Hinterlands and Hypertrophies: Assessments of the Viability of Empires and Nation-States in Central and Eastern Europe, 1900 - 1930s

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The proposed project analyses the origins, development and impact of the concept of "viability" and its practice in the early 20th century. Viewing a state through the lens of "viability" (from German: Lebensfähigkeit, literal translation "the ability to live") meant interpreting it as a living organism. Transnational expert networks disseminated this approach to statehood throughout Central and Eastern Europe. States whose "viability" was doubted, resisted and adapted to the concept which in turn altered international approaches to "viability". We want to investigate how the circulation of knowledge and practices associated with "viability" lent the concept a dynamic character that changed over time. We will examine how claims to scientific objectivity associated with the concept of "viability" contributed to a broader international "science" of statehood that influenced international politics, economies, and state building over the 20th century. We examine networks of practitioners focused on Central and Eastern Europe and base our analysis on a broad range of published and archival sources.We maintain that "viability" emerged over the late 19th century to become a central principle of statehood in the 20th century, especially during and after the First World War. The assessment of a polity's "viability" meant subjecting it to an allegedly rigorous scientific analysis that interpreted state, nation and territory as organisms. Due to their underdeveloped economies, their supposedly low degree of state power over incoherent territories and the allegedly low level of education and social stratification of their populations, the Russian and Habsburg Empires as well as their successor states were criticised as failing or "unviable" organisms. The project aims to investigate the impact such assessments on the basis of "viability" had on state dissolution and formation, modernisation projects, population policies, international investment, and international politics. The analysis focuses on the discourse of "viability" and its interaction with state building projects. Transnational networks of practitioners, such as academics (geographers, economists and sociologists), politicians, journalists and businessmen, will be at the centre of attention. "Viability" emerged alongside social science disciplines, particularly political geography, sociology and political economy. These disciplines provided many of the experts within the network that deployed the concept of "viability" to assess states. The project investigates the boundaries of participation in the debate, how networks and expertise requirements changed, and how experts positioned themselves vis-à-vis the geopolitical order. "Viability" experts questioned the survivability of empires and the durability of newly created nation states. These "experts" emphasized that coherence in a social, political, and ethnic sense, not territorial expanse, determined state power. World War I raised the profile of these experts. From the perspective of state assessment, the years of intense political turmoil from 1917 to 1923 do not constitute a break, but a point of increased flow and interchange that linked the fates of empires and their successor states. The project will be based on sources in libraries and national archives in Central and Eastern Europe, the UK, and USA. The sources include writings of social scientists, political economists and geographers, as well as reports from the public and private sector that guided economic, demographic and infrastructural projects and transformed "viability" into policy.An examination of "viability" in Central and Eastern Europe promises insights that will resonate beyond the historical project. It will provide insight into the origins of contemporary debates on "failed states" and nation building that shape international politics today.