Alexander Anievas

Associate Professor

Political Science

Ph.D., Cambridge

Dr. Alexander Anievas’ research interests lie at the intersection of historical sociology, political economy and international relations. Dr. Anievas previously held fellowships at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge before coming to UConn in 2016. He is the author of Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in the Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945 (University of Michigan Press, 2014), for which he was awarded the Sussex International Theory Book Prize, and co-author (with Kerem Nişancıoğlu) of How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism (Pluto, 2015), winner of the ISA’s International Political Sociology Section Best Book Award and the BISA-IPE Working Group Book Prize.

Dr. Anievas is currently completing the manuscript Race to Rollback: Far-Right Power in America’s Global Cold War for Columbia University Press. Through a theoretically-informed empirical analysis of American Cold War (geo)politics, Race to Rollback demonstrates how the far-right contributed to the formation of a racialized anticommunist political order at home crucial to projecting US imperial interests abroad. The manuscript offers a reconceptualization of US hegemony that problematizes existing accounts of the Cold War, while demonstrating the structural interconnections between the far-right and the so-called US-led liberal order-building project. In addition, Dr. Anievas is working on a related co-authored manuscript (with Richard Saull) provisionally entitled Legacies of Fascism: Race and the Far-Right in the Making of the Cold War.

Research Interests: History and Theory of International Relations; Historical Sociology; Marxism and Critical Theory; International Political Economy; Origins of the Two World Wars; Hegemony and World Order; War and Revolution; Origins of Capitalism and the Great Divergence; Race, Racism and the Far-Right in World Politics.

Editorial and Organizing Work: He is a corresponding editor of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory. He was a Managing Editor of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs between 2008 and 2010. In 2011, he organized the ‘Historical Materialism and International Relations’ seminar series held at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford.

View his website

Publications

Authored Books

How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism (London: Pluto, 2015) co-authored with Kerem Nişancioğlu.

  • Awards:
    • International Political Sociology Best Book Prize of 2017, International Studies Association (ISA), Winner.
    • International Political Economy Working Group Book Prize of 2016, British International Studies Association, Winner.
    • Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book in Historical International Relations of 2017, ISA, Honourable Mention.
    • ISA Theory Best Book Award of 2017, Finalist.
    • Susan Strange Book Prize of 2016, British International Studies Association (BISA), Finalist.

Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in the Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, Configurations: Critical Studies of World Politics Series, 2014).

 

Edited Books

Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Global Dialogues Series, 2016), co-edited with Kamran Matin.

Cataclysm 1914: The First World War and the Making of Modern World Politics (Leiden, NL: Brill Press, Historical Materialism Series, 2015).

Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line (London: Routledge, Interventions Series, 2015), co-edited with Nivi Manchanda and Robbie Shilliam.

The Longue Durée of the Far-Right: An International Historical Sociology (London: Routledge, Routledge Studies in Modern History Series, 2015), co-edited with Richard Saull, Neil Davidson, and Adam Fabry.

Marxism and World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2010).

Articles

‘The Far-Right in World Politics/World Politics in the Far-Right’, with Richard Saull, Globalizations (forthcoming).

‘Reassessing the Cold War and the Far-Right: Fascist Legacies and the Making of the Liberal International Order after 1945’, with Richard Saull, International Studies Review, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September, 2020): pp. 370-395.

‘Lineages of Capital’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, Vol. 26, No. 3 (September, 2018): pp. 167-196.

‘Limits of the Universal: The Promises and Pitfalls of Postcolonial Theory and Its Critique’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, Vol. 25, No. 3 (December, 2017): pp. 36-75.

‘How Did the West Usurp the Rest? Origins of the Great Divergence over the Longue Durée’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (January, 2017): pp. 34-67.

‘Why Europe? Anti-Eurocentric Theory, History, and the Rise of Capitalism’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (December, 2016): pp. 70-98.

‘History, Theory and Contingency in the Study of International Relations: The Global Transformation Revisited’, International Theory, Vol. 8, No. 3 (November, 2016): pp. 468-480.

‘Confronting Eurocentrism, Reductionism and Reification in International Historical Sociology: A Reply’, International Politics, Vol. 53, No. 5 (September, 2016): pp. 647-665.

‘Revolutions and International Relations: Rediscovering the Classical Bourgeois Revolutions’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 21, No. 4 (December, 2015): pp. 841-866.

‘International Relations between War and Revolution: Wilsonian Diplomacy and the Making of the Treaty of Versailles’, International Politics, Vol. 51, Vol. 5 (November, 2014): pp. 619-647.

‘The Poverty of Political Marxism’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, International Socialist Review, Vol. 94, No. 4 (Fall, 2014): pp. 114-133.

‘1914 in World Historical Perspective: The “Uneven” and “Combined” Origins of the First World War’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 19, No. 4 (December, 2013): pp. 721-746.

‘What’s at Stake in the Transition Debate? Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism and the “Rise of the West”’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (September, 2013): pp. 78-102.

‘Back to “Normality”? US Foreign Policy under Obama’, with Adam Fabry and Robert Knox, International Socialism, Series 2, Vol. 136 (Autumn, 2012): pp. 3-28.

‘The International Political Economy of Appeasement: The Social Sources of British Foreign Policy during the 1930s’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Winter, 2011): pp. 601-629.

‘The Uneven and Combined Development of the Meiji Restoration: A Passive Revolutionary Road to Capitalist Modernity’, with Jamie C. Allinson, Capital & Class, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Autumn, 2010): pp. 469-490.

‘The Uses and Misuses of Uneven and Combined Development: An Anatomy of a Concept’, with Jamie C. Allinson, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 1 (March, 2009): pp. 47-67.

‘Theories of a Global State: A Critique’, Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring, 2008): pp. 190-206.

‘Critical Dialogues: Habermasian Social Theory and International Relations’, Politics, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September, 2005): pp. 135-143.

Book Chapters

‘The World: Race, Red-Baiting, and the Wilsonian Century’, in Tim Dayton and Mark W. Van Wienen (eds.), A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 381-394.

‘Capitalism and “the International”: A Historical Approach’, with Cristian Gogu, in Benjamin de Carvalho, Julia Costa Lopez, and Halvard Leira (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 138-152.

‘Troubling Time and Space in World Politics: Reimagining Western Modernity in the Atlantic Mirror’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, in James Christie and Nesrin Degirmencioglu (eds.), Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2019), pp. 83-113.

‘Historical Sociology, World History, and the Problematic of “the International”’, with Kamran Matin, in Alexander Anievas and Kamran Matin (eds.), Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Global Dialogues Series, 2016), pp. 1-16.

‘Rethinking Historical Sociology and World History: Beyond the Eurocentric Gaze’, with Kamran Matin, in Alexander Anievas and Kamran Matin (eds.), Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Global Dialogues Series, 2016), pp. 251-255.

‘The First World War and the Making of Modern World Politics’, in Alexander Anievas (ed.) Cataclysm 1914: The First World War and the Making of Modern World Politics (Leiden, NL: Brill Press, 2015), pp. 1-20.

‘Marxist Theory and the Origins of the First World War’, in Alexander Anievas (ed.) Cataclysm 1914: The First World War and the Making of Modern World Politics (Leiden, NL: Brill Press, 2015), pp. 96-143.

‘Confronting the Global Colour Line: An Introduction’, with Nivi Manchanda and Robbie Shilliam, in Alexander Anievas, Nivi Manchanda, and Robbie Shilliam (eds.) Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 1-15.

‘The Longue Durée of the Far-Right: An Introduction’, with Richard Saull, Neil Davidson, and Adam Fabry, in Richard Saull, Alexander Anievas, Neil Davidson, and Adam Fabry (eds.) The Longue Durée of the Far-Right: An International Historical Sociology (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 1-20.

‘A World after Its Own Image? The State System, Capitalism and Unevenness’, in William Brown, Olaf Corry, and Agnes Czajka (eds.) International Relations: Continuity and Change in Global Politics, Volume I (Milton Keynes: Open University, 2014), pp. 129-172.

‘The Renaissance of Historical Materialism in International Relations Theory: An Introduction’, in Alexander Anievas (ed.) Marxism and World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 1-10.

‘Approaching “the International”: Beyond Political Marxism’, with Jamie C. Allinson, in Alexander Anievas (ed.) Marxism and World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 197-214.

‘On Habermas, Marx and the Critical Theory Tradition: Theoretical Mastery or Drift?’, in Cerwyn Moore and Chris Ferrands (eds.) International Relations and Philosophy: Interpretive Dialogues (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 144-156.

Editorial Work, Interviews and Online Articles

‘The Far-Right in World Politics’, with Richard Saull, Special Issue, Globalizations (forthcoming).

‘Interview with Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancioğlu on How the West Came to Rule’, base (formerly The Occupied Times of London) (29 October 2016).

‘The Being and Becoming of Capitalism’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Progress in Political Economy blog (October, 2016).

‘Provincialising European Capitalism’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, Progress in Political Economy blog (September, 2016).

‘How the West Came to Rule: An Interview with Alexander Anievas’, Counterpunch (May 27, 2016).

Republished in: George Souvlis, Voices on the Left: Challenging Capitalist Hegemony (Athens: Red Marks Publications, 2019), pp. 59-68.

Greek translation: RProject (25 January 2017).

Turkish translation: Dünyadan Çeviri (31 January 2017).

Russian translation: Commons Journal (24 February 2017).

Italian translation: Palermo Grad (19 & 26 May 2017).

‘La théorie marxiste et les origines de la Première Guerre mondiale’, Période (February 2016): French translation of ‘Marxist Theory and the Origins of the First World War’, in Alexander Anievas (ed.), Cataclysm 1914: The First World War and the Making of Modern World Politics (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2015), pp. 96-143.

‘Pour une critique radicale de l’eurocentrisme: entretien avec Alexander Anievas et Kerem Nişancioğlu’, Période (November, 2015).

English version: ‘Towards a Radical Critique of Eurocentrism: An Interview with Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancioğlu’, Viewpoint Magazine (December, 2015).

Spanish version: ‘Para una critica radical del eurocentrismo. Entrevista’, Sinpermiso (February, 2016).

‘Capitalism: A History of Violence’, with Kerem Nişancioğlu, The Disorder of Things (June, 2015).

‘Rethinking the Geopolitics of Capitalist Modernity in the Era of the Two World Wars’, contribution to a symposium on Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in the Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945, The Disorder of Things (January, 2015).

‘Deciphering “the International” in Theory and History: A Reply to The Disorder of Things Forum’, contribution to a symposium on Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in the Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945, The Disorder of Things (January, 2015).

‘Reassessing the Nazi War Economy and the Origins of the Second World War: An Introduction to a Symposium on Adam Tooze’s The Wages of Destruction’, Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (Winter, 2014): pp. 281-297.

‘Confronting the Global Colour Line: Race, Space and Imperial Hierarchy’, with Nivi Manchanda, Special Issue for Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 1 (March, 2013).

‘Libya, the Arab Revolution and Western Interventionism: A Case of Opposing Logics’, with Jamie C Allinson, New Left Project, 9 April 2011.

Three-part commissioned series on the ‘Political Economy of Contemporary Hungary’ for The Budapest Times, Vol. 8, Nos. 27-29 (July, 2010). German translation of first two pieces in the Budapester Zeitung, 14 and 19 July 2010.

‘Debating Uneven and Combined Development: Towards a Marxist Theory of “the International”?’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 1 (March, 2009), with author introduction.

‘Global Capitalism and the States System: Explaining Geopolitical Conflicts in Contemporary World Politics’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 4 (December, 2007), with author introduction.

‘Globalization, Imperialism and US Hegemony’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 2 (June, 2006), with author introduction.

Alexander Anievas
Contact Information
Emailalexander.anievas@uconn.edu
Phone(860) 486-3002
Office LocationHerbst Hall 428
CampusStorrs
Office Hours11:00-12:30pm Tuesday and Thursday (please email in advance for appointment)
Linkhttps://uconn.academia.edu/AlexanderAnievas