"Rationalist Approaches to Empire: Theoretical Contributions and Limits"

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1 Conference "Rationalist Approaches to Empire: Theoretical Contributions and Limits" Friday, February 10, 2006 Venue: Kellogg Center, International Affairs Building, Room 1501 Directions: Organizer: Alexander Cooley, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Barnard College Co-organizer: Jack Snyder, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations, Political Science Department and Acting Director, Harriman Institute This two-session conference - hosted by Columbia University's Harriman Institute will bring a group of recognized scholars and critics from various social science disciplines to present their work on rationalism and the study of empire, imperialism and international hierarchy. In the morning session, Alexander Cooley (Barnard College and Harriman Institute member) will present the main argument from his new book Logics of Hierarchy (Cornell U. Press, 2005) that forms of hierarchical organization are more important for determining imperial and post-imperial political outcomes than prevailing ideologies and/or identities. In the afternoon session, Michael Hechter (Global Studies, Arizona State), David Lake (Political Science, UCSD) and Daniel Nexon (Government, Georgetown) will present their current theoretical work. Joining the panelists at both sessions will be discussants Jane Burbank (History, NYU), Fred Cooper (History, NYU), and Alexander Motyl (Political Science, Rutgers). Among the issues that the participants will consider are: Can rationalist paradigms and incentive-based theories be fruitfully applied to empires that span different cultures, geographical settings and historical eras? What are the comparative strengths of rationalist versus identity-based understandings of imperial legacies and post-imperial institutions? And how far can concepts formulated in one discipline travel across other disciplines? Both panels will allow time for comments and questions from the audience. Participants include Jane Burbank, Alexander Cooley, Fred Cooper, Michael Hechter, David Lake, Alexander Motyl, Daniel Nexon, and Jack Snyder.

2 PROGRAM Friday, 10 February 9:30 Coffee and Breakfast 10:15-12:00 Chair: Jack Snyder Roundtable Discussion Do Organizational Hierarchies Trump Political Ideologies? Reflections on Cooley s Logics of Hierarchy Alexander Cooley, Political Science, Barnard College "Logics of Hierarchy" David Lake (UC San Diego), Michael Hechter (Arizona State U), Respondents: Daniel Nexon (Ohio State U), Jane Burbank (New York U) 12:00-1:30 LUNCH BREAK 2:00-4:00 Chair: Jack Snyder Panel Presentations Positive Approaches to International Hierarchy: Strengths and Limits David Lake, Political Science, UC San Diego Hierarchy in International Relations: Authority, Sovereignty, and the New Structure of World Politics Michael Hechter, School for Global Studies, Arizona State U "Alien Rule and Its Discontents" Daniel Nexon, The Mershon Center, Ohio State U "Empires and International Relations Theory" Respondents: Frederick Cooper (New York U), Alexander Motyl (Rutgers U) About the Participants Jane Burbank is Professor of History and Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University. She is the author of Intelligentsia and Revolution: Russian Views of Bolshevism, and Russian Peasants Go to Court: Legal Culture in the Countryside, , and the co-editor of Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire. With Mark von Hagen, she is editing Russian Empire: Space, People, Power , forthcoming this year. Her current projects address the intersections of empire, law and political practices in Russian and world history.

3 Alexander Cooley is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University and in was a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall of the United States. Cooley s research applies theories of organization to various international political actors and processes, with a particular interest in the international politics of hierarchy, the former Soviet space, and the comparative study of empires. He is author of Logics of Hierarchy: the Organization of Empires, States and Military Occupations (Cornell, 2005) and several articles in academic journals including International Security and Review of International Political Economy. Cooley is currently working on two new book projects: the first examines changes in politics of United States overseas military bases in East Asia, Southern Europe, and the former- Communist states. The second, in collaboration with Hendrik Spruyt (Northwestern), identifies different modes of contracting in international relations and assesses their impact on state sovereignty. Frederick Cooper is Professor of History at New York University. He was previously a Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on 20th century African history, labor history, the history and anthropology of colonialism, decolonization, and the place of empires in world history. Current projects include archival research on "imperial" citizenship in French Africa between 1945 and 1960 and, with Jane Burbank, a book on empires in world history. He is the author of Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (1977), From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, (1980), On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombasa (1987), Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (1996), Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (2002), and Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (2005). He is also co-author with Thomas Holt and Rebecca Scott of Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Post-Emancipation Societies (2000), and co-editor with Ann Stoler of Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (1997) and with Randall Packard of International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays in the History and Politics of Knowledge (1997). Michael Hechter is Foundation Professor of Global Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of numerous books, including Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, (1975; 1999); Principles of Group Solidarity (1987); and Containing Nationalism (2000). He is editor/co-editor of The Microfoundations of Macrosociology (1983); Social Institutions: Their Emergence, Maintenance and Effects (1990); The Origin of Values (1993); Social Norms (2001, 2005); and Theories of Social Order (2003). His articles have appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Rationality and Society, Sociological Theory, European Sociological Review, and many other journals. His research revolves around three distinct themes. The first concerns the causes of nationalism and group solidarity. This work attempts to account for the political salience of cultural distinctions, especially in advanced societies. A second theme advances rational choice explanations of macrosocial outcomes. A third concerns the role and measurement of individual values in social theory. He is presently working on a book on

4 the causes and consequences of alien rule. David Lake is Professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego. He has published widely in international relations theory, international political economy, and American foreign policy. In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of Power, Protection, and Free Trade: International Sources of U.S. Commercial Strategy, (1988) and Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy in its Century (1999). He is editor of The International Political Economy of Trade (1993) and co-editor of The State and American Foreign Economic Policy (1988); International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth (1987, 1991, 1997, 2000); Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (1997); The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation (1998); Strategic Choice and International Relations (1999); and Governance in a Global Economy: Political Authority in Transition (2003). He is currently working on the implications of state rent-seeking and democracy; states and hierarchies in international politics; and a co-edited project on delegation to international organizations. He recently stepped down as co-editor of the journal International Organization. Alexander Motyl is Professor of Political Science, Deputy Director of the Center for Global Change and Governance, and Co-Director of the Central and East European Studies Program. He is the author of Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (Columbia University Press, 2001). His Is Everything Empire? Is Empire Everything? is forthcoming in 2006 in Comparative Politics. Daniel Nexon is post-doctoral fellow in political science at the Mershon Center at Ohio State University. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He specializes in internationalrelations theory and comparative-historical international relations. During the academic year, he was a MacArthur Consortium Fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. His most recent publications are "Zeitgeist? Neo-idealism and International Political Change," Review of International Political Economy, 12, 4 (2006) and Paradigm Lost? Structural Realism and Structural Functionalism, European Journal of International Relations, 10, 1 (2005) [with Stacie E. Goddard]. He is currently working on issues involving hierarchy and international politics, empires and imperialism, and relationship between dynastic norms and the balance of power in early modern European politics. Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the political science department and Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His books include Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (MIT Press, 2005); From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (Norton Books, 2000); Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition. (Cornell University Press, 1991); The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Cornell, 1984); and Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, co-editor with Barbara Walter (Columbia, 1999). His articles on such topics as democratization and war ("Prone to Violence: The Paradox of the Democratic Peace,"

5 The National Interest, winter 2005/2006), imperial overstretch, war crimes tribunals versus amnesties, international relations theory after September 11, and anarchy and culture have appeared in The American Political Science Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, and World Politics. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Snyder is Acting Director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia and a member of the editorial boards of the American Political Science Review and International Security. He edits the W. W. Norton book series on World Politics.

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