Description
According to common Marxist accounts (e.g. Luxemburg 2003; Lenin 2015; Harvey 2017), the origins of imperialism can be explained by capitalism’s need for expansion. Yet, what about empires predating capitalism, such as the Roman Empire? We propose that a structural-realist lens, particularly offensive neorealism, provides crucial elements for explaining motives behind imperialism. For this purpose, we combine Waltz’ (1979) defensive neorealism and Cohen’s (1973) proposal for a political theory of imperialism, grounded in the anarchic international system, with later advancements of realist theory, notably Mearsheimer’s (2001) offensive neorealism. Despite the latter’s obvious usefulness in explaining motives for expansion, it has not yet been explicitly applied to imperialism. Thus, we develop Cohen’s sketch for a realist theory of imperialism further and illustrate its empirical applicability through the comparative study of three cases: the Roman Empire; the British East India Company; and US military interventions in Iran, Chile, and Vietnam during the Cold War. Doing so, we pay particular attention to how a neorealist theory of imperialism relates to Marxist accounts and how capitalist and pre-capitalist cases of imperialism differ. By developing offensive neorealism as a theory of imperialism, we contribute a missing piece for understanding imperial motives that accounts for both political and economic drivers, significantly advancing the theoretical discourse on the origins of imperialism.
