Global Studies Quarterly (2022) 2, 1–12 The Capitulations Syndrome: Why Revisionist Powers Leverage Post-Colonial Sensibilities toward Post-Imperial Projects NORA FISHER-ONAR University of San Francisco, USA This article confronts a puzzle regarding revisionist powers: How to make sense of states whose behavior combines “post- colonial” critique of Western hegemony with “post-imperial” projects at home and in near abroads? Answers to this question are often informed by realist notions of great power competition that tend to read revisionist critique of the West as either epiphenomenal or due to intrinsic enmity. This piece proposes an alternative—the “capitulations syndrome”—which is developed via the Ottoman/Turkish experience and the literature on ontological insecurity. The syndrome combines “moral injury” at subordination to the West with attempts Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 to elevate a state’s status within Western-dominated international society. Anxieties produced by this paradox are managed via state narratives that celebrate select glories and traumas. This results in an exceptionalist sense of national “Self” that—when confronted—can lead to outrage at “Others” of the state story. The syndrome, I argue, both shapes broad imaginaries and is instrumentalized by policymakers. Thus, calls for global justice vis-à-vis Western hegemony can coexist with hegemonic projects nearer home. Identifying a series of family resemblances with China and Iran, I conclude by underscoring the article’s main contributions: (1) its empirical study of the (post-)Ottoman experience as a case of revisionist former empires, (2) its analytical tool— the capitulations syndrome—with which to read comparative patterns, and (3) its epistemological corrective to international relations’ blindspot regarding actors with both “post-colonial” and “post-imperial” features. This hybrid condition enables revisionist former empires to invoke post-colonial solidarities in pursuit of post-imperial projects. Le présent article s’attaque à une énigme concernant les puissances révisionnistes: comment comprendre des États dont le comportement combine une critique « postcoloniale » de l’hégémonie occidentale à des projets « postimpériaux » sur le plan national et près de leurs frontières? Les réponses sont de plus en plus renseignées par les notions de concurrence des grandes puissances. Néanmoins, le réalisme structurel efface le rôle de l’histoire/la mémoire des programmes révisionnistes, tandis que le réalisme huntingtonien affine les identités civilisationnelles. Ainsi, les réalistes jugent la critique révisionniste de l’Occident comme épiphénoménale ou causée par une inimitié intrinsèque. Le présent article propose une alternative, le « syndrome des capitulations », développée au moyen de l’expérience ot- tomane/turque et la littérature sur l’insécurité ontologique. Ce syndrome combine le « préjudice moral » de la subordination à l’Occident à des tentatives d’élévation du statut public au sein d’une société internationale dominée par l’Occident. Les angoisses générées par ce paradoxe sont gérées par des récits étatiques qui célèbrent des gloires et traumas sélectionnés, au détriment d’autres récits. Il en découle un sentiment exceptionnel de « soi » national, qui peut réagir à des informations dissonantes de façons qui nuisent aux « autres » d’un récit étatique. Selon moi, le syndrome modèle des imaginaires larges et est instrumentalisé par les décideurs politiques. Ainsi, les appels en faveur de davantage de justice mondiale vis-à-vis de l’hégémonie occidentale peuvent renseigner des projets hégémoniques personnels. En montrant comment le syndrome dépeint des dynamiques comparables en Chine et en Iran, je conclus en soulignant les trois principales contributions de l’article: (1) son étude empirique de l’expérience (post)ottomane comme exemple d’ancien empire révisionniste, (2) son outil analytique, le syndrome des capitulations, permettant de lire des schémas comparatifs, et (3) son correctif épistémologique de l’angle mort des RI concernant les acteurs aux tendances aussi bien « postcoloniales » que « postimpériales ». Este artículo se enfrenta a un rompecabezas con relación a los poderes revisionistas: ¿Cómo dar sentido a Estados cuyo com- portamiento combina la crítica «poscolonial» a la hegemonía occidental, al tiempo que realizan proyectos «postimperiales» a nivel nacional y en los países limítrofes? Las respuestas se basan cada vez más en las nociones de competencia entre las grandes potencias. Sin embargo, el realismo estructural suprime el papel de la historia/memoria en las agendas revisionistas, mientras que el realismo huntingtoniano cosifica las identidades civilizatorias. Por consiguiente, los realistas interpretan la crítica revisionista de Occidente como algo epifenoménico o causado por una enemistad intrínseca. Este artículo propone una alternativa—el «síndrome de las capitulaciones»—que se desarrolla a partir de la experiencia otomana/turca y de la literatura sobre la inseguridad ontológica. El síndrome combina el «daño moral» ante la subordi- nación a Occidente, con los intentos de elevar el estatus de un Estado dentro de la sociedad internacional dominada por Occidente. Las ansiedades producidas por esta paradoja se gestionan a través de narrativas estatales que celebran glorias y traumas selectivos, reprimiendo relatos alternativos. Esto da lugar a un sentido excepcionalista del «Yo» nacional que puede reaccionar a la información disonante en formas que perjudican a los «Otros» de la historia de un Estado. Argumentamos que el síndrome conforma ambos imaginarios en un sentido amplio, y se instrumentaliza en la elaboración de políticas. En conse- cuencia, los llamamientos a la justicia global frente a la hegemonía occidental pueden fundamentar proyectos hegemónicos más cercanos. Al mostrar cómo el síndrome capta dinámicas comparables en China e Irán, concluimos subrayando las tres principales contribuciones del artículo: su (1) estudio empírico de la experiencia (post)otomana como un caso de antiguos imperios revisionistas, (2) herramienta analítica—el síndrome de las Capitulaciones—con la que leer patrones comparativos, y (3) Fisher-Onar, Nora (2022) The Capitulations Syndrome: Why Revisionist Powers Leverage Post-Colonial Sensibilities toward Post-Imperial Projects. Global Studies Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksac077 © The Author(s) (2022). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected] 2 The Capitulations Syndrome corrección epistemológica del punto ciego de las RRII respecto a los actores con tendencias tanto «postcoloniales» como «postimperiales». Introduction Revisionist Former Empires’ Paradoxical Positionality This article confronts a puzzle regarding revisionist power In our age of global recalibration, a growing number behavior at the dawn of multipolarity. The point of de- of analysts are questioning the centrality of the West—a parture is the observation that restive states such as bloc of predominantly north Atlantic states that have long Turkey, Iran, Russia, and China often castigate Western dominated global economic, security, political, and cultural (neo)imperialism, even as they pursue projects inspired practices.1 This decentering process began with the end of by their own imperial inheritances. To unravel this tension formal European colonialism in the twentieth century, even Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 I ask: How to make sense of states whose behavior combines as the United States’ wherewithal in the post–World War II “post-colonial” critique of Western hegemony with “post-imperial” period reinscribed the analytical and normative centrality projects at home and in near abroads? Responses to this of Western perspectives. Post-colonial critiques nevertheless tension in international relations (IR) theory and prac- continued to circulate. And with the rise of east Asian and tice are increasingly informed by realist notions of great other regional economies by the twenty-first century, calls power competition. Yet, structural realism erases the role for more meaningful representation of global “South” and of history, memory, and social forces in shaping revi- “East” voices in world affairs gained considerable momen- sionist power agendas, while “geo-cultural realism” (alla tum. Varying widely in substance and strategies, many such Huntington) reduces causal explanation to reified, civiliza- calls entail a sense of injustice at Western primacy associated tional identities. Realists thus tend to explain revisionists’ with the “post-colonial” condition. critique as either epiphenomenal or due to intrinsic Academics have been both interpreters and agents animosities. of this agenda as a growing group of scholars call for In this piece, I propose an alternative, historically “de[Euro]centering” our frameworks for thinking and and sociologically sensitive approach—the “capitulations acting (e.g., Cebeci 2012; Hobson 2012; Fisher-Onar and syndrome”—by connecting inductive engagement of the Nicolaïdis 2013; Keukeleure and Lecocq 2018, 2021). Ottoman/Turkish experience with the toolkit of “ontolog- The task is one of recovering “non-Western” sources ical insecurity,” i.e., the growing literature on how actors of theory and praxis (e.g., Shani 2008; Acharya and manage uncertainty, trauma, and the implications for Buzan 2009; Tickner and Smith 2020) while also recog- IR (e.g., Kinnvall 2004). The capitulations syndrome is nizing co-constitutive processes. Thus, the syncretic and characterized by resentment of Western moral authority, plural content of reified categories like “East,” “West,” even as states seek to improve their status within Western- “North,” “South,” “Europe,” and “Asia” are rendered vis- dominated, international society. It is engendered by the ible (Bhambra 2017; Alejandro 2021; Wolff et al. 2022). experience of “moral injury” (Subotić and Steele 2018) This body of work is informed by constructivist and during fraught transitions from empire to nation-state post-structuralist (e.g Bilgin 2008; Acharya 2014), center- under the long shadow of the West. Anxiety is managed periphery/Marxist (e.g Aydınlı and Matthews 2008; Anievas by selectively enshrining “chosen glories” and “chosen and Nişancıoğlu 2015), post-colonial/de-colonial (e.g., traumas” (Wang 2014). The result is an exceptionalist sense Ling 2014; Blaney and Tickner 2017; de Souza Santos 2018; of national “Self” that, when challenged by alternative Rutabizawa and Shilliam 2018) and relational (eg. Kavalski accounts, can lead to relational harm aimed at the “Others” 2017; Trownsell et al. 2021), among many other approaches. of a state’s narrative. The syndrome, I argue, both informs It is coalescing into a compelling corrective to the excesses broad, social imaginaries and serves as a causal mechanism of Western universalism (and its implicit hierarchies vis-à-vis in domestic and foreign policies. Thus, revisionists’ calls those long deemed “Other” to the trans-Atlantic hub of IR). for greater global pluralism simultaneously can inform The timeliness of such interventions at a juncture when hegemonic projects at home (or regionally). Western power is ebbing and (re)emergent actors across Showing how the syndrome captures comparable dy- and beyond Afro-Eurasia are becoming more assertive namics in China and Iran, I conclude by underscoring cannot be understated. the article’s three main contributions: (1) its novel em- At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the pirical study of the (post-)Ottoman experience as a case tension between the emancipatory thrust of globalizing of revisionist former empires, (2) its analytical tool—the IR and the “post-imperial” tendencies of some states that capitulations syndrome—with which to read patterns across revisionist former empires typically studied apart, and 1 I recognize that like “East,” “North,” and “South,” the term “West” is a reifi- (3) its epistemological corrective to IR theory’s blindspot cation which overlooks historical and contemporary processes of co-constitution, regarding actors with both “post-colonial” features vis-à- as well as the fact that there are multiple Wests. For example, having become a vis the West and “post-imperial” tendencies in their own great (if racially stigmatized) power through its imperial gambits in the begin- right. ning of the twentieth century, Japan uploaded to the greater West after World This corrective has significant policy implications such War II where it has served as a motor of capitalism and base for US power projec- as revisionists’ ability to persuade interlocutors in some tion in Asia. White settler-dominated societies in Australia and New Zealand are likewise part of a global West even as their domestic and international dynamics South–South, South–East, and global governance contexts are increasingly circumscribed by the rise of Asia, particularly China. I acknowl- to attribute “imperialism” to the West alone, despite the edge these complex connectivities while conforming to English-language conven- explicitly neo-imperial frames employed by former empires tion in using the terms “Western” and “non-Western” throughout the piece for such as Turkey, Iran, and China. clarity—and henceforth without inverted commas.  NORA FISHER-ONAR 3 embrace elements of post-colonial critique (Makarychev It is uploaded through the toolkit of nation-building, follow- and Morozov 2013; Nicolaïdis and Fisher-Onar 2015). In ing a distinct pattern that can be compared and contrasted the cases of imperial successor states like Turkey, Russia, across revisionist former empires—Turkey to be sure, but and China, for example, leaders use fora like the World also China and Iran. Using the capitulations heuristic to Cup, Olympics, and G20 summits to invoke imperial golden identify a series of family resemblances across these cases, ages. Via colorful spectacles that summon a sense of world- in the final section, I probe the implications for IR theory historic grandeur, they position as resurgent great powers at a time of flux in our international system. that offer domestic and international audiences alternatives to Western universalism. Meanwhile, critics within and beyond the states in question call for boycotts of such events Ontological Insecurity and Moral Injury in Revisionist on human rights grounds—arguments which in the case of Former Empires Russia have been amplified dramatically by the invasion of Ukraine (Fisher-Onar 2012; Çapan and Zarakol 2019). The blossoming corpus on “ontological security” (Laing This article seeks to make sense of this paradoxical behav- 1960; Kinnvall 2004; Mitzen 2006; Steele 2008) attends Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 ior on the part of revisionist former empires. It asks: How to the pyschosocial impact of uncertainties produced by to make sense of states whose behavior combines “post-colonial” structural change. At the heart of this literature is the view critique of Western hegemony with “post-imperial” projects at home that humans crave order and predictability—a sense of and in near abroads? home in the world—that is as foundational to our sense of (Neo-)realists might address this question by dismiss- well-being as material security. Both gradual processes and ing the normative critique of Western imperialism as dramatic experiences can violate our sense of continuity, epiphenomenal—an instrumental bid to discredit the West creating anxiety (Giddens 1991). These emotions are espe- at a time of power transition. Such an approach ignores cially pronounced when traumatic experiences compromise the role of historical and sociological factors in shaping core ethical commitments, not least at times of systemic revisionist agendas. The omission is problematic because, turmoil (Litz et al. 2009; Ejdus 2018). As Subotić and Steele as experts on countries like Turkey or China keep telling (2018) suggest, a sense of “moral injury” caused by such us, fraught histories and the ways that they are appropriated experiences can trigger three key dynamics: (1) attempts to play a significant role in domestic and foreign policy (e.g., regain control through narratives that (2) are intermittently Shirk 2008; Mayer 2017; Yavuz 2020). subverted by episodes that reactivate a sense of ethical Attempts to incorporate the role of history in what I call anxiety. To manage this dissonance, (3) actors retool their the “geo-cultural realism” of analysts like Samuel Hunt- affirmations of “Self,” often at the expense of the “Others” ington also miss the mark by assuming that “civilizational of the actor’s narrative, perpetuating relational harm. states” have monolithic and unchanging (despotic) features To elaborate, attempts at reasserting control in the face that are diametrically opposed to Western (liberal) values of uncertainty and trauma are evident in the nationalist, re- and institutions. Geo-cultural approaches—which have ligious, or other narratives that leaders and commentators been debunked in the academy but continue to influence construct to help people cope with fluctuating environ- policymakers—rely on un-reflexive, Orientalist binaries that ments in general, and traumatic experiences in particular. fail to capture the complex dynamics that inform political Such stories tend to offer simple explanations for the and foreign policy processes in the West and “Rest” alike. complex causes of ontological insecurity (Agius, Rosamond, Enter historically and sociologically informed IR. Path- and Kinnvall 2020). While the psychological literature on breaking studies like Zarakol’s (2010) After Defeat have moral injury attends to the immediate impacts on those who probed how states like Turkey, Japan, and Russia—which have suffered acute trauma, state-builders, I argue, manage have long been stigmatized within the Western-dominated such sentiments by uploading them to collective memory. international system—respond in “extra-sensitive” ways that The channeling of individual-level anxieties towards group produce prickly foreign policies (see also Rogstad 2022). repertoires is accomplished by using widely recognized tools Similarly, a growing body of work explores how, in an in- for fostering collective identity such as national curricula, ternational system that is as hierarchical as it is anarchi- commemorative practices, and military service (Hobsbawm cal (Mattern and Zarakol 2016), states that occupy “limi- and Ranger 2012), as well as market-driven cultural produc- nal” subject positions (Yanık 2011; Mälksoo 2012) between tion (Fisher-Onar 2013). Thus, certain tropes and motifs geo-cultural blocks negotiate agency (with implications, inter become familiar—even intuitive—to people who participate alia, for regional policies) (e.g., Rumelili 2012, 2015; Schulz in similar social frameworks (Halbawchs 1992). Furnishing 2021). This corpus overlaps with flourishing work on “onto- the building blocks of state narratives or “autobiographies” logical (in)security”—or the ways that anxieties produced by of the collective Self (Subotić 2016), these frames help to disruption to an actor’s sense of order and continuity impact shape a society’s habitus or broad disposition (Adler-Nissen their behavior (Giddens 1991; Browning and Joenniemi 2012). Transcending many an ideological or social divide, 2017). Work on stigmatization also resonates with critical de- their articulation nevertheless shifts in sync with the specific velopments in the study of international law and society that storyteller, audience, and stage. attend to the echoes of nineteenth-century civilizational cat- However, given the persistence of real-world diversity, egories in global governance to this day—a dynamic which not everyone within a society, much less among a state’s frustrates those assigned second-class status (e.g., Keene international interlocutors, buys the simplified narrative. 2002; Turan 2007, 2010; Nicolaïdis et al. 2014; Özsü 2016). When dissonant information presents, “ethical anxiety” In the following sections, I develop an analytical frame- ensues as the sense of renewed security furnished by the work via Subotić and Steele’s (2018) notion of “moral state story comes under siege. Leaders respond by seeking, injury” as acute ontological insecurity. I then turn to the as with a piano, to “key” (Goffmann 1974) their narratives to empirical case of (post)Ottoman Turkey, inductively “spin- the demands of the new situation. In the case of revisionist ning” a global IR category “out of Anatolia” (Aydınlı and former empires, this move may involve redoubled emphasis Mathews 2008). The capitulations syndrome, I contend, is on “chosen glories” and/or “chosen traumas” (Wang 2014) an echo of moral injury from the era of the Ottoman eclipse. from the imperial past, which provides a sense of continuity 4 The Capitulations Syndrome and cohesion in not only shared grandeur, but also shared In this context, where legal pluralism was a source of victimhood. These expressions of “restorative nostalgia” strength and flexibility, the Ottomans unilaterally granted— offer a “defensive mechanism” in times of “accelerated and revoked—privileges to non-Muslim foreigners seeking rhythms of life and historical upheavals” (Boym 2008, xiv). market access, tax and customs exemptions, and immunity This affirmation of the national Self vis-à-vis perceived from the jurisdiction of Islamic courts. The practice built detractors within and beyond the polity perpetuates, as on earlier, eastern Mediterranean conventions where rulers Behravesh (2018, 841) argues with regard to Iran, an from the Mamluk caliphs in Egypt to the Byzantine emper- “enmity-centric. . . culture of anarchy” producing a strong ors authorized special trade, residential, commercial, and sense of “singularity” as the state/Self is affirmed vis-à-vis political privileges to interregional networks of traders. In perceived enemies. Exceptionalism not only sustains state the Ottoman context, Capitulations were initially granted to narratives, but also has practical applications since collec- Italian/Levantine merchants in a sort of commercial equiv- tive emotions thus generated can be used to legitimize alent of the millet system’s hierarchical recognition of reli- specific domestic or foreign policies (Fisher-Onar 2021a, gious plurality. These arrangements were asymmetrical and 2021b). In the next section, I will apply this framework to considered temporary, with the state envisaged as the su- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 the case of (post-)Ottoman Turkey, generating an inductive perior party (Özsu 2016). Encompassing residential, trade, category—the capitulations syndrome—with which to map and tax privileges (and exemptions from Ottoman civil law), the mechanisms and consequences of moral injury in states the practice was extended to French and British subjects with both post-colonial and post-imperial tendencies. and their descendants from the sixteenth century onwards. In time, however, the balance of power began to favor The Ottoman/Turkish Case: From Historical the empire’s European interlocutors. Peripheralization was marked by, “the break-up of the large Ottoman Capitulations to the Capitulations Syndrome market, snapping [of] regional interdependencies, and In the Ottoman/Turkish case, ontological insecurity brewed reorienting [of] economic links to the European impe- over the long nineteenth century. A major source of such rial core (Hinnebusch 2012, 19). Diminishing imperial sentiments was the experience of (semi-)coerced, trade, and traction notwithstanding, during the long nineteenth judicial concessions called “Capitulations”—a mechanism century, Ottoman ports like Constantinople/Istanbul and that shaped everyday humiliations and acutely traumatic Smyrna/Izmir retained and, in some respects, amplified episodes. In this section, I trace empirically how the capit- their nodal status within the European-dominated world ulations regime, in conjunction with repeat battlefield and economy (Fisher-Onar, Pearce, Keyman 2018). As at all sites negotiation setbacks, shaped the fraught transformation of globalization, this process was redistributive, creating from empire to nation-state, inculcating moral injury. The winners and losers. Muslims, who were accustomed to Ottomans responded with reforms that sought to meet legal, social, and economic primacy, absorbed the costs the “standards of civilization”—a stigmatizing legal frame- of economic modernization and trade liberalization. This work which Western powers used to determine whether was because they were concentrated in military and state states warranted sovereign recognition. Transformative of service, and agrarian communities. In contrast, many, if by state and society, the protracted capitulatory experience no means all, non-Muslims resided in urban, coastal areas and reforms it engendered culminated in a post–World and engaged in commerce. As such, non-Muslims tended War I settlement, which would have dismembered the to thrive in the new economic order, becoming the first country. Snatching back sovereignty via nationalist counter- Ottoman bourgeoisie (Kuran 2004). mobilization, governing elites grappled with the sense of In this context, non-Muslims, on balance, were both moral injury by generating key tropes of Turkish nationalist beneficiaries and pawns of great power rivalry over the narrative. These include a foundational anti-Westernism, yet weakening Ottoman empire. A precedent had been estab- also a will to achieve first-class status in Western-dominated lished with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), often read international society (coupled with a suspicion of minorities as the moment when the tides turned against “Turkey in as fifth columns for Western interests). While the uptake of Europe.” At this juncture, Russia, which had been the first such views across Turkey’s de facto diverse society is varied, “non-Western”—albeit Christian—state to recalibrate its im- they have to some degree been internalized as “common perial institutions in response to trans-Atlantic ascendence, sense” (Subotić 2016) by significant segments of the general secured territorial, consular, and commercial Capitulations. public and can galvanize public opinion. As a result, leaders Moscow also claimed the role of “protector” status over Ot- may trigger capitulatory sensibilities to shape domestic and toman Orthodox Christians. The principle would serve as a foreign policy. pretext for Moscow and rival European powers like France and Britain to intercede in Ottoman affairs. A combination of self-interested and minority-protective moves over wars Moral Injury on the Journey from Empire to Nation-State and negotiations that followed would lead to the secession Long a universalistic empire in its own right, the Ottoman of over a dozen territories, culminating in Ottoman defeat empire thrived for centuries using a system of legal plural- in World War I. ism that enabled governance of vast territories and multiple During the intervening 150 years, the long-dominant peoples (Neumann and Wigen 2018). According to a set of Muslim community (millet-i hâkime) experienced a “sense practices often called the “millet system,”2 Muslims, regard- of foreboding”52 at the disruption in economic, cultural, less of ethnic origin, were seen as first-class subjects, while military, and diplomatic relations. A pamphlet author non-Muslims3 were governed by their own religious laws in captured this ontological anxiety by asking, “Why has the exchange for allegiance to the sultan and a substantial tax. world fallen into anarchy from its formerly tranquil state?” (Hanioğlu 1995, 9). Abuse of the capitulations regime 2 Millet traditionally meant religious community. As Ottoman state and society fueled a sense of injustice in both banal and spectacular evolved over the period described in this paper, it increasingly became ethnicized ways. In the economic field, for instance, foreign emissaries and today can be translated as nation or ethnicity. supplemented their incomes by selling protections to local 3 dhimmi, i.e, followers of other Abrahamic faiths like Christianity and Judaism. traders—often of non-Muslim origin—who thereby secured  NORA FISHER-ONAR 5 unfair economic advantage4 (Tamanaha 2021). Istanbul 727) was morally injurious, especially in states and societies alone was home to 50,000 persons with protected status, long accustomed to projecting their own forms of geo- while Russia extended protection to some 100,000 Greeks cultural primacy. throughout the empire (Ahmad 2000). By the end of the Crucially, however, being “semi-civilized” was more em- nineteenth century, 15 countries (13 European states, the powering than the “savage” status attributed to peoples said United States, and Brazil) enjoyed extraterritorial privileges to warrant full-fledged colonization. It, therefore, was not (Kayaoğlu 2010), with Britain alone manning 66 courts only resented, but also internalized in many respects by across the empire including a British Supreme Court in Ottoman statesmen. Seeking to survive and thrive at the Istanbul (Sonyel 1991). The result was not formal col- heyday of European global hegemony, reformist elements onization, but a complex, unwieldy legal field in which sought to meet SoC expectations regarding systematized sovereignty and loyalties were muddied. “rules, state enforcement of rules, and the establishment of Dramatic episodes involving capitulatory extraterritori- the state’s legal hierarchy” (Kayaoğlu 2007, 651). ality inflicted moral injury. The story of Belgian national Measures began with the piecemeal Tanzimat reforms Edouard Joris offers a case in point. A radical, Joris con- launched in 1839, followed by “Young Ottoman” pro- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 fessed in 1905 to preparing a bomb that aimed to assassinate grams for more meaningful synthesis of Ottoman and Sultan Abdülhamit II, but which instead killed 26 and in- European norms and practices. The cumulative impact jured 58 others. Swiftly apprehended and tried by the of these reforms was substantial with changes in areas Ottoman authorities, he was sentenced to death. Belgian ju- from taxation, conscription, and education to intercom- rists, however, invoked the fuzzy wording of their 67-year-old munal and gender relations. Adaptation to the rules of the Capitulations agreement to argue on procedural grounds European-dominated game led to transformed sociabilities, that Joris should not have been tried in an Ottoman court. as engagement with European notions of civility/civilization The assailant’s release was secured within 18 months, an intertwined with conceptions rooted in Ottoman/Islamic outcome hardly imaginable had he killed at home. Attest- tradition (Topal and Wigen 2019). ing to the complexities of these deliberations—including The empire’s international relations were also trans- the fact that non-Muslims did not always collaborate with formed. Encouraged, for instance, by 1856 admittance to European counterparts, and sometimes sympathized with the Concert of Europe in the context of the Crimean War the authorities’ compromised position—leading Ottoman settlement, Europe’s so-called sick man pursued balance of jurists of Armenian and Greek origin questioned the Bel- power politics. Another way to upgrade international status gian defense (Can and Low 2016; Özsu 2016). Nevertheless, was via civilizing missions. The targets were typically tribal repeated efforts to revise, repeal, or abrogate Capitulations subjects in the empire’s periphery and near abroad who, as generally were resisted by European beneficiaries and their one official put it, continued to live “in a state of nomadism Ottoman protégés. and savagery” (and yet whose martial prowess was also a A sense of injustice (Çelik 2021) was exacerbated by potential asset to be harnessed by the would-be Weberian European claims that their demands for extraterritoriality state) (Deringil 2003). Thus emerged an “Istanbul-Addis benefitted the empire by “providing models of properly Ababa imperial axis of power” or what Minawi (2016) calls functioning judicial systems to help improve the [Ot- the “Ottoman scramble for Africa” in the Sahara, Horn tomans’] own legal system” (Tamanaha 2021, 43). The of Africa, and Red Sea Basin . Overlooked in Eurocentric presumption of European superiority was in sync with the histories of imperialism—and attesting to the deep sources “standard of civilization” (SoC), a legal frame employed of today’s hybrid, post-colonial/post-imperial sensibilities— in Western-dominated international law to designate en- these efforts can be read as attempts by the “semi-civilized” tities worthy of sovereignty.5 Ostensibly procedural, these Ottomans to join the race for empire. Such moves were norms entailed (post-)Christian cultural content (Maritain echoed in the expansive agendas of Czarist Russia and Meiji 2012) in an era when Muslims were being racialized within Japan who likewise sought seats at the civilizational high European imaginaries (Aydın 2017). The SoC, in effect, table of European colonialism. baked faith- and race-based hierarchies into the nascent The Empire was reminded nevertheless of its “taker” international community. Thus, while in principle, Muslim status in international contexts. Measures like the Treaty Ottomans (and other non-Christian and/or non-white of San Stephano (1878) authorized the secession of vast peoples) who adopted European-defined standards could tracts of Ottoman lands and millions of (mostly Christian) accede to international society, in practice, the “Western peoples—an episode of acute trauma in the prolonged core…stigmatized” geo-cultural outsiders (Zarakol 2010, drama of imperial dissolution. Ensuing attempts between 85). This hybrid, “semi-civilized” status as potential bearers 1878 and 1914 to rally subjects around pan-Islamist, secular of European-style rights, yet denial of agency “in the domain liberal, and proto-nationalist programs informed the on- of rule setting and rule enforcement” (Nicolaïdis et al. 2014, going transformation of the Ottoman polity and identities. Ultimately, however, these programs proved unable to pre- 4 vent imperial hemorrhaging in the context of the Balkan As beneficiaries of the Capitulations, they were exempt from general taxes and enjoyed lower import/export duties than those paid by Ottoman Muslim Wars (1912–1913) and the disastrous choice to join the Axis counterparts (3–5 percent versus 9–12 percent). side in World War I (1914–1919). The process exacerbated 5 The criteria were framed slightly differently by commentators in various na- the protracted “unmixing” of imperial peoples (Brubaker tional contexts but can be summarized as concerning: (1) basic rights “especially 1997), culminating in the erasure of Greek and Armenian or even sometimes exclusively” for foreigners (e.g., in commerce, life, movement, communities in Anatolia, and the Muslim community in property, and religion); (2) diplomatic norms including immunity for foreign rep- the Aegean (relatively small, surviving pockets notwith- resentatives; (3) observation of international (i.e., Western) law including vis-à- standing). Millions of Balkan and Caucasian Muslims also vis warfare; (4) government structures based on rational-bureaucratic principles; (5) and social customs steeped in European notions of prudence and morality perished or fled as refugees to the newly founded Republic (Osterhammel 2011). of Turkey (Reynolds 2011; Gingeras 2016; Philliou 2021). 6 The Capitulations Syndrome The Treaty of Sèvres and the Capitulations Syndrome: chosen glories. Dissonant information is suppressed, al- Acute Trauma and Aggregate Moral Injury in the lowing for a renewed sense of control (and accounting Republican Period for why certain tropes about the past—tragic and glorious alike—resonate across many societal cleavages). When con- The nadir of this painful process in the post-Ottoman Turk- trary information emerges (either due to exogenous factors ish collective psychology is the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which, or self-questioning within a society) (Ejdus 2018), ethical if implemented, would have dismembered the country.6 anxiety may lead to doubling down on nationalist tropes The treaty’s terms and their subsequent memorialization that reify the Otherness of those whose words or actions have given rise to an intense node of ontological insecurity contradict the prevailing narrative. Although defensive re- which is widely recognized among students of Turkey: the sponses may cause relational harm, the mobilizing power of “Sèvres syndrome.” It involves a sense of collective “para- these explosive episodes can draw thousands to the streets, noia” (Guida 2008) characterized by “constant” anxiety over influence domestic political outcomes, and shape foreign “the danger of break-up or partition” (Aras 2009). These policy. As such, leaders may deliberately stimulate capitula- sentiments are transmitted through instruments like official tory sensibilities in pursuit of specific ends—a practice that Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 and media discourse, school curricula, commemorative informs a range of revisionist behaviors. events, and popular cultural production. The upshot of this In the case of Republican Turkey, as the below section “culture of insecurity” (Sarı 2022) is a “vision of a nation shows, the chosen glory is Kemalist heroism during the under siege struggling for survival” (Schmid 2015) within “War of Independence”—a frame steeped in amnesia of late an “ever resonating politics of state survival” (Adisonmez imperial trauma (which authorized a combination of defen- and Onursal 2020, 291). sive assimilation and intermittent isolationism vis-à-vis the Yet, for all its influence on collective psychology, the his- Western-dominated international system). Since the 2000s, toric treaty was actually a non-starter. The document went however, the emphasis in a Turkey led by the Islamist-rooted unratified in most of its signatories’ parliaments because a Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi proto-nationalist coalition under the leadership of Mustafa AKP) is on a restorative neo-Ottoman nostalgia (which in- Kemal Paşa (later Atatürk) mounted a military counter- forms a sense of grandeur and manifest destiny in domestic offensive. External sovereignty was secured from occupying and foreign policy as an imperial successor state). In this forces with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne,7 which nullified regard, Turkey’s trajectory also reflects broader trends in Sèvres. It also abrogated the Capitulations (Kayoğlu 2010) memory work wherein the “twentieth century began with a and removed all “residual institutions for foreign presence” futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia” (Boym 2008, xiv; (Zarakol 2010, 15). Successive governments went on to seek Walton 2019). Meanwhile, the chosen trauma has remained consolidation of first-class status within international society. relatively constant, conjuring encirclement by Western Sèvres, as such, is the dog that did not bark. Its bitter imperialists and their traitorous protégés within Turkey. afterlives are intelligible only if read through the prism of cumulative, capitulatory trauma which created the “an- tecedent conditions” (Slater and Simmons 2010, 889) for The Single Party Period (1923–1950) nationalist resistance. To be sure, it was a watershed moment During the one-party era dominated by Atatürk and the in the experience of moral injury, when the slow drip of hu- Republican People’s Party (1924–1950), the acute humil- miliation overflowed. Sèvres accordingly supplies key tropes iation of Sèvres and the cumulative trauma of Ottoman of Turkish nationalism: existential fears engendered by near Capitulations were managed through a narrative of rupture colonization that Western powers and their alleged minions that has been keyed for consumption by successive gener- seek to undo the country’s sovereignty. Yet, at the same time, ations. 8 The “chosen glory” of this story, given the will to memories of Sèvres are nested in the aggregate experience break with the Ottoman past, is the heroic war of resistance of Capitulations. Thus, the solution to the Sèvres sense of against Allied occupation after 1919,9 while the “chosen siege is not only realist self-defense, but also integrationist trauma” is the Treaty of Sèvres. Blame is apportioned to pursuit of standards set by trans-Atlantic powers toward first- Western powers and a variety of internal “Others”—and class status in a hierarchical world. This amounts to a para- their avatars today—who are viewed as enablers.10 This nar- doxical strategy of defensive assimilation to the Western- rative of rupture was inculcated by severing institutional and dominated international system. As a result, semi- or post- cultural continuities with the past.11 Meanwhile, Kemalist colonial sensibilities jostle alongside post-imperial strategies nationalism upped the ante in attempts to achieve Western for navigating the Western-dominated international system. standards of civility/civilization. The early nation-builders It is this hybrid positionality that I label the capitulations imported legal codes like criminal and family law ad verbatim syndrome, namely: foundational resentment of Western moral from European codes.12 Invoking as a national goal the authority even as the aggrieved seeks to improve their status within an international system forged in the image of the West. 8 Heirs to this political tradition today include secular nationalists of civic and How does the capitulations syndrome produce policy out- ethnic orientation, with the latter less prone to conspiratorial reasoning than the comes? Ontological insecurity is dealt with by enshrining former. 9 state narratives that lament chosen traumas and celebrate The Ottomans’ only major World War I victory at the Battle of Gallipoli, where Mustafa Kemal served as general, is also included in the narrative of heroism. 6 10 Only a symbolic parcel of land was allocated to the sultan in Istanbul These included and include: liberal elites who favored a pluralistic and in- environs to be controlled by Britain, along with an inviable rump state for cremental reform strategy; non-Muslims, especially Greeks and Armenians, some Muslims/Turks in north central Anatolia. The remaining Ottoman territories of whom had supported Allied occupation; pro-religious elements who resisted were to be divided between occupying Greeks, Italians, and French, with Euro- the 1920s secularist, cultural revolution; and Kurdish resistance to Turkification pean mandates for the Arab provinces, and statelets for Armenians and Kurds. and aspects of secularization. 7 11 Tziarras (2022, 4) likewise recognizes that the Sèvres syndrome, however Reforms which sought to sever a sense of organic connection with Ottoman pervasive, is but one of bundle of “historical memories and ideological narra- Islam which was also blamed, in keeping with prevailing Orientalist perceptions tives” that shapes “strategic aspirations.” He productively posits that the Treaty of in Europe, for the empire’s decline, included the abolition of institutions of re- Lausanne also has produced a syndrome which shapes leadership choices and a ligious governance (e.g., the caliphate, religious schools [medrese] and brother- culture of geopolitical revisionism in AKP-ruled Turkey. hoods (tarikat), the Arabic script and call to prayer, and the lunar calendar).  NORA FISHER-ONAR 7 need to “achieve the level of contemporary civilizations” constitutive tension between Turkey’s anti-Western reflexes (muasır medeniyetler seviyesine ulaşmak)—a frame informed by and Westernist vocation was stretched to capacity. the will to upgrade status within international society—they In this time of turmoil, reminders of Turkey’s “taker” sought first-class recognition. status within the Western alliance piqued capitulatory sen- On balance, the project succeeded in garnering early sitivities. Leaders and publics alike resented the passive yet republican Turkey international accolades. However, the front-line role which Ankara was compelled to play during performance of European-style modernity did not always the Cuban Missile Crisis. Widespread offense was also felt at mitigate perceptions of Turkey’s “semi-civilized” difference. a condescending letter penned by US President Johnson in This dissonance produced ethical anxiety. Atatürk, for the context of the Cyprus question. Attesting to the cross- example, was outraged when shown a French book that cutting salience and policy consequences of capitulatory described Turks as a “yellow skinned…secondary human sensibilities, deep ambivalence toward the West also in- type.” The leader allegedly exhorted historians to challenge formed the fateful decision of a left-leaning government and the claim. The result was the Turkish History Thesis—a the Turkish industrialists’ association to reject an offer of project which addressed nation-builders’ geo-cultural anx- membership to the European Economic Community (EEC) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 iety in the era’s highly racialized language of scientific at the time of Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese accession. certainty (King 2019). Thus, rather than push back against Turkey’s paradoxical positionality between the West and the logic of racial hierarchies, the thesis sought to position the Rest—and the ethical anxieties and redoubled na- Turks at the top of the heap as the alleged progenitor of tionalism which this could engender—became even more the world’s languages, peoples, and civilizations. These salient in the post–Cold War period when a NATO to which ideas were disseminated through a series of conferences the country’s Western credentials had been anchored lost and served as the basis of textbooks for several decades. its sense of purpose. In the same decade, the normative The message was coupled with national security narratives deepening of European Union (EU) integration meant that that urged “students to be vigilant about the malevolent the state project, which had quite successfully adapted to intentions of foreign powers in Turkey” cultivating a “highly the sovereigntist, nationalist norms of earlier standards of defensive security culture” (Sen and Starkey 2019, 35). (European) civilization, was increasingly mismatched with Attempts by domestic actors to articulate alternative the Union’s supranational subversion of the Westphalian versions of the state narratives provoke ethical anxiety, trig- system. In the meantime, because leaders and public opin- gering strong reactions. Challengers included figures from ion in many EU member states continued to question within the governing elite and from marginalized groups. Turkey’s eligibility for membership on civilizational rather However, attempts to revise key components of the Kemalist than liberal grounds, even pro-EU cadres within Turkey state story were shut down forcefully, their agents accused of experienced a sense of injustice at European “double stan- betraying the revolution and/or of serving foreign agendas. dards.” Echoing the experience of moral injury in earlier encounters with “Europe,” anti-Western and nationalist exceptionalism (re)gained salience. The Multi-Party Period (1950–2002) With the rise of the United States to global leadership The AKP Period: From EU Candidacy to Neo-Ottoman Populism Via after World War II, the long-standing will to accede to the Capitulations Syndrome Western-dominated “contemporary civilization” overtook defensive isolationism. According to “friends of Turkey” At the dawn of the 2000s, a rare window for transcending among Western academics and policymakers, Ankara could the capitulations syndrome appeared to open when the upload to the “free world” of market capitalism and multi- AKP came to power. Under the banner of “Muslim Democ- party democracy by becoming a beacon for modernist racy,” it sought to square the circle of Turkey’s paradoxical development (Adalet 2018). The role of model for the positionality by pursuing EU membership. The project “third world” befitted Turkey’s betwixt and between status found support among a coalition of groups who had long as a never colonized yet structurally subordinate player been the state’s “Others” under Kemalist nationalism (e.g., in the now, Washington-dominated international system pro-religious and pro-Kurdish constituencies, as well as (Danforth 2021). liberals). It was matched by advocates of a multi-cultural EU Meanwhile, domestically, this era of greater political and a Washington looking for “moderate Muslim” allies in pluralism allowed for assertion of alternative national narra- the post-9/11 context. In response to the initially credible tives. Thus, center-right governments and allied civil society promise of full membership to the EU club, extensive began to reintegrate the Ottomans into the state story reforms began to upload EU standards of post-national through mechanisms like school curricula (White 2014), governance into Turkish law. mass media (Brockett 2011), and architectural projects of By the middle of the decade, however, persistent stigmati- neo-Ottoman inspiration (Batuman 2016). The growing zation was brought home by a series of external and internal salience of this counter-narrative revealed that for signif- developments. These included European Court of Human icant segments of society, imperial nostalgia was a source Rights rulings in support of a Kemalist headscarf ban which of empowerment, not insecurity (Fisher-Onar 2013; Yavuz the ruling AKP constituency lambasted as “Islamophobic.” 2020). Yet, ontological uncertainty persisted as the country Meanwhile, cross-cutting offense was taken at the ques- underwent rapid urbanization and industrialization. In this tioning of Turkey’s European credentials on civilizational context, left/right tensions were overlaid with fractious grounds by prominent EU policymakers—moves that un- new forms of identity politics (e.g., religious, sectarian, dermined public support for Turkey’s candidacy. In this and ethnic) (Sayari 2010). In conjunction with decolonial context, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal of a and youth activism across the globe (Baum 2020), the “privileged partnership” with the Union in lieu of full mem- bership struck a nerve, recalling historic, “semi-civilized” 12 The narrative of rupture notwithstanding, such measures built on eight status. Accession negotiations also ground to a halt over decades of Ottoman reforms and the significant transformation they had dynamics related to Cypriot accession, which were likewise engendered. perceived in Turkey as entailing patent, double standards. 8 The Capitulations Syndrome (The perception was particularly redolent of capitulatory of neo-Ottoman populism attests to the ways in which moral sensitivities given the viscerally remembered history of injury’s pervasive legacies simultaneously inform justice- European sponsorship of Ottoman Greek secessionism). driven revisionism vis-à-vis the Eurocentric international In tandem with internal backlash at the post-nationalist system, and anti-pluralist agendas at home and regionally. thrust of EU-oriented reforms—flames fanned by a coali- tion of nationalists who explicitly invoked the language of Capitulations—a sense of moral injury mounted across The Capitulations Syndrome as Comparative Heuristic: political camps. China, Iran, and Turkey AKP-led Turkey dealt with the sense of injustice produced by these developments by applying a neo-Ottoman salve to The capitulations syndrome, I have argued, is the product identarian injury. To be sure, the new state story was quite of cumulative moral injury punctuated by “radical disjunc- plastic, reflecting the polysemic history it sought to appro- tions” (like the Treaty of Sèvres) that “challenge the ability priate which is at once a tale of empire, a tale of Islam, and a of collective actors to ‘go on’” (Ejdus 2018, 883). States seek tale of multiculturalism (Fisher-Onar 2009). Nevertheless, a to reinscribe ontological security through narratives that Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 consistent feature across various stands of neo-Ottomanism hone in on chosen glories and traumas in which the West was the will to reclaim ontological control—a stable sense is perceived as not only nemesis, but also as the norm-setter of self and place in the world—by owning the imperial of an international system within which former empires inheritance. seek to upgrade their status. This tension informs a range In the hands of foreign minister and later prime min- of revisionist behavior from defensive assimilation to oppo- ister Ahmet Davutoğlu, this entailed attempts to forge sitional grandstanding. However, since state identities are win-win relationships via soft power tools which aimed to always works-in-progress, stability is never fully achieved. (re)instate Turkey as leader of the former Ottoman geog- Dissonant information and reminders of trauma pique raphy. Davutoğlu’s “Zero Problems with Neighbors” policy “ethical anxiety” which can be managed by doubling down sought, in effect, to reinscribe ontological security without on state claims and lambasting the “Others” of national inflicting relational harm. As Tziarras (2022, 3) puts it, the narratives. The capitulations syndrome is both constitutive project was “at its core a way of delivering Turkey from of broad, societal orientations and a mechanism that leaders its century old isolationist mindset and restoring it to the tactically activate in pursuit of specific, policy outcomes. In international position that the AKP’s ideological current the process, relational harm may be perpetuated vis-à-vis thought it deserved as the heir of the Ottoman Empire”. relations not only with the West, but also domestic and The frame was bolstered by cultural commodities—another regional interlocutors. vector of restorative nostalgia (Boym 2008). Soap operas Another notable dynamic that emanates from this pattern with neo-Ottoman themes likewise amplified Turks’ sense is an audience effect with significant policy consequences. of self—and power of projection—without causing active This is the sincere and/or pragmatic reception, as the case harm (Ergin and Karakaya 2017). In the realm of foreign may be, across some quarters in the global South of revision- policy, however, the bid to rebuild regional relationships ist powers’ argument (i.e., that the West is neo-imperial, but via positive-sum, “historical statecraft” (Mayer 2018) proved their own hegemonic behavior is righteous). For example, unworkable (not least because neo-Ottoman celebration Erdoğan’s discursive attempts at the international scale to of Sunni Muslim/Turkishness produces relational anxiety champion oppressed Muslims in general, and Palestinians in non-Sunnis, non-Turks, and non-Muslims across the in particular, are not in sync with his policy toward domestic post-Ottoman space). minority or democracy activists (who, since the mid-2010s, Meanwhile, harder variants of the neo-Ottoman story have been portrayed as secessionist and/or Godless agents were increasingly deployed by a highly performative of Western neo-imperialism). But for audiences who are not Erdoğan who manipulated the mechanisms of moral in- directly impacted by Ankara’s domestic and neighborhood jury toward consolidating control over the AKP and, in politics, this inconsistency may be tolerable (Fisher-Onar time, the state. Through glossy public spectacles that show- and Watson 2013). After all, for much of the formerly cased Ottoman-Islamic civilizational splendor and martial colonized world, traumatic memories of Western domi- prowess, he sought to galvanize audiences’ sense of continu- nation and struggles with its legacies to this day are far ity and destiny, casting himself as the rightful torchbearer more vivid than concerns with, say, Turkey’s internal and of Islamic/Ottoman/Turkish tradition. regional policies. This dynamic enables revisionist former Celebrations of the golden age were accompanied empires to leverage their liminal positionality between the by a tactical triggering of capitulatory sensitives when post-colonial and the post-imperial. For example, at sites widespread protests against Erdoğan’s increasingly illiberal of multilateral governance like the United Nations, or in leadership threatened to undermine his consolidation of public diplomacy initiatives, post-colonial attributes are em- power. Painting protestors as minions of murky Western/ phasized, even as post-imperial dynamics may be on display Zionist interests, he belabored the story over a series of closer to home. The pattern, however, is not commensurate intra-party contestations, inter-party alliances, and electoral with post-colonial ethics. As Morozov (2013, 16) warns: be campaigns (Gumuscu 2023). Similar frames were used to wary of those who claim to speak for the subaltern as they defeat an attempted coup, declare emergency rule, and often “silence and oppress rather than emancipate and purge state institutions (Hammond 2020). These moves empower others.” culminated in the conversion, via referendum, of Turkey’s flawed but longstanding, parliamentary democracy into an Comparing China, Iran, and Turkey executive presidency. They further rationalized revisionist forays in multiple, post-Ottoman regional settings (e.g., While applying the capitulations heuristic systematically the Caucasus, the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean, and to further cases exceeds the scope of this article, future North Africa). Authorizing a near constant “state of excep- studies can deploy the framework on the basis of “family tion” (Agamben 2021) in which the rule of law can be ig- resemblances” across revisionist, former empires. For while nored in the name of national security, Turkey’s experience states like Turkey, Iran, or China clearly differ in their  NORA FISHER-ONAR 9 “thick” characteristics, they also display “intuitively un- (vii) Given the anxieties but also opportunities associated derstandable” overlapping features as revisionist former with global power shift for revisionist former em- empires. These characteristics furnish a basis for compar- pires, revisionism today entails aspirations—realistic or ison (Goertz 1994, 25; Fisher-Onar 2018, 2020). Below, I otherwise—within China, Iran, and Turkey to lead for- schematically identify a set of resemblances toward encour- mer imperial geographies. Such projects are steeped aging comparative inquiry into patterns of convergence— in demands for greater international pluralism, of- and divergence—for more nuanced, mid-range theoriza- ten couched in the language of justice. Yet, they may tion of revisionist powerhood (among other implications). also entail hegemonic behavior at home and in near Consider that China and Iran, like Turkey, are all: abroads. Thus, relational harm can be perpetuated vis- à-vis not only the West, but also the domestic and re- (i) Successor states to long-lived, universal empires that gional “Others” of state narratives. were subject to capitulatory—but not full-blown (viii) The revisionism of former empires, as such, is distinc- colonial—regimes in the nineteenth and twentieth tive from post-colonial projects, which tend to eschew centuries. The experience entailed (semi-)coerced, expansive claims. Nevertheless, among broader, post- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac077/6966507 by guest on 31 December 2022 trade, and legal concessions to Western colonial pow- colonial audiences who are not directly impacted by ers (and, in China’s case, an expansive Japan reconfig- the revisionist state’s domestic and regional policies, ured along Western lines). there may be some normative and/or pragmatic en- (ii) These ontologically disruptive experiences were char- gagement of revisionist former empires’ arguments. In acterized by episodic violence (e.g., when foreigners other words, the post-colonial timbre of revisionists’ protected by extraterritoriality brutalized natives), and calls for greater global pluralism and critique of West- macro-scale events (e.g., battlefield defeats and asym- ern neo-imperialism reverberates above the more con- metric treaties with major fallout for state control over tained rumblings of China, Iran, and Turkey in their land, people, and resources). neighborhoods. (iii) Despite the moral injury thus sustained, each (ix) A significant implication of this dynamic is the ten- state wielded sufficient capacity to retain formal dency in some South–South, South–East, and global sovereignty—a capability that was reflected in their governance contexts to attribute “imperialism” to the “semi-civilized” status within contemporary interna- West alone, despite the expansive agendas of post- tional law. imperial Turkey, Iran, and China. (iv) Seeking to leverage that capacity and status, reform- ers sought to transform the state along Western lines Conclusion: What Lessons for IR Theory? for the paradoxical purpose of (re)claiming Chinese, Persian, and Turkish agency (Fisher-Onar and Evin Having made the case for family resemblances in the ca- 2011). These endeavors culminated in the defeat of pitulatory reflexes of revisionist former empires, I close relatively short-lived, colonial incursions/occupations with a comment on the challenges and opportunities for IR (with China’s experience of semi-colonization ar- theory. My staring point, like that of this special forum, is guably the most extensive). The transition to nation- that much if by no means all mainstream IR lacks historical statehood was thus founded upon paradoxical at- and sociological nuance in its assessment of (re)emerging tempts to reclaim control by pursuing first-class status powers (such as Turkey, Iran, and China to be sure, but also within the Western-dominated international system. other states that share a subset—or variations—of the family (v) This paradoxical positionality is managed via state nar- resemblances listed above, such as Russia or India). ratives that foreground select experiences, both glori- When it comes to challenges, several features of our ous and painful, while repressing others. In the first analytical apparatus inhibit comparative analysis. The first decades following reconstitution as nation-states, these relates to the hub and spoke structure of IR knowledge pro- narratives in China, Iran, and Turkey all repressed duction that sequesters expertise on non-Western regions aspects of the recent period of imperial eclipse. into geographic categories inherited from the Cold War. As They focused instead on forward-looking moderniza- a result, “thick” knowledge about the non-Western “spokes” tion projects (Fisher-Onar 2015). Increasingly, how- of the wheel is transmitted to the trans-Atlantic “hub” that ever, and in tandem with Western retrenchment by reserves the privilege of theorizing such information in the 2000s, each state has begun to celebrate imperial sync with concepts and frameworks derived from Western golden ages in both domestic politics and (soft and experiences. Meanwhile, there are few pathways for “local” hard) power projections toward former imperial ge- non-Western knowledge to be exchanged across the spokes ographies. Meanwhile, chosen traumas like “China’s of the knowledge production wheel (Fisher-Onar 2020). 100 years of humiliation” and Iranian notions of “West- This dynamic causes—and is reinforced by—the excep- oxification” invoke both the longue durée eclipse and tionalism of area studies. Analysts with area expertise often particularly painful episodes that have inculcated ca- hail from the region in question and/or have specialized pitulatory suspicion of Western moral authority and intensively in a case or region. The privileging of “thick” agendas. knowledge, while invaluable in terms historical and so- (vi) These narratives have been “keyed” for successive ciological sensitivity, can lead to skepticism about taking generations via instruments like national curricula ideas on a world tour. Habits of exceptionalism are also and media, official discourses, commemorative prac- reinforced by national academies across the globe that in- tices, and aligned cultural industries (all data sources centivize the production of practical knowledge with which that present promising sites for comparative inquiry). to navigate pressing local and regional concerns (Tickner Thus, capitulatory sensibilities shape broad, soci- and Waever 2009). etal orientations; at the same time, they furnish an There is no a priori reason why spoke-to-spoke compar- ideational/emotive reservoir which policymakers can isons (including studies based on concepts derived from and do trigger toward domestic and foreign policy spoke experiences) should not be possible. After all, we do ends. not deem as problematic the deployment of ideas inspired 10 The Capitulations Syndrome by “thick” Western histories to other regions (Ahram, Köll- ALEJANDRO, AUDREY. 2021. “Do International Relations Scholars Not Care ner, and Sil 2018). Some of the most compelling concepts about Central and Eastern Europe or Do They Just Take the Region within our social scientific apparatus—like Benedict Ander- for Granted? A Conclusion to the Special Issue.” Journal of International son’s “imagined communities” or James C. Scott’s “seeing Relations and Development 24 (4): 1001–13. ANIEVAS, ALEXANDER, AND KEREM NIŞANCIOĞLU. 2015. How the West Came to Rule: like a state”—emanate from a journey that began in the The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism. London: Pluto Press. specificities of (Southeast Asian) area studies (Kuhonta, ARAS, BÜLENT. 2009. “Turkey’s Rise in the Greater Middle East: Peace- Dan, and Tuong 2008). And, as noted in the introduction of Building in the Periphery.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies this special forum, spaces for such inquiry will only increase 11 (1): 29–41. as new connectivity projects link Afro-Eurasia infrastruc- AYDIN, CEMIL. 2017. The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History. turally, economically, and diplomatically—a process with Cambridge: Harvard University Press. the potential to generate new forms of interchange and AYDIN-DÜZGIT, SENEM, RUMELILI BAHAR, TOPAL, AND ALP EREN. 2022. “Challeng- conflict alike (Fisher-Onar and Kavalski, this issue). ing anti-Western Historical Myths in Populist Discourse: Re-visiting Ot- Nevertheless, in the current state of the field, the ability toman Empire–Europe Interaction during the 19th Century.” European to develop historically and sociologically nuanced cross-area Journal of International Relations 28 (3): 513–37. 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Cambridge: Cambridge University many underexplored, family resemblances I have identified Press. across revisionist former empires. This special forum repre- BEHRAVESH, MAYSAM. 2018. “State Revisionism and Ontological (in) Security in International Politics: The Complicated Case of Iran and Its Nuclear sents precisely such an attempt—bringing together leading Behavior.” Journal of International Relations and Development 21 (4): 836– experts with “non-Western” area studies expertise for a cross- 57. fertilizing conversation with each other and disciplinary IR. BHAMBRA, GURMINDER K. 2017. “The Current Crisis of Europe: Refugees, Colo- For my part, I have sought through this piece to con- nialism, and the Limits of Cosmopolitanism.” European Law Journal 23 tribute a portable framework for sustained, comparative (5): 395–405. conversation and collaborative research. I have done so BILGIN, PINAR. 2008. “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?” Third World Quarterly 29 by inductively “spinning” a global IR category “out of (1): 5–23. Anatolia”—the capitulations syndrome—which I infused BLANEY, DAVID L., AND ARLENE B. TICKNER. 2017. “Worlding, Ontological Poli- with the heuristic traction of “moral injury.” I further oper- tics and the Possibility of a Decolonial IR.” Millennium: Journal of Inter- ationalized the framework by drawing on the empirical and national Studies 45 (3): 293–311. BOYM, SVETLANA. 2008. “The Future of Nostalgia.” New York: Basic books. conceptual resources of historical and legal international BROCKETT, G.D. 2011. How Happy to Call Oneself a Turk: Provincial Newspapers scholarship that, as Aydın-Düzgit, Rumelili, and Eren (2022) and the Negotiation of a Muslim National Identity. Austin, TX: University also observe, offer a timely corrective to the uses and abuses of Texas Press. of imperial history in revisionist and status quo powers alike. BROWNING, CHRISTOPHER S., AND PERTTI JOENNIEMI. 2017. “Ontological Secu- rity, Self-articulation and the Securitization of Identity.” Cooperation and Conflict 52 (1): 31–47. Acknowledgements BRUBAKER, ROGERS. 1997. “Aftermaths of Empire and the Unmixing of Peo- I am grateful to John M. Hobson, Emilian Kavalski, and the ples.” In After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-building -The Soviet anonymous reviewers for their feedback on earlier versions Union And The Russian, Ottoman, And Habsburg Empires, edited by Karen of this piece. Barkey and Mark vonHagen, 155–80. New York: Routledge, CAN, LÂLE, AND CHRISTOPHER LOW MICHAEL. 2016.“The ‘Subjects’ of Ottoman International Law.” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association References 3 (2): 223–34. 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