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The global transformation, multiple early modernities, and international systems change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2016

Andrew Phillips
Andrew Phillips*
Affiliation:
School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
*
E-mail: andrew.phillips@uq.edu.au
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Abstract

This article critically engages the Global Transformation thesis through the lens of multiple early modernities. The 19th century undeniably saw a profound shift in the global mode of power, driven by industrialization, rational state-building, and the rise of ideologies of progress. But this triad impacted on regions that had already been reconfigured by an early modern Eurasian Transformation, centered on an ‘industrious revolution’, absolutist state-building, and the spread of ‘civilizing processes’. This Eurasian Transformation yielded distinct early modernities and regional orders, which fundamentally conditioned the nature, extent, impact, and legacy of later Western expansion. Acknowledging the diversity of these early modern orders enhances our understanding of the variance in patterns of order reconfiguration that attended the Global Transformation. Equally, it strengthens the case for reconceptualizing international systems change as encompassing reconfiguration as much as revolutionary transformation. This cautions against thinking of ‘great transformations’ in world politics as constituting radically discontinuous breaks with the past.

Type
Symposium: Theory, History, and the Global Transformation
Information
International Theory , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 481 - 491
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

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