Civilization, Diplomacy and the Enlargement of International Society

Abstract

This chapter explains how civilized standards were globalized as a result of the mimetic behaviour of non-European regimes. Top- down civilizing offensives in China, Japan, Siam, Russia and the Ottoman empire/Turkish Republic are examined to explore dominant patterns of change in the global order. Modernizing regimes set out to reform state structures in the light of European conceptions of civilization. They altered traditional diplomatic mores in order to comply with European conventions. Some engaged in mimetic colonialism to demonstrate their civilized credentials and to press claims to be admitted into international society as equal sovereign powers. The overall pattern of change illustrates Elias’s thesis about how established groups seek to persuade outsiders to internalise feelings of inferiority and to modify behaviour accordingly. As Elias recognised, European notions of civilization spread outward to non-European elites but new social arrangements appeared in the process. The chapter discusses the development of novel combinations of nation and civilization that laid the foundation for challenges to the European global order which accelerated from the middle of the twentieth century.