Alliances, Duelling, and Social Policy

A translation of a book first published in Italian in 2007, Allies yet Rivals is a work of international relations theory that focuses on the eighteenth century. Cesa, professor of international relations at the Bologna Center, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and at the University of Bologna, argues that alliances represent a way to control other powers as well as a way to obtain their cooperation. This is not an original argument, and Edward Ingram has applied it trenchantly in the twentieth century, for example, to the Anglo-American relationship during the Second World War. Nevertheless, this is an argument that can be profitably applied to the eighteenth century.

The book is divided into two sections, the first theoretical and the second a series of case studies. In the first, Cesa considers the role of alliances in international relations, past and present, before advancing a typology of alliances. He argues that the most common trait of the specialized literature is to focus, either implicitly or explicitly, on defensive alliances, an approach he suggests underrates other types of alliances as well as the extent of power struggles among allies. He differentiates homogeneous alliances, in which the states comply with convergent constraints or respond to compatible opportunities, from heterogeneous alliances. Symmetry and asymmetry in terms of respective strength complete the matrix, so that four types of alliance are defined: the aggregation alliance, the result of the combination of homogeneity and symmetry; the guarantee alliance, characterized by homogeneity and asymmetry; the deadlocked alliance, made of heterogeneity and symmetry; and the hegemonic alliance, defined in terms of heterogeneity and asymmetry. This typology is then investigated in terms of four case studies: the Anglo-Prussian 1756–62, Anglo-Dutch 1702–56, Austro-French 1756–85, and Anglo-French 1716–31, each of which is the subject of a chapter.

Having written on each of these alliances, I could pick holes in these examples, not least by pointing out the complexity and dynamism of the individual alliances and the extent to which they both conformed with and differed from Cesa’s description. That, however, would not be helpful, as Cesa is not trying to offer a detailed account of international relations. Instead, it is his ability to encourage one to rethink the nature of alliances that is very stimulating, which also elicits a reconsideration of some of the political literature of the eighteenth century since the theme of allies looms large in these writings. Indeed, individual texts may be examined in terms of the tensions between contrasting ideas of alliances. There is also room for rethinking the understanding and use of the balance of power in this light. Thus, it is a most fruitful work and one that serves as an illustration of the empowering possibilities of theorizing.

The culture and practice of honor form the subject of Stephen Banks’s thoughtful and well-researched Polite Exchange of Bullets, the interest of which rests, in part, in the willingness and ability to take seriously what might otherwise appear as anachronistic and static; the latter was the approach of the abolitionists of the time. Duelling is often presented as though it had no internal history, but was a phenomenon frozen in time while everything around it changed. Instead, Banks, a lecturer in criminal law at the University of Reading, brings out the dynamic character of duelling and how it related to hierarchical authority and rule-based norms. He offers an important assessment of the character of the duel prior to its decline.

Banks, who unfortunately fails to draw on Jonathan Clark’s valuable work on the subject, discerns a crisis of confidence within the British governing classes as a result of the...