The Social Origins of 18th Century British Grand Strategy: a Historical Sociology of the Peace of Utrecht

Abstract

This chapter provides a new interpretation of early 18th Century British grand strategy formation, its institutionalisation in the Peace of Utrecht (1713), and its impact on post-conflict 18th C international order from within the discipline of International Relations. The historical argument is that ‘Utrecht’ codified a new and unique type of British grand strategy – the dual ‘blue-water policy’ – for the geopolitical management of European international relations and beyond. It cleaved into a defensive policy towards the Continent, involving the ‘rationalisation’, i.e. de-ideologisation, de-confessionalisation, and de-territorialisation of Britain’s continental objectives, plus the invention and active manipulation of power balancing towards continental rivals; and an offensive policy overseas, expressed in the unilateral pursuit of oceanic mercantile primacy. This strategy was grounded in an altered institutional foreign policy context – the post-1688 ‘revolution in foreign affairs’ – subsequent to constitutional changes in the British polity during the 17th C Revolution. The British peace plan, enacted at Utrecht, constitutes a sui generis phenomenon that cannot be exhaustively captured with prevailing IR concepts, including hegemony, formal or informal imperialism, automatic power-balancing, international society, collective security, or hierarchy. Theoretically, the chapter adopts a historicist method to re-craft attempts within critical International Historical Sociology in the direction of a Historical Sociology of International Politics to escape the structuralist-functionalist trap.