Edward Fertik, Yale University
Edward Fertik, Yale University
BGIE Seminar - Steel and Sovereignty: The Transformation of World Order, 1890-1941
BGIE Seminar - Steel and Sovereignty: The Transformation of World Order, 1890-1941
At the turn of the twentieth century, capitalist expansion collided with the contest for supremacy among the world’s major military powers to produce a hierarchical world economic order of weak and strong states. In response, nationalists in weak states sought to acquire the indispensable elements of modern sovereignty. In particular, obtaining the ability to produce steel became a mark of modern nationhood and an imperative of statecraft. Paradoxically for the weak states, the pursuit of sovereignty through steel required borrowing capital, technology, and expertise from lenders in the strong states. In my dissertation, “Steel and Sovereignty: the United States, Nationalism, and the Transformation of World Order, 1890-1941,” I use detailed archival investigations of steel projects in over a dozen countries to illustrate how developing country governments strove to borrow without compromising national autonomy. As a result of unlikely alliances with engineers, capital goods producers, and government agencies in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, by 1941 countries like Turkey and Brazil had acquired steel industries on unprecedentedly favorable terms. These coalitions, I argue, transformed the institutional order of global capitalism. What made this historic shift possible was a breakdown in cooperation between the rich countries. Specifically, in response to the greatest of all crises of globalization – the Great Depression – Nazi Germany embarked on its own radicalized search for national autonomy. German firms and policymakers pursued bilateral economic relationships with developing countries that included better terms for nationalist desiderata – including steel development – than Germany’s liberal rivals were offering. “Steel and Sovereignty” demonstrates that it was only in belated response to Germany's political gains through economic cooperation with developing countries that first Britain and then the U.S. inaugurated financial and technical assistance programs to meet the demands of nationalist governments. Far from a simple outgrowth of either the New Deal or the Cold War, international development emerged in response to the alarming appeal of an illiberal international economic order in the interwar years.
The talk will present the outline of this argument and then illustrate it by way of several examples from my dissertation research.