German insistence on a highly subjective understanding of fair treatment in early twentieth-century world politics is often mistaken for wanton status-seeking. I disentangle status-seeking from fairness-seeking by identifying where pure status-seeking versus fairness-seeking arguments diverge: the degree to which state actors demand exclusive rights and privileges. Feeling unjustly rewarded for its great power position, Wilhelmines leaders provoked two crises over the status of Morocco. However, at first, it did not seek any special advantages for Germany. Instead Germany sought the moral high ground by forcing the convocation of an international conference to settle the question of Western countries’ rights more generally. In the second crisis, Germany once again reacted strongly to increasing French influence in Morocco without the compensation that France had offered to other countries. I supplement these case studies with two survey experiments conducted in another suspected status-seeker, contemporary Russia. Respondents respond to status as unfair rather than a threat to Russian status, prefer a more inclusive organization that admits Russia but also other countries who deserve to be included by virtue of their GDP, and even indicate a willingness to exclude Russia when (manipulated) fairness dictates.

Explanations for Germany’s aggressive and bellicose foreign policy during the Wilhelmine period often point to efforts by entrenched elites to distract from the country’s stunted democratic development by generating international threats to unify the country. These accounts fail to come to terms with the moral revolution occurring in Germany at the time – the rise of nationalism. The identification of the group as the nation, and the understanding that the nation’s welfare is the leader’s primary concern, required a revolution in the basis of authority, one which implied that the emperor owed loyalty to the people. The nationalist right began to question the indecisive policy of the Wilhelmine regime in a way that was previously ethically sanctioned, condemning the emperor in particular for a lack of will and resolve during the second Moroccan crisis. In a dangerous world, this amounted to moral castigation. I supplement this chapter with a survey experiment conducted on the American public. For those who hold dangerous world beliefs, four virtues generally thought to indicate “competence” – disciplined and hardworking, strong-willed and determined, tough and strong, and persistent and resolute – are actually used as moral benchmarks, particularly for leaders.

Chapter 1 explains why colonial lobbyists founded the ICI in 1893 and why over 200 colonial experts from thirteen countries joined the ICI during a period of tense imperial rivalry. Their internationalist efforts were in the context of severe criticism of colonialism in the 1890s due to losing money for colonizing countries. After non-governmental colonial interest groups initiatied the ICI, governments and colonial administrations soon started funding it. They thus showed their esteem for its transnational agenda, which promised a quick and cheap economic development of overseas possessions. While in the early period of the ICI’s existence, emulation of other colonial powers still aimed at nationalist competition, colonial experts learned quickly how to capitalize on superior colonial methods developed through transnational exchange. Unveiling this transnational cooperation, this chapter shows how the ICI marginalized the nationalist branches of the colonial movements in Europe and even took diplomatic action to prevent colonial powers from going to war, which would pose a threat to their colonial project. Ultimately, most colonial experts turned to colonial internationalism to save the colonial project that earned them a living. By 1914, most colonizing countries brought their policies in line with the best practice propagated by the ICI.