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Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth
Abstract
The 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia in 1998 was markedby a flurry of conferences and publications by historians, but it waslargely ignored in the discipline of international relations (IR). Thisoversight is odd because in IR the end of the Thirty Years War isregarded as the beginning of the international system with which thediscipline has traditionally dealt. Indeed, the international system hasbeen named for the 1648 peace. For some time now, this Westphaliansystem, along with the concept of sovereignty at its core, has been asubject of debate: Are the pillars of the Westphalian templedecaying ? Are we moving beyond Westphalia ?
... I then discuss theories of global governance. The analysis of discourse in the process of consultation and agenda-setting reveals a misfit between the conventional Westphalian 2 governance structure of the UN, a hierarchical structure of national representation, and the diversified actors and norms it seeks to represent (Ikenberry 2018;Osiander 2001). ...
... The participants in formal global meetings are predominantly national representatives (Peters 2015). Underlying the UN system is the Westphalian assumption that sovereign states fairly represent the various domestic voices within them, and that the democratic procedure of decisionmaking in which state representatives participate will therefore govern the globe justly (Ikenberry 2018;Osiander 2001). However, this hierarchical structure tends to reflect the power imbalance not only among UN Member States, but also among the ministries of these states. ...
The authoritative ideas of what education should be like under the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 4) are constructed through discourse among key actors of the “international education community” at large. This article presents the evolution of international education discourse, comparing the periods before and after September 2015. The analysis is presented in two parts. The first part discusses the period before the adoption of SDGs in 2015, during which the agenda was formulated through discourse. The author identifies themes such as cognitive and noncognitive skills, learning outcomes, measurement and indicators. Actors shaping the discourse included mission-driven civil society organisations (CSOs), constituency-based CSOs, technical specialist groups, UN Member States and philanthropic organisations. The second part is based on a large sample text mining using 832 web-downloaded texts published between 2015 and 2022. The list of key themes largely mirrors those identified in the first part, although the relative weight among them has changed over time. The emphasis has shifted from global, structural topics to more local, specific ones, with increased attention on individual learners and their skills and knowledge. It suggests the uprooted nature of global governance, particularly at the time of SDG adoption. The fact that the term “SDGs” has permeated to the household level reflects widening participation in the global discourse on education. The author observes two contrasting perspectives: one discusses education’s contributions to noneducational goals, such as employment, economic growth, achieving sustainability or guaranteeing basic human rights; while another represents traditional educationalism, which tends to equate schooling with the traditional classifications of primary, secondary and higher education.
... claims coming from the Emperor and the Pope, as well as from other states. While the role of Westphalia as a turning point in the origin of the "sovereign state" has been challenged multiple times on a factual basis (Croxton, 1999;Osiander, 2001;Piirimäe, 2010;Shibasaki, 2014), this is a symbolic date that international relations scholars associate with the emergence of the modern concept, in which we find the key architecture of the balance of power between European states: the extension (and mutual exclusion) of the authority and legitimacy of a state over a defined territory and people. Regardless of the historical accuracy of the Peace of Westphalia as the "origin" of the sovereign space, we can discuss, from an analytical perspective, the conceptual components of the idea of sovereignty. ...
This opening paper for the topical collection on digital sovereignty explores the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of the concept. The paper gives a brief overview of the traditional concept of sovereignty, discussing its applications to the digital. Moreover, it examines the tension between the borderless nature of cyberspace and the territorial basis of traditional sovereignty. The analysis highlights different perspectives on digital sovereignty, from state-led strategies aimed at controlling data and infrastructures to Indigenous approaches emphasizing self-determination and sovereignty over data. It further investigates the application of the concept to the infrastructural components of cyberspace, including submarine cables and cross-border data flows. The possibility of entrenching rules in the code of cyberspace is analysed highlighting regulatory ambitions and digital policies from China, Russia and the EU. This paper provides a foundational framework for the topical collection, proposing interdisciplinary approaches to address the complexities of digital sovereignty and its implications for global governance and politics.
... The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 marked a significant turning point in the development of state sovereignty. This treaty recognized the principle of territorial integrity and the right of nations to self-determination, laying the foundation for the modern international system (Osiander, 2001). During the 19th and 20th centuries, the notion of sovereignty gained paramount importance in both the legal and political spheres of international relations. ...
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses a multitude of philosophical questions about the role of the state in regulating and governing society. This paper investigates the impact of AI on state sovereignty, examining the way AI-enabled technologies change social, cultural, economic and political norms, and consequently challenge traditional concepts of territorial and jurisdictional sovereignty. It reviews the historical conception of state sovereignty and the new challenges posed by AI-enabled technologies, including its impact on national security, democracy and geopolitics. It analyzes the legal challenges of AI and the role of international organizations in regulating AI and preserving state sovereignty. Furthermore, the paper considers the impact of AI on developing countries and how it is affecting social, cultural, economic and political systems. Finally, it evaluates the social and cultural implications of AI and the need for international cooperation to promote responsible development and use of AI technologies. The paper concludes with philosophical reflections on the future of state sovereignty in the age of AI, proposing recommendations for preserving state sovereignty in the face of rapid technological change.
... Furthermore, during the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in London 2012, the Olympic committee recognized secessionists' movements such as Palestine and Taiwan as entities although these are not legally recognized sovereign states. This makes scholars question if sovereignty could be granted to self-claimed autonomous entities and Andreas Siander argues "it was not realized, far from being traditional, this ideology had its roots only in the transient nineteenth-century heyday of state autonomy" [34]. Whether or not this would provide an explanation for the recognition of South Sudan in terms of the shared sovereignty with Sudan stipulated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the extension of diplomatic recognition has not been legally premised, but politically motivated. ...
This study interrogates different domestic and international factors that lead to support for secessions. It questions why South
Sudan’s secession was strongly supported by Western great powers. It uses realist theory and norms of sovereignty as an
analytical conceptual framework for understanding the national interests of the Western great powers in supporting
independence and conferring sovereignty. It argues that support for secessions and international recognition have more to do
with the great powers’ own interests, particularly, the U.S., rather than the fulfillment of the criteria of international law. The
analysis examines six competing arguments (hypotheses) such as: history of conflict; agreed framework and commitment of
local population; compatible norms and internationalized ethnic politics; status of the mother state in the eyes of the
international community; economic benefits, and security and stability interests in the case of South Sudan. A comparison of
these hypotheses with the cases of Somaliland and Western Sahara shows that the unique case of support for South Sudan
statehood was due to its long and bitter history of conflict, to compatible norms and internationalized ethnic politics, particularly with the U.S, as well as the diminished status of Sudan in the eyes of the international community, especially with regard to human rights violations in Darfur and the security and stability interests triggered by September 11th, 2001. The remaining two hypotheses agreed framework and commitment of the local population, along with economic benefits, appear not to be unique to the case of South Sudan since the agreed framework was present for both South Sudan and Western Sahara and commitment of the local population was present in all three cases. The second factor (economic benefits) is particularly relevant to Western Sahara, since the U.S. and France have an interest in Morocco’s resources and hence are less interested in Saharawi’s independence
... Furthermore, during the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in London 2012, the Olympic committee recognized secessionists' movements such as Palestine and Taiwan as entities although these are not legally recognized sovereign states. This makes scholars question if sovereignty could be granted to self-claimed autonomous entities and Andreas Siander argues "it was not realized, far from being traditional, this ideology had its roots only in the transient nineteenth-century heyday of state autonomy" [34]. Whether or not this would provide an explanation for the recognition of South Sudan in terms of the shared sovereignty with Sudan stipulated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the extension of diplomatic recognition has not been legally premised, but politically motivated. ...
... The complexity of the concept is amplified by the fact that the modern meaning of sovereignty refers to the peoples within a state, not exclusively to the state itself as a legal entity. 70 Sovereignty as a principle dates back to the 16th century 71 and is one of the concepts developed after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. The Westphalian system considered States to have sovereignty over their territories and domestic affairs without the intervention of other States. ...
The paper aims to highlight the conflict between the idea of state control over the Internet and the impact on freedom of expression and access to information and to challenge the state-driven regulatory model. The doctrine of cyber sovereignty, as advocated by China and Russia, is an example of such control in the absence of international legally binding regulation. First, the special features of cyberspace as a sui generis phenomenon are presented, as well as the attempts of the United Nations to create a legal framework for this special environment. Second, the digital perspective of the right to access information is analysed, followed by the meaning of the principle of state sovereignty and the impact on the digital space, especially its fragmentation. Addressing this conflict is crucial to safeguarding fundamental rights in the digital empire, divided between the doctrine of human rights, the idea of open space and the control of information supported by authoritative regimes.
... Dünya Savaşı öncesinde ortaya çıkan Nazizm, faşizm, totalitarizm ve militarizm gibi ideolojiler Aydınlanmanın insanlık için ileri sürdüğü politik baskıdan ve dinden özgürleşme hedeflerinin Aydınlanmanın ilk ortaya çıktığı dönem için başarıldığını ancak akabinde Aydınlanma eliyle yeni tahakküm alanları ve mitlerin yaratıldığını ortaya koymuştur (Horkheimer ve Adorno, 1969). Modern devlete yönelik ortaya çıkan imani bağlılık ve onun ortaya çıkışında tarihsel referans noktası olarak kabul edilen örneğin Westphalia Barışı gibi süreçler birer mit olarak kurgulanmıştır (Osiander, 2001). Doğanın sonsuz bir sömürüye açılması ve insan dışındaki diğer doğa güçlerinin sonsuz-telafisiz talanı doğadan özgürleşmenin de doğanın tahribatına dönüştüğünü ortaya koymuştur. ...
Sosyal bilimlerin görece geç bir disiplini olan Uluslararası İlişkiler (Uİ) kuruluşundan itibaren pozitivist bir hüviyete sahip olmuştur. Bu hüviyetin en açık göstergesi ana akım Uİ teorilerinin pozitivist varsayımlar üzerine bina edilmesi kadar disiplinin tarihi anlatısında araçsallaştırılan büyük tartışmalarda tarafların bilim ile kastettiklerinin pozitivist bilim felsefesi olmasıdır. Dolayısıyla Uİ’nin son büyük tartışması olan Pozitivizm-Postpozitivizm tartışmasına kadar disiplinin pozitivist bir hegemonyanın tahakkümünde olduğunu ileri sürmek mümkündür. Bu durum Uİ mensuplarının doğa bilimlerinin yakaladığı öngörü, evrensellik ve genel-geçer bilgi üretme başarısını Uİ’de de yakalama isteği kadar, bir sosyal bilim disiplini olarak Uİ’nin bilimselliğini kanıtlama çabasının da sonucudur. Bu bakımdan I. Dünya Savaşı sonrasında kurulan ve II. Dünya Savaşı sonrasında da bilimsel otonomisi ile özerkliğini ispat etmeye çalışan Uİ’de, kuruluşuna kodlanan pozitivist bilim felsefesi Davranışsalcılık ile altın çağını yaşamıştır. Ancak pozitivist Uİ ve teorilerinin disiplinde yarattığı devlet-merkezcilik, batı-merkezlilik ve iç-dış, anarşi-hiyerarşi şeklindeki suni dikotomilere bağlılık gibi sorunlar 1980’li yıllarla birlikte pozitivizmin eleştirilmesine, Uİ’de de post-pozitivist bir gündemin ortaya çıkmasına sebebiyet vermiştir. Post-pozitivizmin bahse konu pozitivist hegemonyayı aşıp aşamadığı ya da ne ölçüde aştığı önemli bir sorundur. Tüm bu noktalardan hareketle Uİ’nin pozitivizm ve post-pozitivizmin arasında kalmış durumunun irdelendiği bu çalışmada, ilk olarak pozitivizmin ardından da post-pozitivizmin Uİ ve teorileri nezdinde yarattığı sonuçlar üzerinde durulmuştur.
... The foundation of the international system that we know today has its roots from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (Osiander, 2001) which ended the Thirty Years War between catholics and protestants (Ghervas & Armitage, 2020). The outcome was a large devastation in terms of population losses and material destruction. ...
... The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 marked a significant turning point in the development of state sovereignty. This treaty recognized the principle of territorial integrity and the right of nations to self-determination, laying the foundation for the modern international system (Osiander, 2001). During the 19th and 20th centuries, the notion of sovereignty gained paramount importance in both the legal and political spheres of international relations. ...
Despite various initiatives taken by the government, Malaysia shows a trend of increasing migrant smuggling. Weaknesses in the border control management have resulted in the escape of smugglers at the border gate. Thus, this article aims to assess the potential application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology at the Malaysia-Thailand land border in enhancing border security. Based on a series of interviews with relevant ministries, enforcement agencies, technology experts, academic experts and other stakeholders, as well as secondary sources, this study found that AI technology has the potential to overcome issues pertaining to weak border control management faced by the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP), the main enforcement agency that manages the Malaysia-Thailand land border along with other enforcement agencies. Among the issues are a lack of enforcement, integrity concerns and limited manpower to control Malaysia’s porous borders. However, some strategies should be taken to adapt AI to our border security system. Thus, this article analyses the concept of Integrated Border Management (IBM) to obtain coordination and cooperation among all relevant authorities and countries involved in the adaptation of AI technology at the Malaysia-Thailand land border. This article also analyses how Malaysia should respond to the ethical implications of AI technology. This study will help promote a cross-border collaboration network between Malaysia and related foreign countries in dealing with migrant smuggling issues.
... This suggests that the purpose of the balance of power did not emerge in a normative vacuum, mechanically preventing unchecked dominance by any single state (Lebow 2008). The maxim of 'liberty and safety Europe' gained traction around the peace congress of Utrecht in 1713, precisely in reaction to what was by then an essentially inter-dynastic system of privately interpreted rules and norms (Osiander 2001;Picq 2009). A few decades earlier, King Louis XIV of France had special Chambers of Reunion to confirm his ancient rights on conquered German territories. ...
The concept of the status quo state within international relations (IRs) has garnered less scholarly attention compared to the concept of the revisionist state. Traditionally, status quo states are portrayed as defensive and cooperative actors that uphold established international norms. However, their potential for interventionism and offensive behavior has been largely overlooked. By situating the concept of the status quo state within the context of normative orders from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, this article proposes three key indicators for its conceptual identification: seeking ‘collective support’ to legitimize their actions against perceived or actual revisionist threats; pursuing a clearly defined goal of ‘order-maintenance’ by restoring regional and/or global normative orders; and exhibiting ‘self-restraint,’ not necessarily by limiting the use of force, but by restricting the objectives of such force to preserving international order. This analytical framework aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of states’ status quo-seeking in both regional and global contexts.
... Although they point out the fallacies of the methodological realism of mainstream theory of international relations, they thus tend to reassert the logical basis of realism. Against this logic, Osiander (2001) convincingly argues that the so-called Westphalian system of nation-states, if it ever had some relevance, is currently undermined by industrial interdependence and becomes largely a myth. ...
Starting from a brief analysis of the structural characteristics of contemporary totalitarian imperialism , as a dialectical supersession of classical imperialism, and of the continuing crisis of capitalism, we focus on the new characteristics of global capitalism, which are arguably crucial for the unfolding geopolitical conflicts and the struggle for socialism. Referring more specifically to the emerging divide and conflict within world capitalism, between western NATO forces (US, EU, et al.) on the one hand, and the rising block of the BRICS countries on the other, we take a critical stance against those (left-wing) commentators or political currents, which consider this conflict as a typical inter-imperialist rivalry and argue for the need of taking an equal distance from the opposite poles of this rising confrontation. As argued, though the revolutionary forces struggling for socialism worldwide should not, by any means, identify with the BRICS coalition, the equal-distance approach should be criticized on the ground that a multi-polar world would be a more favorable condition for a communist perspective. What is more essentially argued is that, independently from the emerging two poles of geopolitical confrontation, there is an urgent need for a transnational class struggle (from below) towards communism, and that the fundamental capital-labor contradiction and the social question should be prioritized as against any national (or capitalist block) contradictions or national liberation struggles. As historical experience has asserted, the opposite prioritization will always work against social emancipation and the prospect of communism.
... El primero es el "mito de Westfalia" (Osiander, 2001). La paz de Westfalia se considera generalmente una fecha de referencia para la fundación del estado soberano contemporáneo, así como para el sistema o las sociedades internacionales contemporáneas. ...
El análisis sobre las Relaciones Internacionales (RI) en el contexto del Indo-Pacífico destaca la necesidad de una revisión profunda de las teorías eurocéntricas predominantes y la inclusión de perspectivas alternativas, como las propuestas por la escuela china de RI. En primer lugar, la crítica al eurocentrismo en las teorías de RI revela una limitación importante en la comprensión de las dinámicas globales, especialmente en regiones culturalmente diversas como el Indo-Pacífico. La tendencia a centrarse en experiencias y perspectivas occidentales ha llevado a un sesgo en la interpretación de eventos y relaciones internacionales, pasando por alto las complejidades históricas y culturales de otras partes del mundo. Esto ha llevado a un entendimiento parcial de fenómenos como el ascenso de China y la emergencia de nuevas dinámicas de poder en la región, que requieren un enfoque más inclusivo y globalmente consciente. En segundo lugar, la escuela china de RI ofrece una perspectiva alternativa fundamentada en la filosofía y la historia china, introduciendo conceptos como armonía, jerarquía y racionalidad. Estos elementos proporcionan una base teórica única para comprender la política internacional desde una perspectiva no occidental. Sin embargo, surge el desafío de cómo estas ideas se aplican en la práctica política y cómo influyen en la gobernanza global. La traducción de estos conceptos a políticas concretas en el contexto del Indo-Pacífico en un campo de estudio en evolución que requiere un análisis más detallado y empírico. Además, se destaca la importancia de una cooperación más estrecha entre la teoría de las RI y los estudios de área para enriquecer la comprensión de las dinámicas geopolíticas en la región. Esto implica superar la visión eurocéntrica del estado y explorar otras formas de organización política que han sido relevantes históricamente en el Indo-Pacífico. Asimismo, se requiere un mayor conocimiento de los procesos históricos y culturales específicos de la región para evitar interpretaciones simplistas y esencialistas. Por último, se advierte sobre el riesgo de esencializar identidades y legados históricos en el contexto del Indo-Pacífico, así como de legitimar discursos políticos nacionalistas y autoritarios. Esto resalta la necesidad de una aproximación crítica y reflexiva a la teoría de las RI, que reconozca la complejidad y diversidad de las dinámicas geopolíticas en la región. El objetivo es la revisión de las teorías eurocéntricas y la integración de perspectivas alternativas desde un punto de vista del Indo-Pacífico, como las de la escuela china de RI, son fundamentales para una comprensión más completa y precisa de las RI en el Indo-Pacífico.
... In addition to this spatial orientation, the mandala model as opposed to the more variegated practices that existed under feudalism. According to Osiander's rich analysis, this is also a story with mythological characteristics, an invention of 19 th and 20 th -century lawyers invested in the intensification of central state administrations (Osiander 2001). The intensification of central administrations was of course facilitated by the emergence of the nation -state and its attendant imaginary of neat correspondence between a culture, a territory, and a government (Anderson 1991). ...
This is a thesis about why and how social formations endure in the face of cataclysmic political-economic changes. In particular, I focus on the centuries-old relationship between the Ta'ang (Palaung) people and the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), a relationship that endures despite decades of war, capitalist encroachment, and ecological collapse. My research employs collaborative ethnographic research methods, semiotic analysis, and insights from botany and biology to revise classic anthropological debates about highland-lowland political relations in Southeast Asia. Beginning from the Ta'ang cultural ecology of tea, I shift this debate from a focus on binary relations between "imperial" lowlands and "anarchic" highlands to an exploration of intra-highland political complexity.
The peoples who call themselves Ta'ang have been cultivating tea for centuries across the highlands of present-day Myanmar, China and Thailand. As lowland empires have given way to modern nation-states, as tributary relations have given way to capitalist economies, tea and Ta'ang have remained bound to one another. Although some Ta'ang people see tea as a burden, there is a recent movement, especially since Myanmar's 2021 military coup, to reframe the tea industry as a potential means to Ta'ang political-economic self-sufficiency in a federalized post-revolutionary Myanmar. This political-economic vision rewrites an exploitative relationship in emancipatory terms: tea cultivation, which has long tied Ta'ang farmers to predatory debt relations with lowland brokers, could be refigured as a way for Ta'ang people to profit from their own expertise and traditions. However, this political vision hinges on the reification of the Ta'ang tea cultivator as an ideal ethno-racial type. In this context, I ask how Ta'ang people navigate the tension between these two political projects, between emancipation (from debt relations, from racism, from Bamar hegemony) and reification (of Ta'ang people as tea cultivators, and the suite of stereotypes that go along with this image).
I answer this question with two main ethnographic findings, based on multi-sited and mixed methods research carried out in Myanmar, Australia and Thailand between early 2020 and the end of 2022. First, I find that Ta'ang people use myth-making and storytelling as a form of political theory. Myths (and people's commentaries on them) provide a way of expressing ideas about power: myths can be used to explain past and present subjugations, and also to theorize emancipatory political potentials, the casting off of overlords. Second, I find that ethno-racial reification in the Ta'ang world is a by-product of brokerage and mediation: the people most invested in reifying Ta'ang as a legible and clearly-bounded social order are those people who must pass in and out of it for one reason or another. These findings emerge from the present revolutionary moment in Myanmar, shaped by ongoing wars, the military coup, and the impact of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.
... Konsep ini kemudian diadopsi dan berdampak luas di seluruh dunia. Yang tak kalah penting, Perjanjian Westphalia ini juga membuka jalan bagi perkembangan diplomasi modern, di mana negara-negara mulai menggunakan perundingan dan perjanjian tertulis untuk menyelesaikan konflik-konflik di berbagai belahan dunia (Croxton, 2013;Osiander, 2001;Whaley, 2012). ...
This conceptual article will explain the role and position of religious entities in the debate on political studies and international relations, which were once marginalized. This situation cannot be separated from the strong dominance of secularism which provides strong legitimacy for the importance of material factors such as military power and economic-political interests in the development of global political economy. Religious factors and other identities are considered abstract and do not get a place in the mainstream debate. However, along with the development of the dynamics and complexity of global political economy and security, religious factors have again received great attention. By analyzing the historical roots and transformation of political studies and international relations, with a deeper emphasis in the context of Islamic religion, this article which is sourced from secondary data, lays the stronger basis for understanding the rise of Constructivism School of Thought, which finally concludes that religious entities and other identity factors have played a significant and fundamental role in determining the direction of the dynamics of socio-political, economic and international security developments.
... Furthermore, this discrepancy cannot be separated from the theoretical supposition that underpins international law itself and fails to recognize the contemporary reality where constitutional pluralism is the order of the day. Hence, this paper argues that the genesis of the Halal Act deserves our attention in that it unveils the inadequacy of the international legal system, which hasn't changed since the introduction of the Westphalia treaty back in 1648 as the bedrock of today's international relations (Hershey, 1912;Osiander, 2001). ...
... It is important to note here and to complete the argument that we are aware that the peace of 1648 itself is only a milestone in a long process, but nevertheless the reference to this event as a paradigm--shifting date is widely accepted in the theoretical literature. For more on the critique seeOsiander 2001. 10 See the Charter of the UN: https://www.un.org/en/about -us/un -charter. ...
This special section investigates citizens’ attitudes towards EU citizenship in
Eastern Central Europe (ECE) and Western Europe (WE) and their relation
to regional living conditions. It presumes that living in regional peripheries
leads to ‘peripheral’ conceptions of citizenship. In particular, we ask whether
citizens living in spatially, economically or socially peripheral regions, both in
ECE as such and within it, are more likely to share conceptions of citizenship
that deviate from those dominant in Western Europe – often equated with the
centre of the EU.
... While regional organizations are increasingly engaged in statebuilding efforts, 36 the U.N. has been the dominant IO engaged in statebuilding in post-conflict countries since the end of the Cold War. 37 For our analysis, 30 For discussion of norms of international sovereignty and intervention, see Osiander (2001); Karns et al. (2015); Hurd (2020). 31 For a discussion of accountability in IOs and related international aid agencies, see Martens et al. (2002); Gibson et al. (2005);Natsios (2011);Campbell (2018). ...
International Organizations (IOs), such as the United Nations (U.N.), engage in statebuilding in a range of post-conflict states. Statebuilding scholarship largely assumes that IOs, backed by their powerful member states, have at least temporary authority over the seemingly “weak” states in which they intervene. We argue, in contrast, that many post-conflict states shape IO statebuilding efforts through many statebuilding contracts, which we call incomplete arrangements, that give the post-conflict state the residual rights of control over the unnegotiated components of these statebuilding contracts with IOs. These incomplete arrangements, as opposed to complete takeovers, which are the other type of statebuilding contracts, provide procedural “weapons of the weak state” that enable the post-conflict state to influence what the IO mandate contains, where it intervenes, whom it hires, and when it exits. Using in-depth case studies of Burundi, Guatemala, and Timor-Leste, as well as analysis of 36 U.N. interventions in post-conflict states from 2000–2020, this article demonstrates the potential of incomplete arrangement statebuilding contracts to give post-conflict states institutional power over IO statebuilders, with important implications for scholarship on statebuilding and global governance.
... Ancak bir hastalık sonucu 1679'da vefat eden Hobbes'un (Onbaşı, 2013: 30) yaşadığı dönemde uluslararası siyaset zeminini şekillendiren gelişmeler de siyaset felsefesini güvenliksizlik noktasında etkilemiştir. Bu gelişmeleri Hobbes'un siyaset felsefesindeki etkilerini gözeterek sıralamak gerekirse; ilk olarak Otuz Yıl Savaşları ve bu savaşların sonunda imzalanarak modern uluslararası ilişkilerin başlangıcı olarak kabul edilen Westphalia Antlaşması (Osiander, 2001: 251) Hobbes'un siyaset felsefesini etkilemiştir. Bilindiği üzere 1555 Augsburg Barışı'nın mezhepsel anlamda tam bir özgürlük sağlayamaması sebebiyle ortaya çıkan Otuz Yıl Savaşları (Wilson, 2008b: 576) Avrupa'daki din savaşlarının son safhasını temsil etmektedir (Haan, 2017: 1). ...
Öz Amaç: Bu çalışmada modern siyaset felsefesinin önemli figürlerinden olan Hobbes’un Uluslararası İlişkiler (Uİ) nezdindeki teorik konumlanması irdelenmiştir. Tasarım/Yöntem: Çalışmada Hobbes’un siyaset felsefesi, ortaya çıktığı sosyo-politik şartlar bağlamında incelenmiş ve böylece varsayımlarının mutlaklaştırılmasının önüne geçilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bununla birlikte Hobbes’un Uİ nezdinde üzerinde en çok durulan Leviathan başlıklı çalışmasının yanı sıra Behemoth başlıklı çalışması da irdelenmiş ve bu yolla siyaset felsefesi eklektik değil bütüncül bir şekilde ele alınmıştır. Bulgular: Çalışmada ulaşılan sonuç Hobbes’un ortaya koyduğu siyaset felsefesinin Uİ teorileri nezdinde yalnızca realizmle ilişkili olmadığı yer yer rasyonalizmi de içerdiğidir. Bununla birlikte Hobbes’un siyaset felsefesi ile Uİ pratiği arasındaki uyum 21. yüzyıl özelinde ve büyük ölçüde devam etmektedir. Sınırlılıklar: Hobbes’un siyaset felsefesinin Uİ teorileri bakımından yeri, Martin Wight’ın realizm, rasyonalizm ve devrimcilik şeklindeki geleneksel Uİ teorileri ayrımı bakımından irdelenmiştir. Özgünlük/Değer: Hobbes Uİ’de genellikle realizm geleneğiyle ilişkilendirilmektedir. Nitekim Hobbes’un insan doğasına yönelik kötücül bakış açısı, çatışmalı doğa durumu kurgusu ve güvenlik vurgusu Hobbes’un Uİ’de realizmin felsefi öncüllerinden sayılmasını beraberinde getirmiştir. Yine Hobbes ortaya koyduğu devlet teorisinin rasyonel içeriği ve bir toplumsal sözleşmeci olması sebebiyle diğer sosyal bilim alanlarında liberal bir teorisyen olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Bu çelişkili durum göz önüne alındığında herhangi bir siyaset felsefecisini Uİ nezdinde belirli bir teorik kategori içine peşinen hapsetmenin geçersizliği ortaya çıkmaktadır. Dolayısıyla çalışma kapsamında Hobbes herhangi bir teorik çerçeve içine hapsedilmeden incelenmiştir.
Volume VI of The Cambridge History of International Law offers a survey of the law of nations in early modern Europe through a balanced treatment of legal theory and diplomatic practice. Bringing together a wide range of scholars, this volume builds on recent historiographical insights from different disciplines, including legal history, diplomatic history, and the history of political thought. It considers all major themes ranging from the allocation of jurisdiction over land and sea, war- and peace- making, trade and navigation to diplomacy and dispute settlement. A unique overall synthesis of early modern law across nations in Europe.
Is the state monopoly on the use of legitimate violence a modern invention that refers exclusively to a particular provincial sociohistorical phenomenon that emerged in seventeenth-century Europe? The answer this paper presents is no. Instead, I argue that the canonical Eurocentric epistemic communities have sought to displace other systems of governance and administration and replace them with European and Westphalian-like models. Yet, an urgent question remains unanswered: Why were political scientists and political sociology scholars from the Global South forced to adopt these [Eurocentric] theses and apply them to other, diverse regions, which have had different and prior historical, social, political, cultural, and economic experiences from Europe? To answer these questions, the paper adopts a decolonial approach to examine the following hypothesis: internal violence, repression, and control (from above) were the constitutive factors of forming and preserving political authority necessary for the establishment and development of modern states outside the Western hemisphere. To do so, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Ḵẖaldūn’s (1332–1406) theses on the ontological and constitutive role of violence are deployed to critique the Weberian principle of the state’s monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force. I present what I call the Ḵẖaldūnian trilogy of ʿasabiyya, al-Daʿwa al-Diīniyah, al-shāwkāh wa al-ghālbāh wa al-qāhr (i.e., the dominant group, religious-ideological discourse, force majeure, and repression-domination), upon which state/authority relies to constitute and consolidate its power and legitimacy, without being occupied with either the legality or the justice of this violence, as epistemic alternative of the Eurocentric conceptions of state-building.
This chapter is a survey of the legal languages used to govern territory, sovereignty and the right of a ruler within a polity. Debates were heavily dominated by feudal and private law-concepts. Sovereigns maintained the diversity of privileges in the territories ruled in the setting of a composite monarchy. Claims and titles could or could not entail consequences for sovereignty. Reservations and exceptions to full internal sovereignty were not uncommon. Succession quarrels (often causes of war), could be solved by treaty, often in conflict with domestic constitutional rules and principles. Mixed polities (Poland-Lithuania, Holy Roman Empire) offered a broad range of argumentative topoi to either confirm or combat overlordship. Internal German questions could quickly escalate to the field of the law of nations through the game of alliances and guarantees. Although republican forms of monarchy and republican oligarchies were on the decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their legal agency was not contested. In extra-European dominions of European sovereigns, the chain of reasoning was significantly lighter, as feudal arguments rarely came into play. Conversely, the agency of subaltern actors in establishing boundaries, or the treatment of native Americans as either allies or subjects provide original avenues of research.
INTRODUCTION. The history of international law has attracted special attention of domestic legal scholars in the past and continues to arouse high scientific interest among legal researchers at the present time. There is no doubt that this issue will not cease to be the subject of serious scientific research in the future. The ongoing scientific study of issues related to the history of international law is quite justified. On the one hand, the ongoing development of international relations and modern trends in interstate interaction allow us to rethink past events in world life. On the other hand, the future sustainable and effective development of international law is impossible without analyzing the past. This is explained by the fact that turning to the accumulated experience of international legal regulation, as well as to early and subsequent concepts of international law, can provide invaluable assistance in solving the problems facing the world community in modern times. In this regard, there is no doubt about the relevance of the monograph by I.Z. Farkhutdinov «Evolution of International Law – from Westphal to Versailles», published in 2024.
MATERIALS AND METHODS. The writing of this work is based both on the approaches and conclusions formulated in the monograph under review, and on the scientific works of domestic and foreign international lawyers on the issues under consideration. In preparing the review, general scientific and special methods of cognition used in legal research were used.
RESEARCH RESULTS. The chronological framework of the presented study is designated by the adoption of a few important international documents, which, on the one hand, marked the completion of the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648 and the First World War of 1914-1918, respectively, and, on the other hand, established certain models of international relations in a specific historical period. The monograph opens with a study of the origin of international law as a regulator of interstate relations. Then it moves on to the problems of the Vienna Congress and the formation of the Vienna system of international relations. The final part of the monograph is entitled «From Sarajevo to Versailles. From the «law of military conflicts» to the First World War.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. In conclusion, it is noted that the monograph by I.Z. Farkhutdinov «Evolution of International Law – from Westphal to Versailles» is a monographic work with a deep personal view of the history of international law of the 16th-20th centuries, with extensive use of the achievements of related social sciences: history, theory of international relations, political science, which makes a significant contribution to the development of international legal science. On the one hand, it invites to discuss the stated topic, and on the other, serves as a guide for future legal research on the history of international law (both the legal system and science), as well as interstate relations. In addition, it is hoped that subsequent studies of the evolution of international law, covering other geographical and chronological frameworks of its historical development, will be reflected by the author of the monograph under review in his further scientific research.
Teaching International Relations theory almost invariably involves entering into dialogue about sovereignty and geographical space. In this essay, we argue that very little consideration is given to the concepts of sovereignty and space beyond the conventional disciplinary narrative that binds both space and sovereignty to the state. Further, we suggest that teaching International Relations theory from a situated perspective requires an elaboration of other place-based encounters with these core concepts. From our position as scholars of International Relations in Australia, necessarily working on lands over which Aboriginal sovereignty remains, and was never ceded, we elaborate both a critique of International Relations theory that ignores the function of coloniality in the theoretical architecture of the discipline, and an approach to International Relations theory that takes situatedness seriously. The approach that we offer is relational, and recasts the concepts of sovereignty and space within this framework. Ultimately, we make the case for a place-based analysis of, and theoretical encounter with, international relations.
Los incidentes diplomáticos bilaterales pueden tener orígenes en situaciones menores o notoriamente graves, pero solo se concretan cuando provocan la atención de ambos Estados centrales y captan el interés de sus respectivas sociedades e incluso de la opinión internacional. Situaciones menores o notoriamente graves que surgen en territorios aislados o en fronteras escasamente pobladas, muy infrecuentemente escalan hasta transformarse en incidentes diplomáticos y, a fortiori, en un “casus belli”. Sin embargo, éstas permiten comprender la importancia de los contextos históricos en que se insertan relaciones bilaterales. En este artículo, a partir de una discusión teórica del fenómeno del “incidente diplomático”, se analizan algunos “incidentes fronterizos” acontecidos en la frontera boliviano-chilena, durante el siglo XX, mediante una metodología cualitativa de recopilación historiográfica documental de prensa regional y nacional, como también de fuentes secundarias, que han permitido reconstruir el contexto político del período y sus dinámicas transfronterizas. En los casos analizados, en el proceso de escalamiento de los “incidentes fronterizos” a “incidentes diplomáticos”, se observó la participación de intereses políticos y sociales-locales, que suelen responder a problemas internos que apelan a diversas expresiones de la soberanía que ostenta cada nación, sin importar los efectos colaterales en la población que habita ese territorio.
La historia y la ciencia política han enfocado sus análisis, principalmente, en el Estado nación. Habitualmente, la teleología modernista ha confundido integración estatal, evolución social y progreso socio-económico. El Estado nación es presentado, analíticamente, como un inevitable producto del progreso histórico y, normativamente, como el soporte de la modernidad y de los valores liberales y democráticos, y los brotes de política territorial son interpretados como una evidencia de modernización retrasada o de reversión al pasado. En los últimos años, retos al Estado desde abajo (en el nivel regional) y desde arriba (a través de la globalización y la integración europea) han resaltado la histórica naturaleza contingente del Estado nación, lo que ha estimulado a los científicos, no sólo a mirar al presente y al futuro, sino a reinterpretar el pasado. Los cambios en la forma de la política territorial a través del tiempo nunca han desaparecido, lo que lleva a dos consideraciones. La primera de ellas, analítica, presenta otra forma de pensar el Estado y las regiones; la segunda, normativa, explora lo que nos pueden decir los nuevos caminos de pensar la historia sobre el lugar de legitimar la autoridad política.
This research challenges unilinear and disparate explanations of the Palestinian-Israeli spatial composite. We argue that traditional Westphalian spatial model and related Geographies of Adaptation predicated on mimetic structural expectations, as well as a localized response to its problems, that is, Geographies of Defiance informed by post-colonial theory, are insufficient. By introducing novel research around Geographies of Compensations, we rethink spatial relations and political organization, revealing the hidden functionalities within ostensibly dysfunctional spaces. Utilizing Deleuze and Guattari’s diagrammatics, we avoid perspectivist normativity and symbolism, which have obfuscated much of the existing analyses. Through spatial analysis grounded in human geography, we re-examine three critical sites: Palestinian refugee camps, Palestinian embassies, and Israeli settlements. Our study demonstrates that while the Westphalian structure dominates, it is far from operating according to normative isomorphism and has in fact been a part of a wider assembled spatial composite. We show how non-Westphalian actors—both Palestinian and Israeli—effectively penetrate and operate within this structure, showcasing its elasticity. Although our primary contribution is theoretical, exemplifying transferrable research on trans-structural spatial circulations, our research carries notable empirical implications. The article utilizes recent interviews conducted by the authors with experts, diplomats, journalists, humanitarian workers, and representatives of UNRWA.
Marine biodiversity conservation is a crucial worldwide concern that requires innovative governance structures that
balance state sovereignty and collective environmental responsibility. This thesis investigates the implications of the
Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) recognition of biodiversity as a "common concern of humankind" for
the traditional concepts of state sovereignty, notably in marine biodiversity protection within Areas Beyond National
Jurisdiction. The international community has established frameworks, such as the CBD, the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ
Agreement), to address the growing threats to marine biodiversity posed by overfishing, pollution, and climate
change. These frameworks do draw attention to a tension, though, since the necessity of collective biodiversity
management clashes with the underlying concept of state sovereignty, forcing nations to strike a balance between
their domestic authority and their obligations to other nations of the world. The research examines how these
international accords address legal and enforcement gaps in biodiversity governance. These accords are analysed in
terms of their capacity to foster global collaboration, ensure equitable resource management, and enhance
compliance mechanisms. Based on doctrinal legal research, the thesis employs a theoretical framework that
integrates the concept of sovereignty as responsibility, global governance paradigms, and Westphalian sovereignty.
Case studies and an examination of international frameworks are employed to identify systemic gaps, such as the
lack of legally enforceable commitments, inadequate enforcement mechanisms, and challenges reconciling national
interests with international environmental objectives. The research emphasizes the importance of transitioning from
conventional sovereignty-cantered governance to collaborative, legally enforceable instruments to efficiently
manage marine biodiversity as a common global resource. The findings argue for enhancing international legal
frameworks through enforceable rules, technological developments, and fair benefit-sharing for the purpose of
achieving sustainable conservation results. This study contributes to the emerging discourse on global environmental
governance through offering policy proposals for balancing state sovereignty and global responsibility in marine
biodiversity protection.
Le texte reprend la leçon inaugurale donnée le 16 mai 2024 lors de l’assemblée générale du laboratoire CRÉSAT, dans le cadre de la présentation des nouveaux maîtres de conférences élus en 2022-2023. Soucieux de décloisonner les approches historiques pour une compréhension plus fine du passé et de l’actualité, l’auteur plaide pour une pratique connectée des méthodes et des savoirs en revenant sur son parcours scientifique, marqué dès le début de sa carrière universitaire par une démarche intellectuelle comparatiste, interdisciplinaire et fortement européenne. Il en esquisse les origines et les spécificités, ainsi que les perspectives pédagogiques et épistémologiques, et met cela en résonance avec les intérêts scientifiques du CRÉSAT et du département d’histoire et patrimoines, avec qui il collabore depuis 2022.
The argument of this chapter is that the state, nation, and its attendant nationalism were gradually evolved social constructs whose purpose was to maximize the survivability or power projection capabilities of a given group. Distinct political entities and recognizably different groups of competing peoples being as old as recorded history, the specific characteristics of the Modern state and nation are explored through an archeology of the interconnected developments in the societies, economies, and governments of Europe that occurred from approximately 1400 to the present. While necessarily incomplete, it shows how power competition between the hereditary heads of the major emerging geopolitical entities spurred efforts toward centralizing administrative, fiscal, and military reforms in the name of maximizing their power projection capabilities. Further, how this gradual elimination of local difference within states in favor of allegiance to a single uniform authority, coupled with technological and social innovations like moveable type and mass literacy, fostered the growth of the Modern nation. The various types of nationalism this produced are examined, as are those efforts to suppress, contain, or direct them. Everywhere, war features prominently; and building on the work of Raico, Higgs, Rothbard, and Mises, in the libertarian realist tradition, this chapter concludes that centralizing authorities of all types tend naturally to benefit from both nation and state building; concluding with observations on relations to the American case and how the Interstate Federalist Tradition, as a product of classically liberal thought, could offer an attractive alternative to a twenty-first century dominated by yet another round of so-called “Great Power Competition,” the results of which could wipe out all life on earth but the microscopic in an afternoon.
Since the beginning of the state's rise as a political organ, state recognition has been a perplexing issue, subjected to differing and changing interpretations within the disciplines of international law and relations.
This chapter highlights the challenges and potential negative effects that foreign intervention may hold for classical liberalism and libertarianism. Foreign intervention is the use of the discretionary power of a government in one society to address the perceived problems in foreign societies. The use of government authority to intervene abroad removes autonomy from the intervened-upon society. The increasing militarism and growth of government generally will also become a negative input into liberty domestically.
Volume I of The Cambridge History of International Law introduces the historiography of international law as a field of scholarship. After a general introduction to the purposes and design of the series, Part 1 of this volume highlights the diversity of the field in terms of methodologies, disciplinary approaches, and perspectives that have informed both older and newer historiographies in the recent three decades of its rapid expansion. Part 2 surveys the history of international legal history writing from different regions of the world, spanning roughly the past two centuries. The book therefore offers the most complete treatment of the historical development and current state of international law history writing, using both a global and an interdisciplinary perspective.
This paper aims to discuss some of the epistemological and methodological issues underpinning the conflicting accounts of Eritrea’s path to statehood. Drawing on colonial literature and documents produced by Eritrean nationalist forces, I will assess the extent to which the manipulation of historical sources and the successful hegemonic production of narratives by the victorious EPLF shaped the discourse on Eritrea during the years of the liberation struggle. A fascinating mix of colonial narratives and radical leftist ideologies has conjured up an image of Eritrean nationalism and statehood that has escaped rigorous epistemological scrutiny. In my paper, I argue that Eritrean nationalist leaderships have successfully projected an image of their struggle that aimed to meet Western expectations and stereotypes of the progressive and “civilised” organisation, while pursuing a much more brutal and ruthless policy on the ground. Beyond the specific case of Eritrea, I strongly believe that this analysis can provide crucial insights for a better assessment of the many contradictions that the contemporary African state faces in its complex relations with both its citizens and the international community.
This article explores the formation and evolution of the system of international relations, asserting that the principles established by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which marked the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War, fundamentally transformed inter-state relations and laid the groundwork for the entire framework of international relations. The author conducts a comprehensive analysis of the core principles of the Westphalian system, identifying criteria and universal indicators of traditional state-centric international relations within this model. The study emphasizes the significance of examining the transformative processes within international relations, tracing subsequent variations from a state-centric to an institutionally-political framework. Each reconfiguration of the Westphalian system is described with attention to its temporal and spatial characteristics. The driving forces behind the genesis and functioning of all models of traditional inter-state relations are delineated. Furthermore, the research investigates the primary causes behind the disintegration of the Westphalian system, highlighting critical international political conditions that facilitate restructuring and the emergence of new systems. The author concludes that the system of international relations is transitioning into a qualitatively distinct phase, diverging from the traditional state-centric paradigm.
The contemporary global capitalist crisis provides the context for studying reparations, the struggles for which face uphill challenges, foremost because transnational capital will only engage with reparations to serve its own interests. Far from being a panacea for historical wrongs, reparations campaigns are shaped by the historical logics of capitalist accumulation and the liberal racial social contract. The cases of Namibia and the Commonwealth Caribbean (CARICOM) that are examined in this study highlight the contradictions that underpin the demand for reparations arising from genocide in Namibia and capitalist slavery in the CARICOM region. The cases reveal an association of reparations initiatives with buying complicity or capitalist fixes rather than reparative justice for historical grievances, while more autonomous demands for reparations face violent suppression, as in the case of Haiti. Today's reparations struggles are further undermined by revolutionary innovations in digital and robotics technology, confronting exploited racialized populations with a rapidly dwindling supply of jobs. This article locates the contemporary reparations debate within the wider context of global capitalism and its racialized liberal foundations, tracing the links between colonial wrongs, international power relations and ongoing systems of capitalist accumulation which reparations are used to stabilize rather than challenge. It is thus difficult to make a case for the transformational potential of reparations.
Korean Wave, also known as Hallyu, is a popular culture of South Korean entertainment industry such as music, movie, serial drama, webtoon, and etc. These contents are protected as part of intellectual property, especially copyrights. But, their popularities come with infringement action, where pirated sites show South Korean movies and drama without any permission from the copyright holder. This study aims to explain South Korea’s effort to protect these Korean Wave contents. The framework used in this research are the intellectual property concept, especially copyrights, the globalization concept, and the sovereignty concept (Westphalian System). The globalization concept tries to analyze its effort to protect Korean Wave. This study uses a qualitative research method with the type of descriptive research, data obtained through literature study. This research shows that South Korea pretty success in tackling copyrights issues, though they still can’t solve it thoroughly.
The expansion of soybean cultivation in South America has created substantial economic prosperity but has also raised a series of unsustainable land-use issues. Considering the telecoupling system (a system of socio-ecological interactions between distant places) between South America and its soybean trade partners, transnational governance could play an important role in addressing these issues. To achieve effective governance of this specific telecoupling system, this study applies a polycentric approach to improve the existing transnational governance and identify more suitable governance arrangements. This study first explores the telecoupling system and the existing transnational governance system of soybean land use in South America. It then compares the existing governance system with the polycentric approach to examine the gaps between them. Based on these analyses, suggestions for improving the governance system are provided, including increasing the involvement of major governance centres, improving public-private partnerships, and establishing a knowledge-sharing platform.
This paper examines how Britain, through ‘gunboat diplomacy’ campaigns against so-called Arab pirates, overran the pre-existing Gulf suzerain system and became the predominant power in its waters. By filling a gap in the classical English School ‘international society’ expansion thesis, this article describes how and when political and ideational shifts in the Gulf allowed sovereignty to manifest into its present dynastic form. It argues British imposition of rules, norms, and institutions through a series of nineteenth-century Anglo-Arab treaties against Arab ‘pirates’ broke traditional conditions of divisible sheikhly authority to embed a new telos of sovereign indivisibility, facilitating indirect colonisation. Colonialism as an overlooked primary institution in the classical international society expansion story reinforced political inequality to create dynasticism to simplify colonial statecraft. The 1836 Restrictive Line was a central institution introduced by Britain to manage the transition from divisible to indivisible authority. Drawing from colonial archives, the paper argues that British control over cross-coastal movements through a Restrictive Line reinforced domestic sovereignty of British treaty signatories while weakening agency of maritime sheikhs outside the Anglo-Arab treaties framework. This unsettled traditional structures, transforming maritime tribal confederacies from participation to compliance and reconfiguring Gulf coastal security imperatives for treaty-signatory sheikhs from sea to desert.
Legal scholars continue to revisit historical treaties between Western and non-Western nations to challenge long-standing accounts of non-Western peoples’ engagement with international law. Following this trend, new scholarship has stressed African agency in Euro-African treaty-making. However, legal scholars have generally overlooked African perspectives, pointing to a lack of sources. Focusing on nineteenth-century treaty-making between France and the polities of the Western Sudan in West Africa, this article excavates African perspectives through a novel reading of Euro-African treaties in an African context. This reading analyses treaties within the Western Sudan’s broader diplomatic corpus in both French and Arabic. By focusing on markers of translation, transcription, and negotiation left on different copies of treaties, this method brings to light arguments and practices that have been obscured in published European-language versions. Reading Franco-Sudanian treaties in a Sudanian context reveals that different norms governed the ratification of treaties in the Western Sudan and Europe. Treaties that scholars have long considered unratified were in fact ratified according to Western Sudanian norms, which designated the governor of French Senegal rather than the French president as the official competent to ratify treaties for France. However, when French officials sought to use treaties to claim sovereign rights in West Africa against Great Britain, they pressed the president to ratify them again. Presidential ratification thus served to transpose Franco-Sudanian treaties from an African to a Western normative order. Uncovering the African origins of Euro-African treaties thus reveals their differential operation across autonomous inter-polity orders.
This Collective Discussion aims to open up space for an international political sociology of the production of historical knowledge that interrogates the politics around benchmark dates and what becomes knowable and unknowable through them. Specifically, it examines 1492 as a historiographical device through which to unpack how the discipline of IR knows history. 1492 presents a relevant case for this interrogation, for it is central for the historical narratives of a variety of approaches. In this sense, the different contributions do not seek to recover an alternative, ‘better’ history of 1492, but rather to explore its politics of knowledge production: what types of histories it makes visible, what types it precludes, and in what way it partakes in the reproduction of specific hierarchies of knowledge and the power structures that operate through them. In doing so, the Collective Discussion makes visible – and thus opens up for discussion – the historiographical operations performed by periodization and benchmark dating in IR, pointing to a way forward for an international political sociology of knowledge production in the discipline.
The aftermath of the Cold War signalled a decline of the international norm of sovereignty. The ‘triumph’ of the Liberal International Order during a brief unipolar moment challenged traditional principles of sovereignty, notably non-intervention. However, recent years have seen a resurgence of affirmations of sovereignty in political discourse, coinciding with a broader narrative on the Liberal International Order’s erosion. This article attempts to make sense of this fall and rise of sovereignty. Motivated by genealogical concerns, it historicises political and scholarly conversations on the concept. First, it examines the perceived decline of sovereignty following the Cold War. Second, it traces the proliferation of sovereignty discourses in the European 2000s and 2010s back to debates surrounding the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Third, it explores the concept of sovereigntism, charting its move from political discourse into academic debates. Finally, the article concludes with a reflection on the trajectory of sovereignty in a post-Liberal International Order world.
Who controls cyberspace? In Chap. 2, which dealt with the structure of cyberspace, it became apparent that while the West, specifically the United States, developed and nurtured cyberspace, it is now controlled by many entities. There are international organizations that are in charge of naming and addressing, such as ICANN and IANA, and others that are in charge of standardizations, like the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector and the IEFT. Such organizations consist of members from many countries, or of many member countries; thus, in theory, countries control the organizations that make and regulate cyberspace. However, if we consider every county as sovereign—and the starting point of this book is that countries strive to be sovereign—then we can conclude that a situation in which other countries can intervene in a country’s sovereignty is problematic.
This article is an attempt to think through how interreligious relations might be theorized. It will show how conventional assumptions about interreligious relations can be traced to colonial understandings of the category religion, which determine what we classify as interreligious. I argue that interreligious relations, as we understand it today, developed through the rise of secular nationalism, when religion and politics were purportedly separated as a means of reordering European power structures aligned with Christianity during the formation of the modern nation-state. This rearrangement of power gave rise to Christian ecumenism, which helped pave the way for an evolving secular governance that eventually developed into multicultural pluralist societies in a postcolonial world. This article shall demonstrate how the assumptions that underlie contemporary interreligious relations have little to do with the relationships of people with different religious identities, as one might expect, but instead serve to promote national narratives of pluralism that uphold the liberal ideologies authorizing Western multicultural societies today.
The concept of territoriality has been studied surprisingly little by students of international politics. Yet, territoriality most distinctively defines modernity in international politics, and changes in few other factors can so powerfully transform the modern world polity. This article seeks to frame the study of the possible transformation of modern territoriality by examining how that system of relations was instituted in the first place. The historical analysis suggests that “unbundled” territoriality is a useful terrain for exploring the condition of postmodernity in international politics and suggests some ways in which that exploration might proceed. The emergence of multiperspectival institutional forms is identified as a key dimension of the condition of postmodernity in international politics.
This book provides a radical new interpretation of the aims of the lesser German princes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the example of the duchy of Württemberg. Arguing that the princes' political ambitions were fundamental in shaping the internal development of their territories, the author sheds new light on the political importance of the notorious German 'soldier trade' and its role in international diplomacy. The wider social and political impact of these policies is also investigated in a comparative framework, while traditional interpretations of the dramatic struggle between duke and estates are challenged in a reassessment of the role of early modern representative institutions in German state development. The relationship of these internal political struggles to the different elements of the Holy Roman Empire is revealed, opening up new perspectives on the role of the German states within the imperial structure and revealing the empire as a flawed but functioning political system.
A world government capable of controlling nation-states has never evolved. Nonetheless, considerable governance underlies the current order among states, facilitates absorption of the rapid changes at work in the world, and that direction to the challenges posed by interstate conflicts, environmental pollution, currency crises, and the many other problems to which an ever expanding global interdependence gives rise. In this study, nine leading international relations specialists examine the central features of this governance without government. They explore its ideological bases, behavioural patterns, and institutional arrangements as well as the pervasive changes presently at work within and among states. Within this context of change and order, the authors consider the role of the Concert of Europe and the pillars of the Westphalian system, the effectiveness of international institutions and regulatory mechanisms, the European Community and the micro-underpinnings of macro- governance practices.
The acceptance of the United Nations Charter by the overwhelming majority of the members of the family of nations brings to mind the first great European or world charter, the Peace of Westphalia. To it is traditionally attributed the importance and dignity of being the first of several attempts to establish something resembling world unity on the basis of states exercising untrammeled sovereignty over certain territories and subordinated to no earthly authority.
Les États Généraux ( Landtag ) du Wuerttemberg ont toléré la taxation inconstitutionnellement élevée qu’a imposé le duc Charles Eugène pendant la guerre de Sept Ans. Par contre ils se sont opposés à sa tentative d’introduire unilatéralement un nouveau système fiscal en temps de paix. L’issue finale de longues négociations apportait aux États Généraux non seulement le droit de percevoir des impôts mais aussi un droit de regard sur le budget ainsi que son administration.
A novel analysis of the evolution of the states system of Europe since the mid-seventeenth century. Andreas Osiander looks at the four major European peace congresses: Munster and Osnabruck (1644-48), Utrecht (1712-15), Vienna (1814-15), and Paris (1919-20) and shows how a prevailing consensus on certain structural concepts-such as the balance of power or national self-determination-has influenced the evolution of the system and determined its stability or lack of stability. He argues that the structure of the international system is neither a given quantity nor determined primarily by conflict between international actors, but essentially the result of a general agreement expressed in 'consensus principles'; these influence the identity of the international actors, their relative status, and the distribution of populations and territories between them. His approach provides a more plausible analysis of international relations and the causes of conflict than traditional theories. He concludes his study with a review of the period since 1920 in the light of his findings.
A study of 'imperialistic reaction': the attempt made in the reign of the Emperor Charles VI to re-establish imperial authority and the consequent brief halt in the decline and disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire and the Emperor's loss of power.
The balance of power principle has been central to both the study and practice of international politics for three centuries. It has guided governments in the conduct of foreign policy and provided a structure for explanations of some of the recurring patterns of international relations. For many analysts it comes closer than any other idea to being the guiding principle behind international politics. It has always been controversial, both in terms of its power to explain the workings of the international system and in terms of its wisdom and moral virtue as a foreign policy strategy. It is a concept riddled with ambiguity and the fact that it has demonstrated such longevity and resilience shows that it has served an important purpose in thinking about international relations. That purpose emerged in Europe in the seventeenth century, and though subsequently modified, its power as an 'image' explains its survival as a centre-piece of the post-Renaissance international system.
The article presents a “revisionist” synopsis of the thinking of some important early twentieth-century “Idealist” IR writers. I contend that these writers ground their interpretations of international relations on a shared paradigm that has hitherto gone largely unrecognised. Following a critique of certain widely held views of IR Idealism, I draw attention to a number of aspects or themes in this body of writing in an attempt to establish the underlying paradigm. I argue that the authors in question were familiar with the type of thinking that later came to be called Realist, but held that industrial modernisation rendered it increasingly anachronistic and dangerous. The crucial difference between Idealism and Realism is in their respective theories of history. In order to understand Idealist IR thinking, it is essential to realise the extent to which it relies on the notion, not so much of progress (as is usually asserted) as of an inescapable, directional historical process.
In this book, Professor Holsti approaches the study of the origins of war and the foundations of peace from a distinct perspective. He asks three interrelated questions. Which issues generate conflict? How have attitudes towards war changed? And, what attempts have been made historically to create international orders and institutions that can manage, control or prevent international conflicts? Starting with the peace treaties of Munster and Osnabruck of 1648, Kalevi Holsti examines 177 international wars. Through these, he identifies the variety of conflict-producing issues and how they, as well as the attitudes of policy makers to the use of force, have changed over the last 350 years. He demonstrates how the orders established by the great peacemaking efforts of 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919 and 1945 attempted to solve the issues of the past, yet few successfully anticipated those of the future. Indeed, some created the basis of fresh conflicts.
Rev. Paperback Ed Bibliogr. s. 354-364
La presente es una obra clásica sobre la teoría de las relaciones internacionales, marginada por algunos años por la corriente principal de la academia estadounidense ya que el autor se aleja del mecanicismo, el cuantitativismo y el materialismo que impregnan la mayor parte de la producción estadounidense en este campo. Bull plantea una reconcideración de la forma de estudiar y comprender el mundo de las relaciones internacionales al reconocer abiertamente la importancia de las ideas, de las visiones del mundo; de los agravios de las ncaiones; de la construcción intersubjetiva de la realidad política y de la historia como matriz y como contexto explicativo y de la vida.