Abstract
It would take us far beyond the scope of this book to present a comprehensive survey of the theories of imperialism,1 and it is not the purpose of this chapter to investigate these theories for their own sake. However, much discussion of foreign policy is too narrow in scope because it focuses unduly on the policy-making process itself.2 While this provides information of value, it also identifies the study of foreign policy too much with the practice of it. The benefits of detail then become outweighed by the costs of lacking a broad analytical framework which can increase our understanding of the forces impinging on policymakers, forces of which they are often unaware. The theory of imperialism offers such a framework, and its application to a particular period and country can, equally, enhance its validity and help rescue it from the arid abstraction to which it is prone. Our primary focus is on the role of America in the modern world and not just its foreign policy in a conventional sense, and we will achieve a deeper understanding of that role if we begin by drawing out those aspects of the theory of imperialism that are relevant to it.
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Notes
There are a number of such surveys available, including, T. Kemp, Theories of Imperialism, London: Dobson, 1967;
D.K. Fieldhouse, The Theory of Capitalist Imperialism, London: Longman, 1967;
A. Hodgart, The Economics of European Imperialism, London: Edward Arnold, 1977;
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M. Wolfe (ed.), The Economic Causes of Imperialism, London: Wiley, 1972;
M. Barratt-Brown, The Economics of Imperialism, London: Penguin, 1974;
A. Thornton, Doctrines of Imperalism, London: Wiley, 1965;
N. Etherington, Theories of Imperalism: War, conquest and capital, London: Croom Helm, 1984.
C.F. Hermann, C.W. Kegley, Jr and J.N. Rosenau (eds.), New Directions in the Study of Foreign Policy, Boston, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1987.
A. Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976, book IV.
D. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, London: Dent, 1965.
M. Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1982;
F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, London: Routledge, 1944.
P.A. Samuelson and W.D. Nordhaus, Economics, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989, 13th edn, pp. 901–5.
R.G. Lipsey, An Introduction to Positive Economics, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989, 7th edn, p. 380.
J.A. Schumpeter and P. Sweezy (eds.), Imperialism and Social Classes, Oxford: Blackwell, 1951;
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The modern classic statement of the realist position is H.J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The struggle for power and peace, New York: Knopf, 1985,
although the tradition is generally traced back to Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, New York: Galaxy Books, 1960.
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An alternative formulation that is particularly relevant to the United States is ‘hegemonic stability’. See M.C. Webb and S.D. Krasner, ‘Hegemonic stability theory: an empirical assessment’, Review of International Studies, 15, 2, April 1989, pp. 183–98.
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T. Skocpol, ‘Political responses to capitalist crisis: neo-Marxist theories of the state and the case of the New Deal’, Politics and Society, 10, 1980, pp. 155–210.
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On Marxism and functionalism, see G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A defence, London: Oxford University Press, 1979;
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J. Elster, Making Sense of Marx, London: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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© 1991 Stephen Burman
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Burman, S. (1991). Theories of Imperialism. In: America in the Modern World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-60468-5_1
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