Uneven and Combined Development and World Literature: Neoliberalism and UCD-ism in the Novels of Hasan Ali Toptaş and China Miéville
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Publication Date: 2026
- Doi Number: 10.1080/09557571.2026.2717519
- Journal Name: Cambridge Review of International Affairs
- Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, Index Islamicus, Political Science Complete, Public Affairs Index, Political Science Abstract (IPSA), Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Sociology Source Ultimate (EBSCO)
- Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes
Abstract
This paper attempts to bridge the gap between the revival of Leon Trotsky’s theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) in International Relations and World Literature by exploring these central questions: what would be the benefit of applying UCD to the explanation of how literary aesthetic movements travel across the globe from the advanced literary spaces towards the developing ones? In what unique formations are they recreated in the developing regions of literary aesthetics, and how are new genres or techniques of literature being invented? Here, I argue that if Trotsky’s terms of ‘the whip of external necessity’ and ‘the privilege of historic backwardness’ are implemented to understand how world literature traverses globe from the advanced literary spaces of the world literary system towards the developing ones, Toptaş’s (1995) Gölgesizler can be read as an emblematic novel that makes leaps contributes towards the creation of a new aesthetic form and has the potential to redefine the parameters of post-postmodern aesthetics. Although Miéville’s (2009) deployment of allegory in The City & The City differs from Toptaş’s literary techniques, UCD stands as the common denominator between these authors’ works. The theory of UCD, therefore, holds a significance beyond IR, and it could be adapted to the world literature studies both as a methodology and as a periodising term. As a result, the new aesthetic movement following postmodernism should be aptly coined UCD-ism.