Research Projects

War, State and Community brings together researchers on the influence of warfare on the development of the state, nations, communities and international politics. The three research projects listed below combine the expertise of individuals, and focus on how the study of these processes illuminates aspects of the contemporary world.

1. WAR AND THE STATE

One strand of research deals with the relationship between war and the state. This was chosen for number of reasons. First, it provides a point at which the particular research interests of the members converge. In this way the knowledge of individuals, in all cases the product of years of intensive research, can be pooled so that more general questions regarding the process of state development can be addressed.

The second reason for this is that, in the last three decades, a rich body of interpretative literature has grown up around this theme of state development and its relationship to war, notably Michael Mann's The Sources of Social Power, and Charles Tilly's Trans Coercion, Capital and European states. In the WSC group, members seek to contribute to the debate generated by scholars such as Mann on the nature of the modern state, a political concept that has now come to be seen generally as the only legitimate form of political organization for people. We therefore analyse the history of particular modern European and non-European nation states at a theoretical level and at an empirical level, considering the international stresses placed on state sovereignty as well as internal resistance to the imposition of forms of order.

Lastly, European ideas of state and nation and the practices of politics and administration were exported to the rest of the world as European imperialism developed during this period. Despite decolonisation imperialism in the form of interventions across the world appears to be a phenomenon of the 21st century, and is not only economic in nature, but frequently related to war and the ability to project military power. Conversely, the development of empire helped to mould state formation in Europe, Japan, China and America, and the project also intends to explore this area.

2. WAR AND COMMUNITY

Wars affect communities in a variety of ways. They may be dislocated or even exterminated by war, their sons and daughters may be called upon to fight in wars and may never return. Communities may fracture due to the stresses placed on them by war and efforts by states to make war. Comparative histories of communities and war is an area that has been identified as under-researched and the members of the WSC Research Group all have particular country or regional interests that inform their research in this area.

3. WAR AND PEACEKEEPING IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Peacekeeping is a common feature of the modern era and the issue of how and when peacekeeping is appropriate, operates, and concludes is a partner area of research for the investigation into war and communities. This theme examines both the use of force and the threat of force in modern international politics and examines issues such as imperialism, armed and humanitarian interventions, collapsed states and the history of peacekeeping as a form of maintaining international order.

Within these three main areas there are currently four specific projects that members are working on.

A. Thucydides, Empire and America

In the American understanding of its Western past, much greater emphasis is placed on Greece than on Rome. Within that understanding Thucydides is accorded a major place, especially for the field of international relations as he is considered to be the first realist. The attraction of Thucydides for Americans is pertinent as his History can be read as an extended reflection on the fate of a democratic polity under the impact of rapid change. Much of this rapid change can be seen as a consequence of the acquisition of the Athenian empire in the wake of the Persian Wars.

This project focuses on the ways that American commentators and intellectuals have interpreted Thucydides and employed his ideas and approaches as a means of understanding America’s place in the contemporary world. The starting point is the work of Victor Davis Hanson, classicist, farmer, military historian and translator and editor of Thucydides, who writes a regular column for National Review Online.

The project also seeks to evaluate the continuing relevance of Thucydides’ History for providing an understanding of America’s place in the contemporary world. In this respect the project draws on previous interpretations of empire and imperialism and aims to position current US military action around the world within a longer tradition of empire and imperialism.

This is the first stage in the development of a project that will eventually form the basis of a national competitive grant application to be submitted in 2006. In the short term there are two anticipated outcomes: the first is an article on Victor Davis Hanson by Greg Melleuish that will be submitted to an international refereed journal. The second is Charles Hawksley’s conference paper ‘Conceptualising imperialism in the 21st century’ in the refereed proceedings of APSA 2004.

B. Anti-Americanism in Australia and Russia

The attacks of 11 September 2001 and the war in Iraq has brought to the fore a continuing and acrimonious conversation about anti-Americanism. The phenomenon itself is controversial to the extent that its very existence has often been called into question. It is not always easy to separate reasonable criticism of American foreign policy, concern about American Empire or unreasonable and intense dislike of Americans. To make a contribution to efforts at understanding the phenomenon, this study aims to compare the critiques of the American invasion of Iraq found in mainstream media in Russia and Australia with the aim of helping to establish whether a global anti-Americanism exists and what its principal characteristics might be. If it exists, where do its roots lie?

The study is timely in the sense that there is no more pressing foreign policy issue for Australia than the alliance with the United States and the implications this holds for Australia’s own security. Preliminary research suggests vast differences in the types of issues regarded as relevant in the media of Russia and Australia. For example it was widely assumed in Russia that oil was all that mattered to the United States, but the Australian discussion was more wide ranging. On the other hand, there are strong similarities, especially the perception that the United States acts as global bully.

In Australia, conservative commentators have argued that anti-Americanism is synonymous with the equally slippery notion of a self-hating liberal middle class blind to its own prejudices. Greg Melleuish has already published a paper arguing that Australian anti-Americanism reflected earlier English resentment and fears about the United States. In Russia, those accused of anti-Americanism are usually described as a liberal intelligentsia. Their views seem to represent a more general distrust of the English-speaking world that precedes the Cold War and Communism. Our preliminary hypothesis is that the roots of the phenomenon lie in perceptions about the British Empire and we wish to engage in a scholarly exploration of this issue.

There will be three initial outcomes. the first is the preparation of a conference paper concerning Russian nationalism that Stephen Brown has offered as part of a proposed WSC panel for the AHA conference in July 2005. A second is the preparation by Greg Melleuish of an article for submission in 2005 to an international refereed journal. A third outcome is the preparation for submission to an international refereed journal in 2005 of a joint article by Melleuish and Brown that directly addresses the comparison of Australian and Russian responses to American empire.

C. Rural Communities and War

There is now a substantial body of literature examining the impact of ‘modern wars’ on society, from America’s Civil War to the world wars and beyond. Most of these are written in national terms: community studies of the impact of war are rare and studies of the impact of war on rural communities are rarer still (setting aside the literature produced by local historians). And there are no comparative studies, not even within the same country and the same war.

This proposal stems from research conducted by John McQuilton on the effects of war on a specific rural community in Australia, and preliminary research conducted on the impact of the Civil War on Hamilton in New York State. The research indicated that although the communites may differ in specifics, there were some broad similarities; for example, the farmers’ objections to conscription in Hamilton would find an echo in North Eastern Victoria in 1916. Similarly, Hamilton and the North East of Victoria shared the centralising economic and political trends accelerated by war. Notions of commemoration and remembrance also shared striking similarities.

Comparative history is a difficult exercise as the discipline of history tends to be dominated by exceptionalism, a case argued by Ian Tyrell and others. Even world history manages to carefully segment itself into broadly identified cultural, temporal and geographical units. Yet, one of the accepted assumptions in military history is a universality of experience. This notion has received most attention in the combat experiences of men across the wars from 1861 (for example, Burke, Grossman and Muir) or in specific themes related to specific wars (like Greyzel on the women of France and England in World War I or King’s work on remembrance in Britain, Canada and Australia after 1914-1918). Despite these efforts comparisons of communities remain non-existent.

The purpose of this project is modest. It aims to establish the extant literature examining the impact of the American Civil War on rural communities. This will provide the basis for comparison with work already completed in Australia and establish a rough methodology that will lead to a broader international comparison of the impact of war on rural communities. The answer to the obvious question “Why rural communities rather than urban communities?” is that rural communities became a leit-motif that surfaced as a symbol in modern wars, and to a lesser extent of the integrity of national myths, right up until the late twentieth century.

This project aims to achieve a refereed article in 2005 to either the Journal of the Australian War Memorial, or War and Society or Interdisciplinary History and provide the basis for a major ARC grant application in 2006 on a comparative assessment of the affects of war on rural communities in 2006.

D. War and the State in Early Modern Iberia

This project is part of an on-going study by Lorraine White of the neglected War of Portuguese Independence 1640-1668, a war which played a significant part in the decline of Spain, Europe’s major political and military power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A study of this war fills an enormous gap: there are no modern studies of the war, and none at all in English. The only Portuguese history of the war was published at the end of the seventeenth century, and a partial French account was published in 1701; Spanish accounts of the war remain unpublished in manuscript form in archives, though a political history of the revolt of Portugal and relations between Portugal, Spain and England has recently appeared in Spanish. This project encompasses a ‘modern’ military history – one that explores warfare in terms of the Military Revolution and Revolution in Military Affairs. The investigation is also unique in that it examines the war from the perspective of both parties: the Spanish, who were attempting to re-conquer a kingdom they had annexed sixty years earlier, and the Portuguese, who were endeavouring to re-establish their independence under a new dynasty.

Closely related to the study of war and the Military Revolution is the link between war and the rise of the modern state. The war of 1640-1668 provides a valuable opportunity to test the theory of war and the rise of the state through the emergence of the independent kingdom of Portugal in the wake of its 60 year-long annexation to the Spanish crown under Habsburg rule.

Outcomes for this project include an article to Studia Historia, an international refereed journal, entitled “Strategic geography and Spain’s failure to reconquer Portugal, 1640-1668”. This article will be published in Spanish. Additions will then be made to the Spanish version and it will be submitted to a leading Anglo/American military history journal. A further paper on army, government and national identity in seventeenth century Portugal will be presented as part of the WSC research group’s Australian Historical Association conference panel on War and the State.