Recognition and Rapprochement

This chapter explores how the United States’ growing power and expansionist foreign policy came to be viewed as legitimate, thereby constructing its peaceful rise to world power status. It argues that the acts of recognition that emerged during the Venezuelan Crisis expressed a normative acceptance of American power and were routinized so as to structure Anglo-American relations at the turn of the twentieth century. Specifically, during the Spanish–American War British leaders—drawing from the recognitive speech acts that defined the Anglo-Saxon collective identity—restrained the European great powers from becoming involved in the war, enabling the United States to establish a sphere of influence in the Caribbean and an imperial presence in the Pacific. Likewise, the negotiations between Britain and the United States over the Isthmian Canal highlight the importance of mutual recognition in sustaining a peaceful power transition. The chapter shows how acts of recognition contributed to the social construction of the United States as a legitimate power, despite its aggressive and expansionist foreign policy.