The uses and misuses of uneven and combined development: an anatomy of a concept

Abstract

A central concern of much contemporary Marxist scholarship in international relations (IR) is to internally relate global capitalism and the state system without reducing one of these systems to an epiphenomenon of the other. A recent attempt at this is Justin Rosenberg's reformulation of Leon Trotsky's idea of uneven and combined development (U&CD). This article examines the internal relations of ‘unevenness’ and ‘combination’ as presented by Trotsky and reworked by Rosenberg. From this anatomization of the concept, we focus on the problematic status of U&CD as a transhistorical general abstraction arising from the exchange between Callinicos and Rosenberg (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 22:1 2008, 77–112) and suggest our own possible solution. We argue that while the uneven and combined nature of historical development represents a truly transhistorical phenomenon, its distinct causal determinations, articulated and expressed through inter-societal competition, are only fully activated under the specific socio-historical conditions of generalized commodity production. These theoretical points are illuminated through three specific historical examples (the Meiji Restoration, the ‘Eastern Question’ and the origins of the two World Wars). Finally, we illustrate some of the dangers of analytical overextension found in Rosenberg's own ambiguous use of U&CD.

Notes

¹ We would like to thank Tarak Barkawi, Alex Callinicos, Neil Davidson, George Lawson, Gonzo Pozo-Martin, Justin Rosenberg, Magnus Ryner, Guido Starosta and four anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Alexander Anievas would also like to thank the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust for financial support.

² A historical materialist theorization of international relations—or indeed any critical international historical sociology—must reappropriate the concept of geopolitics from realist fetishization. Thus, as used here, ‘geopolitics’ neither denotes a state of anarchy nor necessarily implies competition between discrete political units, in which the autonomous logic of this competition dictates their strategies. Furthermore, inter-societal relations should not be reduced to geopolitics, since these include, inter alia, cultural, normative, ideological, and identity-based processes.

³ Drawing on historical and anthropological studies, Justin Rosenberg (2006, 313–319) convincingly demonstrates that this ‘law’—or, more accurately, tendency—is indeed a characteristic of all social development.

⁴ The use of the term ‘backwardness’ is in no way intended in a pejorative sense (see Knei-Paz 1978, 63).

⁵ See Callinicos's criticisms of the value analogy (Callinicos and Rosenberg 2008, 102–106). For a critique of the logical–historical method see Arthur (2002) and Bidet (2007); and, for an insightful analysis of the use of and interrelation between historical and transhistorical categories in Marx's method, see Fracchia (2004) and Sayer (1979, 78–79, 87–88, 91–103, 109–113, 144, 146–147). We would like to especially thank Alex Callinicos for pressing this point on us and Guido Starosta for his extensive comments.

⁶ Our discussion here draws on the historical works of Hall (1970), Hoston (1986) and Reischauer and Craig (1989).

⁷ See Allinson, Jamie C and Alexander Anievas ‘The uneven and combined development of the Meiji Restoration: a passive revolutionary road to capitalist modernity?’ unpublished manuscript.

⁸ Meaning those in which war was either relatively absent or primarily defensive in nature.

⁹ This danger rears its head in an article by Kamran Matin (2007), who seeks to apply the ‘theory’ of U&CD to pre-modern Iran's process of state formation. We hope to address Matin's work in a forthcoming piece.

¹⁰ See also Allinson, Jamie C and Alexander Anievas ‘The uneven and combined development of the Meiji Restoration: a passive revolutionary road to capitalist modernity?’ unpublished manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander Anievas

1 1 We would like to thank Tarak Barkawi, Alex Callinicos, Neil Davidson, George Lawson, Gonzo Pozo-Martin, Justin Rosenberg, Magnus Ryner, Guido Starosta and four anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Alexander Anievas would also like to thank the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust for financial support.