Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“Westernizations” from Peter I to Meiji: war, political competition, and institutional change

  • Published:
Theory and Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Radical “Westernizing” transformations in extra-European countries, from Peter I’s Russia to Meiji Japan, are traditionally presented as a response to pressures from the more militarily and technologically advanced European powers. This corresponds to the general tendency to view war as the driving force behind early modern state-building. However, the question remains: how exactly did such transformations happen, and what explains their timing? Why did some countries, such as Russia, embark on radical institutional restructuring that threatened large sections of the traditional military classes in the absence of any obvious existential threat, while in others even clear and immediate dangers failed to ignite a full-scale “Westernization”? This article seeks to complicate the “bellicist” narrative of “Westernizing” transformations and to generalize about the role of elite conflict in propelling “self-strengthening” reforms. It argues that “Westernizations” in extra-European polities were enabled by breakdown of domestic political balance and driven by “challengers” emerging in the course of these conflicts, as they strove to maximize their power. Factional struggles accompanying “Westernizations” are interpreted here not as a conservative reaction against reforms, but as a process that preceded and enabled institutional restructuring.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Note that the numerous works that apply Tilly’s approach to a variety of regions from Europe to Asia, Africa, and Latin America, including today’s developing world, qualify the “war made the state” thesis and point to cases when war did not result in centralization and state-building. They explain this diversity of outcomes, however, either by offering a more nuanced definition of “external pressure,” or, more often, by referring to a variety of structural conditions, from constitutional arrangements to ethnic homogeneity (e.g., Downing 1992; Ertman 1997; Centeno 2002; Hui 2005; Thies 2004; Thies 2005; Taylor and Botea 2008; and others). Even though some of these authors do turn their attention to the role of internal politics in this process, they tend to take cleavages within the elites as de facto exogenous.

  2. The difference between my approach here and the one offered by Jack A. Goldstone in his magisterial study of state breakdown in the early modern world, though, is that he views this competition as produced by tensions created by long-term demographic pressures resulting in scarcity of “elite jobs,” while I focus on the specifics of the political process that allowed these splits to play out. Obviously, these two approaches might, in fact, be complementary.

References

  • Ágoston, G. (2005). Guns for the Sultan: Military power and the weapons industry in the Ottoman empire. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ágoston, G. (2011). Military transformation in the Ottoman Empire and Russia, 1500–1800. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 12(2), 281–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ágoston, G. (2014). Firearms and military adaptation: the Ottomans and the European military revolution, 1450–1800. Journal of World History, 25(1), 85–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aksan, V. H. (2007). Ottoman wars, 1700–1870: An empire besieged. Harlow: Pearson PLC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amanat, A. (1997). Pivot of the Uuniverse: Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian monarchy, 1831–1896. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrade, T. (2016). The gunpowder age: China, military innovation, and the rise of the west in world history. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakhash, S. (1978). Iran, monarchy, bureaucracy and reform under the Qajars, 1858–1896. London: Ithaca Press for the Middle East Centre, St. Antony's College.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beasley, W. G. (1989). The foreign threat and the opening of the ports. In M. B. Jansen (Ed.), The Cambridge history of Japan, The Nineteenth Century (Vol. 5, pp. 259–307). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Black, C. E. (1966). The dynamics of modernization: A Study in comparative history. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boltunova, E. M. (2011). Gvardiia Petra Velikogo kak voennaia korporatsiia. Мoscow: Izdatel’stvo RGGU.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow, J. D. (2003). The logic of political survival. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bushkovitch, P. (2001). Peter the great: The struggle for power, 1671–1725. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Centeno, M. A. (2002). Blood and debt: War and the nation-state in Latin America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chase, K. W. (2003). Firearms: A global history to 1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, M. (2014). The political process of the revolutionary samurai: a comparative reconsideration of Japan’s Meiji restoration. Theory and Society, 43(2), 139–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cronin, S. (2008a). Importing modernity: European military missions to Qajar Iran. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50(1), 197–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cronin, S. (2008b). Building a new army military reform in Qajar Iran. In R. Farmanfarmaian (Ed.), War and peace in Qajar Persia: Implications past and present (pp. 47–87). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Downing, B. M. (1992). The military revolution and political change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, J. P. (2011). Clothes to kill for: uniforms and politics in Ottoman armies. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 2(1), 85–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ertman, T. (1997). Birth of the Leviathan: Building states and regimes in medieval and early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ertman, T. (2005). State formation and state building in Europe. In T. Janoski, R. R. Alford, A. M. Hicks, & M. A. Schwartz (Eds.), Handbook of political sociology (pp. 367–383). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fahmy, K. (2009). Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman governor to ruler of Egypt. Oxford: Oneworld.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frost, R. I. (2000). The northern wars: War, state and society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glete, J. (2010). Warfare, entrepreneurship, and the fiscal military state. In F. Tallett & D. J. B. Trim (Eds.), European warfare (pp. 1350–1750). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, E. O. (2006). Cultural foundations of military diffusion. Review of International Studies, 32(1), 69–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldstone, J. A. (1991). Revolution and rebellion in the early modern world. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, A. (2003). A modern history of Japan: From Tokugawa times to the present. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorski, P. S. (2011). The protestant ethic revisited. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grant, J. (1999). Rethinking the Ottoman ‘decline’: military technology diffusion in the Ottoman empire, fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Journal of World History, 10(1), 179–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunn, S., Grummitt, D., & Cools, H. (2008). War and the state in early modern Europe: widening the debate. War in History, 15(4), 371–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halsey, S. R. (2015). Quest for power: European imperialism and the making of Chinese statecraft. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hambly, G. (1991). Iran during the reign of Fath Ali Shah and Muhammad Shah. In P. Avery, G. R. G. Hambly, & C. Melville (Eds.), The Cambridge history of Iran, From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic (Vol. 7, pp. 144–173). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Herd, G. (2004). Rebellion and reformation in the Muscovite military. In J. Kotiliane & M. Poe (Eds.), Modernizing muscovy: Reform and social change in seventeenth century Russia. RoutledgeCurzon: London and New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hillsborough, R. (2014). Samurai revolution: The dawn of modern Japan seen through the eyes of the Shogun's last samurai. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, P. T. (2015). Why did Europe conquer the world? Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Huber, T. M. (1981). The revolutionary origins of modern Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, L. A. J. (1984). Russia and the west: The life of a seventeenth-century westernizer prince Vasily Vasil'evich Golitsyn (1643–1714). Newtonville: Oriental Research Partners.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hui, V. T.-b. (2005). War and state formation in ancient China and early modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jansen, M. B. (2000). The making of modern Japan. Cambridge: Belknap Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kadercan, B. (2013). Making sense of survival: refining the treatment of state preferences in neorealist theory. Review of International Studies, 39(4), 1015–1037.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kadercan, B. (2014). Strong armies, slow adaptation: civil-military relations and the diffusion of military power. International Security, 38(3), 117–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karaman, K. K., & Pamuk, Ş. (2013). Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between warfare, economic structure, and political regime. American Political Science Review, 107(3), 603–626.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keddie, N., & Amanat, M. (1991). Iran under the later Qajars, 1848-1922. In P. Avery, G. R. G. Hambly, & C. Melville (Eds.), The Cambridge history of Iran, From Nadir Shah to the Islamic republic (Vol. 7, pp. 174–212). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, P. (1987). The rise and fall of the great powers: Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuo, T.-y., & Liu, K.-C. (1980). Self-strengthening: the pursuit of Western technology. In J. K. Fairbank (Ed.), The Cambridge history of China, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, part 1 (Vol. 11, pp. 491–542). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurbatov, O. A. (2014). Voennaia istoria russkoi Smuty nachala XVII veka. Moscow: Kwadriga.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lachmann, R. (2000). Capitalists in spite of themselves: Elite conflict and economic transitions in early modern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, A. (1982). Military reform and the problem of centralization in the Ottoman empire in the eighteenth century. Middle Eastern Studies, 18(3), 227–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, K.-C., & Smith, R. J. (1980). The military challenge: the North-West and the coast. In J. K. Fairbank & K. Liu (Eds.), The Cambridge history of China, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, part 2 (Vol. 11, pp. 202–273). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lorge, P. A. (2008). The Asian military revolution: From gunpowder to the bomb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lynn, J. A. (2003). Battle: A history of combat and culture. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malov, A. V. (2006). Moskovskie vybornye polki soldatskogo stroia v nachal'nyi period svoei istorii. 1656–1671 gg. Moscow: Drevlehranilishche.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, V. (1996). An evaluation of reform and development of the state in the early Qajar period. Die Welt des Islams, 36(1), 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morris-Suzuki, T. (1994). The technological transformation of Japan: From the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nashat, G. (1982). The origins of modern reform in Iran, 1870–80. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, G. (1988). The military revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, M. C. (2004). The military revolution in Russia, 1550-1682. Journal of Military History, 68(1), 9–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Penskoi, V. V. (2003). Popytka voennykh reform v Rossii nachala XVII veka. Voprosy istorii, 11, 127–138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poe, M. (1996). The consequences of the military revolution in Muscovy: a comparative perspective. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 38(4), 603–618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Powell, R. L. (1955). The rise of Chinese military power, 1895–1912. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ralston, D. (1990). Importing the European army: The introduction of European military techniques and institutions into the extra-European world, 1600–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riasanovsky, N. V. (1985). The image of Peter the great in Russian history and thought. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, M. (1967). The military revolution, 1560–1660. In Essays in Swedish History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

  • Rogers, C. J. (Ed.). (1995). The military revolution debate: readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe. Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roy, K. (2005). Military synthesis in South Asia: armies, warfare, and Indian society, c. 1740-1849. The Journal of Military History, 69(3), 651–690.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sayyid-Marsot, A. L. (1984). Egypt in the reign of Muhammad Ali. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sedov, P. V. (2006). Zakat Moskovskogo tsarstva, tsarskii dvor kontsa XVII veka. SPb.: Peterburgskii institut istorii “Dmitrii Bulanin.”

  • Shamin, S. M. (2012). Formirovanie vneshnepoliticheskikh predstavlenii Petra I i vypiski iz kurantov 1690-1693 godov. Rossiiskaia istoriia, 4(2012), 111–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, S. J., & Shaw, E. K. (1976). History of the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey. Empire of the Gazis: The rise and decline of the Ottoman empire 1280–1808 (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, S. J., & Shaw, E. K. (1977). History of the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey. Reform, revolution, and republic: The rise of modern Turkey 1808–1975 (Vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spruyt, H. (2017). War and state formation amending the Bellicist theory of state making. In L. B. Kaspersen & J. Strandsbjerg (Eds.), Does war make states? Investigations of Charles Tilly’s historical sociology (pp. 73–97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, C. B. (2007). Russia’s wars of emergence 1460–1730. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swale, A. (2009). The Meiji restoration: Monarchism, mass communication and conservative revolution. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Taniguchi, S. (2003). Military evolution or revolution? State formation and the early modern samurai. In R. Deist & H. Kleinschmidt (Eds.), Knight and samurai: Actions and images of elite warriors in Europe and East Asia (pp. 169–195). Kümmerle: Göppingen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, B. D., & Botea, R. (2008). Tilly Tally: war-making and state-making in the contemporary third world. International Studies Review, 10(1), 27–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tezcan, B. (2010). The second Ottoman empire: Political and social transformation in the early modern world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thies, C. G. (2004). State building, interstate and intrastate rivalry: a study of post-colonial developing country extractive efforts, 1975–2000. International Studies Quarterly, 48(1), 53–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thies, C. G. (2005). War, rivalry, and state building in Latin America. American Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 451–465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, I. A. A. (1995). ‘Money, money, and yet more money!’ Finance, the fiscal-state, and the military revolution: Spain 1500–1650. In C. J. Rogers (Ed.), The military revolution debate: readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe (pp. 272–298). Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990–1990. Cambridge: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trimberger, E. K. (1978). Revolution from above: Military bureaucrats and development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuck, C. (2008). All innovation leads to hellfire’: military reform and the Ottoman empire in the eighteenth century. Journal of Strategic Studies, 31(3), 467–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uyar, M., & Erickson, E. J. (2009). A military history of the Ottomans: From Osman to Atatürk. Westport: Praeger Security International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vu, T. (2010a). Studying the state through state formation. World Politics, 62(1), 148–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vu, T. (2010b). Paths to development in Asia South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Walcher, H. A. (2008). In the shadow of the King: Zill al-Sultan and Isfahan under the Qajars. London: I. B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (1981). General economic history. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yaycioglu, A. (2016). Partners of the empire: The crisis of the Ottoman order in the age of revolutions. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zitser, E. A. (2004). The transfigured Kingdom: Sacred parody and charismatic authority at the court of Peter the great. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Work on this article was funded by the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. I wish to thank Vladimir Gel’man, Sergei Guriev, Andrei Zorin, Samuel A. Greene, Daniel Treisman, Tracy K. Dennison, Aleksandr Kamenskii, Yuval Weber, Andrei Yakovlev, Kirill Rogov, and Jack A. Goldstone, as well as the participants of seminars at the European University in St Petersburg, King’s College London, HSE (Moscow), Urals Federal University, Duke University, and RANEPA (Moscow) for their perceptive criticism and comments on earlier versions of this article. Natalia Nemtseva and Dandan Chen provided valuable technical support, and Thomas Lloyd edited the final version.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of History, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Staraya Basmannaya 21/4, building 3, 105066, Moscow, Russia

    Igor Fedyukin

Authors
  1. Igor Fedyukin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Igor Fedyukin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fedyukin, I. “Westernizations” from Peter I to Meiji: war, political competition, and institutional change. Theor Soc 47, 207–231 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-018-9313-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-018-9313-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation