Uneven and combined development - International Relations (5/7)

[@Ageispolis11]

I am a little underwhelmed that Rosenburg didn't explain that implications of 'combined' development in Trotsky's theory. Combined development was a mechanism by which 'less developed' nations would technologically advance beyond superior capitalist nations and would be the initiator of revolutionary movements. This was important within Trotsky's understanding of the Russian revolution and the historical materialism of capitalism. Read Adam Morton's work.

[@sakshisakshi8680]

the transcript uploaded is that of the Liberal Theory . Could the correct transcript be uploaded please . Thank you !

[@ハリルカミラ]

Uneven and combined development is a social theory of the international. It was first produced by the Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky, who wrote about it in a series of writings between about 1905 and the mid-1930s. But Trotsky mainly applied it naturally to his own experience in the run-up to the Russian Revolution and the consequences of that. He never really worked it out fully as a social theory, and that's what's happening today in the field of international studies, where several writers are trying to follow through the intellectual implications of this idea that Trotsky had. Now, when I say that this is a social theory of the international, I mean that it provides essentially three things. First, it provides an explanation for why the international exists in the first place as a dimension of the social world and why there are many societies instead of just one. Secondly, it provides what you could call a sociology of the causal mechanisms that result from the existence of the international so that you can see the effects or the significance or the role that the international plays in human history. And finally, it provides an understanding of how international relations themselves are part of a wider historical whole that Trotsky called the social structure of humanity. I can't think of any other theory in international studies that provides all of that. The reason that I call it a social theory of the international is because it derives all these points from one basic assumption or claim that it makes about the nature of human development, and that is the claim that development has always been uneven. What Trotsky meant by this, by saying that the development is always uneven, is that there's never been a time when human history has not been made up of a multiplicity of a number of human societies. There's never been a time when there's just been one human society. There have always been multiple societies, coexisting societies of different sizes, different levels of development, different cultures, different social structures, and so on. From that very commonsensical claim that there's never been a situation where the world was just made up of one society, something very significant follows. This is the second assumption of the theory, which is that these societies have always had an outside world to deal with. Sometimes it could be that other societies pose a military threat to them and force them to alter their development in some way in order to cope with that. On the other hand, it could be that other societies have developed ideas or have access to resources that enable your society to develop in a whole new way. Either way, interaction has always been a key dimension of social development. If we ask who the leading actors in international relations according to this approach are, it's clear at the outset that states have a central role to play. That's partly because states in the developed world have an interest in supporting their own capitalist employers and investors in expanding the spread of the world market to maximize profits. But it's also because states in what we now call the global South have a powerful interest in responding to the challenge of late development by intervening in their own societies in order to stimulate industrialization. However, the more you look at Trotsky's writings about uneven and combined development, the more you would have to say that it's entire societies that are, if you like, the leading actors in this process. It's the different location of each society within a wider historical process that confronts actors within those societies with the challenge that they have to respond to. The people that have to respond are not only the states and the businessmen but also, of course, the intellectuals and the political parties who debate what is the best solution to the problems that a given society faces. Also, of course, the working classes and the peasantry, who are the object of developmental policies, often very coercive developmental policies, and who react by struggling against exploitation and oppression in various ways. In Trotsky's account, of course, the peasantry and the working class came to have a leading role in the outcome of Russia's combined development, namely the Bolshevik Revolution itself. Trotsky himself believed that the major source of conflict in international affairs was the capitalist nature of modern societies and that it was the ruthless competition that their social structures forced them to undertake in relation to each other that was the source of conflict and war. He also anticipated that there would be a massive cooperative process in the transition to socialism and beyond. When you think carefully about the theory of uneven and combined development, it's not clear that its implications are as straightforward or as optimistic as that. After all, the unevenness of development was a feature of historical change long before capitalism emerged, and presumably, it would continue into the post-capitalist period as well. As far as the contemporary period is concerned, where we're still in a capitalist world, the main implication is that possibilities or arrangements for enduring cooperation in international affairs are bound to be of a short-lived nature. The simple reason is that the unevenness of historical development and change is continually producing new world powers and relative decline among existing ones, hence redistributions of power in the world that need to be adjusted to. Whether that means in the short run there will be conflict, war, or peace is entirely a question of what the particular social structure of humanity is at the moment and how well those in policy positions manage to negotiate it. As we know, realism takes as its starting point for explaining international affairs the interaction of multiple states and the security dilemmas that creates for them. Liberalism and Marxism, as well, for that matter, take as their starting point the particular nature of modern liberal society and its implications for transforming the nature of international politics. The real difference between those two and uneven and combined development is that whereas the realist account, in effect, says that the nature of the societies involved makes absolutely no difference to what's really going on, this is simply the struggle for power between states. It's always been like this throughout human history and always will be, and that's all there is to it. There is no real social content to it. Uneven and combined development shows you that these international conflicts and processes of development are, in fact, part of a much wider transformation of human existence that we're all caught up with in the modern period. Liberalism and Marxism are, of course, very alive to the idea that the modern international system is something special and different from earlier historical periods, but for them, the argument is entirely about how liberalism or capitalist society changes international relations, and almost not at all about the significance of the international for how liberal society or capitalism will develop as a world system. There again, there's a key difference: uneven and combined development pinpoints the significance of this enduring feature of historical development and change, the international, for capitalism as a form of society.

[@Philroy1979]

"Confessions of an onaniser"

[@professorsironside1453]

There must be a better speaker for explaining the Marxist theory in international relations. Focusing only on the concept of uneven development was a wrong choice. What about "World System Theory"? How about "the global exploitative system" disguised under the name of liberal international order? He could also have gone for the "revisionist theory on the history of WWI, WWII, and Cold War "whose main idea is that the unchecked expansion of capitalism and political ambition of the early liberal democracies were the root of subsequent conflicts. I mean this could have been much better stated than this..!

[@ΣπύροςΣολδάτος-κ6χ]

Uneven Development was first introduced by Thucydides in "History of the Peloponnesian War" as one of the causes that lead to the war.

[@AtlantaBill]

Undoubtedly true, but not in the rigorous way that Trotsky developed the theory relying on earlier work by Engels and Lenin. I can't remember whether Trotsky mentioned Thucydides, but he might have done so. All of Historical Materialism would have been impossible, of course, without the groundwork of the Ancient Greek philosophers, especially Epicurus of Samos.