; that is what Pan-Africa means: When the child is born into the tribe

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the price of his growing up is giving a part of his freedom to the tribe. This soon he learns or dies. When the tribe becomes a union of tribes, the individual tribe surrenders some part of its freedom to the paramount tribe … When the nation arises, the constituent tribes, clans and groups must each yield power and some freedom to the demands of the nation or the nation dies before it is born. (Du Bois, 2007 [1946], 198)

As with Fanon, therefore, in Du Bois’s vision of the post-war settlement, at least for Africa, the reader finds a twofold emphasis on national liberation and unity along socialist lines. This twofold emphasis would not only address the problems of racism and colonialism that dominated the African continent, but also, in doing so, restore dignity to African and ultimately resolve the problem of alienation that Du Bois described in the Souls of the Black Folk, and which was caused by the (settler) colonial situation. Unlike Fanon and Du Bois, both of whom envisioned the post-war settlement to be based on national sovereignty and African unity along socialist lines, Césaire’s vision of the post-war settlement called for neither. Instead, and akin to Carr, Césaire was critical of the ability of newly independent smaller nations to sustain themselves in economic and security terms without the support of multinational empires. This in turn led to Césaire’s support of Departmentalisation, and when this failed, democratic federalism, as the way forward for individual emancipation and addressing the problem of alienation caused by the colonial situation. From Departmentalisation to Democratic Federalism Césaire’s vision of the post-war settlement is the closest to Carr’s in that both rejected the idea of national sovereignty as the solution to the problems of colonialism and alienation. Césaire’s argument on the post-war settlement parallels Carr’s in that both called for cultural autonomy but rejected national sovereignty as a prerequisite for individual emancipation. Like Carr, Césaire believed that newly independent smaller nations would not be able to sustain themselves economically following the departure of colonial powers. Césaire’s example here was Haiti. In 1944, Césaire was the cultural ambassador for the provisional French government’ in Haiti. In Gary Wilder’s account, Césaire ‘later admitted that he had been overwhelmed by Haiti’s impoverished and ‘terribly complex society’ (Wilder, 2015, 29). As Césaire himself put it, ‘I saw what should not

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be done! A country that had conquered its liberty, that had conquered its independence, and which I saw was more miserable than Martinique, a French colony!’ (cited in Walsh, 2013, 108). Césaire’s conclusion about Haiti echoed Carr’s conclusion about the inability of smaller nations to maintain their independence in economic and security matters in the absence of membership in multinational groupings. Initially, Césaire was drawn to the idea of Departmentalisation of Martinique. Serving on the Commission des Territoires D’outre-mer, Césaire suggested the Departmentalisation Law. This Law sought to establish Martinique as a Department of France, where French laws apply. Césaire thus ‘asserted that metropolitan and overseas peoples and territories were historically entwined and that republican principles required their legal and political assimilation on equal grounds’ (Wilder, 2015, 109). In Césaire’s view, it was not the repudiation but rather the application of French laws that would liberate colonial people. In other words, the application of French laws to all peoples, Césaire sought the extension of the republican principles which the French Revolutions fought for, against the ancien régime. The solution to the problem of alienation in colonial society, therefore, was equal recognition under the law. In other words, the expansion of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’ to encompass French colonies. The post-war settlement under Departmentalisation therefore sought to expand the French republican principles, rather than repudiate them, to bring about a more complete Union that transcends ‘master−servant relations’ towards establishing ‘an active and effective fraternity’ in a diverse and multi−racial post−imperial France (Césaire, 1946, 662). The purpose of Departmentalisation, in short, was not to repudiate France but to further democratise it: to modify its republican principles and apply them more completely. Cesaire’s hope with Departmentalisation was that it would entail not only political and legal equality for the colonies, but also ultimately lead to economic equality. Departmentalisation was an attempt to abolish colonialism through integrative means. As a member of the committees for foreign affairs and overseas territories in the Fourth Republic, Césaire fought for economic equality—for instance, equal for overseas civil servants, as well as ‘fair treatment of overseas teachers, regulation of longshoremen’s working conditions, protections for agricultural cooperatives, tenants rights, and the unjust treatment of striking workers’ (Wilder, 2015, 125). Césaire’s vision here was akin to Carr’s in that it prioritised a post-imperial partnership over national sovereignty. Neither Carr nor

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Césaire saw national sovereignty as a necessary condition for post-colonial liberation or sufficient for economic emancipation. The post-war settlement they envisioned was post-imperial in the sense that it rejected the inequalities imperialism produced, through racism and violence, against the individuals. Neither, however, rejected the notion that former empires could be a force for good—multinational and progress in their approach to individual equality. This view was rather pragmatic: both Césaire and Carr appreciated the reality where smaller nations would suffer economically and in security terms, if left alone under global capitalism. To Césaire, as to Carr, autarky and national self-determination could provide neither freedom nor economic emancipation in a context of global capitalism and Great Power rivalry. Departmentalisation was a pragmatic response to this reality, as was Carr’s emphasis on multinational groupings. The aim was not to repudiate these groupings, namely the major powers, but to extend the benefits reserved to their citizens abroad to the colonies. The failure of Departmentalisation to attain this objective, led to Césaire’s disillusionment and ultimately rejection of Departmentalisation in favour of democratic federalism. Indeed, after 1956, Césaire saw Departmentalisation not as the solution, but the cause of poverty and socio-economic inequality in Martinique. Césaire therefore revised his argument on the post-war settlement, but did not abandon his objective of economic emancipation. This in turn led him to favour Martinique’s autonomy under federalism rather than Departmentalisation. Under federalism, Martinique would enjoy a higher degree of self-government while remain part of a more democratic France. Césaire’s idea of federalism has its parallels with Carr’s cultural autonomy and political self-determination, but partnership in economic and security matters with France. Césaire, therefore, ‘tried to invent political forms that would allow metropolitan and overseas peoples to recognise their entangled history and build a common future without recourse either to the ideological humanism that had authorised colonialism or the parochial culturalism that would obstruct the trans-local solidarities required by post-war emancipation’ (Wilder, 2015, 257). In sum, Césaire’s vision of the post-war settlement diverged from Fanon’s and Du Bois’s in that it prioritised post-imperial partnership over national sovereignty. Like Carr’s, Césaire’s choice here was pragmatic: it stemmed from the premise, as exemplified by Haiti, that smaller nations would not be able to maintain their independence in economic

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and security matters under global capitalism in the absence of membership in multinational groupings. The solution to the problem of alienation in colonial society according to Césaire, therefore, was not national sovereignty, but equal recognition under the law. In other words, the expansion of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’ so that colonial subjects would become free and equal French citizens. Could Carr and the post-colonial thinkers’ visions address the problem of alienation, emancipate the individual, and bring about peace?

Carr and the First Wave of Post-colonial Visions of World Order Today As seen so far, despite the common aim in individual emancipation and peace, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions of the post-war settlement diverged. On one hand Carr and Césaire were closer to one another in that they advocated a post-war settlement that was cosmopolitan and addressed the individual’s sense of alienation without emphasis on national sovereignty. They both supported multinational empires that would grant colonial subjects equal social and economic rights, as well as cultural freedom. Unlike Carr and Césaire, Fanon and Du Bois could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. It was towards the latter end that Fanon and Du Bois advocated Pan-African unity along socialist lines. This section argues that, with the benefit of hindsight, both arguments proved idealistic for different reasons. The former argument, by Carr and Césaire, proved idealistic in its downplaying of the reality of power and the problem of racism. The latter argument, by Fanon and Du Bois, proved idealistic in overplaying the case for African unity and more generally unity along socialist lines. This in turn leads to neglecting the power asymmetries that would form the basis for the continuation of neo-colonial relationships after independence, in the form of economic dependency as well as military interventionism in the African continent. The goal of African unity for Fanon and Du Bois was independence from the international market. Like Carr, Du Bois and Césaire argued that without this independence, post-colonial states in Africa would be free in name only. In reality, a neo-colonial relationship would form, under the banner of ‘free trade’, but which essentially would turn African nations into suppliers of raw materials and markets to run the engines of global

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capitalism. It is precisely for this reason that Fanon and Du Bois called for African countries to reject foreign aid from Western nations, namely European nations and the United States. Foreign aid from Western nations, according to Fanon and Du Bois, would perpetuate a neo-colonial relationship of dependency with former colonies. Instead, Du Bois argued that while ‘the supply which socialist nations [such as China and the USSR] “can at present spare is small as compared with that of the bloated monopolies of the West” importantly, its acceptance … does not involve slavery and colonial control which the West has demanded and still demands’ (Du Bois, 1946, 197). But to what extent is Du Bois’s argument valid today? The argument that economic relations with a socialist regime would create less of a relationship of dependency for African countries overplays the case for unity along socialist lines. Despite China’s ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, at least in its foreign policy, it is driven by market forces. While China does not seek to impose the same conditionalities that the West, through the IMF and World Bank, imposes on the African continent, the emerging evidence is that African relations with China would reproduce the neo-colonial relationship of dependency that Fanon and Du Bois warned against. ‘ The fate of the continent under the BRI [The Belt and Road Initiative]’ Taylor and Zajontz for instance argue, ‘will not result in a mutually beneficial relationship playing to any ostensible comparative, but will in practice be one of unequal exchange and of exploitation, consistent with previous readings of Africa’s underdevelopment’ (Taylor & Zajontz, 2020, 285). Once again, ‘as a resource-rich continent, African states have been placed within the international division of labour as an exporter of raw materials’ (Taylor & Zajontz, 2020, 285). Du Bois and Fanon’s emphasis on the nation state or national sovereignty would neither resolve nor change this reality—where a powerful nation, such as China, will prioritise their citizens’ welfare and employment. Thus, China today behaves precisely in the manner that Carr would have predicted under laissez faire—it prioritises the most skilled, and therefore most lucrative, forms of employment overseas, via the BRI for instance, to Chinese citizens (Ho, 2020, 1481). Under global capitalism, power asymmetries between nations thus mean that relationships of neo-colonialism may develop irrelevant to the type of government the stronger power has. States, particularly great powers, are perfectly capable of combining nationalism and socialism at home with market competition and imperialism abroad. In fact, the dynamic between socialism at home and imperialism abroad is precisely what Carr

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and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers agree on in their analyses of imperialism. Nor is ‘African unity’ on anti-imperialist and socialist lines, which ought to be the source of power for Africa, present today. For instance, African nations were divided in light of NATO’s bombing of Libya in 2011, despite the fact that Libya was an ardent supporter of Pan-African unity and the African Union (AU). Thus, Africa today is not only being carved again economically, subject to the dependency of foreign aid and national leaders facilitating the operation of global capitalism at the expense of the poor (which Fanon and Du Bois’s warned against), but is also subject to military interventionism from the West along the neocolonial lines that Fanon and Du Bois would have recognised (Sabratnam, 2017; Shilliam, 2013). Western interventionism, once again, operates on what Robbie Shilliam refers to as the ‘technology of colonial-modern rule’ which ‘erects and polices the difference between sovereign and quasi-sovereign entities via a standard of civilisation’ defined by Western neo-imperialism (Shilliam, 2013, 1133). It both builds on and establishes a hierarchical system of sovereignty a la Hobson. Under this system, lesser powerful nations, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, remain under the grips of global capitalism and military interventionism. With the collapse of the state following such military adventures, along with the failure of socialism at home, many Africans and Middle Easterners today also face a closed immigration system as they attempt to migrate. A system that operates on neo-liberal principles and thus, once again, rejects calls for migration on the basis of humanitarian and/or socialist principles (Ypi, 2018).2 What does this make of the fate Carr and Césaire’s visions of the post-war order? Carr and Césaire’s idea that great powers can be a force for good is idealistic in that, first, it does not explain why political elites within such empires would let go the lust for power or why financial elites would prioritise the well-being of people in former colonies over wealth accumulation. As Wilder, who otherwise supports Césaire’s vision of democratic federalism, concedes, it was in contrast to the Césaire’s vision that the French government sought, and succeeded, to impose ‘a federal empire’ rather than ‘a democratic federation’, namely ‘quasi-federal institutions within the union in order to exclude overseas peoples from the French polity while retaining absolute sovereignty over their territories’ (Wilder, 2015, 146). More importantly, the proposition that European powers would accept the equality of individuals from former colonies grossly

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underestimates how race or racism shapes contemporary world politics. Thus while Wilder’s biography celebrates Césaire’s rejection of the ‘nationalist logic of decolonisation’, the reality of racism in international politics militates against the idea of a post-imperial democratic federation. Musab Younis explains the challenge in a critical review, which applies to both Carr and Césaire’s arguments on the post-war settlement: Wilder’s cheerful vision of ‘a decentralised democratic federation that would include former colonies as freely associated member states’. The racial attitudes enshrined in Françafrique echo those of the preceding imperial age, and the colonial wars of the Fourth and Fifth Republics: they would have led to fercely racialised struggle in any democratic post-colonial federation, which would have included not territories like Martinique, with a population smaller than present-day Bristol, but tens of millions of Africans. (Younis, 2017, 6)

Thus, even if, for the sake of the argument, European nations proceeded with planning on a multinational basis and treated the individual as ‘free’ and ‘equal’ everywhere, such a framework would be contradicted by the reality of racism in world politics. None more than the recent rise of ethno-nationalism in the West proves this point. The Trumpian movement, which was explicitly ethno-nationalist and racialised, gathered more than 72 million votes in the United States. In Europe, the far right is on the rise. The former French far right candidate for President, Marine Le Pen, made it to the last round of the last election with an anti-immigration platform that promised increasing deportation and stripping bi-nationals of their citizenship. Aside from the problem of racism, the challenge of power also stems from the power over opinion—in an age where planning is nationalised, it is difficult for politicians to justify to their public the moral irrelevance of nationality, as opposed to the priority of nationals. None exemplifies this more than the fact that despite Trump leaving the presidency, nationalist and ‘America first’ policies under Biden continued with ‘Buy American’ schemes and proclamations of foreign policy for the American middle class.

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Conclusion This chapter developed the arguments proposed by Carr, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire towards the post-war settlement. The overall argument in this chapter was that the post-war settlement to Carr, as to Fanon, Césaire, and DuBois did not only have an economic purpose but also psycho-social purpose: it aimed to address the sense of alienation felt by the individual in late modern society. Despite this common aim, Carr and Césaire were closer to one another in that they advocated a post-war settlement that was cosmopolitan and attempted to address the problem of alienation without emphasis on sovereignty. They both supported multinational empires that would grant former colonial subjects equal social and economic rights, as well as cultural freedom. Unlike Carr, Fanon could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. National independence, Fanon however warned, cannot address the social question in the new reality of neo-colonialism under global capitalism without African unity. As well as granting national sovereignty, this unity would provide the sense of solidarity as a bulwark against individual alienation in the context of colonial control, racism, and exploitation. Like Fanon, Du Bois held a vision of African unity under socialist Pan-Africanism that would ensure sovereignty and address the problem of alienation for Africans. Could Carr and the post-colonial thinkers’ visions address the problem of alienation, and bring about peace? The chapter argued here that, with the benefit of hindsight, Carr and the post-colonial thinkers’ visions can be seen as idealistic today. Carr and Césaire’s visions can be seen as idealistic in that they downplay the reality of power in post-imperial relations and the problem of racism as a hindrance to progress along multinational lines. Fanon and Du Bois’s visions can also be seen as idealistic in that they overplay the case for African unity and more generally unity along socialist lines. This in turn led to neglecting the power asymmetries that would form the basis for the continuation of neo-colonial relationships after independence. Given this failure to materialise the visions proposed by Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, the question remains: where does this leave us today? What is the relevance of the present, ‘post-colonial’, interpretation of Carr in the twenty-first century?

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Notes 1. One might also add that in the end of The Wretched of the Earth Fanon also highlighted the limitations of violence. This argument was pursued by Frazer and Hutchings. ‘In this final chapter, the force of Fanon’s earlier arguments, that violence will work to overthrow colonial power or that it can be canalized for constructive purposes, is undermined. Paradoxically, the argument that begins asthecelebrationofrevolutionaryviolenceendsupbydrawingattentiontothe corrupting and debilitating effects of violence, whether reactionary or revolutionary, on both perpetrators and victims’ (Frazer & Hutchings, 2008, 106). 2. These principles, as Lea Ypi has argued, discriminate against the poor and low skilled, and prioritise investment and high skills for the benefit of the economy. Thus, for example, ‘Cyprus offered citizenship to those foreign investors who had lost at least three million euros from deposits in Cypriot banks. In 2012, Portugal offered a “golden residence permit” with fast-tracked access to citizenship and accelerated family reunification procedures to real estate and financial investors promising to create jobs in the country. In 2013, Malta approved a law that allowed wealthy applicants to obtain a European Union pass- port in return for investments totaling e1.15 million’ (Ypi, 2018, 144). The 2021 tier system in UK immigration post-Brexit also exemplifies this logic or approach.

References Améry, J. (2005). Birth of man from the spirit of violence: Franz Fanon the revolutionary. Wasafiri, 20(44), 13–18. Arendt, H. (1958). The origins of totalitarianism. Meridian Books. Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. Harcourt Brace. Ashworth, L. (2017). David Mitrany on the international anarchy—A lost work of classical realism? Journal of International Political Theory, 13(3), 311–324. Bergner, G. (1995). Who is that masked woman? Or, the role of gender in Fanon’s black skin, white masks. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 110(1), 75–88. Bulhan, A. H. (1985). Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression. Plenum Press. Carr, E. H. (1984 [1939]). The twenty years’ crisis: 1919–1939. Macmillan. Carr, E. H. (1943). Conditions of peace. Macmillan. Carr, E. H. (1945). Nationalism and after. Macmillan. Carr, E. H. (1948, July 25). A collective approach to the problems of human rights. Paris. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001550/155041eb. pdf. Accessed 22 Nov 2021.

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Carr, E. H. (1951). New society. Macmillan. Césaire, A. (1946). Debate, March 12, 1946. Débats de l’Assemblée Nationale Constituante, no. 23. Desai, M. (2014). Psychology, the psychological and critical praxis: A phenomenologist reads Frantz Fanon. Theory & Psychology, 24(1), 58–75. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007 [1903]). The souls of black folk. Oxford University Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007 [1946]). The world and Africa: Colour and democracy. Oxford University Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1968). The autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A soliloquy on viewing my life from the last decade of its first century. International Publishers. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1986). Africa’s choice. National Guardian, October 29, 1956. In H. Aptheker (Ed.), Newspaper columns by W.E.B. Du Bois. Volume 2: Selections from 1945–1961. Kraus-Thomson. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1996). The realities in Africa. In E. J. Sundquist (Ed.), The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois reader. Oxford University Press. Fanon, F. (1965 [1959]). A dying colonialism. Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1967 [1964]). Toward the African revolution: Political essays. Grove Press. Frazer, E., & Hutchings, K. (2008). On politics and violence: Arendt Contra Fanon. Contemporary Political Theory, 2008(7), 90–108. Gellner, E. (1992). Nationalism reconsidered and E. H. Carr. Review of International Studies, 18(4), 285–293. Germain, R. (2019). E. H. Carr and IPE: An essay in retrieval. International Studies Quarterly, 63(4), 952–962. Gibson, N., & Beneduce, R. (2017). Frantz Fanon, politics and psychiatry. Rowman & Littlefield International. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. University of California Press. Halliday, F. (2000). Reason and romance: The place of revolution in the works of Carr. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave. Ho, S. (2020). Infrastructure and Chinese power. International Affairs, 96(6), 1461–1485. Karkour, H. L. (2021). Debating global justice with Carr: The crisis of laissez faire and the legitimacy problem in the twentieth century. Journal of International Political Theory, 17 (1), 81–98. Kenealy, D., & Kostagiannis, K. (2013). Realist visions of European Union: E.H. Carr and integration. Millennium—Journal of International Studies, 41(2), 221–246. Kinnvall, C. (2004). Globalization and religious nationalism: Self, identity, and the search for ontological security. Political Psychology, 25(5), 741–767. Kinnvall, C. (2007). Globalization and religious nationalism in India: The search for ontological security. Routledge.

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Kinnvall, C. (2019). Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32(3), 283–302. Linklater, A. (2000). E. H. Carr, nationalism and the future of the sovereign state. In M. Cox (Ed.), E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. Palgrave. Mirowski, P. (2009). The neo-liberal thought collective. Renewal: Journal of Labour Politics, 17 (4), 26–36. Mirowski, P. (2011). Realism and neoliberalism: From reactionary modernism to postwar conservatism. In N. Guilhot (Ed.), The invention of international relations theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation and the 1954 conference on theory (pp. 210–238). Columbia University Press. Mitzen, J. (2006). Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. European Journal of International Relations, 12(6), 341– 370. Mullen, B. (2016). Du Bois: Revolutionary across the color line. Pluto Press. Pettman, J. (1998). Nationalism and after. Review of International Studies, 24(5), 149–164. Rosenboim, O. (2017). The emergence of globalism: Visions of world order in Britain and the United States, 1939–1950. Princeton University Press. Sabratnam, M. (2017). Decolonising intervention: International statebuilding in Mozambique. Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. Scheuerman, W. (2011). The realist case for global reform. Polity. Shilliam, R. (2013). Intervention and colonial-modernity: Decolonising the Italy/Ethiopia conflict through Psalms 68:31. Review of International Studies, 39(5), 1131–1147. Slobodian, Q. (2018). Globalists: The end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism. Harvard University Press. Steele, B. (2008). Ontological security in international relations. Routledge. Steele, B., & Homolar, A. (2019). Ontological insecurities and the politics of contemporary populism. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32(3), 214–221. Taylor, I., & Zajontz, T. (2020). In a fix: Africa’s place in the Belt and Road Initiative and the reproduction of dependency. South African Journal of International Affairs, 27 (3), 277–295. Walsh, P. (2013). Free and French in the Caribbean: Toussaint Louverture, Aime Cesaire, and narratives of loyal opposition. Indiana, IN: Indiana University Press. Wilder, G. (2015). Freedom time: Negritude, decolonisation and the future of the world. Duke University Press. Wilson, P. (2013). Power, morality and the remaking of international order: E. H. Carr’s the twenty years’ crisis. In H. Bliddal, C. Sylvest, & P. Wilson (Eds.), Classics of international relations. Routledge.

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Younis, M. (2017, June 29). Against independence. London Review of Books, 39(13). Ypi, L. (2018). Borders of class: Migration and citizenship in the capitalist state. Ethics and International Affairs, 32(2), 141–152.

CHAPTER 6

Carr’s Lessons for Post-colonial IR

Introduction In a recent International Affairs special issue on ‘race and imperialism in International Relations’, post-colonial scholars repeated the argument that is now established in post-colonial IR scholarship, namely that ‘mainstream’ IR did not only ignore race as a foundational principle in the making of the present world order but also provided an ideological rationalisation of empire. Amitav Acharya for instance wrote that, as the United States became both the leading world power and the centre of gravity for IR as a field of study after 1945, race was (and continues to be) swept under the carpet, and racism even legitimised, by mainstream scholarship and policy discourses about international affairs and world order. (Acharya, 2022, 23)

But while it is true that realists like Henry Kissinger did not mention race in World Order and credited Woodrow Wilson for being the ‘world’s conscience’ (Acharya, 2022, 24), this argument does not, as this book has demonstrated, apply to Carr or other classical realists, such as Morgenthau and Niebuhr. While neo-realists, such as Waltz and Mearsheimer ignored race and presented theoretical frameworks that provide ideological justifications for American neo-imperialism, Acharya’s generalisation to encompass all realists is in fact counterproductive to a key danger he © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_6

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himself pointed at facing post-colonial IR. This is the danger of ‘compartmentalisation’. The danger of compartmentalisation, according to Acharya, can manifest itself in both academic and policy domains. In academia, the focus on race and racism, as among postcolonial scholars, often involves discourses among the like-minded, directed at but without the participation of mainstream scholars, who thus find it easy to ignore the challenge. (Acharya, 2022, 42)

While Acharya’s conclusion that ‘compartmentalisation’ means that ‘mainstream’ IR scholars may find it easy to ignore the debate on race in post-colonial IR, the reverse is also true: compartmentalisation also means that post-colonial IR scholars may find little reason to engage with mainstream IR scholarship, such as Carr’s, that did in fact engage with race and the role of (liberal) theory in the legitimation of empire. To avoid the problem of compartmentalisation, IR scholars need to identify common avenues for engagement between mainstream and post-colonial IR. Carr’s work opens avenues for engagement between classical realism and post-colonialism across two debates relevant to post-colonial IR scholars today: first, on human rights; second on the liberal international order. With regard to the former, the chapter draws on Carr to argue that the post-colonial critique of racial injustice in the context of human rights ought to be embedded in a critique of the neo-liberal historiography of human rights. It is this historiography that explains the ideological uses of human rights and the perpetuation of the ‘orientalist’ lens through which the West gazes at demands for human rights and democracy in the Global South. With regard to the latter, Carr’s analysis of the ubiquity of the individual’s sense of alienation in late modernity brings a new light to post-colonial critiques of the liberal international order. Firstly, it highlights, contrary to prevalent belief among postcolonial scholars, that neither the feeling of alienation nor its association with racial and gendered violence is particular to the West. Secondly, it sheds a new light on the post-colonial critique of neo-liberalism and neorealism in the debate on the liberal international order. While a Carrian analysis shares with post-colonial IR scholars the critique of neo-realism and neo-liberalism’s defence of the status quo under US hegemony, his analysis of individual alienation in late modernity reveals a flaw in

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a key assumption held by post-colonial scholars, namely the efficacy of these theories’ prescriptions to maintain US hegemony in practice. Taken together, a Carrian engagement with the debate on human rights and the liberal international order presents an important lesson for postcolonial IR today: that all theories and concepts in IR are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they originally promised. Carr’s lesson here applies to the various concepts that post-colonial scholars critiqued—such as human rights, development, and security—but also goes beyond this critique to highlight that post-colonial IR scholarship, its concepts, and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s critique: they may provide an ideological justification to new forms of hegemony and elites in the emerging world order. The chapter develops this argument in three sections. The first section engages Carr’s analysis with the debate on human rights. Section two engages Carr’s analysis with the debate on the liberal international order. The final section draws the lessons from this engagement to post-colonial IR.

Carr and Post-Colonialism on the Historiography of Neo-Liberal Rights A key critique that post-colonial IR scholars present of the historiography of human rights is its emphasis on ‘self-determination’, ‘sovereign equality’, and ‘non-intervention’ at the expense of ‘racial justice’ (Acharya, 2022, 43). Drawing on Carr, this section argues that the post-colonial critique of racial injustice in the context of human rights ought to be embedded in a critique of the neo-liberal historiography of human rights that omits the social question. It is the latter historiography that explains the ideological uses of human rights and the perpetuation of the ‘orientalist’ lens through which the West gazes at demands for human rights and democracy in the Global South. More than 70 years ago, in Nationalism and After and Conditions of Peace, Carr argued that self-determination and sovereignty would remain hollow if they were not accompanied with socio-economic equality at the individual level globally. Carr chaired the committee, sponsored by UNESCO, to prepare a report on the ‘theoretical bases of human rights’ after WWII. Carr argued in the report that ‘any declaration of rights which would be felt to have any validity today must include social and economic as well as political rights’ (Carr, 1948).1 Human rights, in

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the age of the socialised nation, could not exist in a neo-liberal political economy that did not prioritise socio-economic redistribution at the individual level, irrelevant to race or nationality.2 Carr’s engagement with human rights early on shows that even if it is true that racial justice and equality were ‘obscured in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)’ it does mean that they were missing in ‘mainstream’ IR (Acharya, 2022, 24–25). If post-colonial IR today wishes to ‘stimulate policy discussions and recommendations on what new norms and institutions might be needed to cope with conflict and the demand for justice and equality as world order shifts and adapts to the twenty-first century’ (Acharya, 2022, 43), a good starting point would be to read Carr’s oeuvre, and particularly his policy proposals in relation to human rights. Carr’s oeuvre highlights a basic contradiction between liberalism and democracy in the age of the socialised nation. Carr’s analysis of this contradiction is relevant today for the post-colonial understanding of the historiography of human rights. The agenda for protecting ‘universal human rights’, which began in US foreign policy in the 1970s and by the 1990s, with the collapse of the USSR, had global ambitions, operated within a neo-liberal framework that emphasised Western interventionism, from the Latin America to Balkans and the Middle East, over the social question (Whyte, 2019). This separation between human rights, which in the 1990s meant the rights of Western nations to intervene and redress human rights violations, and the social question would have been rejected by Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. The human rights regime that developed after 1977 (to follow Moyn, 2010) downplayed the importance of the social question both to Western democracies and the post-colonial world. Consequently, and especially in light of the rise of Trumpism in the United States and Brexit in the United Kingdom, critics highlighted once again the centrality of the social question. Samuel Moyn for instance wrote, It was theoretically possible for human rights law and movements to function so as to make the new wave of governance more humane in the distribution of the good things in life. If sensitised to the need to remediate poverty in the development of the poorest lands around the world and providing the tools to fight austerity policies in the richer ones, where welfare states had already been built, human rights could offer resistance on paper to the worst neoliberal policies. But even in theory, with their

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moral focus on a floor of sufficient protection in a globalising economy, human rights did nothing to interfere with the obliteration of any ceiling on distributive inequality. Deprived of the ambiance of national welfare, human rights emerged in a neoliberal age as weak tools to aim at sufficient provision alone. The political and legal project in their name became a powerless companion of the explosion of inequality. (Moyn, 2018, 176)

This critique of the human rights regime is in line with Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ earlier critiques of notions of ‘rights of man’ that advance empty universalisms at the expense of socio-economic emancipation. That Moyn’s critique arrives in the context of Trump and Brexit, however, is not only a testimony for its belated status, but also the Eurocentrism of Moyn’s thesis—that is, what only became visible in the recent ‘backlash’ in the West was always visible to Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers in the Global South. As Pankaj Mishra (2018) notes in a critical review of Moyn’s work, ‘Moyn’s stern appraisal may not appear new to long-standing critics of Western moral rhetoric in the global South. Anti-colonial leaders and thinkers knew that the global economy forged by Western imperialism had to be radically restructured in order even partially to fuel the central promise of national selfdetermination, let alone socialism’. The rise of neo-liberalism in this case could not be coincidental to the rise of human rights, as Moyn (2018) notes, but the very repudiation of human rights as understood by Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. ‘The analogy may be imperfect’ as Joseph Slaughter notes, ‘but in certain respects neoliberalism is to neo-imperialism, with its contemporary human rights alibi, as classical liberalism was to high European colonialism, with its missionary humanitarian alibi’ (Slaughter, 2018, 766). Indeed, the human rights regime which Moyn refers to post-1977, is a regime established by US foreign policy and for US foreign policy. ‘Such discourse’ to continue with Slaughter’s critique of Moyn, ‘omits the fact that ‘before, during, and after the 1970s, people around the world (including in many sectors of the West) continued using languages of human rights (among other languages) to contest imperialism and structural racism, to support the cause of national liberation, to establish the independence of post-colonial states, to claim peoples’ rights to natural resources, and “to assert their demands for economic self-determination,” redistribution, and global reform’ (Slaughter, 2018, 756). Importantly, it neglects the fact that, ‘the newly narrowed human rights undercut the more radical impulses

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of the Third World that intended to ameliorate the condition of despised and dispossessed masses around the world, displacing revolutionary plans with a reactionary program for neoliberal political, social, and economic reform’ (Slaughter, 2018, 758). Thus, another way to explain Moyn’s discourse, with a reading informed by Carr, is that the human rights regime repackaged itself after 1977 as a neo-colonial weapon under the pretence of the false humanism that Carr and the first wave of postcolonial thinkers rejected. Rather than address the social question in the post-colonial world, which Carr advocated in 1948, ‘rights’ became the rights of the powerful, to intervene in the affairs of the weak in Latin America, the Balkans, and lately in Libya. In other words, in lieu of assisting the ‘colonial revolution’ to achieve the objective of the individual’s socio-economic emancipation across the world, the new human rights regime constituted itself in opposition to anti-colonial voices. In the language of decolonial scholars in IR, the human rights discourse thus ‘enact[ed] a universe by repressing the pluriverse that lurks at its edges’ (Blaney & Tickner, 2017, 299). The ‘pluriverse’ in this case, would entail not only the discourse of rights by indigenous communities in Latin America, but also anti-colonial movements, from Africa, to the Middle East—particularly Palestine—and Asia, whose understanding of rights the US-led individualist and neo-liberal conception of rights sought to delegitimate. It is in this context—of the critique of neo-liberalised rights in the age of the socialised nation—that US support for military dictatorships against mass protests across the Global South needs to be situated. In her contribution to the special issue on ‘race and imperialism’ in International Affairs, Jasmine Gani draws on Edward Said’s concept of ‘orientalism’ to identify an orientalist lens through which the West, think tanks, and policymakers looked at the Middle East in light of the 2011 uprisings. The orientalist lens assumes that the West represents the one and only correct path to progress and development. This path must lead to liberal democracy to succeed. If Arab uprisings failed to deliver liberal democracy, then they are deemed as a failure. ‘If the western model were declined’ by protestors, to use Gani’s words, ‘then the alternative needed to fail — otherwise there would be serious implications for western liberal belief in the superiority of its own model, and a cognitive dissonance caused by the Arabs’ apparent choice to return to the backwardness of Islam

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while the option of western liberal democracy was also available’ (Gani, 2022, 60). Gani’s account however does not explain why such alternatives are deemed antithetical to the ‘West’. The answer lies in the fact that such alternative models were antithetical to global capitalism. For, historically, these alternatives—whether Nasserite Arab nationalism or Islamism—promised social justice (Addi, 2017; Fawaz, 2019). They were in fact antithetical to the project of neo-liberalised rights, or rights weaponised to maintain the neo-liberal status quo. The orientalist lens thus was an ideological framework, a weapon, to advance neo-liberalism in the Arab world. What neither Carr nor the first wave of post-colonial thinkers would have anticipated in the present context is the reach of the market in the era of ‘hyperglobalisation’, namely post-1990. The failure of Western governments to protect the interests of the white working class on one hand shows their neglect of democracy in the socialised phase of nationalism.3 While it is true that the social question remains central to international politics, it is not true that governments would always abide by the demands of the socialised nation. Carr was ultimately right about the triumph of the socialised nation, however. Since the demands of the socialised nation ultimately triumphed in Biden’s economic and social policies today. Biden’s ‘Rescue Plan’ and ‘Jobs Plan’ were not only aimed to alleviate the worst consequences of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, but also highlighted the enduring centrality of the ‘socialised nation’ in liberal democracies. They are a reminder that we still live in the social phase of nationalism. Biden’s ‘buy American’ scheme to save American jobs from competition would have thus been familiar to Carr, who also understood that socialised nation, in the absence of international planning, was bound to engage in beggar thy neighbour and aggressive policies to maintain economic and political advantage. Such pursuit of national advantage can be seen in the fact that Biden’s ‘foreign policy for the middle class’ is not aimed at the global middle class but the American middle class, who, by the world’s standards, are the rich. As Burn put it recently in a Foreign Policy piece, ‘from the perspective of much of the world, the phrase “foreign policy for the middle class” is starting to sound more like foreign policy for our middle class, and austerity for yours’ (Burns, 2021). Neither Carr nor the early post-colonial thinkers would have been surprised by this development—where socialism does not only predominate but is also nationalised. In response to the comparison between Biden’s policies and Roosevelt’s New Deal, Du Bois thus

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would have replied: ‘all intelligent men know that our New Deal was socialism pure and simple, and must be restored or continued war expenditure will end in worse disaster than the Great Depression’ (cited in Mullen, 2015, 90–91). Similarly today, Biden’s policies can be interpreted as an attempt to restore social democracy and protect the American worker from the free market. Such protection, however, comes at the expense of the middle class elsewhere. Similarly, the 15% minimum on ‘Global Corporate Tax’ will not share tax revenues evenly among nations, but would send them to the companies’ home countries, which, according to Cobham (2021) would mean 60% of the additional revenues back into the G7 countries. It was thus premature to dismiss the relevance of the socialised nation as a source of instability in the present international order (e.g. in Johnston, 2007, 174). The socialised nation is not only alive and well, as seen with the recent developments presented here, but also gives us important insights into the contemporary debate on human rights—in particular the neo-liberal historiography in which this debate has been situated,4 and which contradicted the basic premises upon which individual emancipation was possible in the post-war order. On this point, Carr makes an important contribution to post-colonial IR today: the post-colonial critique of racial injustice in the context of human rights ought to be embedded in a critique of the neo-liberal historiography of human rights that omits the social question. It is the latter historiography that explains the ideological uses of human rights and the perpetuation of the ‘orientalist’ lens through which the West gazes at demands for human rights and democracy in the Global South. Carr’s work opens a second avenue for engagement between classical realism and post-colonialism on the debate on the liberal international order, to which the next section turns.

On the Liberal International Order An important and yet neglected aspect in Carr’s work highlighted in this book is his analysis of individual alienation in late modern society (e.g. Cox, 2021; Karkour, 2021; Linklater, 2000; Pettman, 1998). The first wave of post-colonial thinkers identified this sense of alienation with the colonial and racial experience: it was the colonial and racial experience that alienated the native from a society that was premised on the negation of the self. For Carr, the individual’s sense of alienation was not particular

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to the colonial experience, but rather experienced more broadly in late modern society. Thus while Carr praised the condition of full employment that war offered, he argued that the function of war was far from being only economic: ‘apart from the emotional excitement associated with war’ Carr put it plainly in Conditions of Peace, ‘it provides a sense of meaning and purpose widely felt to be lacking in modern life’ (Carr, 1943, 115). ‘Hence’ Carr continued, ‘war has become the most powerful known instrument of social solidarity’ (Carr, 1943, 115). Individual alienation, thus to Carr, had a direct association with extreme nationalism and total war. This section argues that Carr’s analysis of the ubiquity of the individual’s sense of alienation in late modernity brings a new light to post-colonial critiques of the liberal international order. Firstly, it highlights, contrary to prevalent belief among post-colonial scholars, that neither the feeling of alienation nor its association with racial and gendered violence is particular to the West. Secondly, it sheds a new light on the post-colonial critique of neo-liberalism and neo-realism in the debate on the liberal international order. While a Carrian analysis shares with post-colonial IR scholars the critique of neo-realism and neoliberalism’s defence of the status quo under US hegemony, his analysis of individual alienation in liberal modernity reveals a flaw in a key assumption held by post-colonial scholars, namely the efficacy of these theories’ prescriptions to maintain US hegemony in practice. Carr’s Critique of Late Modernity: Nationalism and Violence in and Beyond the West As Carr viewed it, the liberal international order presented challenges that need to be overcome. These challenges were not, strictly speaking, socio-economic, as seen for example with the contradiction between liberal and democracy in the absence of framework that addresses the social question. Rather, the challenge was also psycho-social—that is to say, it entailed restoring meaning and social solidarity in late modernity. This distinction in Carr’s work is crucial because, on one hand, it shows that Carr (along with other classical realists such as Niebuhr and Morgenthau) rejected the economically reductionist explanations of the resurgence of nationalism in the liberal international order (e.g. Rodrik, 2017). On the other hand, it shows that Carr located what is presently known as the ‘cultural backlash’ thesis against globalisation in the historical context of late modernity (Kaufmann, 2018; Norris & Inglehart,

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2019). Nationalism according to Carr was a force in international politics because of its psycho-social function—of addressing the individual’s sense of alienation—in late modernity. Carr’s understanding of nationalism as a bulwark against alienation here is influenced by Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society—a book that Carr acknowledges in the preface to the Twenty Years’ Crisis. ‘The ambition of man to be something’ according to Niebuhr, ‘is always partly prompted by the fear of meaninglessness which threatens him by reason of the contingent character of his existence’ (Niebuhr, 1932, 198). It is through the medium of the nation that the individual can escape such ‘contingent existence’ and the resulting sense of alienation in late modern life. Thus, ‘the nation’ Niebuhr argued, ‘[claims] that it is the instrument of a value more universal than its contingent self … through it human pride and self-assertion reach their ultimate form and seek to break all bounds of finiteness. The nation pretends to be God’ (Niebuhr, 1932, 225). Notions of ‘take back control’ thus according to Carr and Niebuhr do not only offer a promise of democracy but also a sense of meaning and social solidarity, a sense of ontological security, for the alienated individual in late modernity. While ontological (in)security was applied in IR recently (e.g. see Kinnvall, 2004, 2007; Mitzen, 2006; Steele, 2008), particularly in the context of the resurgence of nationalism lately (e.g. see Malksoo, 2015; Steele & Homolar, 2019; Subotic, 2016), Carr, following Niebuhr, associated it early on with his analysis of nationalism. Carr’s analysis of the psycho-social dynamics underlying nationalistic identification can help explain the recent backlash against the liberal international order. In particular, Carr’s analysis of the individual sense of alienation in late modernity can help explain the rise of Trumpism in the United States. The increasing sense of alienation in US society has been observed for many years before the rise of Trumpism. For instance, this can be seen in the literature on the rising levels of anxiety and loneliness (Hertz, 2020, 12–14; Picket & Wilkinson, 2018, 37). The immediate context of this rising level of anxiety and loneliness is the social transformations of the 1960s and 1970s that liberated the individual from traditional mores and the social impact of neo-liberalism since the late 1970s (Putnam, 2020, 102). This social impact is not only on the decline of union membership, which is associated with the rise of economic precarity (Standing, 2011; Thelen, 2019), but also, and crucially, on rendering the individual, particularly among the working classes, increasingly powerless to perform basic social functions such as having a family

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and / or living as part of a community. The social impact in recent years can be observed in the rising phenomenon ‘death of despair’ among the working classes. ‘Falling wages and a dearth of good jobs’ as Case and Deaton recently noted, undermined ‘the basic institutions of workingclass life, including marriage, churchgoing, and community’ (Case & Deaton, 2020, 96). This in turn played a central role in ‘instilling despair, spurring suicide and other self-inflicted harms, such as alcohol and drug abuse’ (Case & Deaton, 2020, 96). ‘The US suicide rate’ for example, ‘has risen by a third since 1999; there are now more suicides than deaths on the roads each year, and there are two and a half times as many suicides as murders’ (Case & Deaton, 2020, 93). The individual’s sense of social solidarity and trust also declined in the neo-liberal period. A recent study found that ‘only 30% of Americans believed that most other people could be trusted’ compared with 50% in 1984 (Hertz, 2020, 9). In this context, the references in Trump’s speeches to ‘the forgotten men and women of our country [who] will be forgotten no longer’ (Trump, 2017a), represent a last resort for social support, a ‘we feeling’, in a society where no one can be trusted anymore. Trump here represents a textbook example of ‘the inevitable response’ to the increased sense of alienation under neo-liberalism, which, according to David Harvey, ‘is to reconstruct social solidarities … in varieties of authoritarian populism and nationalism’ (Harvey, 2005, 80–81). In this reconstruction, Trump’s supporters are no more finite but feel a sense of oneness, with their God—the nation. ‘Make America Great Again’ as Epstein (2018, 826) argues, ‘reactivates, for every supporter, a deep-seated, nostalgic, and perhaps ultimately unshakeable aspiration to restoring a foregone imaginary oneness of the self’. This sense of oneness absorbs individual lack of trust and feeling of insecurity into the enabled agency of the nation. The sense of alienation in late modernity is one of existential insecurity and thus, by definition, transcends any experience, including racial and / or colonial experience. In a recent application of Fanon’s psychoanalytic work, Jasmine Gani (2021) argues, that the existential insecurity caused to the colonised due to being branded as inferior leads to further internalising the inferiority complex by attempting to mimic the coloniser culturally and in violent action. Thus, the inferiority complex becomes externalised or transferred towards a new domestic ‘other’. The example Gani uses here is the Syrian regime under Assad that, in Gani’s account, escapes (or attempts to escape) its inferiority complex vis-à-vis the European coloniser, following the 1967 defeat in war with Israel, by identifying

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with it and transferring the European civilisationalist narrative towards a new domestic ‘other’, namely the Muslim Brethren. The insight gained from Carr (following Niebuhr) here is that this argument is not necessarily wrong as it is incomplete. It is incomplete in Fanon’s original formulation as much as Gani’s application, since the argument on the sense of existential insecurity in late modernity is ubiquitous—it is applicable to Trump supporters as much as to Assad and his supporters. What Gani in fact shows is that this sense can be instrumentalised in various ways—in other words, the sense of existential insecurity may be actualised by any group, including the colonised, in the vocabulary of the coloniser. Carr’s analysis of the ubiquity of the individual’s sense of alienation in late modernity highlights, contrary to prevalent belief among post-colonial scholars, that the pathology of the Enlightenment and late modernity are not particular to the West. ‘While it radically transformed Europe and augured secular modernity’ post-colonial critics of the liberal international order argue, ‘the Enlightenment had a dark side, in that its social knowledges were embedded in racialised and gendered logics whose legacies are yet to be fully scrutinised in mainstream IR’ (Behera, 2021, 1580). These ‘racialised’ and ‘gendered’ logics of the Enlightenment stem from the assumptions of linearity and dualism, which ideologically legitimate imperial violence and which, accordingly, postcolonial scholars rightly castigate. Post-colonial scholars however seem unaware that classical realists, such as Carr, were themselves critics of the Enlightenment, along with its assumptions of linearity and dualism. Carr’s ideology critique of British imperialism developed such a critique of liberal rationalism. Post-colonial scholars associate this pathology of the Enlightenment with the West and, accordingly, celebrate what liberals such as Ikenberry would perceive as a crisis of the liberal international order: the end of US hegemony. ‘Deglobalisation’ Navnita Behera thus optimistically argues, ‘can potentially make amends by opening up knowledge production to voices that have hitherto been silenced or marginalised’ (Behera, 2021, 1579). The end of US hegemony can potentially liberate the international order, and IR as a discipline, from the racialised and gendered violence associated with the secular modernity. The association of the racial and gendered logics of secular modernity with the West or the United States however downplays the extent to which such logics have been internalised elsewhere. These dynamics are at play not only in the West, but also in China today with the rise of ethnonationalism and the aggressive foreign policy posture in the South China

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Sea. The phenomenon of the ‘empty nest youth’, widely reported in the Chinese media in recent years (China Daily, 2017, 2018; Zeling, 2017), for instance reveals this heightened sense of existential insecurity among growing numbers of Chinese youths who live alienated lives in large cities. The Chinese media refers to them as the ‘empty nest youth’ because they often live lonely, isolated lives and find in excessive consumption an emotional outlet. Unable to satisfy their power drives domestically through consumption, they increasingly look upon their leaders to transpose their frustration into a national—and anticolonial—narrative of victimisation. A major study of popular Chinese social media that covers this young, urban, consumerist demographic in Chinese society finds a parallel between its discourse of victimisation by ‘Western elites’ and the discourse presented by Trump supporters. The study notes that ‘if the populist rhetoric in Western societies takes issue with the “condescending” attitudes of “liberal elites” towards the “ordinary people”, then the anti-baizuo discourse in Chinese cyberspace is also concerned with the “condescending” attitudes of Westerners, “liberal” or otherwise, towards the rest of the world’ (Zhang, 2020, 106). Importantly, ‘the discourse epitomises … anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies … used to underline the superiority of the pragmatic authoritarianism of the Chinese regime’ (Zhang, 2020, 90). Xi Xinping’s notion of the ‘Chinese dream’ in this context pertains, on one hand, to constant material improvement—that is, the economic performance upon which the legitimacy of the Chinese leadership rests. While, on the other, military build-up, particularly at air and sea (Allison, 2017), to gain ‘self-respect’—against a century of Western colonialism and ‘humiliation’—internationally. Beyond Post-Colonialism: A Carrian Critique of Neo-Realism and Neo-Liberalism Today Carr’s analysis of individual alienation, its ubiquity in late modernity, and association with nationalism and violence sheds a new light on the post-colonial critique of neo-liberalism and neo-realism in the debate on the liberal international order. While a Carrian analysis shares with post-colonial IR scholars the critique of neo-realism and neo-liberalism’s defence of the status quo under US hegemony, his analysis of individual alienation in late modernity reveals a flaw in a key assumption held by

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post-colonial scholars, namely the efficacy of these theories’ prescriptions to maintain US hegemony in practice. For instance, Jasmine Gani and Jenna Marshall (2022) argue that mainstream IR academics are ‘knowledge suppliers’ for policymakers, in particular to maintain US hegemony. A Carrian analysis reveals this assumption to be problematic, if left unqualified. The efficacy of ‘mainstream’ IR theories to be workable and translatable to successful policy in practice—a Carrian critique of neo-realism and neo-liberalism shows—is rather limited. In his critique of neo-liberal institutionalism, Randolph Persaud writes, Keohane went on to write the very influential After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy. One of the key ‘accomplishments’ of Keohane’s 1984 book is the way in which the seeming decline of American power occasioned theoretical innovation that influenced a generation of intellectuals. The book is a sophisticated rationalist theory of how America can maintain its domination (labelled leadership) of world order by clustering issues into areas of governance. (Persaud, 2022, 119 emphasis in original)

Indeed, this defence of ‘leadership’ is a central theme in neo-liberal institutionalism. From the standpoint of liberal scholars in IR, the present crisis of the liberal international order is one of leadership (Ikenberry, 2020a, 2020b; Nye, 2019). The panacea for these scholars is thus to restore US leadership in the multilateral institutions and support for democratic allies. The Covid-19 pandemic in this context ‘offers the United States an opportunity … to reclaim the two-centuries-old liberal international project of building an order that is open, multilateral, and anchored in a coalition of leading liberal democracies’ (Ikenberry, 2020a, 2020b, 134). The United States should, from this standpoint, continue to Make the World Safe for Democracy, as Ikenberry titles his latest book (Ikenberry, 2020b). ‘The next US president’ thus, ‘should call a gathering of the world’s liberal democracies, and in the spirit of the Atlantic Charter, these states should issue their own joint statement, outlining broad principles for strengthening liberal democracy and reforming global governance institution’ (Ikenberry, 2020a, 2020b, 140). Such institutional reform includes, for example, turning ‘the G-7 into a D-10, a sort of steering committee of the world’s ten leading democracies that would guide the return to multilateralism and rebuild a global order that protects liberal principles’ (Ikenberry, 2020a, 2020b, 140). Furthermore,

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it should be supplanted with rules and institutions akin to Bretton Woods to ‘re-embed’ liberalism and thus allow ‘countries to reap the gains from trade while making good on their commitments to social welfare’ (Ikenberry, 2020b, 140). Thus, in Ikenberry’s view, pragmatic policies such as re-embedding the markets and rebuilding economic multilateralism, are crucial to renew liberal democracy’s social purpose that has been eroded by globalisation (Ikenberry, 2020b, 308–309). ‘The key problem with Ikenberry’s approach’ from a Carrian standpoint, as Sean Molloy argues, ‘is that although he is aware that “[i]t is precisely at a moment of global crisis that great debates about world order open up and new possibilities emerge”, his answer to the problems of world order is to insist “the solutions to today’s problems are more liberal democracy and more liberal order’’’ (Molloy, 2021, 328). Indeed, despite Ikenberry’s emphasis on the ‘social purpose’ of liberal democracy, which of course is in line with the demands of the socialised nation, Ikenberry’s argument neglects the fact that the liberal international has excluded, and continues to exclude, much of the non-Western world.5 In Carrian terms, Ikenberry thus recognises the social revolution in the West but neglects the colonial revolution, which, since before 1945, has been forming and becoming part of it. Thus, Ikenberry’s narrative neglects the fact that the status quo does not benefit all states, let alone individuals, equally. The Carrian analysis here is shared with post-colonialism. For instance, Molloy’s (2021) Carrian critique here finds its echo in Persaud’s (2022) post-colonial critique of liberal institutionalism and its defence of an exclusionary status quo under American hegemony. Aside from Molloy’s critique, Carr’s analysis of the psycho-social dynamics underlying nationalism and war goes beyond the post-colonial critiques to reveal an ever more serious flaw in Ikenberry’s position. If the present crisis is rooted in these dynamics, then Ikenberry’s suggestion to renew liberal democracy’s social purpose through for example re-embedding liberalism is not only exclusionary and operating within the parameters of the status quo, as post-colonial scholars argue, but is also unlikely to be successful even in the Global North. If liberal institutionalism succeeds in fostering economic multilateralism, it will entrench a system of interdependence and globalisation that will further undermine traditional culture and therefore heighten the individual’s sense of alienation. In the absence of an outlet to deliver meaning and social solidarity to the individual, such top-down liberal institutions increase the potential for nationalist backlashes and aggressive wars not only in the Global South, but also in the

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Global North as seen in recent years with the rise of Trumpism. In other words, Carr’s work reveals that liberal institutionalism, pace post-colonial scholars, is not only violent and exclusionary but also inherently unstable and impractical from the standpoint of those whom it ought to serve: the ‘white’ populations in the Global North. A Carrian analysis also shares with post-colonial IR scholars the critique of neo-realism’s defence of the status quo under US hegemony. From a neo-realist standpoint, the crisis of the liberal international order is not one of leadership but a mistake of leadership. This mistake might be due to the policymakers’ Hell of Good Intentions (Walt, 2018a), or the Great Delusion (Mearsheimer, 2018), in the pursuit of a flawed grand strategy of ‘liberal hegemony’ since the end of the Cold War. A strategy of liberal hegemony is flawed because it leads to ‘a highly interventionist foreign policy that involves fighting wars and doing significant social engineering in countries throughout the world’ (Mearsheimer, 2018, 120). Examples include NATO expansion into central and Eastern Europe and the intervention in Kosovo, which, according to John Mearsheimer explains ‘why the Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault’ (Mearsheimer, 2014). To counter this strategy, neo-realists offer a rational alternative for international peace: a strategy of offshore balancing. ‘By pursuing a strategy of “offshore balancing,”’ Mearsheimer and Walt argue, ‘Washington would forgo ambitious efforts to remake other societies and concentrate on what really matters: preserving US dominance in the Western Hemisphere and countering potential hegemons in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf’ (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2016, 71). This means that in Asia the United States should remain the ‘indispensable nation’ (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2016, 81). Specifically, the United States should deepen its security ties with allies in the region and commit its military forces ‘onshore’ to prevent China from establishing regional hegemony (Walt, 2019, 33). ‘If Ikenberry is the heir of the Benthamist thinkers of The Twenty Years’ Crisis ’ Molloy extends the Carrian critique to neo-realism, then ‘Mearsheimer is the heir of consistent but sterile realism’ (Molloy, 2021, 238). Mearsheimer’s ‘sterile’ realism, according to Molloy, stems from the assumption of the unchanging Hobbesian nature of international politics as defined by the unchanging structure of anarchy. In Molloy’s words, Mearsheimer’s status quo is the “natural order” represented by the balance of power, which he maintains is asserting itself after a unipolar moment.

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The dissipation of American power, the rise of China, and re-emergence of Russia mark a return to a more typical multipolar order within the wider international system. This system can oscillate between unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar orders, but it cannot change beyond these circumscribed parameters. (Molloy, 2021, 238)

Defined within such narrow parameters, the international system according to neo-realism leaves little room for agency and change (Kirshner, 2010). The goal, which neo-realism shares with liberal institutionalism, is to maintain the status quo under US hegemony. ‘At base’ Molloy thus concludes, ‘what unites Ikenberry and Mearsheimer is that they are both theorists of the status quo: behind their nomenclatural distinctions, in contrast to Carr’s proposal to transform international society, both seek to preserve the existing international order with as little change as possible’ (Molloy, 2021, 328). While Molloy’s critique of the neo-realists is a valid one, Carr’s argument on the ubiquity of the psycho-social dynamics of late modernity sheds an additional light on the flaw with neo-realism: the problem with neo-realism is not only, as post-colonial critics argue, that it legitimates the status quo under US hegemony but that it also fails in that endeavour to begin with, for the psycho-social dynamics of late modernity and their interference in US politics means that no ‘rational’ policies, in line with neo-realist prescriptions, have been pursued by US policymakers. To neorealists maintaining the status quo under US hegemony through a strategy of offshore balancing is more of an aspiration, or at least a prescription, rather than a representation of the reality of existing US foreign policy. It is an aspiration or prescription because, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, US foreign policy has been driven by a ‘flawed’ liberal ideology that was responsible for unnecessary wars and regime change. The argument that a flawed liberal ideology caused these wars and bad policy more generally however does not explain how, as Mearsheimer argues, Trump shows ‘considerable continuity with his predecessors’ policies’ despite not having the intention to pursue even ‘a “liberal-lite” world order’ (Mearsheimer, 2018, 231; 2019, 29, 39, 40). It does now explain how, as Walt argues, Trump on one hand follows a strategy of ‘illiberal hegemony’, meanwhile, on the other, Trump’s ‘foreign policy is essentially a chaotic, confusing, and inept version of his predecessors’ approach’ (Walt, 2018a, 238; 2018b, 16–17). The Carrian (and more generally classical realist) response to this puzzle is that it is not liberal hegemony per se that is the driver for war and regime change in US foreign policy, but rather the psycho-social dynamics of late modernity

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that neo-realists omit from their analysis (Karkour, 2021). Consequently, neo-realists do not only tackle the wrong cause, but also fail to realise that these psycho-social dynamics of late modernity may hinder their own ‘rational’ strategy, offshore balancing, from influencing foreign policy decisions. Given the omission of these psycho-social dynamics, neorealism, paradoxically, underestimates the excesses of nationalism and its ability to divert US foreign policy towards a more rational ‘offshore’ strategic course.6 As Schmidt and Williams argued early on in seminal paper in Security Studies, with its ‘narrowly strategic material calculation’ neo-realism could not win the debate against neo-conservatism in light of the 2003 Iraq war (Schmidt & Williams, 2008, 212). Similarly, in Libya and later with Iran, neo-realist such as Mearsheimer and Walt found themselves on the dissenting end, with their ‘rational’ prescriptions failing to influence US foreign policy. The reason for this failure is that the underlying dynamics for the ‘irrationality’ of US foreign policy from Kosovo to Iraq (Karkour, 2018), and later in Iran (Karkour, 2021), were psychosocial, which Carr emphasised on in his analysis of nationalism, and which, ever since, has been forgotten by contemporary realists. Consequently, the problem with neo-realism is not only, as post-colonial critics argue, that it legitimates the status quo under US hegemony but that it also fails in that endeavour to begin with, for no ‘rational’ policies, in line with neo-realist prescriptions, have been pursued by US policymakers in the last 30 years. What lessons can post-colonial IR scholars draw from this engagement?

Carr’s Lessons for Post-Colonial IR The key lesson from Carr to post-colonial IR is that all theories and concepts in IR are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they promised. Carr raised this lesson in the Twenty Years’ Crisis when he explained how ‘peace’ was weaponised by the powerful to maintain the status quo. ‘The common interest in peace’ Carr argued, ‘masks the fact that some nations desire to maintain the status quo without having to fight for it’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 52–53). Carr’s lesson here applies to the various concepts that post-colonial scholars critiqued— such as human rights, development, and security – but also goes beyond this critique to highlight that post-colonial IR scholarship, its concepts, and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s critique. The critique of the neo-liberal historiography of human rights presents the first example of how a concept can weaponised against its original

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promise. The neo-liberalised version of the human rights that rose after 1977, as seen above, was a version that was established by US foreign policy and for US foreign policy. It omitted the fact that rights before 1977 were conceptualised by Carr and the first wave of post-colonial scholars, not only in terms of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘self-determination’ but also social and economic equality for the individual across the globe and in contrast to imperialism and structural racism. In lieu of this alternative conceptualisation of rights, the individualised notion of rights repackaged the concept as a neo-colonial weapon, under the pretence of the false humanism, to intervene in the affairs of the weak, whether in Latin America, the Balkans, or the Middle East. An associated concept that has been weaponised in the post-1945 order is the concept of ‘development’. ‘The entire apparatus of post-war development studies’ as Persaud notes, maintained ‘the concept of the Third World as an organizing principle designating weakness and the need for development intervention’ (Persaud, 2022, 122). Thus ‘underdevelopment’ became not a concept of description, but an enabling instrument for the perpetuation of ‘free market capitalism’. The dynamic of using rights as the weapon of the strong against the weak thus finds its corollary in development. Carr’s argument on the weaponisation of concepts against their original promise is also relevant in post-colonial critiques of the concept of ‘security’. Postcolonial critics highlight how race and colonialism have been omitted from narratives of security IR, thus obscuring ‘how security threats are constructed and the manner in which particular categories such as ‘uncivil wars’, ‘ungoverned spaces’, and ‘insurgencies’ are deployed to delegitimise specific forms of political action or armed resistance in order to provide the foil which imbues the ‘normal’ or ‘civilized’ politics of the West with meaning’ (Danso & Aning, 2022, 68). The narrative of security in this concept, as Carr argued on calls for ‘peace’ in his time, bear the marks of their ‘Anglo-Saxon origin’ (Carr, 1984 [1939], 51). They maintain ‘methodological whiteness’ that ‘occludes how racist thought remains fundamental and integral to the production, legitimation, distribution and application of security knowledge, and the manner in which that, in turn, transforms people and social groups in spaces outside Europe into objects rather than subjects of security’ (Danso & Aning, 2022, 68). As ‘objects’ of security, people and social groups outside Europe remain targets of interventionism and the civilising mission of the Global North. Consequently, security, like human rights, perpetuates the agenda of neo-liberal interventionism, while omitting the ‘colonial question’, central to Carr

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and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ calls for social and racial justice in the Global South. But while a Carrian analysis parallels post-colonial critiques today in that highlights how concepts such as human rights, development, and security are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they promised, it also shows that post-colonial IR scholarship, its concepts, and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s critique. For example, in a critique of Acharya, Inderjeet Parmar (2019, 238) notes that in the ‘Global IR’ project ‘the true contributions of the West and non-West are recognised, synthesised, and celebrated... and yet one in which serious problems of class inequality persist’. The omission of class interests in turn may turn Global IR into the weapons of elites under the banner of ‘diversity’. The post-colonial critiques of ‘epistemic imperialism’ (Zondi, 2018) and attempts to explore ‘worlding beyond the West’ (Holden, 2014), and ‘alternative cosmologies’ (Blaney & Tickner, 2017), run the same risk that Carr identified early on. ‘The radical cultural relativism that such views promote as the cornerstone of pluralism and openness’ in Rosa Vasilaki’s words, is perhaps the strongest version of essentialism – the one that reaffirms stereotypes like the West as change and the Rest as stasis, Europe as modernity and the ‘global South’ as tradition, the Westerner as secular and the ‘Other’ as religious and so on. (2012, 20)

Once the categories have been essentialised they can in turn be weaponised. Concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ become depoliticised and weaponised to advance particular interests, presented by national elites rather than encompassing all strata of society. This lesson is important today for post-colonial IR, particularly as they associate gendered and racial violence with modernity on one hand, and modernity with the West on the other. While Carr would have agreed with this association, his analysis of the ubiquity of individual alienation in late modernity demonstrates that such violence on one hand leads to nationalist backlashes and ‘irrational’ policies against the dictates of neoliberalism and neo-realism in the West, while, on the other, transcends the West. Indeed, as post-colonial scholars themselves have demonstrated in relation to Syria’s Assad, the gendered and racial logics of coloniality can be internalised and instrumentalised by non-Western actors. Furthermore, there is growing evidence, as this chapter has demonstrated, that

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the dynamics of late modernity may be in operation among rising powers, such as China, leading to ‘anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies … used to underline the superiority of the pragmatic authoritarianism of the Chinese regime’ (Zhang, 2020, 90). The post-colonial fixation on the West here is problematic for two reasons: first, it downplays the stability and dominance of the liberal international order, and, in particular, the stability and dominance of neo-realism and neo-liberalism as providers of ideological covers for this dominance. Second, it represents a false belief that ‘deglobalisation can potentially make amends by opening up knowledge production to voices that have hitherto been silenced or marginalised’ (Behera, 2021, 1579). This belief is overly idealistic, as it fails to present the caveat that the dynamics of late modernity, with their resulting gendered and racial violence, may be in operation beyond the West. With such idealism, post-colonial IR risks, like the liberal idealism Carr critiqued, providing an ideological justification to new forms of hegemony and elites, whose ‘anti-colonial’ claims of ‘national humiliation’ may themselves be pleas for aggression and war. In this regard, postcolonial IR, like neo-liberalism and neo-realism, may themselves become ideological tools for the powers-that-be in the emerging world order.

Conclusion The central thesis of this chapter was that Carr’s work opens avenues for engagement between classical realism and post-colonialism across two debates relevant to post-colonial IR scholars today: first, on human rights; second on the liberal international order. With regards to the former, the chapter drew on Carr to argue that the post-colonial critique of racial injustice in the context of human rights ought to be embedded in a critique of the neo-liberal historiography of human rights. It is this historiography that explains the ideological uses of human rights and the perpetuation of the ‘orientalist’ lens through which the West gazes at demands for human rights and democracy in the Global South. With regard to the latter, Carr’s analysis of the ubiquity of the individual’s sense of alienation in late modernity brought a new light to post-colonial critiques of the liberal international order. Firstly, it highlighted, contrary to prevalent belief among post-colonial scholars, that neither the feeling of alienation nor its association with racial and gendered violence is particular to the West. Secondly, it shed a new light on the post-colonial critique of neo-liberalism and neo-realism in the debate on the liberal international

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order: it revealed a flaw in a key assumption held by post-colonial scholars, namely the efficacy of these theories’ prescriptions to maintain US hegemony in practice. Taken together, a Carrian engagement with the debate on human rights and the liberal international order presents an important lesson for post-colonial IR today: that all theories and concepts in IR are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they originally promise. Carr’s lesson here applies to the various concepts that post-colonial scholars critiqued—such as human rights, development, and security—but also goes beyond this critique to highlight that postcolonial IR scholarship, its concepts, and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s ideology critique.

Notes 1. While Tim Dunne and Nick Wheeler (2019) recently cited Carr’s involvement in the early theoretical formulation of human rights, they omitted the significance of the social question in their own works. 2. Like Carr, the early post-colonial thinkers argued that any conception of universalisation of the ‘rights of man’, when operating within the framework of the ‘free market’ and neglecting the social question, was a betrayal of its own cause. 3. In the pages of Foreign Affairs, proponents of (neo)liberalism, Robert Keohane and Jeff Colgan acknowledged this crisis of democracy. ‘Financial firms and major corporations enjoyed privileged status within the order’s institutions, which paid little attention to the interests of workers’ they argued, further adding that the ‘position’ of the financial and political elites, ‘is reminiscent of the way that eighteenth- century French aristocrats refused to pay taxes while indulging in expensive foreign military adventures. They got away with it for many years-until the French Revolution suddenly laid waste to their privilege’ (Colgan & Keohane, 2017, 39). 4. And remains so, for example, in Sikkink (2017). 5. A similar critique can be levelled against Jack Snyder, who goes on to suggest the return of the ‘visible hand’, that is, embedded liberalism, arguing that ‘the solution is certainly to reconstitute the thickness of the liberal bargain that has been thinned out by left and right libertarianism’ (Snyder, 2019, 76). Just as the liberal international order excluded the ‘Third World’ in Ikenberry, there is a limit to the scope and realm of the visible hand according to Snyder. Those outside the realm of the liberal order, Snyder argues, ‘may face a choice of whether they want to accept

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further liberalising reforms or retreat to a much more transactional relationship moderated not mainly by rules but by geopolitical prudence’ (Snyder, 2019, 77). 6. Like the classical realists, in a recent lecture Mearsheimer argues that ‘nationalism is much like religion, which … gives members a sense they are part of a long and rich tradition’. The modern context in which the individual feels attached to this particular ‘religion’ however remains untheorised (see Mearsheimer, 2020, 10).

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CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

This book sought to contribute to two sets of scholarship in IR. First, it sought to contribute to the broad range of scholarship published on Carr in the past thirty years. While the consensus among Carr scholars today is that he is far from the realist that he was caricatured in the discipline, the emerging scholarship on Carr did not consider the overlaps between his work, in particular his analysis of imperialism and war, and the first wave of post-colonial scholars—Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire. In presenting this parallel, the book attempted to contribute to existing scholarship in IR that problematised conventional theoretical divisions between classical realism and critical approaches (among others, see Barkin, 2003; Behr & Roesch, 2012; Behr & Williams, 2017; Cozette, 2008; Scheurman, 2011; Williams, 2013). The argument in the book here was thus inevitably set up in opposition to present-day post-colonial critics of realism—critics who, as far as this book is concerned, ‘caged’ Carr in the Realist (with capital R) camp. By contrast, this book has shown that Carr was much closer to post-colonial thinkers, both intellectually and politically, than previously appreciated in the discipline. By reading Carr alongside Du Bois, Fanon, and Césaire, his ‘post-colonial’ contemporaries, the book highlighted important parallels in their understanding of the causes of imperialism and war. Following the introduction, the second chapter set the stage for this argument, by © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3_7

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arguing that the classical realist analysis of imperialism and race is more nuanced than currently presented in IR literature, particularly in postcolonial literature. Within this nuance, it became clear that Carr’s analysis of imperialism and race shared important parallels with keys ‘canons’ of the post-colonial tradition from his time—the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire. Carr and the first wave of postcolonial thinkers’ explanations of imperialism and war were rooted in the ‘social question’ in Western democracies. The expansion of the franchise and rise of social democracy in Europe, they argued, could not be accommodated by laissez faire which in turn led to its export in the form of imperialism and war abroad. The demand for a bigger share in the economic pie in Western democracies did not turn workers against capital but rather accelerated the latter’s exploitation of the colonies abroad. This turned class antagonism at home into a race antagonism at home and abroad. Carr, thus, along with the first wave of post-colonial thinkers, saw racial injustice as imbedded in nineteenth-century liberalism, particularly the logic of the ‘free market’ under laissez faire. What explains this parallel between Carr, an historian associated with the classical realist school in IR and the canons of post-colonialism? Chapter 3 set out to present such an account. It argued that Carr, along with Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, were influenced by a twentiethcentury reinterpretation of Marxist analysis of war and imperialism that was commonly shared by others, including Lenin and Hobson. It is this shared intellectual origin in Marxist thought that explains the commonality in their analyses of imperialism and war. In particular, it was the necessity to reinterpret Marxist analysis in the twentieth century that united Carr with the first wave of post-colonial thinkers. This necessity stemmed from a reality of the twentieth century that frustrated classical Marxist prediction: the nationalisation of socialism and the rise of the nation state, along with ethno-nationalism and racism, at the expense of the international proletariat. Carr and the early post-colonial thinkers thus accepted the limitations of Marxist analysis of class in the context of ethno-nationalism and racism. The parallels between Carr and the first wave of post-colonial scholars however were not limited to the materialist critique of imperialism. Indeed, in explaining the limitations of Marxist analysis of class in the context of nationalism and racism, the similarity between Carr’s IR theory and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers transcended the materialist critique of imperialism and war. Carr and the first wave of post-colonial

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thinkers presented an ideology critique of imperialism in Mannheim’s sense. In particular, Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers critiqued the universalist pretentions of ‘Enlightenment reason’ that legitimated imperialism as a practice. This critique, Chapter 4 argued, covered the key tenets in Hobson’s (2014) conceptualisation of ‘Eurocentrism’ in IR. These tenets could be summarised in Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ critique of two assumptions in Enlightenment reason. First, the association of ‘reason’ with Western civilisation, which in turn creates a dualism of European reason in contrast to non-European barbarity. Second, and following from this, a critique of linearity: the notion that progress in light of reason is not only possible, but also follows a linear line with European civilisation at the pinnacle of development. This twofold critique of Enlightenment reason led Carr to expose the ideological role this ‘reason’ plays to advance European, particularly British, interests under the pretext of the ‘harmony of interests’. In turn, Carr’s critique of the ‘harmony of interests’ exposed the dualistic conception of sovereignty that Hobson identified, where powerful nations, Great Britain in particular, employed ‘reason’ ideologically, to legitimate imperial hierarchy in the international. Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire shared this ideology critique with Carr. Like Carr, they critiqued the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning European science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography. The ideology critiques of the universalist pretentions of ‘reason’ underpinning European science, morality, psychiatry, and historiography in the works of Fanon, Du Bois, and Césaire, paralleled Carr’s ideology critique of the universalist pretentions of liberal reason and Victorian moralism. Carr’s work was thus far from ‘Eurocentric’. In fact, Carr presented an early critique of Eurocentrism in IR. Carr’s realism was much closer to post-colonialism than previously appreciated in the discipline. The second set of scholarship this book attempted to contribute to was on Carr’s work on nationalism. The book did not repudiate this scholarship, as it did with contemporary post-colonial theorists, but highlighted an important dimension in Carr’s work on nationalism that has been largely neglected here. Carr’s analysis of nationalism linked it to the sense of alienation the individual felt in late modernity. The individual’s support for nationalism, even in the age of the ‘socialised nation’, where nationalism was expected to provide employment and welfare provision, did not only have an economic logic but also a psycho-social logic. Nationalism, that is to say, provided a sense of meaning and social solidarity that was/is

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otherwise lacking in late modern society. The first wave of post-colonial thinkers also took this theme or experience of alienation seriously. They associated it with the colonial and racial experience. Thus, the post-war settlement for Carr—as to Fanon, Césaire, and Du Bois—did not only have an economic purpose but also psycho-social purpose: it aimed to address the sense of alienation felt by the individual in late modern society. While the post-war settlement for Carr and the first wave of postcolonial thinkers aimed to address the individual’s sense of alienation in late modern society, Chapter 5 identified areas of divergence between Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions here. Carr and Césaire were closer to one another in that they advocated a postwar settlement that aimed to address the individual’s sense of alienation without emphasis on national sovereignty. They supported multi-national empires that would grant colonial subjects equal social and economic rights, as well as cultural freedom. Unlike Carr and Césaire, Fanon could not envisage the resolution of the problem of alienation in the colonial context without national liberation and the assertion of sovereignty by former colonies. National independence, Fanon however warned, requires African unity lest neo-colonialism creeps into the continent under global capitalism. Like Fanon, Du Bois held a vision of African unity under socialist Pan-Africanism that would ensure sovereignty and address the problem of alienation for Africans. After highlighting these areas of divergence and commonality, Chapter 5 then presented a critique of Carr and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ visions of the post-war settlement. These visions, the chapter argued with the benefit of hindsight, can be seen as idealistic today. Carr and Césaire’s visions for instance downplayed the reality of power in post-imperial relations and the problem of racism as a hinderance to progress along multi-national and multi-racial lines. Fanon and Du Bois’s visions on the other hand overplayed the case for African unity and more generally unity along socialist lines. This in turn led to neglecting the power asymmetries that would form the basis for the continuation of neo-colonial relationships after independence, in the form of economic dependency as well as military interventionism on the African continent. Despite the failure of Carr’s vision to become practice, Chapter 6 argued that Carr’s analysis presents an important lesson for post-colonial IR today: that all theories and concepts in IR are susceptible to be weaponised and used towards ends contrary to what they originally

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promised. Carr’s lesson here applies to the various concepts that postcolonial scholars critiqued—such as human rights, development, and security—but also goes beyond this critique to highlight that post-colonial IR scholarship, its concepts and narratives, are not immune to Carr’s ideology critique: they may provide an ideological justification to new forms of hegemony and elites in the emerging world order. This lesson is crucial today due to the ubiquity of the dynamics of late modernity that Carr identified, which, as Chapter 6 argued, have, on one hand, been intensified under neo-liberalism, and, on the other, had consequences for nationalism and violence in the emerging world order. The relationship between the increasing sense of alienation under neo-liberalism on one hand and aggressive nationalism on the other is thus an important theme from Carr’s work today. Given its importance, it raises a question for critical IR theory: what alternative does critical IR theory, including postcolonial theory, provide to neo-liberalism? It is to this question that the concluding section of the book now turns.

Critical IR Theory and Neo-Liberalism Today ‘Much of critical theory’ today, Beate Jahn argues in a paper lately, ‘has become part of the establishment’ (Jahn, 2021, 3). In turning academics into ‘knowledge entrepreneurs’ critical theory succumbed to the ‘pressures and requirements of neoliberalism’ (Jahn, 2021, 3). While this concluding section agrees with Jahn’s argument that, pace critics (e.g. Anievas, 2005; Browning & McDonald, 2011; Hamati-Ataya, 2013; Schmid, 2018) critical theory engaged both with history and practice, it argues that one important implication of Jahn’s argument on critical IR theory becoming part of the neo-liberal establishment is that critical theory is incapable of bringing about Carr and the first wave of postcolonial thinkers’ desired change in the international order. The reason this change is necessary today is because the neo-liberal status quo today remains, just like laissez faire in Carr’s time, the background framework, or the ‘status quo’, which IR concepts qua ideological weapons, serve. In other words, it is for the purpose of the perpetuation of the neoliberal status quo that the ‘orientalist’ and the ‘Eurocentric’ lenses are employed, as seen for example with US-led discourses on human rights, development, and security. Without the change in this status quo, critical and post-colonial IR do not only operate within it—thus failing to

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attain the full potential of the ‘orientalist’ and ‘Eurocentric’ critiques— but also fail to address the problem of alienation in the West, which Carr identified under laissez faire in late modernity. Paradoxically, this feeds into the hands of reactionary groups, that, unlike critical IR theorists, offer an alternative narrative to neo-liberalism to address the individual’s sense of alienation. To tackle this challenge, IR scholars today need to provide an alternative narrative—a narrative that, unlike reactionary groups, is forward, rather than backward, looking. Such a narrative would only succeed to bring about change to the neo-liberal status quo if it provides a psychological substitute to nationalism and amasses enough power to challenge the powers-that-be, namely the nation state. Critical theory originally rose in response to the rise of ethnonationalism, in the form of National Socialism, in the 1930s. Specifically, critical theory’s original question was, as Jahn put it, ‘what made the co-existence of science and national socialism possible?’ (Jahn, 2021, 1). The answer lay in ‘traditional’ or problem-solving theory. By abstracting theory from its practical use in society, ‘traditional theory’ did not question the ends that science may serve. The aim for critical theory was thus to remain reflexive in questioning theory’s ends and keeping the possibilities of society open. Such reflexivity however came at a price—critical theory could not serve any status quo from an ahistorical or universal standpoint. ‘Resisting demands for practical relevance’ as Jahn notes, was ‘the condition of the possibility to imagine an alternative society or international system; it played a key role in creating space for critical thinking and imagination beyond the given options’ (Jahn, 2021, 13). In other words, resisting practical (though not political) relevance was the price that critical theory paid to keep the possibilities of imagining the world differently open. Jahn thus concludes, critical theories successfully addressing particular problems within society … leads to the mainstreaming and institutionalisation of various “critical” projects and to the integration of critical theories into the academic establishment and public discourse. Yet the rise of populism highlights that these achievements do not amount to the transformation of society as a whole. Moreover, confronted with the rise of populism this very success puts critical theorists in a position of defending the status quo—which now embodies some of their achievements. Disappointment therefore arises from the fact that the particular achievements of critical theory appear to go hand in hand with the failure to transform society as a whole. (Jahn, 2021, 15 emphasis in original)

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But to restrict critical theory to the realm of critique within the status quo, that is, within a framework that does not seek to totally transform the neo-liberal political economy, is problematic from a Carrian standpoint. From this standpoint the platform on which critical theory stands today keeps intact the status quo that IR concepts qua ideological weapons serve. Without the change in this status quo, critical and post-colonial IR do not only operate within it—thus failing to attain the full potential of the ‘orientalist’ and ‘Eurocentric’ critiques—but also fail to address the problem of alienation in the West, which Carr identified under laissez faire in late modernity. From the standpoint of those outside the status quo, critical IR theory becomes an agent of the state, of the powers-that-be, who reject fundamental change to the existing, undemocratic, and alienating, order. This explains the contemporary paradox of critical theory in IR, which Cunliffe nicely summarises when he says that ‘Carr’s hostility to economic laissez faire liberalism has been revived’ not by critical theorists but ‘by none other than Donald Trump’ (Cunliffe, 2020, 104). Donald Trump is not alone in appropriating some of the critiques of laissez faire for his reactionary and personal gains. The ‘New Right’ today provides an alternative narrative to neo-liberalism that engages directly with the individual’s sense of alienation in late modern society that Carr identified. In notions such as ‘nationalism’, ‘culture’, and ‘race’, the New Right offers a sense of meaning and social solidarity that is lacking in late modern society, particularly under the neo-liberal political economy. The New Right, in other words, does not only appropriate critical theory’s methods and critique of neo-liberalism, but it does so for reactionary ends that, unlike critical theory, seek to transform society. The ‘New Right’, as Williams and Drolet have shown, shares with Critical Theory, a la Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, the critique of liberal modernity and also appropriates such critique towards reactionary ends, Many of the insights and themes that have long been building blocks of critical social and international theory—from Gramscian ideas about hegemony, to Frankfurt School analyses of capitalist societies and mass consumerism, to post-modernism — have been appropriated and mobilized by the New Right, which has turned them to distinctly non-progressive and often reactionary purposes. Developing outside the confines of the academy, these forms of thought have woven insights from across Critical theory into new and mobilizing forms of conservative ideology, seeking to link that ideology to social forces that play increasingly active roles in global politics. (Williams & Drolet, 2021, 2)

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The critique, precisely, pertains to neo-liberalism’s commodification of society and emphasis on individualism and cosmopolitanism that destabilise traditional identity and culture. Thus, the New Right ‘uses the term New Class in a similar way to designate the growing social stratum of experts, ranging from corporate executives to university lecturers, lawyers, computer programmers, and bureaucrats, who occupy positions of economic and political power in the post-industrial “information” society’ (Williams & Drolet, 2021, 7). In turn, it contrasts such ‘New Class’ with the ‘left behinds’, ‘those still tied to locality, who experience migration or cultural cosmopolitanism as a threat, as well as the “basket of deplorables” who hold onto tradition, to their inherited communities and prejudices even as they are being eroded by globalization, and who are disparaged as backward and bigoted, dependent, and (if they are lucky) in need of “re-skilling” by a liberal elite which is the condescending agent of their increasingly dire economic plight and that dismisses and disparages their feelings of social and cultural dislocation or alienation’ (Williams & Drolet, 2021, 13). The reason the New Right is able to capitalise on such feelings of alienation among segments of society is precisely due to the absence of alternative to the neo-liberal status quo. Indeed, what alternative do critical theorists, including post-colonial theorists in IR, present to the status quo? As Jahn has demonstrated, critical theory today, including post-colonial theory, solves problems within society. Their success lies within the neo-liberal political economy. In failing to provide an alternative narrative to neo-liberalism critical theorists do not only turn ‘themselves into highly competent knowledge entrepreneurs … part of the academic establishment’ (Jahn, 2021, 15), but also leave a vacuum that the New Right comes to fill for reactionary ends. This answers Jahn’s question ‘what makes the coexistence of critical theory and populism possible’ but leaves unanswered the question ‘what resources does critical theory offer to confront this challenge?’ (Jahn, 2021, 9–10). Carr, as seen in Chapter 5, also failed to provide an alternative to laissez faire: Carr’s vision of the post-war settlement downplayed the reality of power in post-imperial relations and the problem of racism as a hinderance to progress along multi-national and multi-racial lines. Carr’s failure however can set critical and post-colonial theorists today in the right path—that is, it can shed light on the key issue at stake in the present: the problem of democracy and the sense of alienation in late modern society, particularly under laissez faire/neo-liberalism. It is precisely to address the sense of alienation that the New Right capitalises on—in its

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critique of migration and cultural cosmopolitanism—that Carr argued for international planning on the basis of multi-national units in the postwar order. Given the failure of Carr’s and the first wave of post-colonial thinkers’ projects to bring about such an order that addresses the individual’s sense of alienation, it is the responsibility of critical and post-colonial IR theorists today to engage with this problem and present to society at large an alternative narrative to the New Right. This alternative narrative is not only needed today, but also needs to be forward, rather than backward looking into the ‘spiritual rootedness’ of some ‘ancestral past’. The backward look on the latter is, in fact, a key distinguishing characteristic of the New Right. ‘Appropriating the Left’s environmentalist language of “Indigenous Sovereignty”’ as Williams and Drolet note, ‘New Rightists insist on the close link between historical heritage, collective memory, and spiritual rootedness in ancestral lands against the utopian vision of a cosmopolitan elite that has no concrete ties to the earth. In their eyes, the protection of the ecosystem is inseparable from territorial sovereignty and the defence of “indigenous” white populations’ (Williams & Drolet, 2021, 13). What the discourse of the ‘New Right’ reveals here is that the quest for meaning in late modernity is ubiquitous, as Carr and other classical realists such as Morgenthau and Niebuhr recognised. Crucially, the task for a critical theory is to present such a meaning as a counter narrative to the New Right. The first wave of post-colonial thinkers saw in the unity of the post-colonial world against racial discrimination and subjugation a restoration of sense of identity and meaning—in other words, the bulwark against alienation. But the individual’s sense of alienation, as recent events with Trump and the discourse by the New Right showed, is not peculiar to racism or the colonial experience and nor, for that matter, can societies address it through national liberation. The problem of alienation is ubiquitous in late modernity and manifests itself in various ways, including, but not limited to, racial subjugation in the colonial context. What kind of narrative today can address it? If critical and post-colonial scholars cannot take their wisdom from the past, but must look into the future, this future should provide an alternative narrative to the New Right. The alternative narrative should develop a new sense of social purpose on a post-national basis. The climate crisis today, while a crisis, offers an opportunity for this renewal of post-national sense of purpose along Carrian lines. Carr, on one hand, observed the opportunity that the war offered in terms of providing a sense of purpose and meaning, as well as full employment. While, on the other hand,

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Carr argued that the war revealed that society can invest in new social of purpose beyond the profit motive. Bruno Macaes recently presented a similar line of argument in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, At the height of the lockdowns, roughly one-fourth to one-third of our economies were put on pause. There is no doubt that many things will have to change moving forward: A recent study estimates that 42 percent of the recent pandemic-induced layoffs will result in permanent job loss … If whole economies can be reprogrammed to eliminate the risk of a viral infection, then it must be possible to do the same for the sake of other, equally desirable social purposes. When the virus arrived, the same authorities who had always claimed nothing could be done about homelessness quickly found the resources to house the indigent. (Macaes, 2020, 7; emphasis added)

Macaes’ argument may well be extended to the climate crisis, which creates a sense of urgency and social purpose that offers an opportunity to imagine society in new ways. Carr’s approach to the climate crisis would differ from the multilateralism of COP26, in that Carr would have rejected the latter’s top-down institutionalism as well as association with the (neo) liberal status quo. Akin to Carr, critical and post-colonial IR scholars today should reject such top-down institutionalism, particularly as such institutionalism operates under the umbrella of the neo-liberal status quo. Instead, the climate crisis offers an opportunity to present an alternative narrative for society—a narrative that directs the individual’s sense of purpose towards new, post-national and post-neoliberal, ends. But if top-down institutionalism is rejected, how would this change be brought about? It is here that the argument proposed so far—that is, to see in the present climate crisis an opportunity to create a new sense of purpose for society beyond the profit motive—would remain idealistic so long as it is detached from the reality of power, and in particular the power of the nation state. In his 2005 E. H. Carr memorial lecture, Mearsheimer argued that Carr ‘would be appalled by the almost complete absence of realists and the near total dominance of idealists in the contemporary British academy’ (Mearsheimer, 2005, 140). While this statement remains correct in 2022, the idealism of IR scholars is not due to their neglect of neo-realist theory, which Carr himself would have deemed sterile. Rather, the idealism lies in the inability to take control of power, particularly the power of the nation state, to alter the neo-liberal framework on which the status quo operates. While critical theorists had

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a great impact on politics in recent years,1 they failed to alter this framework. This is the case because the reality of power, as far as the state and neo-liberalism are concerned, remains unchanging. None illustrates the paradox caused by this reality better than the university itself, which (in the UK at least) is dependent on the nation state for funding and operates on neo-liberal principles. As one critic recently put it, Critical scholars have keenly analysed how our disciplinary practices reproduce coloniality, Eurocentrism, and neoliberal imperialism, but have paid considerably less attention to how the universities in which we work – and which constitute our discipline’s conditions of possibility – were explicitly created to reproduce colonial, Eurocentric, and capitalist social relations. (Kamola, 2020, 5–6)

The challenge that critical theorists face today is to maintain a distance— both ideational and material—from the political elites within the nation state to envisage alternative post-national and post-neo-liberal narratives to the status quo. These narratives, on one hand, need to provide a psychological substitute to nationalism by providing a new sense of meaning in tackling transnational problems, such as global pandemics and the climate crisis. On the other hand, they need to amass power, particularly power over opinion, to challenge the totality of the social order dominated by the nation state (Pahnke, 2021, 189). Unless such an alternative exists and amasses the power, the conception of change will remain within a framework that would identify critical IR theory with the ‘establishment’. So long as the latter remains the case, critical and postcolonial IR theory today, as in the times of Adorno and Horkheimer, will remain unarmed against reactionary forces and the emerging nationalism that would feed the future of great power politics.

Note 1. As Jahn summarises some of the contributions: ‘Critical theories have played an important role in shifting public perception in a variety of issue areas thus empowering social movements. Marxist and postcolonial studies, for instance, widely challenged the hegemonic discourse on globalization thus contributing to the anti-globalization movement, to protests against neoliberal economic and development policies (Krishna, 2000: 155–156), to climate change negotiations (Saran, 2015) as well as informing refugee and migration policies (Bilgic, 2018)’ (Jahn, 2021, 8).

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Index

A Adorno, Theodor, 171 African Union, 125 Arendt, Hannah, 34, 105 Atlantic Charter, 118 B Bentham, Jeremy, 81 Biden, Joseph, 126, 139 Bismarck, Otto Von, 58 Boer War, 23 Bolshevik Revolution, 68 Bretton Woods, 39, 40, 82, 108, 109, 118, 147 C Carr, E.H., 3, 7–14, 19, 34, 42, 43, 49, 50, 57–64, 71, 72, 77–83, 86, 97–99, 105–108, 113–115, 123–125, 127, 133, 161–165 on Bakunin, 84 on Dostoyevsky, 83

on imperialism and race, 3, 4, 9, 10, 19, 20, 22, 35–40 on Mitrany and functionalism, 107, 110–112 on nationalism, 141 on Russian Exiles, 84 on world government, 109 relevance today, 6, 7, 9, 135–142, 144, 146–154, 165–170 Césaire, Aimé, 2–6, 10, 12, 13, 43, 49, 50, 55, 56, 64, 69–72, 77–79, 88, 89, 105–107, 123, 125–127, 161–164 on Departmentalisation, 121, 122 on Nazism, 87 Chicago School, 108 Covid-19, 170

D De Gaule, Charles, 115 Du Bois, W.E.B., 2–6, 10, 12, 13, 43, 49, 50, 64, 67, 71, 77–79,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 H. L Karkour, E. H. Carr: Imperialism, War and Lessons for Post-Colonial IR, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99360-3

191

192

INDEX

97–99, 105, 123–125, 127, 161–164 on American Civil War, 52, 53, 56, 67 on double consciousness, 106, 107 on Pan-African socialism, 118, 119 on White historiography, 94–97 on World War One, 51, 52

F Fanon, Frantz, 2–6, 10–13, 43, 49, 50, 64–67, 71, 72, 77, 78, 97–99, 105–107, 123–125, 127, 161–164 contemporary application to Syria, 143 on African Unity, 114–117 on Algerian independence, 53, 66 on Cold War, 54, 56, 69 on colonial psychiatry, 90–93 on Hegelian dialectic, 64 Frederick the Great, 23, 35 Freedman, Milton, 108 French Revolution, 96

G Gramsci, Antonio, 167

H Hayek, Frederick, 108 Hitler, Adolph, 87 Hobbesian, 21 Hobson, J.A., 4, 49, 62, 69, 162 Hobson, John, 5, 8, 11, 26–28, 34, 78–80, 82, 83, 85, 125 Horkheimer, Max, 171

J Jim Crow, 96, 97

K Kissinger, Henry, 133 L Lassalle, 58 League of Nations, 82 Lenin, Vladimir, 4, 49, 62, 68, 162 Le Pen, Marine, 126 Lincoln, Abraham, 97 Louis XIV, 23 M Mannheim, Karl, 4, 77, 99, 163 Marx, 56–58, 60–62, 64, 67, 72, 80 Marxism, 10, 11, 19, 22–24, 49, 50, 56–58, 61, 62, 64, 65, 69–72, 162 Mearsheimer, John, 25, 27, 28, 40, 41, 59, 60, 84, 133, 148–150, 170 Mills, Charles, 21 Mishra, Pankaj, 137 Morgenthau, Hans, 2, 10, 59, 133, 169 on ethics, 23–25, 34, 42, 43 on imperialism and race, 3, 10, 19–23, 28, 29, 31–34, 40 Moyn, Samuel, 136, 137 N Napoleon, 23, 35 Nasserite Arab Nationalism, 139 National Socialism, 166 New Right, 167–169 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 3, 10, 19, 40, 41, 133, 169 on ethics, 24 on imperialism and race, 10, 19–24, 29–33 on nationalism, 142 Nkrumah, Kwame, 119

INDEX

193

P Padmore, George, 118

U UNESCO, 39, 114, 135

S Said, Edward, 138 Sartre, Jean Paul, 67

W Waltz, Kenneth, 22, 26, 27, 84, 133 Wight, Martin, 21 Wilson, Woodrow, 52

T Truman, Harry, 55 Trump, Donald, 143, 167

X Xi Jinping, 145